The Epistle to the
Hebrews
INTRODUCTION
The Epistle to the Hebrews is of such importance that I rank it beside the Epistle to the Romans (which is excelled by no other book). I have wondered how to give this magnificent Epistle to the Hebrews the introduction it deserves. Before me are excellent expository works that other men have written, and I have decided to let four of them introduce this epistle to the Hebrews to you, since each of them makes statements that are all-important. They have said what I would like to say. First I will quote from G. Campbell Morgan’s book, God’s Last Word to Man:
The letter to the Hebrews has an especial value today because there is abroad a very widespread conception of Christ which is lower than that of the New Testament. To illustrate what I mean by this, a recent writer has said:
“One of the best things we can say about human nature is this, that whenever a situation occurs which can only be solved by an individual ‘laying down his life for his friends,’ some heroic person is certain to come forth, sooner or later, and offer himself as the victim—a Curtius to leap into the gulf, a Socrates to drink the hemlock, a Christ to get himself crucified on Calvary.”
I am not proposing to discuss that at any length, but at once say that to place Christ in that connection is to me little short of blasphemy. We may properly speak of “a Curtius,” “a Socrates,” but when we speak of “a Christ,” our reference to Him is not only out of harmony with the New Testament presentation, but implicitly a contradiction of what it declares concerning the uniqueness of His Person.
This is a tremendous beginning for the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Dr. William Pettingill, in his book Into the Holiest: Simple Studies in Hebrews, has a different emphasis in his opening statement:
From Adam to Moses, through 2500 years, and from Moses to Malachi, through 1100 years, the prophets were speaking for God to man. But at the end of the 3600 years their revelation of God was only partial. Then after a silence of 400 years, when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, and in that Son the revelation of God is perfect.
That is another tremendous statement.
Now I’m going to give a third introduction to the Epistle to the Hebrews. It comes from the excellent book by E. Schuyler English, Studies in The Epistle to the Hebrews:
The Epistle to the Hebrews, one of the most important books of the New Testament in that it contains some of the chief doctrines of the Christian faith, is, as well, a book of infinite logic and great beauty. To read it is to breathe the atmosphere of heaven itself. To study it is to partake of strong spiritual meat. To abide in its teachings is to be led from immaturity to maturity in the knowledge of Christian truth and of Christ Himself. It is to “go on unto perfection.”
And here is a further statement:
The theme of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the only book of the New Testament in which our Lord is presented in His high priestly office, is the supreme glory of Christ, the Son of God and Son of man.
This is tremendous!
Now I turn to the fourth author, Sir Robert Anderson, and quote from his book, The Hebrews Epistle in the Light of the Types. As we go through this epistle I trust I shall be able to emphasize this which he emphasizes so well, and I also trust that this introduction will clarify the thought:
That the professing Church on earth is “the true vine”—this is the daring and impious lie of the apostasy. That it is “the olive tree” is a delusion shared by the mass of Christians in the churches of the Reformation. But the teaching of Scripture is explicit, that Christ Himself is the vine, and Israel the olive. For “God hath not cast away His people whom He foreknew.”
This Epistle to the Hebrews was not accepted by the Western church for a long time, and the reason is found at this particular juncture: the church wanted to usurp the place of Israel. They adopted all the promises God had made to Israel and spiritualized them, applying them to themselves and rejecting God’s purposes in the nation Israel. As a result, you’ll find that the church in those early days became actually anti-Semitic and persecuted the Jew! Therefore, to say that God is through with the nation Israel is a sad blunder, and I trust that this epistle may be helpful in our understanding the great truth that a Hebrew is a Hebrew, and when he becomes a Christian, he is still a Hebrew. When any person becomes a child of God, it does not change his nationality at all, but it brings him into a new body of believers called the church. Today God is calling out of both Jews and Gentiles a people for His name. When that is consummated, God will take His church out of the world, and He will pursue His purpose with the nation Israel, fulfilling all of His promises to them and through them to the gentile world in that day. I am indebted to these four wonderful expositors of the Word of God for helping us to get on the springboard so that we can plunge into the water of the Word.
The human author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has always been a moot question. Although the Authorized Version has the heading, “Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews,” there is still a question as to authorship. The Revised Version and other later versions correct this and simply entitle it the Epistle (or letter) to the Hebrews. If you are acquainted with the literature of the Scriptures, you recognize that there is no unanimity of thought and no agreement as to who is the author of this epistle. When I was a seminary student, I wrote a thesis on the authorship of Hebrews, and I attempted to sustain the position that the apostle Paul is the author.
When I wrote my thesis I thought I had solved the problem and that the world would be in agreement that Paul wrote Hebrews! But I find that there is just as much disagreement today about the authorship as there was before I wrote my thesis! Neither John Calvin nor Martin Luther accepted Paul’s authorship, and neither did many others of the past. On the other hand, many do accept Paul as the author. However, the human author is not the important thing, but the fact that the Epistle to the Hebrews is part of God’s inspired Word is important.
In spite of the fact that the Pauline authorship cannot be stated in a dogmatic fashion, there is abundant evidence that Paul was the author. Both internal and external evidence support the authorship of Paul. The writer had been in bonds (see Heb. 10:34). He wrote from Italy (see Heb. 13:24). His companion was Timothy (see Heb. 13:23). The writing is Pauline. Also, in my opinion, Peter identifies Paul as the writer (see 2 Pet. 3:15–16). I believe that there is good and sufficient reason for Paul’s changing his style and for not giving his name in the epistle. I’ll call attention to these things as we go along. (See the Appendix for a full treatment of the subject of authorship.)
The date of writing is particularly important in the case of the Epistle to the Hebrews because of the authorship question. Many scholars, even sound scholars, have taken the position that it was written after a.d. 70. Some give the date of a.d. 85, a.d. 96, and others up in the 90s. However, as you read this epistle, you are forced to the conclusion that the temple at Jerusalem was still standing at the time it was written. This means it had to have been written before a.d. 70, since Titus the Roman destroyed the temple in a.d. 70 and Paul had already gone to be with the Lord. I believe that it was written by the apostle Paul and it was written before a.d. 70.
Coleridge said that Romans revealed the necessity of the Christian faith but that Hebrews revealed the superiority of the Christian faith. This thought, running all the way through, is expressed in the use of the comparative word better, which occurs thirteen times. The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that the Law was good, but that grace, under Christ, is better and that the glory that is coming is going to be the best. The Epistle to the Hebrews presents that which is better. The word perfect occurs fifteen times (with cognate words). It is an epistle that challenges us. Let us occurs thirteen times, and let occurs five times.
Two verses especially convey to us this “better” way: “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus” (Heb. 3:1). We are to consider Him. Then in Hebrews 12:3 we read the challenge: “For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.” That is exactly what we are going to do as we study the Epistle to the Hebrews. We are going consider Him, the Lord Jesus Christ. I am convinced that that is the most important thing which any Christian can do.
OUTLINE
I. Christ Better Than Old Testament Economy, Chapters 1–10 (Doctrinal)
A. Christ Is Superior to Prophets, Chapter 1:1–3
B. Christ Is Superior to Angels, Chapters 1:4–2:18
1. Deity of Christ, Chapter 1:4–14
2. Humanity of Christ, Chapter 2:1–18 1st Danger Signal: Peril of Drifting, Chapter 2:1–4
C. Christ Is Superior to Moses, Chapters 3:1–4:2 2nd Danger Signal: Peril of Doubting, Chapters 3:7–4:2
D. Christ Is Superior to Joshua, Chapter 4:3–13
E. Christ Is Superior to Levitical Priesthood, Chapters 4:14–7:28
1. Our Great High Priest, Chapter 4:14–16
2. Definition of a Priest, Chapter 5:1–10 3rd Danger Signal: Peril of Dull Hearing, Chapter 5:11–14 4th Danger Signal: Peril of Departing, Chapter 6:1–20
3. Christ Our High Priest after Order of Melchizedek, Chapter 7:1–28
a. Christ Is Perpetual Priest, Chapter 7:1–3
b. Christ Is Perfect Priest, Chapter 7:4–22
c. Christ in His Person Is Perpetual and Perfect Priest, Chapter 7:23–28
F. Christ as Our High Priest Ministers in Superior Sanctuary by Better Covenant Built upon Better Promises, Chapters 8:1–10:39
1. True Tabernacle, Chapter 8:1–5
2. New Covenant, Better than the Old, Chapter 8:6–13
3. New Sanctuary, Better than the Old, Chapter 9:1–10
4. Superior Sacrifice, Chapters 9:11–10:18
5. Encouragement, Chapter 10:19–25 5th Danger Signal: Peril of Despising, Chapter 10:26–39
II. Christ Brings Better Benefits and Duties, Chapters 11–13 (Practical)
A. Faith, Chapter 11:1–40
B. Hope, Chapter 12:1–29
1. The Christian Race, Chapter 12:1–2
2. Believers Are Now in Contest and Conflict, Chapter 12:3–14 6th Danger Signal: Peril of Denying, Chapter 12:15–29
C. Love, Chapter 13:1–25
1. Secret Life of Believers, Chapter 13:1–6
2. Social Life of Believers, Chapter 13:7–14
3. Spiritual Life of Believers, Chapter 13:15–19
4. Benediction, Chapter 13:20–25
CHAPTER 1
Theme: Christ is superior to the prophets; Christ is superior to angels
The first section in this epistle is doctrinal. The first ten chapters reveal that Christ is better than the Old Testament economy. The second and last section of this epistle is practical, showing that Christ brings better benefits and duties. By the way, this is a pattern that the apostle Paul follows in his other epistles; that is, the doctrinal side and then the practical side. In my opinion, there is an abundance of evidence that Paul did write this epistle to the Hebrews.
Although I cannot be dogmatic about the authorship of Hebrews, I can say very dogmatically that we are dealing with the Word of God—that which the Spirit of God has given to us. Because the Holy Spirit is unquestionably the author of this epistle, the human writer and the dating are secondary. The Epistle to the Hebrews is one of the greatest epistles we have in the Word of God. It is not pious cant when I say that I do not feel worthy or competent to deal with this great epistle. This is the reason I let four outstanding expositors introduce the epistle for me. From four different viewpoints each one came to this one point of emphasizing the person of Jesus Christ. Therefore I claim the promise of the Lord Jesus when He said that when the Spirit of God would come He would take the things of Christ and show them unto us (see John 16:12–15.)
We need to keep in mind that this epistle is directed to Hebrew believers who stood at the juncture of two great dispensations. The dispensation of law had come to an end. The sacrifices in the temple that had once been so meaningful were now meaningless. What God had before required was now actually sin for a believer to practice, as this epistle will make very clear. The Epistle to the Hebrews is addressed to Hebrew believers, although its teachings are for believers of every race in every age. It is very meaningful to you and to me today. However, we do need to keep in mind that it was written to and for Hebrew believers. For example, to say that Christ is superior to the prophets would be especially meaningful to a Hebrew.
CHRIST IS SUPERIOR TO THE PROPHETS
God, who at sundry times and in divers [diverse] manners spake in time pas unto the fathers by the prophets [Heb. 1:1].
You will notice that this verse and this book begin with the word God. There are certain premises upon which this book rests. When you study geometry, there are certain axioms with which you must begin, and if you don’t, you won’t begin at all. If two plus two does not equal four, then you are at sea as far as mathematics is concerned. A straight line is the shortest distance between two points; that is a proven fact, and it is accepted. When that fact is established, you can move on and prove something else. In the Book of Hebrews, as in the Book of Genesis, no attempt is made to prove God’s existence. Both books assume that there is a God. The Bible makes no effort to try to prove the existence of God. There are courses in seminaries today that try to build up some philosophic system by which the existence of God can be proven. I have been through courses like that, and I know what I’m talking about when I say it is a great waste of time. There is something wrong with you if you can’t walk out and look up at the mountains, or go down to the seashore and look at the sea, or look up into the heavens, and recognize that there is a Creator. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). My friend, if the created universe is not saying something to you about a Creator, there is something radically wrong with your thinking. As a young fellow said to me about an atheist, “Dr. McGee, he isn’t dealing with a full deck!” It is the fool who has said in his heart that there is no God (see Ps. 14:1).
The second assumption we find in Hebrews 1:1 is that God has spoken. Realizing that God is an intelligent Person and that He has given mankind a certain degree of intelligence, if we didn’t already have a revelation from Him, I would suggest that we wait for it. It is only logical that the Creator would get a message through to us. Well, my friend, He has communicated with us. And the revelation that we have is the inspired Word of God. The first verse of Hebrews assumes that the Scriptures we have are divinely inspired. The revelation to which he refers is the revelation of the Old Testament as we have it today.
There are those who feel that Paul did not write the Book of Hebrews because it was written in such magnificent Greek. It was written by one who was a master of the Greek language. There is a smoothness and beauty in it that we miss in the English translation. Right at the beginning of this book there is a play upon two words. The word for “sundry times” in the Greek is polumeroµs, and the word for “divers manners” is polutropoµs. Notice the beauty of that—polumeroµs and polutropoµs. It is almost poetic—it sounds like Homer. But there is more than beauty; it is a tremendous statement.
“Sundry times” does not speak of time as we think of it. The emphasis is that God spoke through Moses, but before that He spoke to Abraham. He apparently spoke to Abraham through dreams and by sending the angel of the Lord to him, but when He spoke to Abraham, He did not tell him what He told Moses. God didn’t say anything at all to Abraham about the Law. He did not give him the Ten Commandments, but later God did give the Ten Commandments to Moses. Even later on He told David that a King would be coming in his line who would be a Savior. And when David was an old man, he said that there was a King coming in his line who would be his Savior. God did not give that information to Moses, and He did not give it to Abraham. In fact, God gave Moses a law that Israel was not to have an earthly king because God would be their king. God, however, knew the human heart, and in time Israel wanted to be like the other nations round about them and have a human king. It was marvelous how God moved in a time like that. He granted their request, although He sent leanness to their souls. He used that as the method of getting the Messiah, the Savior, into the world. This first verse is telling us that God did not give all of His truth to Abraham, but added to it as He dealt with different men through the years. And in the fullness of time God sent forth His Son. There is a development of the truth in the Bible.
“Divers [diverse] manners!” means that God used different ways of communicating. He appeared in dreams to Abraham, but He gave Moses the Law. Later on He made certain promises to Joshua. He spoke through dreams, He spoke through the Law, He spoke through the types, He spoke through ritual, He spoke through history, He spoke through poetry, and He spoke through prophecy. He used all these different ways over a long period of time, using about forty-five writers and communicating His Word over a period of about fifteen hundred years. The writer to the Hebrews is saying something quite wonderful to us at this point.
Have you ever stopped to think that the multiplicity of writers in and of itself makes the Bible a remarkable book? Shakespeare’s writing was great on the human plane, but Shakespeare was the only author of his works. He didn’t wait for a modern Hollywood writer to write any of his plays. (In fact, the Hollywood writers wreck Shakespeare’s plays!) On the other hand, God used many, human writers to write the Bible. He used men with different backgrounds and different abilities. One of them, Simon Peter, did not do so well with the Greek language, but I am not going to criticize him because I had nine years of Greek and I do much worse with it than Simon Peter did. But God used Peter, nevertheless. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (and I believe it was Paul) was a master of the Greek language. When Paul wrote to the Galatians and to the Corinthians, he got right down where the rubber meets the road. He used the language that they used down on the waterfront, and Paul had been down on the waterfront because He traveled a great deal by boat. But his letter to the Hebrews is a work of art.
Oh, this epistle opens on a grand scale: “God!” There is nothing before it to try to prove He exists. If you deny the existence of God, the problem is with you, not with God. So many little men who carry a Ph.D. degree deny that God exists. My thought is, Who are they? Put one of those puny, little minds down by the side of God and it becomes obvious why God did not waste His time proving who He is. If any person is going to come to God, that person must first believe that God is.
“Spake in time past unto the fathers.” Who are the fathers mentioned in this verse? They are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joshua, Moses, David, Isaiah, etc. These are the fathers, but they are not my fathers—and they may not be your fathers either. Obviously this is being written to people who could call Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob their fathers, which is the reason it is called the Epistle to the Hebrews. Nevertheless, He is God of the Gentiles also, and we can be thankful for that!
“Spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets.” A prophet is one who speaks for God, and in the order of speaking for God he could speak of things that were in the future. God spoke through many men who were prophets, and they were tremendous men with tremendous messages. It took all of them put together to give us the Old Testament, but the best that could be said is that they gave merely a partial revelation.
But now we will see that God has spoken finally, completely, adequately, and assuredly in His Son—
Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds [Heb. 1:2].
Now God has spoken finally through His Son—literally, “spoke to us in Son.” Or, as Dr. Westcott put it, “God spoke to us in one who has the character that He is a Son.” God has spoken through His Son. If He spoke out of heaven at this moment, He would repeat something which He has already said, because, my friend, we have the last word from God to this world in Jesus Christ.
“Hath in these last days spoken unto us.” The word us is very important, referring to the same ones to whom He spoke through the prophets in Old Testament times—Hebrew believers. You remember that the Father spoke out of heaven saying, “… This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him” (Matt. 17:5). Since the Father has given His final word in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is the final word for you and me also. The Son is the One who is before us.
“Spoken unto us by his Son.” Therefore Christ is superior to all of the Old Testament writers, because the revelation is filled up in Him. He fulfills all of the Old Testament, and He Himself gives God’s final word to man. As Christ Jesus said when He was here over nineteen hundred years ago, “… he [the Holy Spirit] shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you” (John 16:15), so that the Spirit of God, speaking through John and James and Dr. Luke and Paul and Peter and the other writers of the New Testament, has given us the full revelation from God.
Now we are shown the superiority of the Son in seven matchless statements. None of us, I am sure, feel that we can comprehend any one of them completely.
“Whom he hath appointed heir of all things.” The Lord Jesus Christ is heir of all things. Now this raises a question. In John 1:3 we read, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Creation is His, for He created it, we are told. It belongs to Him already, so how can He be the heir of all things? Well, He came to earth and took upon Himself our humanity. The first man in the human race was given dominion over this creation. We do not emphasize this enough, because in Genesis tremendous statements are made in just a few words. Once, when we took a group to Israel, we had an Israeli Christian speak to us. When he came to the end of his message, he wanted to give an illustration, and he said, “I want to say this to you in little words.” What he meant was a few words; he intended to make it brief. That is the way Moses wrote the first eleven chapters of Genesis—with “little words.” He made it brief. When God says He gave man dominion over all the earth (see Gen. 1:26), He did not make him sort of a first class gardener to set out rose bushes and prune the plum trees. That is not what Adam did. Adam had dominion. Dominion has to do with rulership. All creation was under him. I believe that when Adam wanted more moisture over on the west forty, he needed only to call for it. When he wanted the heat turned on, he could turn it on. I think he controlled this earth; but when he sinned, he lost that control.
When the Lord Jesus came to this earth, He became a man. He performed miracles in every realm. He had control of the human body. He had control of nature—He could still storms, and He could feed five thousand people. He recovered what Adam had lost. The Lord Jesus is going to be heir of all things, and we are told in Scripture that we are heirs of God. Romans 8:16–17 tells us, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ….” Joint-heirs is an interesting word. It does not mean equal heirs. Let me illustrate that. Some folk have been very interested in our radio program and have given us wonderful support. They will mention us in their will. Sometimes we are mentioned as a joint-heir in the will, and sometimes we are mentioned as an equal heir. For example, a will might read, “I want so much to go to such and such a cause and so much to go to the Thru the Bible Radio Network.” That makes us an equal heir with someone else. When an inheritance is left to us like this, we are free to do whatever we want to with it. But when we are a joint-heir in a will, it means that somebody else has the control of the inheritance, and they allocate just so much out to each one at the proper time; they manage the estate. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is the heir, and we are just the joint-heirs. He will be in control, and He may put you or me in charge of a little something in the universe. In that way we are joint-heirs with Christ—we have an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, unfading, and it is reserved in heaven for us. We have this inheritance because of the many wonderful things the Lord has done for us. He recovered what Adam lost, and even more than that, He has made us joint-heirs with Himself. Christ is the One who is going to inherit everything. As far as we know, no prophet in the Old Testament was ever promised anything like that. You see, the writer of this epistle is showing us that Christ is superior to the prophets.
“By whom also he made the worlds.” Many people believe this refers to the creative act— “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Actually, it does not refer to that at all. The Greek word here for “worlds” is aioµn. It means “ages”—“by whom He made the ages.” This goes beyond His being the Creator. This lends purpose to everything. He is the heir who gives the program for the future. He made the ages, giving purpose for everything. Not only did He create everything, He did it for a purpose.
The Bible makes sense. God had a reason for the things He did, and He has a reason today for the things He continues to do.
For example, God created man and put him in a garden. He put down one condition for living there: Man was not to eat the fruit from a certain tree. There was nothing wrong with the fruit; it was God’s test to that man to see if he would obey Him. (The problem was not the fruit on the tree; it was the pair on the ground!) Man absolutely and completely failed God’s test at that time.
God has a program and purpose in everything. There came other periods when God tested man. The time came when He gave man the Mosaic Law. It, again, was a test of man’s obedience. Today you and I live under grace. We are saved by grace; we could never be saved by the Law. Firstly, it wasn’t given to us in this age, and, secondly, we couldn’t keep it. We cannot measure up to the righteous standard that God has set. It ought to be quite obvious to every person that God cannot save us by works. He cannot save us by perfect works because we cannot produce perfection; neither can He save us by imperfect works because His standard is higher than that. Therefore God had to have another way, and today it is by grace that we are saved.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the Creator of this universe, and there is purpose to it. Abroad today is the idiotic notion that the universe is running at breakneck speed through time and space like a car that has lost the driver. The interesting thing is that when a car loses the driver there is a wreck, but this universe, even according to the scientists, has been running millions of years, and it has been doing pretty well, by the way. The sun comes up at a certain time every morning; it is very precise. The moon stays in a predictable orbit. As one of the men who works on the moon modules says, all they have to do is aim, and the moon will be there when the module gets there. You can always depend upon the moon. It is not running wild. The moon doesn’t head in another direction when it sees a module coming toward it. The movement of the moon is absolutely predictable. This is not a mad universe in which you and I live. It has purpose, and the Lord Jesus is the One who gives it purpose.
Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high [Heb. 1:3].
What tremendous statements we have here!
“Who being the brightness of his glory.” Brightness means “the outshining”; it means “the effulgence.” The material sun out in space gives us a good illustration of this. We could never know the glory of the sun by looking at it because we can’t look at it directly—it would blind us if we tried. But from the rays of the sun we get light and we get heat, and probably we get healing from it. That is the way we know about the sun. Now in somewhat the same way we would know very little about God apart from the revelation that God has given in His Son. The Lord Jesus Christ is the brightness we see. No one has seen God, but we know about Him now through Jesus Christ. Just as the rays of the sun with their warmth and light tell me about the physical sun, so the Lord Jesus reveals God to us today.
“The express image of his person.” That word “express image” is the Greek charakteµr, the impressed character, like a steel engraving. We get our English word character from this. We say that the Lord Jesus Christ is the revelation of God because He is God. He is not just the printed material; He is the steel engraving of God because He is the exact copy, the image of God. Paul said in Colossians 2:9, “… in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” How wonderful He is!
“Upholding all things by the word of his power.” That little baby Jesus lying helplessly on the bosom of Mary in Bethlehem could have spoken this universe out of existence. He upholds all things by the word of His power. He not only created all things by His word, but He holds everything together.
Have you ever stopped to think about the amount of power that is required to hold it together? Man has learned very little about that power, but he has learned something. For instance, man has discovered the atom, a little bitty fellow. And when man untied the atom (they call it splitting the atom), he sure did release a lot of power. Who put all that power in the atom? Who holds all the little atoms together? The Lord Jesus Christ. He furnishes the program and the purpose; He is the person of God, and He is the preserver of all things. He not only created the universe by His word, but He holds everything together. If He let go today—well, since you and I are held on this earth by His glue, His stickum, which we call gravitation—we would go flying out into space. He holds everything together. This universe would come unglued without His constant supervision and power. He is not like an Atlas holding up the earth passively; He is actively engaged in maintaining all of creation. As far as I can see, that is greater than creating it in the beginning. He keeps the thing running, keeps it functioning. This is one of the tremendous things He is doing today.
“When he had by himself purged our sins.” The Lord Jesus Christ provided the cleansing for our sins. This, by the way, is the only purgatory mentioned in the Bible. He went through it for you and me; there is no purgatory for anyone who trusts Christ because He purged our sins. He has paid the penalty for them. How wonderful He is! The purging was accomplished by what He did on Calvary for you and for me. And today we are accepted in the Beloved. The one who comes to Christ receives a full redemption and complete forgiveness of sins.
“Sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” This actually is the message of Hebrews. The Lord Jesus received a glory and a majesty when He went back to the Father’s throne that He never had before. There is something in heaven today that was not there twenty-five hundred years ago or in eternity past, because in the glory now is the Man with nail-pierced hands and the prints of nails in His feet and a spear wound in His side. Even in His glorified body they are there, and when we see Him, we shall know Him by the prints of the nails in His hands. Twenty-five hundred years ago He was God, but today He is the God-man.
“Sat down” does not indicate that He is resting because He is tired—or that He is doing nothing. It means that when He finished our redemption, He sat down because it was complete. This is exactly what the seventh day meant in creation—God rested on the seventh day. Was He tired? No. As John Wesley said, when He created the universe He didn’t half try. He rested because it was complete; there was nothing more that He needed to do.
Never, since I have been a pastor, have I been able to close my desk and go home with the satisfaction that everything has been done. There is always something incomplete—you should see my desk right now! My work is never complete, but Christ sat down because His work of redemption was complete. Friend, you cannot lift your little finger today to add to the redemption He wrought for us on the cross. He has completed our redemption, and we are complete in Christ. In Colossians 2:9–10 we are told, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.” We are made complete in Him, made full in Him, and we are accepted in the Beloved.
The present ministry of Christ is another aspect of this. This, I think, was in the mind of the writer who said, “There is a man in the glory, but the church has lost sight of Him.” His present ministry can be expressed like this: He died down here to save us; He lives up there to keep us saved. He has a ministry of intercession, a ministry of shepherding, a ministry of disciplining His own. Although He is at God’s right hand now, He is still vitally interested in those who are His own, and He is available to us.
My friend, what do you need? Do you need mercy? Do you need help? Do you need wisdom? Whatever you need, why don’t you go to Him for it? If you ask Him to intervene in your behalf, He will work it out according to His will (not yours). Prayer is not to persuade God to do something that He didn’t intend to do; prayer is to get you and me in line with the program of God. And Christ is at the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for us. We can obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. This is the present ministry of Christ, and it makes these verses in Hebrews pretty real to you and to me. My friend, Buddha can’t help you; Mohammed can’t help you; no founder of the modern religions can help you. A friend told me of how he was healed by a so-called faith healer who is now dead. I asked him, “Can she help you now?” He retorted, “No, of course not, she is dead!” “Well,” I said, “Jesus is alive. Our Great High Priest is alive today.”
When we were at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem I heard a thrilling story about a group of young people in Moscow who unfurled a banner at Lenin’s tomb on Easter Sunday morning. The banner read, “Lenin is dead—Jesus is alive.” Then they sang some resurrection songs. I don’t know that anyone was won to the Lord through this, but it certainly was a brave effort on the part of youth, and their message is the message of the Book of Hebrews. “Lenin is dead—Jesus is alive.” He is the One who can help us. He is the One to whom we can turn. This is the great message of the Epistle to the Hebrews. When He “sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high,” He took with Him a glory that even God did not have, which was the body in which He had wrought out your redemption and mine upon this earth. He gave Himself; He shed His precious blood that you and I might have life.
CHRIST IS SUPERIOR TO ANGELS
Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they [Heb. 1:4].
Christ is superior to the angels. Angels were prominent in their ministry to Israel in the Old Testament. The Law was given by the agency of angels (Ps. 68:17; Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19). Cherubim were woven into the veil of the tabernacle, and cherubim were fashioned of gold for the mercy seat. We find that Isaiah had a vision of the seraphim. And in the Book of Revelation we find that after the church is removed, there is an angel ministry of judgment that is going to take place.
Now I say this rather carefully: angel ministry is not connected with the church. I know someone is going to say, “Brother McGee, after all, we have a guardian angel.” Where did that idea come from? I don’t think we have guardian angels. Some people say, “Oh, but we need to have a guardian angel.” Let me ask you a question: “Are you a child of God?” If you are, you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, who is the third Person of the Godhead. What could a guardian angel do for you that He couldn’t do for you? Do you want to think that over for a while? My feeling is that the angel ministry is not connected with the church at all. This subject is becoming exceedingly difficult and dangerous today because there is manifestation of demonism, and several writers are saying that demons are directing them—but they call them angels. My friend, an angel ministry is not for our day.
The idea of an active angel ministry in the church came about because some of the early church members who were marvelous artists liked to paint angels. I doubt whether any of them ever saw an angel, but they painted angels. If you have ever been in the Sistine Chapel in Rome and looked up at the ceiling, you get the feeling that angels are hovering over you. They are as thick as pigeons up there! They are everywhere. They are connected with everybody and everything. Michelangelo certainly did like to paint angels. Although I am glad that I’ve seen the Sistine Chapel, I wouldn’t give five cents to see it again. I know that statement will be a heart-break for some art lovers, but I don’t care to see it again because it teaches as fact that there are angels connected with our lives today. My friend, we have to do with a living Savior! Let’s just push the angels aside because we don’t have to go to God through angels. We have the Holy Spirit, and we have Christ, our great Intercessor. Let us get our minds off angels and center them upon the person of Christ. He is superior to angels.
“Being made so much better than the angels.” The word angel simply means “messenger,” and it doesn’t mean anything else other than that. Angels worship the Lord Jesus. They are created creatures. Christ is better than the angels, and that statement is made definitely and dogmatically for us in Hebrews. In the Old Testament it is believed by many that the Lord Jesus Christ is referred to as “the angel of the Lord.” But in the New Testament He becomes a man, and having assumed human form, He does not appear as the Angel of the Lord any longer. He is the man, Christ Jesus. He is the Son of Man today. That is the emphasis of this Hebrew epistle.
Beginning with Hebrews 1:5 there is a series of quotations from the Old Testament; in fact, there are seven quotations, and six of them are from the Book of Psalms. The Psalms have more to say about Christ than they have to say about any other person. It is a H-I-M book—it was the hymn book of the temple, but it is all about Him; it is praise to Him. You have a more complete picture of Christ in the Psalms than you have in the Gospels. These quotations in Hebrews are very important. The waiter of Hebrews quotes from the Old Testament to enforce his point, which is superiority of the Son over the angels.
For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a son? [Heb. 1:5].
“Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” is a quotation from Psalm 2:7. In Acts 13 we have recorded Paul’s great sermon at Antioch in Pisidia in which he quoted Psalm 2:7. Paul said that it had no reference to Bethlehem, but it referred to the Resurrection of Christ—when He was brought back from the dead. Therefore, Christ is the only One who could die for the sins of the world. No angel could save us, my friend. Only Christ could become a man and pay the penalty, which was death. “The wages of sin is death.” He had to shed His blood, for without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Therefore, He made that redemption for you and for me. Then He was brought back from the dead. Why? Because He is the Son. He was begotten from the dead.
“I will be to him a Father, and he shall he to me a Son” is a quotation from 2 Samuel. This is God’s promise to David when He made His covenant with him: “And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will he his father, and he shall be my son …” (2 Sam. 7:12–14). Now, there are those who say that this one in David’s line was only Solomon. Well, Hebrews 1:5 makes it very clear that when God gave that promise to David it had reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. I have heard arguments pro and con on this, but arguments are pointless when we have the clear scriptural confirmation that this refers to Christ. He alone fulfilled it.
And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him [Heb. 1:6].
Now let me rearrange this a little: “And again he bringeth in the first begotten into the world. He saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.”
This verse is a quotation from Psalm 97:7 and Deuteronomy 32:43 in the Septuagint version (though not in the Hebrew of the Old Testament). The angels of God are wonderful, but they are inferior to the Son. They are His angels, they are His ministers, and they are His worshipers. They worship Him. He does not worship them.
And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire [Heb. 1:7].
This is a quotation from Psalm 104:4. The angels belong to the Lord. They are His ministers and worshipers. This is very important to see. The writer of Hebrews, who I believe is Paul, is showing that Christ is superior to the angels, and He is using the Old Testament Scriptures to prove it. Can you see how absolutely important the first two chapters of Hebrews are? They put down a foundation for the rest of the book which deals with the present ministry of Christ for believers today. Oh, that we might be conscious of the fact that there is a living Christ at God’s right hand at this very moment! He is more real than I am, because when you read these words, there is no telling where I will be. We just don’t know what a day will bring forth. But Christ is going to be right up yonder at God’s right hand for you and for me. He is the real, living Christ today.
It is easy to understand that angels were very important to the Hebrews because most of them were well acquainted with the Old Testament. They thought of angels as next to the very throne of God. They had read of the appearance of angels to many of God’s servants and to many of the prophets. Angels were very important beings to them.
As I have already mentioned, I do not believe there is an angel ministry to the church in our day. I do not believe that angels appear to men. If you think you have seen an angel, you should check with your doctor or with a psychologist because you saw something besides an angel.
This reminds me of the two fellows who met after not having seen each other for a long time. One of them said “Are you married?” The other one replied, “Yes, I’m married!” His friend then asked, “What kind of a girl did you marry?” “Well,” replied the other fellow, “I married an angel.” The other one said, “You sure are lucky. Mine is still alive!”
Well, human beings never become angels. God has made this universe so that there are things visible and invisible. In Colossians 1:16 we read that Christ created things visible and invisible. For example, you cannot see an atom, but it is material and it becomes energy. God created intelligences that are above man. You and I live in a universe about which the Lord has said, “In my Father’s house are many moneµ, meaning “abiding places” (see John 14:2). Created intelligences live in these abiding places, and God has created a great deal more in this universe than you and I could ever dream of today. Man did not come from animals. There is a material kingdom. There is the animal kingdom, the human kingdom, and a spirit kingdom. There are creatures below man and creatures that are above man. We did not come from animals, and we will never become angels.
You may remember the song, “I want to be an angel and with the angels sing.” When I was a little boy in Sunday school, the teacher would line up the little brats (I was the only good boy in the class) and have us sing, “I want to be an angel and with the angels sing.” The last thing I wanted to be was an angel! And I still feel that way. I am very happy that the Scripture makes it clear that I am not going to be an angel.
The word angel (Gr.: aggelos) means “messenger” and may be applied to a human or divine messenger. There is an order of creatures that is supernatural, and we see that in the Scriptures. I think it would really surprise us if we had any conception of the number of angels in the universe. They are called the “host of heaven,” and that means there are a whole lot of them. Their numbers apparently are not diminished or added to in any way, but we have no idea how many angels there are. They have an important part in God’s plan, but Christ is superior to the angels.
But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows [Heb. 1:8–9].
These verses are a quotation from Psalm 45:6–7 which reveals that it is one of the great messianic psalms. Psalm 45 tells us that there is One coming in the line of David who will rule in righteousness. David is so thrilled about this prospect that he says, “… My tongue is the pen of a ready writer” (Ps. 45:1). David is saying, “I could tell you about this much better than I could write about it.” This One who is coming, according to the writer to the Hebrews, is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the One who will rule in righteousness. God has not given the right to rule the earth to any angel.
“Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity” is a tremendous statement. Imagine this old earth being ruled by One who loves righteousness and hates iniquity!
“Thy throne, O God.” This is God the Father calling God the Son God! Do you want to deny that Christ is God manifest in the flesh? If you do, then may I say that you are contradicting God Himself. God called the Lord Jesus God. What are you going to call Him? I don’t know about you, but I am also going to call Him God. He is God manifest in the flesh. He is superior to angels because He is going to rule over the universe. He is the Messiah. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who is going to rule over the earth some day.
And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:
They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;
And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail [Heb. 1:10–12].
These verses are quoted from Psalm 102:25–27. This is a tremendous statement telling us that the Lord Jesus is the Creator. These are tremendous contrasts given to us in this section: Angels are the creatures; the Lord is the Creator.
But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? [Heb. 1:13].
This verse is a quote from Psalm 110:1, a psalm that is quoted more than any other psalm in the New Testament. The Psalms teach the deity of Christ. There is a more complete picture of Christ in the Psalms than in the Gospels.
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? [Heb. 1:14].
Right away somebody is going to say, “Doesn’t it say here that the angels are going to minister to the heirs of salvation?” Let’s read the verse like it is. The angels are going to minister to those “who shall be heirs of salvation.” This verse is looking forward to the time when God turns again to the nation Israel, and to the gentile world—after the church is removed from earth. Notice that it does not say that the angels are ministering to those who are right now the heirs of salvation. You see, God is moving according to His program and He has a purpose for everything He does.
Christ is the Son; angels are servants. Christ is King; angels are subjects. Christ is the Creator; angels are creatures. Christ at this moment is waiting until His enemies will be made His footstool. The Father never gave such a promise to an angel, but He says that some day His Son shall rule. This tremendous section sets before us the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and the exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is higher than the angels.
CHAPTER 2
Theme: Humanity of Christ
After seeing the exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ in chapter 1, we come to the humiliation of Christ in chapter 2. He became a man, and when He did, He became lower than the angels. He was created a man in the womb of the Virgin Mary and took upon Himself our humanity. Therefore, Christ is the revealer of God, and He is the representative of man. We are going to find out two things about Christ in the Book of Hebrews: (1) He reveals God to man; and (2) He represents man before God.
I have a representative in heaven; I have someone there who represents me. I don’t know about you, but I get the feeling that in my state capital and in my national capital those who are elected to represent me are not representing me at all. They are all out for themselves and their own little pet programs, and it doesn’t make much difference to them what happens to the public. The only time they are interested in me is when I vote, and then I become the darling of the politicians. Then you and I are the intelligent public who cannot go wrong, provided we vote for them!
It is wonderful to have a representative before God, one who does represent us. It is good to know that we have somebody there for us, because Scripture tells us that Satan, the accuser of the brethren, has access to God and accuses us before God day and night (see Rev. 12:10). Satan could tell God some pretty bad things about us, and so I am thankful I have a representative in heaven.
First we saw Christ higher than the angels, because He is God. Now we see Him become lower than the angels. He was made in the likeness of man, and we see here His humanity.
There are six danger signals in the Book of Hebrews. They are warnings to the people of Israel that they fail not to enter into the full blessings which God has provided through Christ. These six danger signals can be likened to highway markers to warn the reader. These danger signals are as follows:
Peril of drifting, 2:1–4
Peril of doubting, 3:7–4:2
Peril of dull hearing, 5:11–14
Peril of departing, 6:1–20
Peril of despising, 10:26–39
Peril of denying, 12:15–29
There are two places in which a believer can live. He can live in the desert and have a wilderness experience, or he can enter into the blessings of God by spiritually crossing the Jordan River. We find the example of this in Israel. God warned them at Kadesh-Barnea that they would miss His full blessings if they failed to enter into the land.
Now I have literally crossed the Jordan River, and it wasn’t pleasant at all. I was on a bus that stopped five times, and by the time we got to the Allenby Bridge I was so disgusted I didn’t know whether I even wanted to cross the Jordan River. As we drove over it, I looked at that little muddy stream and thanked God that I had crossed the spiritual Jordan in Jesus Christ through His death and resurrection. That is, I had been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him in newness of life. That is what is meant by a Christian crossing the Jordan. Joshua literally led the children of Israel across the Jordan. Christ spiritually leads the ones who believe in Him across the Jordan into a newness of life.
THE FIRST DANGER SIGNAL: PERIL OF DRIFTING
Let’s realize that this is a warning for every child of God in our day also, a warning that there is a danger of drifting.
Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip [Heb. 2:1].
Because this last revelation was superior to the Old Testament dispensation and came from One who is superior to angels, we are to pay particular attention to the warning. The responsibility is now greater.
“Let them slip” is drift past them. It indicates neglect, that is all. Neglect in any area of life is tragic, but in the spiritual realm, hearing the gospel message and doing nothing about it is infinitely more tragic. What must I do to be lost? Nothing!
The story is told of the man who went to sleep in his boat one night on the Niagara River. Before long his boat drifted down to the rapids and he was caught. It was too late for him to do anything. He went over the falls and was killed. Someone asks the question, “What must I do to be lost?” We are given the answer for “What must I do to be saved?” in Acts 16:31: “…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved….” But what is the answer for “What must I do to be lost?” Well, the answer is nothing. You and I belong to a lost human family. We are not on trial. I get a little weary of hearing that God has us on trial. He doesn’t have us on trial; we are lost. Today He is saving some—those who will turn to Christ. The rest are already lost. You don’t do anything to be lost, because that is your natural condition.
There is great danger in neglect in every area of life. Many years ago I had a wonderful secretary who developed cancer of the hip. The doctor told her that she must have an operation, but she kept postponing it. Finally the day came when it was too late to do anything. She had been warned, but she just drifted, just neglected taking any action until it was too late.
When you move neglect to a higher realm, hearing the gospel message and doing nothing about it is infinitely more tragic. A great many folk hear the gospel and give mental assent to it, but do nothing about it.
Some time ago a man said to me, “McGee, some day I am going to take up your offer and accept Christ.” Right now, however, this man is drifting. I don’t know how far along he is, but the day will come when he will be in the rapids, and then it will be too late—he will go over the falls. He may have a heart attack or be in an accident, and his chance to receive Christ will be gone. I would like to get all the folk that hear the gospel into the “now” generation. “Now” is the accepted time. “Now” is the day of salvation. There is a real danger of drifting, and Hebrews warns us about it.
For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward [Heb. 2:2].
For example, when the two angels came to Sodom with the announcement that Sodom was to be destroyed, Sodom was destroyed exactly as they said. In fact, whenever an angel brought a message, you could depend on its being carried out just as it was stated.
Now notice the question—
How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him [Heb. 2:3].
A great Welsh preacher began his sermon by saying, “I have a question to ask. I cannot answer it. You cannot answer it. Even God cannot answer it.” Then he gave this as his text: “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” And I have a sermon entitled, “A Question that God Cannot Answer.” I do not mean to be irreverent, but God makes it clear that He cannot answer the question, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” Do you know a way of escape? The only way is Christ. He said so in John 14:6: “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” In the Scriptures we also read, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 16:25). There are many ways that seem right to men. In California you can hear about as many ways as you want to hear. If you are looking for a religion, you will find one in California. If you don’t find one that you like, you can start one, and I will guarantee that you will find some followers who will go along with you. There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end are the ways of death. How shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation? What do you do to be lost? Nothing. You can be lost by neglect.
“Which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord” is, of course, the Lord Jesus when He was here. He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden…” (Matt. 11:28) and “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
“And was confirmed unto us by them that heard him,” refers to His disciples and others who heard Him and witnessed His death and resurrection—then went everywhere preaching the gospel.
God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will? [Heb. 2:4].
I think the writer of Hebrews has definite reference here to the Day of Pentecost when the gifts of the Holy Spirit were exercised. The gifts, of course, confirmed the message. To whom? To the nation Israel.
What tremendous truths we have here in this first danger warning. It is a warning sign, not about speeding up but about drifting—just drifting by these great truths which we may have been taking for granted.
SUPERIORITY OF CHRIST TO ANGELS IN HIS HUMANITY
The humanity of Christ needs to be emphasized as well as His deity. You see, He brought deity down to this earth, and He took humanity back to heaven.
For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak [Heb. 2:5].
To begin with, let us understand what world the author is talking about. A great many folk think immediately that the “world to come” is heaven. However, the word for “world” in this verse means “inhabited earth” in the Greek. This verse is talking about the people of this earth. It is used in Matthew 24:14 which says, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world [inhabited earth] for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” It is also used in Romans 10:18, “But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the [inhabited] earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.” The word world could not refer to heaven or to eternity. It does not refer to this dispensation of grace in which we live today. It speaks of the messianic kingdom, the kingdom that is coming on the earth. Hebrew believers, schooled in the Old Testament, knew that the theme song of that book was the coming kingdom over which one in David’s line would rule. The messianic kingdom became the theme song of every one of the prophets.
“Unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come”—the millennial kingdom that is coming upon the earth. Not only have angels not ruled in the past, they will not rule in the future. They have been servants and messengers in the past, and they will continue to be servants in the future. This is the thought expressed here.
Now he turns to Psalm 8 and gives us an interpretation of that marvelous psalm which has to do with creation.
But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? [Heb. 2:6].
Verses 6–8 are a quote from Psalm 8:4–6. Let us pause here for just a moment. Who is man anyway? Man is just a small creature on one of the minor planets. Someone put it like this, “Man is a rash on the epidermis of a minor planet.” That really puts man in his place, but I suppose it is more or less accurate. We are very small in God’s universe. Someone else has said, “When you pick up the minutest piece of creation, the parts of an atom, and then you reach out to the largest, man is probably halfway between.” Man stands about halfway in the physical creation, but the important thing is that the Lord of Glory, the second person of the Godhead, became Jesus, a man.
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” The answer to that is, “Jesus became a man. He left heaven’s glory, came down to this earth, and He didn’t become an angel.” That is what the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews is going to tell us. “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?” What is man?
Of himself, man is nothing. Physically, if you break down the elements of his body into chemical components and put them on the market, at one time he would only have been worth about ninety-eight cents. Today due to inflation man’s worth is a little more than that. But it is not of much value, especially when you think of how much a dollar is worth. So, physically, man is not very valuable. Mentally, man thinks he is something, but he knows very little. What does man actually know about this vast universe in which we live? We have spent billions of dollars to send a man to the moon to see if we could find out how it all began. Since our nation doesn’t believe the first chapter of Genesis, we are exploring the moon! Genesis 1:1 certainly sounds a lot better than any of man’s theories. Man today isn’t very much physically or mentally. He can’t lift very much, and he can’t do very much. Man is quite limited. When you take a good look at man, you see that he is a lost sinner. He is in terrible condition. What is man that God was mindful of him?
“Or the son of man, that thou visitest him?” Well, He visited us because He wanted to communicate with us, and He wanted to save us because He saw our lost condition.
Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands [Heb. 2:7].
God made man lower than the angels at the time of creation. Psalm 8 makes it abundantly clear that man was made lower than the angels. The One who was superior, higher than the angels, was willing to come down below angels. He became not an angel but a man!
Many of us believe that the One called the “angel of the Lord” in the Old Testament is Christ. I went across the Brook Jabbok not long ago (Jabbok is in the kingdom of Jordan) and remembered that somewhere along that little creek (and that is all I would call it) the Angel of the Lord wrestled with Jacob. That Angel of the Lord we believe is Christ.
We read in the New Testament that when Christ came to earth He became lower than the angels. Apparently angels are the measuring rod; they are the standard of the bureau of standards. Christ was above the angels, but when He became a man, He became lower than the angels. Why did the Lord do it? He did it so that He could reveal God. Also He is the representative of man before God. He brought God to earth and took man back to heaven. If you and I get to heaven it will be because we are in Christ.
This is God’s original purpose with man—“Thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands.” Man is going to do something that angels have never been able to do. Angels do not rule God’s universe. They are God’s messengers. There was an angel who attempted to rebel against God. He tried to set up his own kingdom. He attempted to become a ruler. His name was Lucifer, son of the morning. We know him today by the name of Satan, or the Devil. He was an angel of light, but he rebelled and said in his heart, “…I will exalt my throne above the stars of God…. I will be like the most High” (Isa. 14:13–14). God does not intend him or any angel to rule; but He has created man to rule.
Man, however, as we see him today is not capable of ruling. He is demonstrating this in all the capitals of the world—so much so that it makes me bow my head in shame. Man cannot rule, but he thinks he can—he has adopted Satan’s viewpoint. He is attempting to rule without God. God could bless our nation today, as He blessed it in the past when men recognized their dependence upon God. But man in and of himself is not capable of ruling.
Because of making trips to England, I have studied a great deal of English history. I wanted to look at the abbeys, the castles, and the cathedrals with some degree of intelligence as to their background. I did not realize just how bloody the kings of England had been. The minute a man became king, he killed all his relatives so no one could take the throne away from him. If you were a brother or a cousin of a king, you were in trouble. He was apt to take you to the Tower of London—many a man lost his head there. Man, regardless of his race, is not capable of ruling this earth as God intended.
However, by redemption, God is going to bring man back to the place where he can rule. In Psalm 8 is the statement: “thou … hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands.” Man lost that dominion in the Garden of Eden when he disobeyed God, but Christ has recovered it.
Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him [Heb. 2:8].
“Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet”—whose feet? Christ’s—not man’s. “But now we see not yet all things put under him.” Although our earth has not slipped out from under His control, He is not ruling today. When the Lord Jesus does rule on this earth, there will be no need of a hospital or a jail. There will be no crime or poverty. When He rules this earth it will be a millennial paradise. As the writer quotes Psalm 8, he makes it abundantly clear that the psalmist spoke of Christ, and the prediction is not fulfilled up to the present moment.
Now we have the very heart of this chapter—
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man [Heb. 2:9].
“But we see Jesus.” Because of what the Lord Jesus has done, we behold Him. We see Jesus. This word see does not mean a casual look. The word means that we look upon Him with understanding. We recognize that in Him is something that our little minds do not grasp. We look upon Him in faith, in trust, in wonder, in awe, and in worship. All of this is wrapped up in the phrase, “We see Jesus.” Do you “see” Him today? Has the Spirit of God taken the veil from your eyes so that you can see Him?
“We see Jesus.” Notice that Jesus is His human name. At His conception the angel announced, “… thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21).
“Who was made a little lower than the angels.” The emphasis is not on being made lower than the angels, but upon the word little, and in that word the emphasis is upon time. We could say, “Who was made, for a little time, lower than the angels.” For that brief time that He was upon earth (thirty-three years) He was made lower than the angels.
“For the suffering of death”—rather, because of the suffering of death. Christ alone could redeem man, and He could do it only by dying upon the Cross. It was the only way.
“Crowned with glory and honor” He wasn’t crowned with glory and honour by His death but because He came to this earth and died on the Cross for you and for me. Let me emphasize again and again that there is a Man in the glory. He wasn’t there some twenty-five hundred years ago. Instead He was the second Person of the Godhead—let’s call Him Jehovah, for Jesus is Jehovah. And He was and is God, very God of very God. But today He is also very man of very man. He took upon Himself humanity, and because He did this, He was given glory and honor in heaven that wasn’t there before.
“Should taste death for every man” means that He not only experienced the pangs of death, but He had the experience of what death really is—the very fullest depth of it. He drank the cup of death. That bitter cup was pressed to His lips, and He drank every bit of it. He did this for you and me.
“By the grace of God.” He did this by the grace of God—that God could be gracious to you and to me today and save us.
For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings [Heb. 2:10].
Jesus was not a man in whom God did something. The humanity of Jesus doesn’t mean that He was a religious genius. It doesn’t mean that He was a martyr to a cause. It doesn’t mean that He was setting a good example. Christ’s humiliation accomplished two things: (1) It brought glory and honor to the person of Christ; and (2) it procured man’s salvation by making man’s salvation possible. Christ took humanity to heaven, and there is not only a Man in glory, but there is a glory in that Man which was not there before.
“It became” simply means that it was fitting for Him—it was harmonious and consistent with His Person and purpose to bring many sons unto glory in this way.
“It became him [the Lord Jesus] for whom are all things, and by whom are all things.” He made all things, and they were for Him. If you want to know why this universe exists, it is because Jesus wanted it; it was His will. That is the origin of this universe—it began in the mind of Christ.
“In bringing many sons unto glory” is God’s present purpose. God also has a future purpose of putting His King on His holy hill of Zion (see Ps. 2). God is moving forward with that program, but right now He is calling out a people for His name; He is bringing many sons home to glory. I read a letter a few moments ago from a young man who had sunk as low as one can go on dope and had spent time in prison. Now the Lord Jesus has saved him. We are seeing this happening all over the world. God is still calling out people for His name, bringing many sons unto glory.
“To make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” The word captain, translated “author,” appears again in chapter 12, verse 2. The same word is translated “prince” in Acts 3:15. It means “originator or leader.” A captain is one who initiates and carries through. In other words, the Lord Jesus is the Alpha and Omega of everything. He is the beginning and the ending. He starts it, and He completes it. He is the Captain. He originated our salvation, and He consummated it. How did He do it? He did it by coming down to this earth and taking upon Himself our humanity. What did He do when He came to earth? He tasted death for every man. He came to redeem mankind and to procure man’s salvation. He revealed God on earth, and today He represents man in heaven. We will see that when we get to the subject of His priesthood.
“Perfect through sufferings.” He was made perfect in the sense of being made complete. “Perfect” is from the Greek word teleioµ, meaning “to carry to the goal; consummate; complete.”
He was made perfect through suffering. Although He was the Son of God, and though He was God Himself, His perfect life does not save us. His virgin birth does not save us. Actually, His teaching does not save us. His miracles do not save us, nor does His example save us. But it is His death upon the cross that saves us. He was made complete; He reached completeness by dying on the cross. If you could convince me that God has decided to remain aloof from man, and all He did for this lost world was to pitch the Bible down here, and as He sits in heaven, He looks down on man and says, “It’s too bad you are in such a mess; here is a Book, and I hope you can work your way out,” then I am prepared to turn my back upon Him. But that is not what God did. He came down to earth and took upon Himself our humanity. Because He suffered and died upon the cross, I am prepared to trust in Him. I am prepared to love Him because of what He has done for me and all lost mankind.
For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren [Heb. 2:11].
“He that sanctifieth”—to be sanctified doesn’t mean what the average person thinks it means. For many years I thought it meant to be a nice, sweet, little boy. Well, sanctification when it is used in connection with the Holy Spirit has to do with the work of God in us, to make us the kind of representative He wants down here on this earth. It is the work of the Spirit of God in the heart of the redeemed. However, sanctification when it is used in connection with the person of Christ (as in this epistle to the Hebrews) is not purification. It is not a condition but a position that we have in Christ. He was the Just One who took the place of the unjust that He might bring us to God. And He has brought us now into the family of God.
“For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.” In the family of God, He is not ashamed to call us brothers. Now, of course, I would not dare call Him brother, but He has brought us into the family of God. He is the firstborn among many brethren; He is the head of the family, and He calls us brethren because we all become sons of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
My friend, this makes it very clear that the heresy about the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man is entirely false. It is probably the most damnable doctrine there is abroad today.
Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee [Heb. 2:12].
This verse is a quotation from Psalm 22, the great psalm of the cross. The first part of Psalm 22 denotes the humiliation of Christ, and you actually are given the seven last words of Christ on the cross. Beginning with verse 22 of the psalm you have the exaltation of Christ: “I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee” (Ps. 22:22). I am of the opinion that we could restrict this verse to the Hebrew brethren because it was written to the Jews.
“In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.” The word church is “congregation” rather than the technical meaning of the word church.
Now here is another quotation from the Old Testament, Isaiah 8:17–18.
And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me [Heb. 2:13].
This verse reveals how the Holy Spirit interprets Scripture. There are those today who try to give an interpretation of the prophets that eliminates any reference to Jesus Christ at all. In fact, when I read Isaiah 8:17–18, it seems that the writer is talking about the sons of Isaiah, at least that is the way I understand it. But here in verse 13 the Holy Spirit of God interprets that reference in Isaiah in such a way that it refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. Anyone today who attempts to eliminate the Lord Jesus from the prophets, therefore, is contradicting the interpretation that the Holy Spirit has given in the New Testament.
You will remember that when the Lord Jesus came back from the dead He said, “… go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17). When Jesus said, “Go to my brethren,” He was referring to His apostles at that particular time, and they were, of course, all Jewish. I emphasize this because I think it is very important to keep before us the ones to whom this epistle was written. It will enable me to give a correct interpretation that, I trust, might lead to an application to your heart and to my heart.
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil [Heb. 2:14].
This statement emphasizes the Lord’s incarnation.
“As the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same.” Christ came in a way they were not expecting Him to come. However, they should have known, because the prophets had made clear the way He would come to earth the first time. As George Macdonald put it:
They were looking for a King
To slay their foes and lift them high;
Thou cam’st, a little baby thing
That made a woman cry.
Because we were made of flesh and blood, He took upon Himself flesh and blood. And He came into this world by human birth just like you and I came into the world.
“That through death he might destroy him.” Christ Jesus came not only through birth—His birth didn’t save anyone—but through death. It is by His death He saves us, not by His birth or by His life. His death brought to us salvation and deliverance from spiritual and eternal death.
And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage [Heb. 2:15].
In my opinion, E. Schuyler English (Studies in the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 82) has the correct interpretation of this verse:
The Law of God demanded and does demand death for sin. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” “The wages of sin is death.” Satan was the cause of man’s sin in the first place and, even though he is a usurper, he can claim, justly so in a sense, that the sinner must die. He had the power, the authority to demand that every sinner should pay sin’s penalty. And on account of this all men, because all are sinners, were fearful of death and subject to bondage, because of sin, to serve it and thus serve Satan.
For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham [Heb. 2:16].
In the Old Testament Christ took on the nature of angels. He did that when He appeared as the Angel of the Lord, and these Hebrews understood that. When Christ left heaven and came to earth, He came past the angels and came to fallen man. He took on Him the seed of Abraham. He came in the line of Abraham. God began the preparation at the very beginning with Adam and Eve. At that time God said that there would come the seed of the woman (see Gen. 3:15). Then God said He would come in the line of Abraham, and a little farther along we learn that He would be born in the tribe of Judah, of the family of David, of the nation Israel. He was to be born of a virgin. The Lord put up enough highway markers so that everybody—not only wise men, but everybody—should have found their way to Bethlehem when Jesus was born.
Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people [Heb. 2:17].
The Lord Jesus came down to earth in the likeness of men. In Philippians 2:7 we read, “But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.” It was a real likeness to men. This likeness, Vincent tells us, is “closest where the traces of the curse of sin were more apparent—in poverty, temptation, and violent and unmerited death.” Christ could have been born in the palace of Caesar, but He was born in real poverty, in a stable behind an inn. Why? So that He could know something of the effect of sin on humanity. Where do you see it? You see it in poverty. You see it in temptation. You see it in violent and unmerited death. That is where you see sin manifested.
I think it is tragic when innocent people suffer. Some time ago in Pasadena a dear, talented, Christian woman, an outstanding artist up in her 80s, was followed home by a teenager who cruelly and brutally murdered her. How terrible it was! And nothing was done about it. Thank God, He is going to make things right some day.
When Christ came to earth, He knew what real poverty was. During World War II, I went through El Paso, Texas, on the train. Before the train pulled into the station, the conductor came by and said, “Don’t get off the train because there are people in this station who have been there for a week and cannot get out. They are desperate. If you leave your seat, one of them will take it and you will never get it back. Stay right where you are.” We did what he said, but once the train started its journey again, I searched out the conductor and asked him what it was all about. He told me that many of those people were camping in the station, waiting for a seat on a train. Remember, this was during the war, and many men were being shipped overseas. One young woman told the conductor that her husband had been shipped out and she was stranded. She couldn’t get back to her people; so she was just waiting in the station. He also told me that a little boy had been born in that station the other night. Imagine being born in a station! The little fellow is a great big fellow now, and I sure hope someone has told him about Jesus, because He also was born in a crush like that when there was a great movement of humanity. You recall that it was Caesar who made a tax bill requiring that every person under the domain of Rome be enrolled in their hometown for taxing. Mary had to go to Bethlehem although it was near the time for her baby to be born. When she got to Bethlehem, there was no room in the inn, and so the Lord Jesus Christ was born in a stable. He could sympathize with that baby born in El Paso’s Union Station, couldn’t He?
The Lord Jesus came to earth and took on a human body. He is able to sympathize with you and me. I don’t care who you are or where you are, He knows you and He understands you—not just because He is God, but because He became a man. He knows exactly what you and I are going through today.
At the time this book is being written there is a great deal of poverty in the Middle East, especially among the Arabs. My heart goes out to the refugees there. We cannot condone their rash acts and murder which they have committed, but do you know that some of them have been living in those wretched camps since 1948? Their living conditions are absolutely horrible. Even their own brethren, the other Arabs, have not permitted them to integrate among their people. They have been confined to these camps. Well, there was wretched poverty in the Middle East when Jesus lived there. And “it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren.” He came in poverty. The poverty of Jesus’ family is almost unspeakable. He was born into a race that was under the heel of Rome; they were in subjection to Rome. He wasn’t born in a palace; He was born in a stable. He was in all points made like unto His brethren. He became one of them. If you had seen that little boy playing in Bethlehem, wearing a little ragged garment, you would not have known who He was. When the artist paints Him, He stands out like a bright cameo, but He was probably just a dirty-faced little boy, not any different in appearance from His playmates. He was made like unto His brethren.
In emphasizing the deity of Christ there is a danger of underestimating His humanity. I am happy that I was not born in Bethlehem. I am delighted that I was not raised in Nazareth. I want to tell you that even today the children in those towns don’t have much of a chance. Just think of what it was like in Jesus’ day! Jesus Christ became a real human being, and He came out of that background. He was a root out of a dry ground. You have never had a thought nor have you ever suffered anything that He doesn’t already know about. For this reason He can be a merciful and faithful High Priest.
“That he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” It is more accurate to say “to make propitiation,” rather than “reconciliation.” Christ made a mercy seat for you and me to come to. And, my friend, what we need is mercy. God has a great deal of it available to us because Jesus made a mercy seat, and you can go there and get all you need. I don’t know about you, but I need a whole lot of it, and after I have used up a great deal of it, there is still plenty of it for you today. Christ made a mercy seat for the sins of the people, and that is the only place you can get God’s mercy.
For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted [Heb. 2:18].
“For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted”—the word should be tested. The Lord Jesus was tested, not only for forty days (that was a testing in a particular way), but during His entire life He was tested.
I want to look closely at this verse because some of you are going to disagree with what I am going to say about it. The question is asked concerning the testing of Jesus, “Could He have succumbed to the temptation? Could He have fallen?” The answer is no. When we speak of being tempted to do something wrong, what we actually mean is that we have the opportunity to do wrong, and we want to do it. Now the opportunity was the testing, but the desire to do wrong was sin, and a sinful desire is itself sin. The Lord Jesus never had that sinful desire. He was not a sinner, but He certainly had the opportunity. Knowing how hungry and weak He was from going without food for forty days, Satan began his temptation by saying, “Why don’t you make these rocks into bread?” If you have been to that land, you know that there are a whole lot of rocks there! That was the temptation. He could have made stones into bread, but He didn’t. His test was greater than mine. I want you to know that if I could make stones into bread I’d be in the bakery business! He could have, but He didn’t. He had the opportunity to do it, and that is the test. He did not yield to it. He did not desire to yield to the test; and he could not so desire because of the very fact that He was God.
Again I ask the question: Could Jesus have sinned? The answer is no, He could not have sinned. What then was the purpose of the testing? I feel that I can answer that best with an illustration.
When I was a boy, I lived in West Texas on the east fork of the Brazos River. In the summertime there wasn’t enough water in the river to rust a shingle nail, but in the wintertime you could have floated a battleship down there. The little town has disappeared now, but when I lived there, the Santa Fe Railroad went through it and across the Brazos River. One winter we had a flood that washed out the railroad bridge—it was a wooden bridge. So the railroad company came in and replaced it with a steel bridge. When it was completed, they brought two engines to our town, stopped them on top of the new bridge, and tied down their whistles. Well, nobody in our little town had ever heard two whistles at one time, so we all rushed down to the bridge—all twenty-seven of us. We stood there watching, and one of the extroverts of our town asked the engineer, “What are you doing?” He said, “We are testing the bridge.” So he asked, “Do you think it will fall down?” With a sneer, the engineer said, “Of course it won’t fall down!” “Then why are you doing this?” This was the engineer’s answer: “We are putting these two engines there to prove that it won’t fall down.”
Jesus, you see, was tested to prove that He was who He claimed to be. That is very important. Actually, if Jesus of Nazareth had sinned, it would not have proven that God in the flesh could sin. Rather, it would have proven that Jesus of Nazareth was not God in the flesh. The testing proved that He was God in the flesh. Because of who He is, He cannot sin. And the writer of the Hebrew epistle adds that He was tested in all points like we are, yet was without sin (see Heb. 4:15).
“For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.” The word succour means, of course, “to come to the aid of, help, assist.” Because He suffered being tempted, He is able to help others who are tested. As we get further along in this epistle, we will be studying the priesthood of God. We will see that the Lord Jesus Christ is able to help those who are tested. If there is one thing I hope this study in the Book of Hebrews will achieve, it is to make you and me very conscious that we have an High Priest. He is alive at this moment. He is at God’s right hand, and, best of all, He is available to us. When I wake up in the dark watches of the night and toss and turn, as I sometimes do, with some burden on my heart, I can look up. My High Priest is up there. He knows me, He understands, and I can take my burden to Him. When that dark moment comes, and you and I go down into the valley of the shadow of death, we have a great High Priest up yonder who will help us. No matter what happens, no matter what the test, He is able to help us. I am afraid that we do not use His services as we should. We forget about Him and try to fight our battles alone. My friend, He is available. He wants you to come to Him.
CHAPTER 3
Theme: Christ is superior to Moses
We have already seen that Christ is superior to the prophets, and we have just concluded the section which proves Him to be superior to the angels. Now we will see that He is superior to Moses.
Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus [Heb. 3:1].
This chapter begins with the word Wherefore, and this is another reason I feel that Paul is the author of this epistle. Paul used the words wherefore and therefore as sort of a hinge or cement to present that which is logical. Now in the verse before us, wherefore is even more than that. It is like a swinging door which goes back and forth both ways. Or it can be looked at as a marker when you come in on a freeway or come in on a main thoroughfare. The warning is, “Look both ways.” The word wherefore looks back at what the writer has already said, and it looks forward to what he will say.
“Wherefore, holy brethren.” The word brethren means those who were Hebrews like Paul was. Paul after the flesh was a Hebrew. He called the Jews his brethren after the flesh. They are called “holy” brethren in this verse, not because of the things they did, but because the word holy means “separated”—they were separated unto God. They belonged to Him.
“Partakers of the heavenly calling.” The nation Israel had an earthly calling. All the promises of the Old Testament given to Israel had to do with this earth. He promised them rain from heaven; He promised them fertility of the soil and bountiful crops. These are physical blessings, although He promised them spiritual blessings as well. Today the idea that anything physical cannot be used in a spiritual way is wrong. That is one reason people don’t like to have money mentioned in church. What is wrong with money? It can be used in a spiritual way; it is not very impressive to hear somebody pray for something and then not back it up with his pocketbook. For example, if you are going to pray for missions, I would suggest you give to missions if you want to make your prayer effective. Otherwise your prayer is just like a lot of wind escaping—that’s all. It is spiritual to give; that is one of the ministries a priest performs. He offers up spiritual sacrifices. Giving is one of them, and the praise of our lips is another.
The brethren who are partakers of the heavenly calling previously had an earthly calling, but now they have come up to date and they belong to the “now” generation of those of Israel who have turned to Christ. The writer to the Hebrews will be making it very clear that they have moved into a different age. In the past they offered animal sacrifices according to the Mosaic system, and it was right to do so. But now it is wrong because the sacrificial system has all been fulfilled in Christ, and they have a heavenly calling. The earthly calling hasn’t disappeared, but it has been changed for the heavenly calling—so that they are partakers of the heavenly calling.
Several missionaries in Israel try to make this clear to us in our day. When witnessing to a Jew we tend to give the impression that he will have to cease being a Jew. I don’t know why we do this. A man can still be a Jew and be a Christian. If we are German, English, or French, we are still that when we become a child of God. Nobody asks us to give up our nationality. And the Jew is still a Jew after he has come to Christ. He has moved along with the revelation of God, and he is a partaker now of the heavenly calling. This is important to see. The Epistle to the Hebrews becomes almost meaningless if you don’t consider to whom it was written—and also when it was written.
Someone sent me John Wycliffe’s Golden Rule of Interpretation. John Wycliffe lived from 1324 to 1380, and although that was a long time ago, I think his Golden Rule is still gold; it is not tarnished at all. Listen to his Golden Rule:
It shall greatly help thee to understand Scripture if thou mark not only what is spoken or written, but of whom and to whom, with what words, at what time, where, and to what intent, under what circumstances, considering what goeth before and what followeth.
My friend, you can’t improve on that. If we just take that rule of John Wycliffe’s and apply it to Hebrews, I don’t think we will have trouble understanding this epistle. The phrase “partakers of the heavenly calling” would be perfectly meaningless apart from applying it to these Hebrew Christians.
“Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.” I would like to change the word profession to confession. And the word for “Christ” is not in the better manuscripts. Some of the newer translations have made that clear, and for that reason I would like to change the verse as follows: “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession [that which we confess], Jesus.”
“Consider” Him. The Greek word translated by our English word consider conveys the fact of faithful attention, giving of time, and perceiving thoroughly with the mind. It is a very significant word, and we need to recognize that it means we are to give careful and serious and prolonged thought to this One.
“Consider the Apostle.” What does the writer mean? The Lord Jesus was an apostle in the very basic meaning of the word. I don’t think we need to read anything into this word. After all, what is an apostle? An apostle is one who is sent. Jesus was sent from God to this earth. “Consider the Apostle,” because He was sent from God to this world. He is a messenger; He is God’s messenger. He is the revelation of God. Consider Him. He comes from God as an Apostle, but notice also—
“Consider the Apostle and High Priest.” His priestly function will be the subject of this epistle. (The writer just mentions it at this point, but when he comes back to it, that is all he is going to talk about. We will have to wait until we get to chapter 5 to see that.) An high priest is going in the opposite direction from an apostle. An apostle, like a prophet, came from God to man with a message; he spoke for God to man. However, an high priest was going on the other side of the freeway in the opposite direction. He was going from man to God; he represented man before God.
Now Jesus is our High Priest. Who is He? He is Jesus—the emphasis is upon His humanity. Again let me remind you that there is a Man in the glory today, and He represents us up there. My, I’m very happy that He is up there, because we are told that He is an Advocate for us; He defends us; He is on our side.
There are times when I feel that I am not quite making myself clear when I am talking to somebody. For example, some time ago I tried to explain to an audience the feeling I had when I was told that I had cancer. I felt that I wasn’t getting through, that they really didn’t understand. But I have the comfort of knowing that there is somebody who understands—Jesus understands exactly how I felt.
The Lord Jesus Christ understands how you feel today. My friend, we need to consider this—give serious thought to it and our careful attention. We have an Apostle who came from God, and He is our High Priest who has gone back into God’s presence and is there for you and for me today.
This is quite a wonderful verse, as you can see!
CHRIST IS SUPERIOR TO MOSES
Now the writer is going to show that Christ is superior to Moses. You see, having shown the superiority of Christ over the prophets who spoke for God in the Old Testament, and having shown His superiority over the angels, now he must show that He is superior to Moses because Moses is very important to the Hebrews. Several years ago a group of rabbis held a debate in Denver, Colorado. The subject of the debate was: “Who was greater, Abraham or Moses?” It is my understanding that it was decided that Moses was greater than Abraham. If that is true, if Jesus is to be considered, He has to be superior to Moses. The writer to the Hebrews is going to show this.
Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house [Heb. 3:2].
The Lord Jesus “was faithful to him that appointed him.” He was faithful as He came down to this earth to represent God to man, and He is faithful as He represents us to God.
“Also Moses was faithful in all his house.” Whose house are we talking about here? The word house occurs seven times in the next few verses. It is very important to determine whose house this is. Is it Moses’ house? I don’t think so. It is God’s house. Moses was faithful in God’s house. He was called to do a certain thing, and he did it. He was found faithful.
It is true that Moses made some mistakes—in fact, he recorded them. He wrote the Pentateuch, but the mistakes are not in what he wrote, because God told him what to write. The mistakes were in his actions. He had a temper, and one time when God told him to speak to the rock, he hit it instead. It was wrong because that rock pictured Christ, and Christ’s work for us. Many years earlier God had instructed Moses to smite the rock (see Exod. 17:6), and once smitten it need not be smitten again. Christ was smitten once for us; it was not necessary for Him to be smitten again. But Moses lost his temper. He did not know the implication of what he was doing when he smote the rock the second time. Although he made some mistakes, now that his life is past, it is wonderful indeed to note that the thing God remembers is his faithfulness. Faithfulness is the thing for which the Lord Jesus will commend His own—“… Well done, thou good and faithful servant …” (Matt. 25:21). Regardless of who we are or what work the Lord has given us to do, we are to be faithful.
I once held meetings for a wonderful preacher. He did not play golf, but since his assistant did, his assistant took me out to play golf. While we were playing, he took the opportunity to let me know he was unfaithful to the pastor. He made little dirty digs about the man and said things he would not have said had he been faithful to the pastor for whom he was working. He was disloyal to him. The following day he said to me, “I have made arrangements for us to play at a certain golf course.” I said, “I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to go out today,” and I never played golf with that man again.
The next time I went back to that church the assistant pastor was gone, and I asked the pastor about it. He told me, “That man got us in a lot of trouble. We found out he was very disloyal.” I wondered at the time if I should have told the pastor about his assistant. I have no use for a man who is not faithful to the man he is to serve. If you cannot be faithful to the man you are working under, you ought to leave your position. If you are not faithful to him, you are not faithful to God. If you are like that, and I am especially thinking of pastors, then you are a man that cannot be trusted. I would never trust that man as an assistant pastor under any circumstances. That assistant pastor wrote to me later and wanted me to recommend him to a church. I did not recommend him. How can you recommend a man as a pastor when he was not faithful as an assistant?
God says that Moses was faithful. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear God say of you, “He was faithful”?
Now notice that the verse began by saying that Christ was faithful—“who was faithful to him that appointed him.” How, then, was He superior to Moses?
For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house [Heb. 3:3].
Moses was faithful in God’s house, but the Lord Jesus is the one who built the house. He is the Creator; Moses is a creature. There is the difference, my friend.
For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God [Heb. 3:4].
“Every house is builded by some man [someone].” You can’t have a house without a builder—it can’t just grow! Every house is built by someone.
“But he that built all things is God.” The Lord Jesus is God, and He is the Creator. Moses never made that claim for himself.
And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after;
But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end [Heb. 3:5–6].
Not only is Christ superior to Moses in that He is the Creator and Moses is a creature, but also the best thing that could be said of Moses is that he was a servant of God—never was he called a son of God. Christ is the Son of God. There is quite a difference between the son in the house and a servant in a house. So Christ is superior to Moses on two counts: Christ is the Creator and He is the Son. This is very important to see.
“If we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” Paul had a way of using “ifs,” not as a condition but as a method of argument and of logic. We would understand him better if he had said, “Since we hold fast the confidence.” In other words, if we are sons of God and if we are partakers of the heavenly calling, we will be faithful and we will hold fast. This is the proof that we are of God’s house.
For example, 1 John 2:19 puts it this way, “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” (italics mine). I have always believed that God has permitted the cults to come along to draw out of the churches those who are not really believers. The cults serve as God’s strainer. The proof that you are a child of God is that you hold to the faith. That doesn’t make you a child of God, but it does prove that you are a child of God. If you are a believer, you will hold on, not because you are able but because He is able to make you stand.
So the writer of this Hebrew epistle (who I believe to be the apostle Paul) is using the “if” of argument. “If we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end” means that you are a partaker of the heavenly calling; you are among the brethren.
I have always used the Bible as a means of testing. If a person really is a child of God, he will hold to the Word of God, and he is going to love the Word of God because he wants to hear his Father talking to him.
Now let’s pursue a little further the contrast between Moses and the Lord Jesus Christ. Both Moses and the Lord Jesus enunciated an ethical system. It is generally agreed, even among those outside the fold of Christ, that Moses gave the greatest legal system which ever has been given and that Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount enunciated a tremendous system of laws. However, there is a vast difference between the two. You see, the laws which came from God through Moses had to do with conduct. However, when the Lord Jesus gave what we call the Sermon on the Mount (beginning with those marvelous beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”), we see that instead of dealing with conduct, they deal with character. The ethical demands of Christ, apart from the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection, present a hopelessly high system. The Sermon on the Mount, apart from the redemption we have in Christ, has made more hypocrites in the church than anything else. Folk today teach the ethic and say we are to keep the commandments of the Sermon on the Mount! My friend, only through the redemption in Christ can we even approach that standard. When God spoke through Moses yonder on top of Mount Sinai, there was thunder and lightning and earthquake and terror. God warned the people to stand afar off and not to let even the cattle touch the mount. But in this age of grace God has not spoken in that manner; He has spoken from the top of a hill called Calvary. On that hill there was a cross and on that cross there was a broken, bruised, dying man—who was more than a man. He was God. And by His death upon that cross has flowed down to this world the grace of God.
How I thank God that He does not save by law! If He did, Vernon McGee would have to admit that he had failed and would have to look for another route. Thank God, there is another route—the grace of God.
“If [since] we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” Since you are a child of God you will be rejoicing in the hope firm unto the end. This is another reason it is difficult to tell if folk in our churches are really saved. Some of them look and act as if they had been weaned on a dill pickle! They are not rejoicing in Christ.
Oh, my friend, Jesus is superior to the prophets, He is superior to angels, and He is superior to Moses. How wonderful He is! No wonder we are told to consider Him. In Hebrews 3:1 we are told to consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession [confession], Christ. In Hebrews 12:3 we are going to be admonished again: “For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.” A person would be very discouraged if all he had was the Sermon on the Mount. I feel sorry for you if you are attempting to make the Sermon on the Mount your religion. If you don’t have redemption in Christ, you are flying under false colors.
We are to consider Him—consider Him in His person, consider Him in His performance, His work upon the cross. Someone has put it poetically:
When the storm is raging high,
When the tempest rends the sky,
When my eyes with tears are dim,
Then, my soul, consider Him.
When my plans are in the dust,
When my dearest hopes are crushed,
When is passed each foolish whim,
Then, my soul, consider Him.
When with dearest friends I part,
When deep sorrow fills my heart,
When pain racks each weary limb,
Then, my soul, consider Him.
When I track my weary way,
When fresh trials come each day,
When my faith and hope are dim,
Then, my soul, consider Him.
Clouds or sunshine, dark or bright,
Evening shades or morning light,
When my cup flows o’er the brim,
Then, my soul, consider Him.
“Consider Him”
—Author unknown
My friend, we are to consider Him in this epistle, and we will need the Spirit of God to make Him real to us.
THE PERIL OF DOUBTING
Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, Today if ye will hear his voice [Heb. 3:7].
Notice that we have another wherefore which opens this section. We had a wherefore in verse 1, a wherefore here in verse 7, and we are going to have wherefore again in verse 10. It is a very important word. As I said, it is a swinging door that swings back into the past and swings out into the future. Also it is a danger signal as you come down the great highway that leads to heaven. In effect, it warns: Look both ways before you pull out—some crazy driver may be coming down the wrong side of the highway.
Wherefore, that is, in view of what has already been said, since the word spoken by the prophets and the word spoken by angels and the word spoken by Moses was so important, what about the importance of the word spoken by Jesus? We need to be very careful about doubting Him.
“To-day if ye will hear his voice” begins the quotation from Psalm 95:7–11.
Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.) [Heb. 3:8–11].
I believe that Christ is in every psalm, although I admit that I am not able to find Him in every psalm. However, here He is in Psalm 95: “For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation [testing] in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted [tested] me, proved me, and saw my work. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest” (Ps. 95:7–11).
Hebrews 3:7–11 interprets this portion of Psalm 95, and Israel is given to us as an example. Let’s consider this for a moment. The generation of Israel that came out of Egypt doubted God, and because of their doubt they never entered the land of Canaan.
“They shall not enter into my rest.” I have marked in my Bible that final word rest. There are at least a dozen references in this chapter and the next chapter to the word rest, but it does not always mean the same kind of rest.
There is the rest of salvation. The Lord Jesus referred to this in Matthew 11:28 when He said in effect, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will rest you; that is, I’ll lift the burden of sin from you.” Because He bore it for us upon the cross, our sins are forgiven, and we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Therefore, you don’t have to do anything so that God will forgive you; Christ has already done it when He died for you. All you have to do is believe and receive Christ.
The people of Israel now know the rest of redemption. They are no longer slaves in Egypt. They came out by blood—blood on the doorposts. They came out by power—God brought them across the Red Sea. God had delivered them. But then the Lord Jesus went on to say, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Matt. 11:29). That is a different kind of rest. It is not the rest of redemption; I would call it the rest of obedience, the rest of enjoying the Christian life.
When the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, as they crossed over the Red Sea, they sang the song of Moses—“… I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea!” (Exod. 15:1). “God has delivered us—how great He is!” After they left Sinai, an eleven-day journey could have gotten them into the Promised Land. But no, they had to send spies in to search out the land. It wasn’t necessary—God said He would take care of them, but they didn’t believe God. So God yielded to their wishes and let them send in spies. Although the spies did see the wonderful land, they were most impressed by the giants, and they saw themselves as grasshoppers. They didn’t see God. They returned to the people with a false report—except Caleb and Joshua who insisted that God could handle the giants if they trusted Him. But the people accepted the majority report (this is my reason for believing that committees are not satisfactory for doing the Lord’s work), and they spent forty years on a journey that should have taken a few days. What was the reason? Unbelief.
You see, they didn’t believe God enough to enter into the land. They believed Him enough to come out of Egypt, but not enough to enter Canaan. God said that that generation of unbelievers would die in the wilderness and He would bring their children into the Land of Promise. And we find later that Joshua did bring the next generation into the land. They had to cross another body of water, the river Jordan. How did they do it? Well, God sent the ark of the covenant (symbolic of God’s presence) ahead on the shoulders of the priests. When their feet touched the brink of the river, the waters of Jordan were cut off. “And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan” (Josh. 3:17). Then they took twelve stones out of the middle of the river, where the priests still stood with the ark, and placed them as a memorial on the shore, Then they replaced them with twelve stones from the Land of Promise. When the waters of Jordan returned and covered those twelve stones, it was symbolic of the death of Christ. The twelve stones which were taken out of the river and placed as a monument on the other side speak of the resurrection of Christ.
Paul talks about this in Romans 6:4, where he says, “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” We are now joined to a living Christ, and that is the only way we will enjoy Canaan. Canaan is not heaven. We are going to find out that there is an eternal rest, and Jesus gives that rest, but the question today is, “Have you entered into the rest that believers are to have as they sojourn on earth?” Are you a rejoicing Christian today? You will find out that the only way to do it is to study and believe the Word of God. How many Christians today, how many church members really study the Word of God? The Book of Hebrews is going to tell us that the Word of God is quick and powerful. Now that refers to the Lord Jesus Christ, but it also refers to the written Word. Therefore, the only way you and I can stay close to Him is to stay close to the Word of God. And the only way you and I can enjoy the grapes and fruits of the land, and the beauty and enjoyment of it, is by studying God’s Word. Without a personal acquaintance with the Word of God, being a church member is like wearing a yoke, being browbeaten to give money, and having to do certain things. Everything is a duty instead of a drawing to the wonderful person of Christ.
The writer of this Hebrew epistle is speaking to those who are already saved but have not entered into the blessings of the Christian life. They doubt God, and as a result they are having a wilderness experience.
“Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.” Notice where they erred. In their minds? No, in their hearts. Now hold that thought in your mind for a moment. The generation of Israel who came out of Egypt were cited to the Hebrew believers in the apostolic days as a warning not to repeat their sin. There was a danger of their doing that. And, my friend, we have the same danger, the danger of erring in our hearts.
“So I sware in my wrath”—it was not necessary for God to take an oath, but He did.
“They shall not enter into my rest.” God said that, because of unbelief, the generation of Israelites would not enter into the land of promise. And, my friend, until you not only accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, but walk with Him by faith, committing your life to Him, you are not going to know anything about the joys of Canaan. Unfortunately, we have a great many wilderness Christians in our churches. The wilderness is a place of death; it is a place of unrest; it is a place of aimlessness; and it is a place of dissatisfaction. To those Israelites out there in the wilderness God said, “You are not going to know what rest is.” And there are many believers today who just don’t know what rest really means. They have never entered into it because they must enter by faith.
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God [Heb. 3:12].
You may ask, “Could that be true of a believer?” It certainly could. It is very important to realize that God was angry with their sin. What was their sin? It was not murder; it was not stealing; it was not lying. What was it? My friend, they didn’t believe God. That was their great sin.
But exhort one another daily, while it is called To-day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin [Heb. 3:13].
“Exhort one another”—we ought to do this, my friend, exhort and encourage one another.
“Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Although this is primarily a warning to believers not to miss their blessings because of the deceitfulness of sin, it has application to the unsaved person also. Unbelief in the heart is what is robbing folk of salvation. When someone tells me that he has an intellectual problem that hinders him from receiving Christ, I simply do not believe it.
Let me illustrate this from an experience I had when teaching a weekly Bible class in downtown Los Angeles. One evening a broker noticed the great crowd going into the church. They all had Bibles, and they looked as if they were interested in where they were going, so he was curious as to what could attract so many people to church in the middle of the week. Now this broker was a fine man in many ways. If you had met him, you would have said he was a fine man. Well, he followed the crowd into church and stayed through the service. Later he came up to me and said, “All you did was teach the Bible! Is that what brings people in?” I told him that I thought it was since that’s all we did on Thursday nights. Well, the man continued to come on Thursday nights, and then he started coming on Sundays, and soon he was under conviction.
One day he came to my study and said, “I thought I was a Christian. Now I know I am not. I am only a member of a church. But, I have a few intellectual problems with some of the things you have said. One of them is the story of Jonah. It is impossible for me to believe that a man could live inside a fish for three days and nights.”
I asked him, “Who told you that Jonah lived three days and three nights inside a fish?”
“I have heard preachers say it. Isn’t it in the Bible?”
“Not in my Bible.” So I turned to the Book of Jonah and showed him what it did say, then turned to the New Testament and read what Jesus had said about it: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40). I said to this broker, “If you are going to have trouble with the resurrection of Jonah, then you will have trouble with the resurrection of Jesus.”
“Well,” he said, “I didn’t know it was that way. That is no problem for me at all now.”
“Do you have another intellectual problem?”
“Maybe I don’t.”
I looked him straight in the eye and asked, “What sin do you have in your life that is keeping you from Christ?”
He turned red and asked, “Has somebody been telling you about me?”
“No, I just know that your intellectual problem is really a heart problem. There is something in your life that is keeping you from Christ.”
He broke down. In fact, he wept and confessed that he had been paying the rent for his secretary’s apartment and was spending a great deal of time there. I asked if his wife knew about it. He said that he had kept it a secret. Then I asked him, “Then that’s your trouble, isn’t it—you wouldn’t want to give up your secretary for Christ?”
He looked at me and said, “Yes.” Then he said, “I’ll stop the rent and I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”
Well, he not only talked to her, but he fired her. She threatened to expose him, but she didn’t. He got down on his knees that very day in my office and accepted Christ as his Savior.
My friend, I have been a preacher for a long time, and I have learned that people don’t really have intellectual problems which keep them from Christ, but they sure do have sin problems.
There is another passage of Scripture (in 2 Corinthians 3, beginning with verse 6) that deals with Moses, which I would like to call to your attention. “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament [covenant]; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” The Law condemns us, you know, but only the Holy Spirit can give us life. “But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones [this is the Ten Commandments], was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away.” Paul is not saying that the Law wasn’t glorious; it was, but that glory was to disappear. Now let’s drop down to verse 11: “For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.” He is making a contrast between the glory of the Law, which actually made Moses’ face shine, and the greater glory that we have in Christ. “Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished” (2 Cor. 3:12–13). You see, Moses didn’t put a veil over his face as a dimmer, to dim the glory (which is the general interpretation) but the glory was disappearing and he put a veil over his face so that folk wouldn’t know about its disappearance. But there is another glory now, the glory which is in Christ. “But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart” (2 Cor. 3:14–15). You see, unbelief is not an intellectual problem; it is a heart problem. Perhaps you, my friend, are one who has not come to Christ because there is sin in your life and you do not want to give it up. The minute your heart is ready to give it up, at that moment your “intellectual” problems will dissolve. He will take the veil away from your mind, and you can come to Christ and be saved. Now notice verse 16: “Nevertheless when it [the heart] shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.” The veil will be removed from your mind when your heart turns to Christ. And the next verse: “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” The Holy Spirit will move into your life and make Christ real to you, as He is doing for multitudes of folk in our day. Then when we come to Him—“… we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:17–18). If you turn to Him—oh, my friend, the future that will await you as you grow in grace and in the knowledge of Him!
Now let’s return to verse 13 where we are reminded, “But exhort one another daily, while it is called To-day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” We as believers need to beware of the deceitfulness of sin. We can actually come to the place where we feel our lives are satisfactory to God although we are leading a wilderness life. For example, a believer can be dishonest and yet say that his conscience does not condemn him! Then he should condemn his conscience, because it has become hardened through continuance in sin. I know men in the ministry who have been totally dishonest; they have been found to be liars, yet they can get down on their knees and pray the most pious prayers I’ve ever heard. And their conscience does not condemn them. Of course it doesn’t condemn them, because it has become hardened; they are permitting sin in their lives.
This writer of the Hebrew epistle goes back to the wilderness experience of Israel, applies it to the Hebrew believers of the first century, and steps on our toes also. It is the Holy Spirit who applies these truths to our own hearts.
For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end [Heb. 3:14].
“We are made partakers of Christ.” Just think of that! We are in Christ. He belongs to us.
“If we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end” is the same argument he used in verse 6. We prove that we are members of Christ’s house, that we belong to Him, “if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.”
Now in this section the emphasis is upon the rest which is ours if we trust Christ. Scripture presents a fivefold rest: (1) creation rest; (2) entrance into Canaan; (3) the rest of salvation; (4) the rest of consecration; and (5) heaven. Here the writer is talking about the rest of fully trusting God, not only for salvation but for daily living.
While it is said, To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation [Heb. 3:15].
The quotation concludes with a quotation from Psalm 95, which we have already seen in verses 7 and 8. Obviously he repeats it to remind the reader that these truths are not for yesterday only, but for us today.
If you would ask me, “Preacher, what is the great sin in your life, what is it that has held you back more than anything else?”, I would have to admit that it is unbelief. As I look back upon my years of ministry, I realize that I did not believe God as I should have. And today there is one thing I want above everything else, and that is to believe God. I want to commit my life to Him completely, turn everything over to Him.
Flying from London to Los Angeles not long ago, we had a cloud cover until we got over Greenland. Then I could see the icebergs. They may be pretty in pictures, but when I looked at them from a height of thirty-eight thousand feet, they didn’t look so pretty. They looked cold and foreboding. I saw a glacier coming down between two mountains to the water’s edge. I prayed right there. I said, “Lord, You know I trust You when I am on the ground, but I have difficulty trusting You when I am flying. I am in a place right now where I need to trust You. Help me to put all of my weight down in Your arms and rest in You.” For the first time in my life I went to sleep on an airplane! I have never done that before. I always had to stay awake so I could help the captain of the ship. But this time I went to sleep and left it all to the Captain of my salvation. When the plane landed in Los Angeles, I said, “Thank You, Lord, for the little victories. Maybe it wasn’t much for You, but it was a whole lot for me.”
My friend, this is the “rest” the writer of this Hebrew epistle is talking about, the rest of fully trusting God—not only for salvation but for daily living, for the help and the wisdom and the strength we need to live the Christian life.
The people of Israel wandered in the wilderness because they did not have faith to enter the Promised Land. As we have seen, Canaan does not represent heaven; it represents the place of spiritual blessing and victory. The apostle Paul was, I believe, speaking of his own experience when he cried, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). That is not the cry of an unsaved man, it is the cry of a saved man who is a defeated Christian, who finds no satisfaction in Christ because he is not trusting. The problem was lack of faith.
For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses [Heb. 3:16].
In the word provoke is the thought of God’s being highly displeased with them because they had heard but did not believe. They had had faith enough to come out of Egypt, but that was as far as it went.
But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? [Heb. 3:17].
Again, what was their sin that so grieved God? It was unbelief. We do not recognize—and I am sure they did not recognize—that doubting God’s Word is such a serious sin. It is one of the worst because it leads to other sins. For these Israelites in the wilderness it led to calf worship; it led to fornication, and it led to an absolute denial and rejection of God, as they turned their backs upon Him and even wanted to go back to Egypt. They decided that slavery in Egypt was better than walking by faith into the Promised Land!
Unfortunately, there are many Christians who still walk after the world. They do not know what it is to really trust Christ and walk in complete faith and trust in Him.
Now notice the question: “With whom was he grieved forty years?” He was grieved with that crowd that came out of Egypt. They had sinned, and their carcasses fell in the wilderness. Only two men out of that crowd had faith to believe God, and they were Joshua and Caleb. They were the only two who made it into the land. Even Moses did not make it into the Promised Land, although his problem was not so much a lack of faith, as it was actual disobedience when he struck the rock in anger rather than speaking to it as God had commanded.
And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? [Heb. 3:18].
“And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest”—that is, the rest of Canaan; he is not speaking of heaven. Because of their unbelief they knew nothing about walking in Canaan, enjoying its fruits, and finding satisfaction in simply trusting God. God said that they would not enter into His rest. And He took an oath on that. Believe me, God doesn’t have to take an oath, but when He does, you know He really means business.
Again, about whom is He talking? Those who did not believe. Their worship of the calf and their fornication were not the sins that kept them from God’s blessing. It was the sin of unbelief. Oh, my friend, unbelief not only robs us of blessing, but it leads to other sins as well. The other day a man said to me, “Here I am a Christian and I did this stupid thing.” Well, the thing that he did was actually dishonest. But the point is that he was deeply concerned about his dishonesty but was ignoring the root of it—he hadn’t believed God. That did not disturb him at all.
So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief [Heb. 3:19].
I suggest that you underline this verse in your Bible. This is what is robbing you and me of many blessings—unbelief.
CHAPTER 4
Theme: Christ is superior to Joshua; Christ is superior to the Levitical priesthood
In the first two verses of chapter 4 we have a continuation of the warning concerning doubting which was given in chapter 3.
Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it [Heb. 4:1].
We have come to the first “Let us” in this Epistle to the Hebrews. Constantly Paul urges the Hebrew believers to go on with the Lord; he is constantly challenging them. This is the first “Let us,” but there is a whole lot of “Let us” in this epistle.
“Let us therefore fear.” There are always those folk who are eager to find fault even with the Word of God, and they will say that this statement is a contradiction of other statements in the Bible. We are told in Romans 8:15, “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear….” And in 2 Timothy 1:7 Paul wrote, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” Well, I have an answer for those folk in a message I have called, “When It Is Not Wrong to Fear.” I hope that you are afraid of a rattlesnake. If I see one coming down the road, I don’t simply move to the righthand side, I give him the whole road! There are certain things that you and I would do well to fear—“Let us therefore fear.” I wish there were more concern among believers today about ignorance of the Word of God. In a church I pastored, a man was on our church board who was on about every board in town because he had a lot of money. He actually boasted of how many boards he was on. Then one day he boasted to me of how ignorant he was of the Word of God! The writer to the Hebrews said, “Let us therefore fear.” That man should have said to me with great concern, “Oh, my ignorance of the Word of God! I am afraid of it.” There are very few believers who are afraid of their ignorance of the Scriptures.
When Paul says, “Let us therefore fear,” he is speaking of a good fear. When I take my grandsons for a walk, I warn them not to go out into the street. I want them to be afraid to go out into the street—that is a good fear. The Word of God says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…” (Prov. 1:7). That is the kind of fear you and I are to have.
The fear he is talking about is for a purpose: “Lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” He is going to talk a great deal about rest in this chapter. The word rest occurs eight times here. There are several different kinds of rest, including Sabbath day or creation rest, and Canaan rest. Here he is speaking of Canaan rest. He is saying to believers, “Be afraid, because you do not want to miss it.” How many believers are missing that rest today? Have you entered into rest? Do you know, Christian friend, what it is to really trust Christ and rest in Him?
For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it [Heb. 4:2].
Here is the “rest” of salvation, the rest of trusting Christ as Savior. They heard the gospel but did not believe it.
CHRIST IS SUPERIOR TO JOSHUA
Moses led the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but he could not lead them into Canaan. Joshua led them into the land, but we will see here that he couldn’t give them rest. Many of them never found rest—they never really laid hold of their possessions in the land. The world, the flesh, and the Devil rob many of the blessing God has for them. You and I live in a mean, wicked world. This world is not a friend of grace; it is not the friend of believers. Many of us have not discovered that yet.
For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world [Heb. 4:3].
He is discussing here salvation rest, the rest of trusting Christ. Let me ask you a question: If you knew a man who professed to be a Christian and whom you really believed was a born-again believer, and he suddenly stopped living the Christian life and began acting like the world, if he stopped going to church, stopped giving to the Lord’s work, and stopped all his participation in Christian activity, would you think that he had lost his salvation? If you were that person, would you feel that you had lost your salvation? If you think that this would cause you to lose your salvation, may I say to you that way back in your mind and deep down in the recesses of your heart, you are not really trusting Christ. You are believing that those activities add to your salvation, but they do not. You are to completely trust Christ. Don’t misunderstand me. I believe that if you are trusting Christ you are going to be doing those things, but doing those things has nothing in the world to do with your salvation. My friend, have you really entered into rest?
For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works [Heb. 4:4].
This is the Sabbath. God rested on the seventh day, and that was the Sabbath day. However, the Sabbath today is not a day you keep or observe. Have you entered into the real Sabbath today? Do you know what it is to trust Christ and Christ alone for your salvation? Are you trusting anything else? Is He it? Have you entered into rest?
I had a good friend who was a doctor and who observed Saturday as the Sabbath. We used to play tennis together, and we got pretty well acquainted with one another. One day after we had played three sets of tennis, we sat down on the bench, and we began to have what you would call a religious argument. He looked at me and said, “McGee, do you keep the Sabbath day?”
“Yes, I keep the Sabbath.”
He looked at me real hard and said, “What day?”
I said to him, “Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then I start all over again on Saturday.”
He said to me, “What in the world do you mean?”
“Well, the way I understand the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Sabbath day is now this day of grace in which we live, and Christ, after He died on the cross and came back to life, went back to the right hand of the Father and sat down. He sat down, not because He was tired, but because He had finished your redemption and mine. So now He tells me, ‘You rest in Me.’ I have a Sabbath day everyday—I rest in Christ.”
That doctor friend looked at me in amazement. “Well,” he said, “that’s better than having just one day, isn’t it?”
I said, “It sure is. Seven days a week is a sabbath of resting in Christ.”
And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.
Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief [Heb. 4:5–6].
It is unbelief that robs you of the rest of salvation, that robs you of the rest of satisfaction and blessing which God can give to you. Oh, the wonderful rest that He wants to give to us!
Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To-day, after so long a time; as it is said, To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts [Heb. 4:7].
He is not saying tomorrow, but today. Today is the day for you and me. Today, right now, wherever you are, look at your watch or clock. What time is it? Well, this is the time of salvation. Now, right now you can trust Christ to save you. “To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”
For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day [Heb. 4:8].
Joshua is the Old Testament or Hebrew word for “savior” Jesus is the Greek or New Testament word, meaning “savior.” In the verse before us—Joshua: “For if Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.” When Joshua was old and stricken in years, there was yet very much land to conquer. The people of Israel had not entered into all the blessing God had in store for them. Joshua wasn’t able to secure it for them. But, my friend, if you trust Christ, Christ can let you enter into the Canaan of the present day, in which there will be fruit and blessing and joy in your life. Oh, how we need this today! What robs us of it? Unbelief.
There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God [Heb. 4:9].
Here the writer is projecting into the future when all the people of God are going to find a heavenly rest. Heaven will be a place of deep satisfaction, of real joy, and real blessing. “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.”
For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his [Heb. 4:10].
We shouldn’t get the impression that when God rested on the seventh day He sat down and said, “My, I’m tired. I’ve been working for six days, eight hours a day, from sunup to sundown, and I’m weary! I’ll pull up the rocking chair and rest.” That is not the thought behind “rest” at all. The thought here is the rest of completeness. Creation is finished. God has never been in the business of creating since then. There were just so many atoms which He needed for His universe, and He just made them all at once. He hasn’t made any more since then. Now there have been quite a few changes taking place in the universe, but it is just those original little atoms rearranging themselves.
You and I live in a universe where creation is over with—except in the new creation. That new creation began yonder at Calvary and the Day of Pentecost. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). Sons of God are the only things God is creating today—through faith in Christ. And there is a rest that He has promised to them. God has promised a heavenly rest, but, my friend, He wants us to enjoy ourselves even now. As someone has said, “All the way to heaven is heaven.” We ought to enjoy this life. That is what the writer is talking about here: God rested, He ceased from His labors, and He is finished. Therefore, you do not have to lift your little finger to do something toward your salvation. Isn’t it really a matter of conceit on our part to think that you and I as sinners could do anything that would cause God to say, “Oh my, what a nice little fellow you are! I’m so happy to have you in heaven because you are going to add a great deal to it.”? Well, my friend, that is not the picture at all. He did it all for us. Even our righteousness is filthy rags in His sight. He cannot accept our righteousness, because we really do not have any. “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10). Therefore He offers a finished salvation to us, and when we trust Christ we become new creations in Him.
Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief [Heb. 4:11].
I think the supreme satisfaction that can come to a child of God is that he is in the will of God, doing the work of God, and trusting and just resting in Him. That is the glorious place to which God wants you and me to come. Mary came to that place. She sat at Jesus’ feet while Martha was back yonder in the kitchen with those pots and pans. Martha wanted to serve Christ, but she just didn’t know what real rest was. She probably decided she was going to bake something and reached for a pan. It was not big enough and she was going to put it back and get a bigger one, but she dropped it on the floor. What a time she had with those pots and pans! She was really worn to a frazzle and finally lost her temper. But Mary was just sitting at Jesus feet, doing nothing—she had already done her work. We need to learn to find our satisfaction sitting at Jesus’ feet.
“Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest.” Someone will say, “Do I have to labor to enter into rest?” Yes, my friend. This is sort of like the Irishman who said he intended to have peace in his home even if he had to fight for it. Fighting for peace? Yes! I wish America had learned that lesson. May I say to you, you must win a war before you can have peace. You have to have a victory before you can have peace. He says here, “Let us labor in order to rest.” After all, when you have worked at something and come to the end of the day and sit down, isn’t there a satisfaction in what you have done? Oh, today, we need to lay hold of God! To lay hold of God in prayer, and in faith, and to be used of Him. Oh, my Christian friend, let us labor toward that end.
“Lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.” The only thing in the world that can rob you of that rest is unbelief. Ever since I retired from the pastorate my prayer has been, “Oh, God, help me to trust You.” I was a pastor for forty years, and very frankly, I look back and have to say that I wish I had trusted Him more. Many times I was so fearful and unbelieving. So today I want to simply lean back and trust Him, How wonderful He is! He is worthy of our trust.
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart [Heb. 4:12].
“For”—Paul used the words wherefore, therefore, and for as cement to hold together his argument. Someone has said, “Regardless of what you want to say about Paul, one thing you have to say is that Paul is logical.” Paul was a marvelous logician, and I believe he wrote this epistle. For is a little word, but it is a big word. Someone has said, “God swings big doors on little hinges.” Here is one of those little hinges, but there is a big door hanging on it.
“The word of God.” There are some expositors who consider the “word” here not to be the written Word, but the living Word who is the Lord Jesus Christ. However, in Scripture the written Word is called the living Word. I believe the reference here is primarily to the written Word of God. As the written Word reveals Christ—it is a frame that reveals the living Christ—the reference here could be to both the written and living Word.
Quick is “living.” The Word of God is living.
“Powerful”—the Greek word is energes, meaning “energizing.” The Word of God is living, and it energizes.
“Sharper than any two-edged sword.” I had a professor in seminary who said to a group of us young preachers: “Remember when you preach the Word of God that it is quick and sharp, but it is a two-edged sword. It will cut toward the congregation, but the other side is going to cut toward you. Therefore, don’t preach anything that you are not preaching to yourself.” I have found many times in my ministry that I am preaching to myself. The sermon might not have been for anybody else, but it was for me.
I have a friend who likes to kid me about my recording of tapes for our radio Bible study broadcasts. He says, “There you are, sitting in your study, just talking to yourself!” Very candidly, that is the way it works out many times as I sit there teaching the Bible. I’m speaking to myself. It may not apply to anyone in the radio audience, but it applies to me. The Word of God is two-edged. It will cut toward the other fellow, but it will also cut toward you and me. The Word of God is a two-edged sword, and it will penetrate.
Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (1 Thess. 2:13). The Thessalonians received the Word not just as an ordinary word, but they received it as the very Word of God. Paul said that when he gave out the Word of God “… my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Cor. 2:4). We receive many letters from those who listen to our radio Bible study broadcasts, from folk who through the Word have been brought to a saving knowledge of Christ, brought to a place where they enjoy their Christian faith, and brought to a place where they enjoy prayer. That is the purpose of the Word of God—it will have an effect upon you and your life.
It has been said, “The Word of God will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Word of God.” A great many believers do not spend enough time in the Word of God. A great many preachers do not spend enough time in the Word of God. The greatest discipline a preacher can have is to go through the Bible book by book with his congregation. That is a discipline which even if it does not help the congregation, it will surely help the preacher. In every church which I have served as a pastor, I have gone through the Bible with the congregation. It surely helped me—it was good for me. The Word of God is sharp; it is living and powerful and sharp.
“Piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.” There are many people who try to make a distinction between soul and spirit, devising some ingenious psychological division between the two. Do you know that only the Word of God can divide the soul and spirit? You and I cannot do that. When I talk about the soulish part of man and how God has given us the Holy Spirit, I suddenly find that I am no longer making a distinction between the soul and spirit—only the Word of God can do that. There are times in the Scriptures when “soul” and “spirit” are used synonymously. There are other passages where it is clear that the soul and spirit are separate and are not the same thing. Only the Word of God can divide soul and spirit.
“Of the joints and marrow.” The Word can get right down even in this flesh of ours and make a distinction (see Ps. 32:3).
“A discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The Greek word for “discerner” actually means “critic.” We have today many critics of the Word of God. However, the Word of God is the critic. It criticizes you. It criticizes me. No man is in a position to sit in judgment on the Word of God. There are many reasons for that, and one reason is that there is no other book like it. The Word of God was written over a period of fifteen hundred years, by about forty-five different authors, some of whom had never heard of the others. Yet they are all in agreement. They all present the same great story. They all present a glorious salvation. May I say to you, no man is in a position to sit in judgment on such a remarkable book.
I had an opportunity one time to listen to a very fine, brilliant, Shakespearean scholar. Many scholars are not humble, but this man was a very humble man. When he had finished his lecture he said, “Today I have attempted to give to you a critique of Shakespeare, but now I would like to say to you that I am in no position to sit in judgment on Shakespeare.” It took a humble man to say that. Nor can any man sit in judgment on the Bible, my friend. You really don’t know enough to sit in judgment on this Book. This Book surely sits in judgment on us. It is sin that keeps men from Christ today. It is not intellectual problems of the head, but it is problems in the heart which keep men from God.
“A discerner [critic] of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” You see, the Bible does not deal with acts primarily. What the hand does is because of what the heart thought. The heart had the action of the hand in hand before the hand got hold of it. Therefore the Word of God goes down and deals with the heart. The Lord Jesus said, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matt. 15:19). My, that’s a filthy list, but that is what is in your heart and mine. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). No man can, but God does. The Word of God gets down and deals with the nitty-gritty of our hearts. It gets down and meets us right where the rubber meets the road, right down where you and I live and move and have our being.
Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do [Heb. 4:13].
You cannot conceal anything from God. I labored under the delusion as a young Christian that I would not let God in on everything in my life, even my plans. I prayed that He would give me certain things and do certain things for me, but I never let Him know my motives. I thought the prayer would sound better that way. To tell the truth, I didn’t need to let Him know my motive because He knew it all the time. He is the one who knows the thoughts of the heart, and everything is open to Him. My friend, your life is an open book to Him. People ask me, “Do you think we ought to confess everything to Him?” Well, why not? He already knows—you might just as well tell Him all about it.
CHRIST IS SUPERIOR TO THE LEVITICAL PRIESTHOOD
Beginning with verse 14 of this chapter through verse 28 of chapter 7, the writer of this epistle is going to show that Christ is superior to the Levitical priesthood. This was very important for Hebrew believers to see because they were accustomed to approaching God through their high priest of the Levitical order, the priests who served first in the tabernacle and then in the temple. It was through them that they made their commitment to God and brought their sacrifices.
OUR GREAT HIGH PRIEST
The Lord Jesus Christ himself is our Great High Priest. Paul was so concerned and enthusiastic about the priesthood of Christ that way back in chapter 3 he said, “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus” (Heb. 3:1). He wanted to get the folk who were reading the epistle to immediately consider our High Priest. This is going to be the subject of much of the rest of the epistle, and, of course, there will be application of this great truth also.
Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession [Heb. 4:14].
Christ is our High Priest. The pagan notion of priesthood colors our thinking in reference to a priest. A pagan priest actually barred the approach to God, claiming possession of some mystical power essential to bringing an individual to God. A person had to go through this priest who claimed to have this particular access. That type of thing denies the finished work of Christ and the priesthood of all believers. The priesthood of all believers was one of the great truths which John Calvin emphasized. All of us need a priest—we have a lack; we need help, and we all have our hang-ups. Job’s heart-cry was, “Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both” (Job 9:33). Job longed for a mediator or priest who would stand between him and God, who would put one hand in Job’s hand and his other hand in God’s hand, and thus bring them together. Christ is that mediator, that priest, through whom every believer has personal access to God.
“We have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens.” Let me say right away that the Lord Jesus Christ was not a priest while here on the earth. The only mention in Scripture of His ever making any kind of sacrifice (He never needed to make a sacrifice for Himself, of course) was the time He told Simon Peter to catch a fish and take the gold piece out of its mouth that He might pay a necessary temple tax from which the priests were exempt. He did that, I think, to make it very clear that He was not a priest here on earth. To be a priest you had to be born in the line of Aaron, of the tribe of Levi. The Lord Jesus was a member of the tribe of Judah. He was not in the priestly line. He was in the kingly line. When He was here on earth He came as a prophet speaking for God. He went back to heaven a priest to represent us to God. He became a priest when He ascended into heaven. He died down here to save us, and He lives up there to keep us saved. It is true that when He was here He offered Himself upon the cross, and that is the function of a priest, but to be a priest to represent you and me He had to wait until He returned to heaven.
Christ occupies a threefold office: (1) He was a prophet when He came over nineteen hundred years ago—that is the past; (2) He is a priest today—that is for the present; and (3) He is coming someday to rule as a king—that is for the future. He occupies all three of these offices, and He is the great subject of this Epistle to the Hebrews.
“Let us hold fast our profession”—“profession” should be confession. Paul says, “Let us,” to challenge us, to call us to do it, actually, to command us to do it. Let us hold fast our confession.
Notice that he does not say, “Let us hold fast our salvation.” He is not talking about our salvation, but about our testimony, our witness down here. He is talking about our living for Christ. Christ died down here to save us, and He lives up yonder to keep us saved and to enable us to give a good witness. Some people say, “I can’t live the Christian life.” Well, I have news for you. It is true that you cannot live the Christian life, and God never asked you to live the Christian life. I have been thankful that He has not asked that of me, because I have tried it and it didn’t work. We cannot do it in our own strength, but He asks that He might live it through us. He lives up yonder in order that you and I might hold fast to our confession, our testimony down here.
When we come to chapter 11 we will find a regular roll call of the heroes of the faith which shows what faith has done in the lives of men and women in all ages. All of those listed there had a good witness, a good report. Theirs was a good witness through faith—they lived by faith.
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin [Heb. 4:15].
You will notice in your Bible that the word yet is in italics, meaning that it has been added by the translators. Christ was tempted without sin—tested without sin. In the testing of Jesus in the wilderness, He could not have fallen because He is the God-man. However, the pressure of testing was actually greater upon Him than it would be upon us. He could say, “… the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30). Satan finds something in me and in you also, but he could find nothing in the Lord Jesus. Let me illustrate this for you: A boat standing in water can only tolerate so much pressure. If the pressure becomes too great, there will be a rip in the hull of the boat and water will come in, and thus the pressure is removed. That is the way you and I are—we give in to the pressure, we yield, and then the pressure is gone. Jesus never did yield, and therefore there was a building up of pressure that you and I never experience. In the same way, the cars of a freight train all have a weight limit which they can carry. If that limit is exceeded, you will have a swaybacked car, one that is bowed down in the middle. It gives in—it can only carry so heavy a load. That is true of all of us. We can carry just so much and not any more. May I say to you, the weight of temptation Jesus Christ could carry was infinite—He was tested without sin. But He was tested, and for that reason He knows how we feel. We have a High Priest who understands us.
I have always felt that for the nation Israel the death of Aaron was in one sense of greater significance than the death of Moses. Aaron was their great high priest. Many Israelites had been brought up with Aaron, had played with him as a boy, and had gone through the wilderness with him. They could go to Aaron and say, “Look, Aaron, I did this, and I should not have done it. I have brought my sacrifice.” And Aaron could sympathize with them. He knew exactly how they felt. But when Aaron died I imagine they wondered whether that new priest, the son of Aaron, would understand. Would he be able to sympathize and to help? We have a Great High Priest who is always available, and He does understand. He does not understand us theoretically, but down here He was tested, and He was “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” He knew what it was to hunger. He knew what it was to be touched with sorrow—Jesus wept! He was “touched with the feeling of our infirmities … yet without sin.”
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need [Heb. 4:16].
“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace.” I must confess that I have never really liked our translation of “boldly,” but neither do I know how to change it. The word boldly has the thought of being brazen—there is sort of a flippancy suggested by it—or of being cocksure. That is really not the idea. It is a very interesting word in the Greek—parrhesia. It denotes the freedom of speech which the Athenians prized so highly. They were perhaps the first to feel that the average citizen should have freedom to speak.
“Let us therefore come [with great freedom] unto the throne of grace.” We can speak freely to the Lord Jesus Christ. I can tell Him things that I cannot tell you. He understands me. He knows my weaknesses, and I might just as well tell Him. I have learned to be very frank with Him. I have not attempted to become buddy-buddy with Him—I despise that approach. He is God, and I come to Him in worship and with reverence. But I am free to speak, because He is also a man. He is God, but He is a man, and I can come to Him with great freedom. I can tell Him what is on my heart. I can open my heart to Him. I suspect, therefore, that all these very pious and flowery prayers we make are not impressive to Him—especially when we are attempting to cover up what is in our hearts and lives. I wonder if the Lord doesn’t tune us out when we do not come to Him with freedom and open our hearts to Him. That is one of the reasons our prayer meetings are not more effective. We come to Him rather restrained, without being open and sincere.
“Unto the throne of grace.” God’s throne is a throne of grace. Formerly a throne of judgment, it is now a mercy seat, a throne of grace.
“That we may obtain mercy.” We need a lot of mercy. Mercy is something that is in one sense negative—it speaks of the past. We are redeemed by the mercy of God. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us …” (Titus 3:5). He has been merciful to me.
“And find grace to help in time of need.” Help is a very positive thing—it speaks of the future. We may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. David wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want (Ps. 23:1). I have noticed that one of the newer translations reads, “The Lord is my shepherd; I have not wanted.” How ridiculous! Of course, he had not wanted in the past, but the beauty of it is that David could say, “I shall not want.” Why? Because the Lord is my Shepherd. I have an High Priest up yonder, and I can go to Him as my Shepherd.
By the way, have you been to Him yet today? What did you tell Him? Did you tell Him that you love Him? Did you confess your sins to Him? Well, why don’t you? He already knows it, but why don’t you tell Him? Don’t put up a front to Him. He already knows that you can come to Him only on His merit. Go to Him with freedom and talk to Him—there is mercy and grace to help in time of need.
CHAPTER 5
Theme: Definition of a priest
This chapter continues the great theme of Christ as our High Priest, showing that He is superior to the Levitical priesthood, with which the Hebrews were so familiar.
In the first ten verses we have the definition of a priest. Christ, as we have already said, has the threefold office of prophet, priest, and king. He is God’s final word to man. In Christ God has said all He intends to say. As a prophet, He spoke over nineteen hundred years ago. Now He is the Word of God. He is the priest for the now generation. Some day in the future He is going to come as king. Right now He is our Great High Priest. We have access to Him. He is a Great High Priest, just as Aaron was a great high priest.
And every believer is a priest, just as all the tribe of Levi were priests. We can offer sacrifices to God as priests. Praise is a sacrifice that we can offer. Have you praised Him today? We can also offer our substance, the fruit of our hands, the fruit of our minds, or our time. Believers can make all of these things an offering to Him. And prayer is the work of a priest. To recognize our position and privilege eliminates all of the mechanics we have today. It puts aside all of the methods that we use. We see two extreme approaches to God through worship today. One is a very emotional approach, and the other is a very ritualistic approach. Both of them are soulish and not spiritual worship at all. We simply need to come to Him and get rid of all the mechanics and the methods.
Someone sent me a story about the astronaut who was in his capsule just ready to close the door in preparation for the launching, when a reporter asked him a question. Reporters, I have observed, sometimes ask some rather asinine questions. This reporter asked, “How do you feel when you are an astronaut ready to take off?” The astronaut replied, “How would you feel if you were sitting on top of fifty thousand parts, each supplied by the lowest bidder?” That is the way many people worship today. They are ritualistic or they are emotional; they go by their feelings rather than by the Word of God.
The concluding verse of chapter 4 urges us to come in freedom to the throne of grace. We need mercy and we need help. He is in the position to supply these because He is our Great High Priest.
DEFINITION OF A PRIEST
For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins [Heb. 5:1].
This verse gives us the definition of a priest. He must be taken from among men, which means he must be a man. He must be a representative, you see. He represents man, but he represents man to God. He is ordained for man in things pertaining to God. Because he goes before God, he must be acceptable to God. That is the suggestion in “is ordained for men in things … to God.” In verse 4 we are told specifically that no man takes this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. He must be ordained of God. Therefore a priest is: (1) taken from among men; (2) ordained for men (on behalf of men); and (3) goes to God for men.
We can now draw a distinction between a priest and a prophet. A priest goes from man to God; he represents man before God. A prophet comes from God to man with a message from God. Therefore the Old Testament priest did not tell men what God had to say—that was the ministry of the prophet. The priest’s ministry was to represent man before God. Now in the present age our Lord Jesus Christ is the only priest. It is He who represents us before God.
The priesthood functions, not for lost sinners, but for saved sinners. You will recall that John said, “My little children [my little born ones], these things write I unto you, that ye sin not …” (1 John 2:1). Well, I’m sorry, John, but you are talking to a boy who has sinned. Even as a child of God I have sinned. I am thankful that he covered me when he added, “And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Christ represents me up there. When my enemy, Satan, accuses me before the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ represents me. He is my High Priest. That is one reason why I would never be satisfied just to have a priest on earth. I want to make this very clear, and I am not attempting to be critical. If someone is going to represent me before God, I want to be sure that he is acceptable to God. Is he one who has accreditation? Has he passed his bar examination so he can represent me in heaven? We can pray for one another, but we cannot represent one another in heaven. But because I need somebody to represent me, I am very happy that I have my Great High Priest who represents me before the Father.
“That he may offer both gifts and sacrifices.” Notice that the priest may offer both gifts and sacrifices. The writer is going to make it abundantly clear that He had something to offer: He offered Himself. Compared to the precious blood of Christ which has redeemed us, silver and gold would be like lead or dirt.
“That he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins”—notice that it is sins, not sin; it is plural. It speaks of the life of the believer. For example, when you lost your temper, did you go to God and confess that sin? You have a representative who is there to make intercession for you. He represents you before God.
Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity [Heb. 5:2].
We have a Great High Priest who could say, when He came to the end of His ministry on earth, “Which of you convinceth [convicts] me of sin? …” (John 8:46). The Lord’s disciples had been with Him for three years, and if there had been anything wrong, they would have known. He was impeccable; He did not commit any sin. Yet because He lived on this earth as a man, He understands us.
He “can have compassion on the ignorant.” What does that mean? “Compassion on the ignorant” refers to sins of ignorance. Leviticus 4:1–2 deals with these sins. If you don’t think you have committed a sin in the past few days, and you feel like you have really been living in the heights, I have news for you. You commit sins that you are not even aware of, and He, our Great High Priest, takes care of that for us. He can have compassion on the ignorant. You see, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12, italics mine). “All we like sheep have gone astray …” (Isa. 53:6). God compares us to sheep, because all sheep go astray.
“He himself also is compassed with infirmity.” Aaron was touched with infirmity or weakness, but Christ was touched with a feeling of our infirmity or weakness. He knows how we feel about things. He is the perfect mediator, you see. When we fall, He doesn’t get down in the dirt with us; He is there to lift us out of it.
The trouble with Aaron was that he might condone the sins that he also had committed. Or he might condemn the sins that he had not committed himself. That would always be a danger. But Christ is able to show mercy, and He neither condones nor condemns. When we come to Him to make confession of our sins, He doesn’t give us a little lecture about doing better next time. He just extends mercy to us. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just [as our High Priest] to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). It is wonderful to have a High Priest like He is!
Now we see a contrast between Aaron and Christ because there is no counterpart of this requirement of the Aaronic priesthood in our Lord Jesus Christ.
And by reason hereof he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins [Heb. 5:3].
You will recall that on the great Day of Atonement Aaron first brought a sacrifice and took the blood into the Holy of Holies for his own sins. He had to have his own sin question settled first before he could represent the people. There is no counterpart of this in Christ. Christ did not have to make an offering for Himself. He made an offering for you and me.
And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron [Heb. 5:4].
As we saw earlier, Christ was a priest because He was acceptable to God.
So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee [Heb. 5:5].
I want to make it abundantly clear that the “begotten” here has nothing to do with the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. It has everything to do with the garden near Calvary where He was buried after His crucifixion because that is where His resurrection took place. He was begotten from the dead. His priesthood began when he went back to heaven, and that speaks of His resurrection.
As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec [Heb. 5:6].
The order of Aaron is not adequate to set before us the priesthood of Christ. So our Lord is not an High Priest in the order of Aaron, although Aaron is the type, and Christ the antitype. Christ is the Son, and Aaron is just a servant.
“Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.” Who is Melchisedec (spelled Melchizedek in the Old Testament)? The only historical record that we have of him is in Genesis 14 where he is described as a “priest of the most high God.” He went out to congratulate Abraham on his victory over Chedorlaomer and his allies in which Abraham recovered all of the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, including his nephew Lot, and also brought back all the booty. The king of Sodom met Abraham and offered him all of the booty. Abraham was under some temptation, but he turned down the offer. In Genesis 14:18 we read, “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.” The account continues in Genesis 14:19–20, “And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.” We are told that Melchizedek was the king of Salem (Salem means “peace”) and he was also king of righteousness. He walks out onto the pages of Scripture out of nowhere— we have no inkling where he came from—and he walks off the page of Scripture the same way. There is no other historical mention of him.
In Psalm 110 we see the prophecy of Melchizedek—that there is coming one who is to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews now gives us the interpretation of Melchizedek.
Let me say at this point that there are some very fine expositors who think that Melchizedek is the preincarnate Christ. Well, I cannot accept that interpretation because Melchizedek is a type, of the Lord Jesus. Obviously, the antitype cannot be the type—or you wouldn’t have a type. Therefore, I interpret Melchizedek as a human being who was the literal king of Salem. Two excellent expositors, G. Campbell Morgan and Lewis Sperry Chafer, hold that he was the preincarnate Christ; so you will be in good company if you take that position.
However, I believe Melchizedek was a type given to us by Moses and guarded by God. He just walks out of nowhere and walks back into nowhere. He had no beginning or ending of days. The Lord Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end. He is Alpha and Omega (see Rev. 1:8). He started it all, and He will end it all. He is the AMEN. He is the One who is the eternal God and as such has no beginning or ending. The writer is telling us that we have a priest like that—He is after the order of Melchizedek. We will see an interpretation of this in chapter 7.
This brings us to a verse that I feel totally inadequate to deal with. I feel that I am just standing on the fringe in my understanding of it.
Speaking of the Lord Jesus—
Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared [Heb. 5:7].
Scripture tells us that on three occasions Jesus wept. I am of the opinion there were other occasions, but the record gives us only three. One was at the tomb of Lazarus. At that time, although He knew He would restore Lazarus to life, His heart went out in sympathy to the two sisters who were so deeply grieved. Because He wept for them, I know how He feels when you and I stand at the graveside of a loved one.
At another time He wept over the city of Jerusalem. Since He wept over Jerusalem at that time, I am sure He has wept many times over the cities in which you and I live. They certainly provide Him with reasons for weeping!
Then the third time He wept was in the Garden of Gethsemane. Why did He weep there? A cynic and unbeliever made the statement that he wished he had been present so he could have killed the Lord Jesus in some way other than by crucifixion. In saying this, it is evident that he perceived something that some believers do not firmly grasp. He would have liked to have kept Jesus from the Cross, which is exactly what the Devil wanted to do. I believe that Satan attempted to slay the Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. When He prayed in the garden, “Let this cup pass from me” (see Luke 22:42), the “cup” was death. He did not want to die in the Garden of Gethsemane.
“And was heard in that he feared.” If our Lord Jesus prayed in the garden to let the cup pass because He didn’t want to die on the cross, then He wasn’t heard—because He did die on the cross. My friend, He was heard; He did not die in the Garden of Gethsemane.
You see, prophecy had made it abundantly clear that He was to die on a cross. We do not have a better picture of crucifixion than in Psalm 22. The cross was an altar on which the Son of God shed His blood, paying the penalty for your sin and my sin. “The life of the flesh is in the blood,” God said, “and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls …” (Lev. 17:11). In the Old Testament the blood of animal sacrifices only covered over the sin, but the blood of Christ was given “to make atonement for your souls.” Christ shed His blood on the cross, which was an altar. He told Nicodemus, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14). He did not want to die in the garden. That, I think, was His prayer, His human prayer, as He wept and sweat great drops of blood. Our Lord was near death as He approached the cross, and He prayed to be delivered from death so that He could reach the cross. And we are told that He “was heard in that he feared.”
“In that he feared”—fear is not something that is always wrong, as we have seen elsewhere in this epistle. It would be abnormal not to fear some things. And I think we need a little more fear in our churches; we need the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. The Lord Jesus feared.
Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him [Heb. 5:8–9].
“And being made perfect”—that is, made complete, made full.
“Eternal salvation”—the only kind of salvation He offers is eternal. If you can lose it tomorrow, then, my friend, it is not eternal. It is some other kind of salvation. But He offers only eternal salvation.
“Unto all them that obey him.” What is obedience? A crowd of people asked Jesus, “… What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?” (John 6:28) Jesus replied, “… This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:29). Do you want to obey God? Then trust Christ. That is what He is saying.
But there is something here that I do not understand—I am frank to admit it. “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.” Why did the Son of God need to learn obedience by suffering? And why did He need to be made perfect when He already was perfect? I stand here in the presence of a mystery, a mystery that I cannot fathom. I know only that God got something out of the death of Christ that has made heaven more wonderful and has added something to heaven where everything is perfection and that the Son of God has learned something!
Now I am well acquainted with the explanations that men give, but none of them satisfy me. I just recognize that it is a great mystery. Christ took upon Himself our humanity, and in that humanity He obeyed God. He said, “I have come to do my Father’s will” (see John 6:39). Paul said of Him, “… [He] took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:7–8, italics mine). My friend, I want you to know that when I die (if the Lord tarries) I won’t do it obediently. I don’t want to die. I think it is morbid when folk always talk about wanting to die. I want to live on earth as long as I can. When I had cancer, many people wrote to me and said, “We are praying for you. We are asking that the Lord spare your life.” I am thankful because the Lord heard those prayers. But one dear lady in Southern California wrote to me and said, “I am not praying that the Lord will leave you here. I know you are ready to go, so I am praying that He will take you home.” I wrote back to her in a hurry and said, “Listen, you let the Lord alone in this matter. It is just between Him and me. I don’t want you to tell the Lord when you think He ought to take me home. I want to stay here, and I’ll appreciate it if you don’t pray that prayer any more. At least, change it. Tell the Lord that you made a mistake, and that McGee wants to stay.”
When the writer to the Hebrews says that Christ learned obedience by the things which he suffered, I don’t understand it. I simply recognize that I am in the presence of a mystery—that even my Lord learned something!
Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec [Heb. 5:10].
Called means “saluted” and refers to Melchizedek.
Now the writer will discuss this matter of the priesthood of Christ, that Melchizedek was given to us in the Old Testament as a type of the high priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
THE PERIL OF DULL HEARING
The writer puts up the third danger signal; it is like a red light flashing. He is getting ready to bring us out on the highway, but before he does, we’ve got to look both ways. There is the danger of being dull of hearing. He devotes the remainder of the chapter to this, because in the next chapter (after still another danger signal) he will deal with the great subject of Christ our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.
Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing [Heb. 5:11].
“Of whom we have many things to say.” The writer says, “I still have a lot of things to say.”
“And hard to be uttered.” Why is it hard to be uttered?
“Seeing ye are dull of hearing.” The writer, who I think was Paul, could state it all right, but they couldn’t grasp it.
Have you ever said to your husband or wife after a Bible-teaching sermon, “I don’t think the pastor was quite up to it today. I didn’t feel his message was equal to what he is capable of giving.”? Did you ever stop to think that the problem that day may have been with you? Are you dull of hearing? The problem may not be in the speaking, but the problem may be in the hearing.
Ear trouble, today, is the big problem of believers. Christ as a priest after the order of Melchizedek is a difficult subject, and the writer is going to deal with it forthrightly. To understand the subject requires sharp spiritual perception. It requires folk to be spiritually alert and to have a knowledge of the Word of God and to be close to it. The Hebrew believers who are being addressed here had a low SQ, not an IQ, but an SQ—spiritual quotient. It was hard to teach them because it was difficult to make them understand. They were babies, as many of the saints are today, and they want baby talk even from the preacher. They don’t want to hear anything that is difficult to understand. This is the reason some preachers are getting by with murder in the pulpit—they murder the Word of God. They absolutely kill it and substitute something from their own viewpoint, and the congregations like that kind of baby talk.
For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat [Heb. 5:12].
“Ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God.” Some of them want a D.D. degree, but they don’t even know their ABCs. “First principles” is from the Greek word stoicheion (from which we get our English word atom, by the way), meaning “primary elements”—the ABCs of the Christian life. They ought to be teachers and mature saints, but instead they are still little babies needing someone to burp them.
For example, one Sunday after the morning service a church member stopped to talk to me while I was shaking hands with folk who were leaving. He said, “Dr. McGee, do you have anything against me?” I said, “No. Why do you say that?” “Well, you passed me yesterday on the street, and you didn’t speak to me.” That is baby talk. I didn’t even see that person, and it is perfect nonsense to talk like that. Someone else said, “Why didn’t the soloist sing this morning? We wanted to hear the soloist sing.” Oh, my gracious, what little babies, wanting their rattles, and wanting the bottle with the nipple on it!
To these Hebrew believers the writer says, “You are such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. You are not of age; you are not full grown; you haven’t reached maturation.” Now a baby cannot eat meat, but an adult can enjoy milk. I will admit that a lot of saints today sit and listen to baby talk from the pulpit. It is tragic indeed that they have to endure this, but they do.
For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe [Heb. 5:13].
He doesn’t know the Word of God.
I don’t want to step on your toes, my friend, but I’d love to be helpful to you. You cannot grow apart from the Word of God. I don’t care how active you are in the church. You may be an officer. You may be on every committee in the church. You may be a leading deacon or elder. I don’t care who you are, or what you are; if you are not studying the Word of God, and if you don’t know how to handle it, you are a little baby. It is tragic to occupy a church office when you are just a little baby. You ought to come on and grow up. It is tragic that there are people who have been members of the church and have been saved for years, and they are still going around saying, “Goo, goo, goo.” They have nothing to contribute but little baby talk. All they want is to be burped periodically.
But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil [Heb. 5:14].
In 1 Corinthians 3:1–2, Paul says, “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.” In 1 Peter 2:1–2, Peter says, “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.”
CHAPTER 6
Theme: Danger signal: peril of departing
This chapter, by all odds, contains the most difficult passage in the Bible for an interpreter to handle, regardless of his theological position. Dr. R. W. Dale, one of the great minds in the earlier field of conservative scholarship, wrote:
I know how this passage has made the heart of many a good man tremble. It rises up in the New Testament with a gloomy grandeur, stern, portentous, awful, sublime as Mount Sinai when the Lord descended upon it in fire, and threatening storm clouds were around Him, and thunderings and lightnings and unearthly voices told that He was there.
Every reverent person has come to this section with awe and wonder. And every sincere expositor has come to this passage with a sense of inadequacy, and certainly that is the way I approach it.
DANGER SIGNAL: PERIL OF DEPARTING
In the previous chapter the danger signal was the peril of dull hearing. Now as the Hebrew Christians can already see persecution coming, there is a danger of their turning from their confession of Christ and going back to Judaism. He mentions the baby things of Judaism which had to do with ritual. He encourages them to grow up, to go on to maturity.
Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God [Heb. 6:1].
“Leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ” is literally “leaving the word of the beginning concerning Christ.” For a builder it means to leave the foundation and go up with the scaffolding, or for a child in school to go on from his ABCs to work on his B.A. or Ph.D. It is preparing believers for a trip up to the throne of God.
“Let us go on” is horizontal, not perpendicular.
“Unto perfection” is maturity, full age.
There are six foundational facts in the Old Testament which prefigure Christ in ritual, symbol, and ceremony: (1) repentance from dead works; (2) faith toward God; (3) doctrine of baptisms; (4) laying on of hands; (5) resurrection of the dead; and (6) eternal judgment.
“Repentance from dead works.” The works were the works of the Mosaic Law. They were continually trying to keep the Law, then breaking it, then repenting. That is baby stuff, the writer tells them.
“And of faith toward God.” The Old Testament taught faith toward God; so just to say you believe in God doesn’t mean you have come very far. The Old Testament ritual presented a faith in God by approaching Him through the temple sacrifices, not through Christ as High Priest.
Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment [Heb. 6:2].
“Doctrine of baptisms [washings]” has nothing to do with New Testament baptism. They refer to the washings of the Old Testament ritual, and there were many of them. The Hebrew believers were wanting to return to these things which were only shadows; they were the negatives from which the spiritual pictures were developed. They prefigured Christ, the reality.
“Laying on of hands.” This was also an Old Testament ritual. When a man brought an animal offering, he laid his hands on its head to signify his identification with it. The animal was taking his place on the altar of sacrifice.
“Resurrection of the dead” was taught in the Old Testament, but now they needed to come up to the resurrection of Christ and to the living Christ.
“Eternal judgment” was taught in the Old Testament.
And this will we do, if God permit [Heb. 6:3].
This brings us to that passage which has caused as many difficulties as any in the Scriptures. Some consider it the most difficult passage to interpret.
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God:
But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.
But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak [Heb. 6:4–9].
Verse 9 is the key to the passage, but we need the context to understand what is being said.
As we study this section, we are immediately confronted with the amazing fact that generally commentators have avoided this chapter. Even such a man as Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, the prince of expositors, has completely bypassed it in his book on Hebrews. However, when we do come upon the interpretations available and summarize each, we can well understand why men have chosen to remain clear of this scene of confusion because we can get many interpretations.
In the interest of an honest search after the evident meaning of these verses, let us examine some of the interpretations.
The most unsatisfactory to me of all interpretations is that the Christians mentioned here are Christians who have lost their salvation. That is, they were once saved but have lost their salvation. There are many folk who hold this position, and for the most part they are real born again Christians themselves. However, this belief makes them as uncomfortable as I am when I am making a trip by plane. I know that I am just as safe on that plane as anyone there, but I do not enjoy it as some of them do. There are many folk today who are not sure about their salvation and therefore are not enjoying it. Nevertheless they are saved if they have fixed their trust in Christ as their Savior. The essential thing is not the amount of faith they have but the one to whom it is directed. They turn to this passage of Scripture more than any other since they deny that we have a sure salvation which cannot be lost and that the believer is safe in Christ.
I want to make it abundantly clear that I believe we have a sure salvation because Scripture is very emphatic on this point. Paul says in Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus …” and, my friend, he expands that great truth to the triumphant climax of such a bold statement as, “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth” (Rom. 8:33). The throne of God is back of the weakest, humblest man who has come to trust Christ, and today there is not a created intelligence in God’s universe that can bring a charge against one of these who is justified through faith in His blood. Paul continues in Romans 8:34–39: “Who is he that condemneth? [1] It is Christ that died, [2] yea rather, that is risen again, [3] who is even at the right hand of God, [4] who also maketh intercession for us.” My friend, if you drink in those words you will have a great foundation of assurance. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” Does that satisfy you? Well, let’s keep going. Paul is not through yet. “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Can you mention anything that Paul didn’t mention in this passage? Can you find anything that could separate you from the love of Christ? May I say to you, this list takes in the whole kit and caboodle. Here we have a guarantee that nothing can separate us from the love of God—nothing that is seen, nothing that is unseen, nothing that is natural, nothing that is supernatural can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Lord Jesus Christ also makes some tremendous statements about our absolute security. Listen to Him, trust in Him, and believe Him. The Word of God is living and powerful, my friend. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life” (John 10:27–28). What kind of life? Eternal life. If you can lose it, it is not eternal! “And they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:28–29). It is not a question of your ability to hold on to Him; it is His ability to hold on to you. He says here with the infinite wisdom and full authority of the Godhead that He can hold us and that they who trust Him shall never perish. The question is: Is your hope fixed in God who is all-powerful, or in a god who may suffer defeat?
I have cited only some of the passages of Scripture that make it abundantly clear that you and I cannot be lost after we have been born again into the family of God. We become children of God through faith in Christ. Once a person has become a child of God through faith in Christ he has eternal life. I cannot accept the interpretation that the people in Hebrews 6:4–9 were once saved and had lost their salvation.
There is a second interpretation that has some merit in it. There are those who contend that this is a hypothetical case. “If they shall fall away.” There is only a possibility that this might happen. The writer does not say that it happens, only that it might be possible. Those who contend that this is the correct interpretation say that it is the biggest “IF” in the Bible, and I would agree with them. If I did not take another position on the interpretation of this passage in Hebrews, I would accept this one.
The third interpretation points out that in verse 6 there really is no “if” in the Greek. It is a participle and should be translated “having fallen away.” Therefore these folk have another interpretation, which is that the passage speaks of mere professors, that they are not genuine believers. They only profess to be Christians. Well, I cannot accept this view, although such scholars as Matthew Henry, F. W. Grant, and J. N. Darby hold this thinking, as does C. I. Scofield in his excellent reference Bible—a Bible which I feel every Christian should own, although in some cases I do not concur with the interpretations given in the notes, as in the instance before us.
I do not accept the view that these folk are professors rather than genuine believers. The Bible does speak of those who merely profess Christ. There are apostates in the church. For instance Peter in his second epistle wrote: “It has happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire” (2 Pet. 2:22, ASV). Those folk were professors, not genuine believers. But in chapter 6 we find genuine believers, because they are identified as such in many ways. If you will move back into chapter 5 to get the entire passage, you will notice that it is said of these people that they are dull of hearing (see Heb. 5:11)—it does not say that they are dead in trespasses and sins (see Eph. 2:1). And in Hebrews 5:12 it says that “when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you … and are become such as have need of milk….” They need to have milk because they are babes. An unsaved person doesn’t need milk; he needs life. He needs to be born again. He is dead in trespasses and sins. After he is born again, a little milk will help him. Therefore I believe the writer to the Hebrews is addressing baby Christians, and he is urging them to go on to maturity.
There are other expositors who take the position that since the ones spoken of here are Jewish believers of the first century, the warning can apply only to them. At the time Hebrews was written, the temple was still standing, and the writer is warning Jewish Christians about returning to the sacrificial system, because in so doing they would be admitting that Jesus did not die for their sins. Therefore, those who hold this reasoning say that verses 4–6 apply only to the Jewish Christians of that day and have no reference to anyone in our day.
There is still another group which stresses the word impossible in Hebrews 6:4. It is impossible to renew them—the thought being that it is impossible for man, but it is not impossible with God. They remind us that the Lord Jesus said that “… It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Matt. 19:24). Of course it is impossible for any of us to enter heaven on our own; we must have a Savior, a Redeemer. Therefore, this again is an interpretation that I cannot accept.
You can see that there are many interpretations of this passage—and, of course, there are others which I have not mentioned.
Now there is one interpretation that has been a real blessing to my heart, and I trust you will follow me patiently, thoughtfully, and without bias as we look at it. Because I was dissatisfied with all the interpretations I had heard, I actually felt sad about it. Then several years ago I picked up a copy of Bibliotheca Sacra, a publication of the Dallas Theological Seminary, and read an article on the sixth chapter of Hebrews written by Dr. J. B. Rowell, who was then pastor of the Central Baptist Church in Victoria, British Columbia. His interpretation was the best that I had heard. I give him full credit for it. This is not something that I thought of, although I have developed it to fit my own understanding, of course.
First of all, let me call to your attention that the writer is not discussing the question of salvation at all in this passage. I believe he is describing saved people—they have been enlightened, they have tasted of the heavenly gift, they have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and they have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come.
The whole tenor of the text reveals that he is speaking of rewards which are the result of salvation. In verse 6 he says, “If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance”—not to salvation, but to repentance. Repentance is something that God has asked believers to do. For example, read the seven letters to the seven churches in Asia, as recorded in Revelation 2 and 3. He says to every one of the churches to repent. That is His message for believers.
So the writer of Hebrews is talking about the fruit of salvation, not about the root of salvation. Notice verse 9 again: “But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation [he hasn’t been discussing salvation but the things that accompany salvation], though we thus speak.” He is speaking of the fruit of the Christian’s life and the reward that comes to him as the result. The whole tenor of this passage is that he is warning them of the possibility of losing their reward. There is danger, Paul said, of our entire works being burned up so that we will have nothing for which we could be rewarded. “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire” (1 Cor. 3:11–15). The work of every believer, my friend, is going to be tested by fire, and fire burns! The work you are doing today for Christ is going to be tested by fire. For example, when all of those reports that some of us preachers have handed in about how many converts we have made are tried by fire, they will make a roaring fire—if our work has been done in the flesh rather than in the power of the Spirit. We will have nothing but wood, hay, and stubble that will all go up in smoke.
Someday every believer is going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. I wish I could lay upon the heart of believers that it is not going to be a sweet little experience where the Lord Jesus is going to pat us on the back and say, “You nice little Sunday school boy, you didn’t miss a Sunday for ten years. You are so wonderful.” The Lord is going to go deeper than that. He is going to test you and see if you really had any fruit in your life. Have you grown in grace and knowledge of Him? Have you been a witness for Him? Has your life counted for Him? Have you been a blessing to others? My Christian friend, I am not sure that I am looking forward to the judgment seat of Christ, because He is going to take Vernon McGee apart there. I will not be judged for salvation, but because I am saved, He is going to find out whether or not I am to receive a reward.
Now notice that he is illustrating the fruit of the Christian’s life: “For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned” (vv. 7–8). If the believer’s life brings forth fruit, it receives blessing from God; if it brings forth thorns and briers, it is rejected.
When the apostle Paul wrote to Titus, a young preacher, he dealt with the matter of works: “Not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy he saved us…” (Titus 3:5, ASV). From this, one might be inclined to think that Paul is not going to have much regard for good works, but move down in that same chapter to verse 8: “…I desire that thou affirm confidently, to the end that they who have believed God may be careful to maintain good works….” Good works do not enter into the matter of salvation, but when one becomes a child of God through faith in Christ, works assume supreme importance. My friend, if you are a Christian, it is important that you live the Christian life.
When I was a university student the psychologists were discussing a matter which they have moved away from now. It was: Which is more important, heredity or environment? Well, my psychology professor had a stimulating answer. He said that before you are born, heredity is more important, but after you are born, environment is the major consideration! Now let’s carry that line of thought over to our present study. Before you are born again, works do not enter in, because you cannot bring them to God—He won’t accept them. Scripture says that the righteousness of man is filthy rags in His sight (see Isa. 64:6). You don’t expect God to accept a pile of dirty laundry, do you? He is accepting sinners, but He accepts us on the basis of the redemption that we have in Christ. When we receive Christ as Savior, we are born anew and become a child of God. When that happens, we are, as Peter put it, “… an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Pet. 2:9, ASV). Now after you have been saved, you are to show forth by your good works before the world that you are redeemed to God. Therefore the Christian has something to show forth, and that is the thing which is to be judged. If he is going to continue as a baby and be nothing but a troublemaker, turning people from Christ instead of to Christ, there will certainly be no reward. In fact, there will be shame at His appearing.
“For as touching those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame” (vv. 4–6, ASV). These verses bring us to the very center of this study.
“And then fell away”—fell away is an interesting word in the Greek. It is parapitoµ and means simply “to stumble, to fall down.” It would be impossible to give it the meaning of “apostatize.” It is the same word used of our Lord when He went into the Garden of Gethsemane, fell on His face, and prayed.
There are many examples in Scripture of men who “fell away.” The apostle Peter fell, but he was not lost. The Lord Jesus said to him, “I have prayed that your faith might not fail” (see Luke 22:32). Peter suffered loss, but he was not lost. John Mark is another example. He failed so miserably on the first missionary journey that when his uncle Barnabas suggested that he go on the second journey, Paul turned him down. He as much as said, “Never. This boy has failed, and as far as I am concerned, I am through with him” (see Acts 15:37–39). Well, thank God, although he stumbled and fell, God was not through with him. Even the apostle Paul, before he died, acknowledged that he had made a misjudgment of John Mark. In his last epistle he wrote, “… Take Mark and bring him with thee; for he is useful to me for ministering” (2 Tim. 4:11). Now, neither Peter nor John Mark lost their salvation, but they certainly failed and they suffered loss for it.
Read again verse 1 and notice that the writer is talking to folk about repentance from dead works—not salvation, but repentance. You will recall that John the Baptist also preached this to the people: “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance …” (Luke 3:8). He was referring to that which is the evidence of repentance. Repentance in our day does not mean the shedding of a few tears; it means turning right-about-face toward Jesus Christ, which means a change of direction in your life, in your way of living.
Many of the Jewish believers were returning to the temple sacrifice at that time, and the writer to the Hebrews was warning them of the danger of that. Before Christ came, every sacrifice was a picture of Him and pointed to His coming, but after Christ came and died on the cross, that which God had commanded in the Old Testament actually became sin.
You see, those folk were at a strategic point in history. The day before the crucifixion of Jesus they had gone to the temple with sacrifices in obedience to God’s command, but now it was wrong for them to do it. Why? Because Jesus had become that sacrifice—once and for all. Today if you were to offer a bloody sacrifice, you would be sacrificing afresh the Lord Jesus because you would be inferring that when He died nineteen hundred years ago it was of no avail—that you still need a sacrifice to take care of your sin. It would mean that you would not have faith in His atonement, in His death, in His redemption. As someone has said, we either crucify or crown the Lord Jesus by our lives. Today we either exhibit a life of faith or a life by which we crucify Him afresh—especially when we feel that we have to get back under the Mosaic system and keep the Law in order to be saved. It is a serious matter to go back to a legal system.
Notice again verse 6 as the Authorized Version translates it: “If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance.” Actually the if is not in the text at all. It is “having fallen away,” or “then fell away”—a genitive absolute. It is all right to use the “if,” providing you use it as an argument rather than in the sense of a condition.
Why would it be impossible to renew them again unto repentance? Remember we are talking about the fruit of salvation. It is a serious thing to have accepted Christ as Savior and then to live in sin, to nullify what you do by being a spiritual baby, never growing up, doing nothing in the world but building a big pile of wood, hay, and stubble. Paul said the same thing in different language in 1 Corinthians 3:11 which says, “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Your salvation is a foundation. You rest upon it, but you also build upon it. You can build with six different kinds of materials—wood, hay, stubble, gold, silver, and precious stones. What kind of building materials are you using today? Are you building up a lot of wood, hay, and stubble? There is a lot of church work today that is nothing but that. We are great on organizations and committees, but do our lives really count for God? Are there going to be people in heaven who will be able to point to you and say, “I am here because of your life and testimony,” or, “I am here because you gave me the Word of God.” Oh, let’s guard against building with wood, hay, or stubble!
By the way, there is a difference between a straw stack and a diamond ring. And you can lose a diamond ring in a hay stack because the ring is so small. I am afraid that a great many folk are building a straw stack to make an impression. One pastor told me, “I’m killing myself. I have to turn in a better report this year than the report last year. We have to increase church membership and converts and giving to missions.” Oh, if this pastor would only dig into the Scriptures and spend much time in God’s presence. Then he would be teaching his people the Word and many would be turning to Christ and would be growing in their relationship with Him. Every man’s works are going to be tested by fire. What will fire do to wood, hay, and stubble? Poof! It will go up in smoke. There will be nothing left. That is what the writer is saying.
In John 15 the Lord Jesus talks about the fact that He is the vine, the genuine vine, and we are the branches. We are to bear fruit. “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit …” (John 15:7–8). He wants us to bear much fruit. When there is a branch that won’t bear fruit, what does He do? “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned” (John 15:6). He will take it away; He will remove it from the place of fruitbearing and that is what the Lord Jesus is saying.
I see God doing this very thing today. And as I look back over the years, I have seen many men work with wood, hay, or stubble. And I have seen others work with gold. I know a layman who was a very prominent Christian when I came to the Los Angeles area almost forty years ago. Then he became involved in a dishonest transaction. He has lost his testimony, and yet he was a very gifted and likeable man. I still consider him my friend, but I wouldn’t want to go into the presence of Christ as this man will have to go when his life is over.
Also I recall a minister who was very attractive—a little too attractive. He was unfaithful to his wife, had an affair with another woman, and finally divorced his wife. And all the while he tried to keep on teaching! But his teaching didn’t amount to anything—he was just putting up a whole lot of straw. He was not even baling hay; he was just making a big old haystack. Finally the match was put to it, I guess, because he certainly didn’t leave anything down here.
Oh, how careful we should be about our Christian lives. And we cannot live the Christian life in our own strength. We need to recognize that Christ is the vine. If we have any life, it has come from Him, and if there is any fruit in our lives, it comes from Him. We are sort of connecting rods, as branches connect into the vine and then bear fruit. Christ said that, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me” (John 15:4).
“If they shall fall away” or “having fallen away,” it is impossible to renew them to repentance. They can shed tears all they want to, but they have lost their testimony. For example, a preacher came and talked to me about his situation. He moved away from this area and attempted to establish a ministry. But he failed. He had an affair with a woman, and he had lost his testimony. He was through. “It is impossible to renew them again unto repentance.” I don’t question his salvation; he is a gifted man who could be mightily used by God but is not. “Seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” My friend, any time you as a born again child of God live like one of the Devil’s children, you are crucifying the Son of God—because He came to give you a perfect redemption and to enable you by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to be filled with the Spirit and live for Him.
“For the land which hath drunk the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receiveth blessing from God” (v. 7, ASV). The garden produce is a blessing to man—my, it is delicious! “But if it beareth thorns and thistles, it is rejected and nigh unto a curse; whose end is to be burned” (v. 8, ASV). “Rejected” is adokimos, the same word Paul used when writing to the Corinthian believers, “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (1 Cor. 9:27). “Castaway” is the same word adokimos, meaning “not approved.” In effect, Paul is saying, “When I come into His presence I don’t want to be disapproved. I don’t want the Lord Jesus to say to me, ‘You have failed. Your life should have been a testimony but it was not.’” Oh, my friend, you are going to hear that if you are not living for Him! I know we don’t want to hear these things, but we need to face the facts.
Now notice the key to this chapter: “But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak” (v. 9). The writer to the Hebrew believers is saying, “I am persuaded that you are going to live for God, that you are not going to remain babes in Christ but will grow up.”
For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister [Heb. 6:10].
“Work and labour of love” won’t save you, but if you are saved, this is why you are rewarded. This is where good works come in. Although they have nothing to do with your salvation, they certainly do have a very important part in a believer’s life.
And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end [Heb. 6:11].
We need that “full assurance of hope unto the end.”
That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises [Heb. 6:12].
God has made a lot of promises to us if we are faithful to Him.
For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself [Heb. 6:13].
As you know, when you take an oath, you take it on something greater than you are. Since there is nothing greater than God, He swore by Himself.
Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee [Heb. 6:14].
God promised that to Abraham (see Gen. 22:15–18; Heb. 11:19).
And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise [Heb. 6:15].
There is something here that is quite wonderful. Abraham patiently endured, and a new assurance came by trusting God. When you trust God, you walk with Him. You grow in grace and in the knowledge of Him through the study of His Word. This brings you to a place of assurance that cannot be gainsaid.
For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife [Heb. 6:16].
When men confirm a statement with an oath, it is an end of every dispute.
Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath [Heb. 6:17].
When God does a thing like this, He doesn’t need to take an oath, but He does take one to make it very clear how all-important it is.
That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us [Heb. 6:18].
“That by two immutable things”—what are the two immutable (or unchangeable) things? The Lord promised Abram descendants as innumerable as the stars of heaven (see Gen. 15:4–5), then later He confirmed His promise with an oath (see Gen. 22:16–18). God confirmed His unchangeable Word of promise by a second unchangeable thing, His oath. These two immutable things gave Abraham encouragement and assurance.
Now what are the two immutable things for us today? Not only do we have the promise made to Abraham for our encouragement, but we have a far richer revelation of God’s love—the gift of His Son. The (1) death and resurrection of Christ and (2) His ascension and intercession for us are the two immutable things.
These four great facts give us an assurance and provide a refuge that we can lay hold upon.
“Who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.” This reminds us of the cities of refuge which God provided for the children of Israel (see Num. 35; Deut. 19; Josh. 20–21). Those cities of refuge serve as types of Christ sheltering the sinner from death. It was a very marvelous provision for a man who accidentally killed someone. Maybe the one whom he killed had a hotheaded brother who wanted vengeance. So the fugitive could escape to a city of refuge where he would be protected and his case tried. If he was acquitted of intentional killing he must remain within the city until the death of the high priest.
What a picture this is for us today! This reveals that Christ is our refuge. My friend, I have already been carried into court, and at the trial I was found guilty. I was a sinner. The penalty which was leveled against me was death—and it has already been executed. Christ bore the penalty for me, you see. Because He died in my place, I am free. I have been delivered from the penalty of sin; never do I have to answer for it again. I am free now to go out and serve Him. I now have a High Priest, a resurrected Savior, to whom I can go. What a wonderful picture of my Savior this gives! The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor. 10:11). “Ensamples” are types, and Melchizedek is a type of Christ. Millions of things could have been recorded, but God chose to record only these things because they enable us to grow in our understanding of Him and our relationship to Him.
Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;
Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec [Heb. 6:19–20].
When Christ ascended back to heaven, He assumed the office of High Priest.
“Entereth into that within the veil.” Christ as High Priest entered into the temple in heaven (after which the earthly tabernacle was patterned, Hebrews 8:5). He passed through the veil into the Holy of Holies, into the presence of God, and presented His blood there. Then He “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
Now one difference between Aaron and the Lord Jesus is (and I say this reverently) that poor old Aaron never did sit down. There were no seats in the tabernacle—there was the mercy seat, but that typified God’s throne. Aaron only hurried in and hurried out. But you and I have a superior High Priest. He has gone in. He has sat down. He has a finished redemption.
Jesus Christ is the “forerunner,” which implies that others are to follow.
“As an anchor of the soul.” We have an even stronger encouragement than Abraham had in his time, because our High Priest has entered in advance into the presence of God for us, and He is there today interceding for us.
CHAPTER 7
Theme: Christ our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek
The rest of the Epistle to the Hebrews deals with the subject of the living Christ who is at this moment at God’s right hand. It is a subject that is really neglected in the church today. We talk a great deal about the death and resurrection of Christ—and that is wonderful—but my friend, we need to go on to a living Christ who is at God’s right hand and who has a ministry there for us. Now the reality of that ministry to us is what is going to test our spiritual life. Here is a barometer or Geiger counter which you can put down on your life: how is the truth of this chapter of Hebrews going to affect your spiritual life?
The writer to the Hebrews is going to make a comparison and contrast of the priesthood of Melchizedek and the priesthood of Aaron.
CHRIST IS PERPETUAL PRIEST
For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him [Heb. 7:1].
The little word for is used by the writer to the Hebrews as cement to hold together what has been said previously and what he is now going to say. It refers us back to verse 20 of chapter 6. Melchizedek is a type of Christ. In the historical record Melchizedek is called “king of Salem” and “priest of the most high God” (see Genesis 14:17–24). Not much is said about Melchizedek in Genesis 14—frankly, I would have forgotten about him, but the Spirit of God didn’t forget about him. When we come to Psalm 110 there is this prophecy concerning the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ: “… Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 110:4).
You and I are living in the day of Christ’s priesthood. There are many critics today who do not like the term dispensations. Many preachers won’t mention the word. I mention it because the Bible uses the term. Dispensations are the different ages or time-periods showing the progressive order of God’s dealing with the human family. This is an example: Back in the Old Testament Aaron was the high priest and there was a literal tabernacle down here. Today we have an High Priest, but He is not ministering in any building down here. He is up yonder at God’s right hand, and He is there right now.
While there are not many references to Melchizedek in the Old Testament, there are quite a few references to him right here in the Epistle to the Hebrews. In Hebrews 5:10 we read, “Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec.” Then again in Hebrews 6:20, “Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.” Now here in verse 1 the writer says, “For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him.” He is going to talk a great deal about Melchizedek in this chapter. The very key to this chapter is found in verse 17: “For he testifieth, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.”
Since we are going to look at Christ as a priest after the order of Melchizedek, we need to know all we can about Melchizedek, and we need to go back to the account in Genesis 14. The events of Genesis 14 took place after Abraham’s nephew Lot had moved down to Sodom, and we have in this chapter the first account of a war. The kings of the east formed a confederacy and came against the kings of the west, that is, those who lived around the Dead Sea. The kings of the east won and lugged off the people as slaves and the wealth of the cities as booty.
Word was brought to Abraham that Lot was being carried away into captivity. Abraham immediately armed about 318 men out of his own household, which means he had quite a household. Each man that he could arm must have had at least one woman and a child. Therefore Abraham must have had about a thousand people who served under him! He took these 318 men, and by a surprise attack he was able to get a victory over the kings of the east. All he was concerned about was rescuing Lot, but in so doing he was able to rescue the king of Sodom and all the others.
In Genesis 14:17 we are told: “And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king’s dale.” The king of Sodom made Abraham an offer which he refused, then out of nowhere we read: “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God” (Gen. 14:18).
To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace [Heb. 7:2].
It has been supposed by some that Salem was Jerusalem. I do not think that is true at all. Salem is not a place—the word salem means “peace.” He does not say that Melchizedek was king of Jerusalem. He was king of peace; he was a man who could make peace in that day. I am sure he was king of a literal city somewhere, but it doesn’t mean he was king of Jerusalem—it could have been any place. He was king of peace.
Melchizedek was also the “King of righteousness.” That is what the name Melchizedek means: melek is a Hebrew word meaning “king,” and tsedeq means “righteousness.” Jeremiah speaks of Jehovah-tsidkenu, meaning “Jehovah our righteousness.”
Melchizedek is a type of Christ—he represents Him in several different ways. He is king of peace and king of righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ is a King. He is righteous—He was made unto us righteousness.
Melchizedek was “priest of the most high God.” The Lord Jesus is our Great High Priest.
Now the very interesting thing is that when Melchizedek came out to meet Abraham, he brought bread and wine. I believe that these two Old Testament worthies, these patriarchs, celebrated the Lord’s Supper together! They were looking forward to the coming of Christ two thousand years before He came. Today you and I meet and partake of bread and wine, looking back to the coming of Christ two thousand years ago. They celebrated the Lord’s Supper together. Don’t ask me to explain it—I can’t explain it; I can just call your attention to it. This is something before which we stand in profound awe and wonder and worship. This is where faith treads on the high places.
Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually [Heb. 7:3].
Here Melchizedek is a picture of Christ and a type of Christ in another way. The Lord Jesus comes out of eternity, and He moves into eternity. He has no beginning and no end. He is the beginning. He is the end. You can’t go beyond Him in the past, and you can’t get ahead of Him in the future. He encompasses all of time and all of eternity. Now how can you find a man who pictures that? Melchizedek is in the Book of Genesis, a book that gives pedigrees—it tells us that Adam begat so-and-so, and so-and-so begat so-and-so, Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob and Esau, and you follow the genealogies on down—it is a book of the families. Yet in this book that gives the genealogies, Melchizedek just walks out onto the pages of Scripture, out of nowhere, then he walks off the pages of Scripture, and we do not see him anymore. Why did God leave out the genealogy of Melchizedek? Because Melchizedek was to be a type of the Lord Jesus in His priesthood. From the prophecy given in Psalm 110 we see that Melchizedek is a picture of Christ in that the Lord Jesus is the eternal God, and He is a priest because He is the Son of God, and He is a priest continually. That is, He just keeps on being a priest—there will be no change in His priesthood because He is eternal.
In the Genesis account we see that Melchizedek came to Abraham at just the right moment. Abraham was about to be tested, and he needed someone to encourage him and to strengthen him. Melchizedek came with bread and wine, and he was the priest of “the most high God.” (This is the first time in Scripture that God is called “the most high God.”) He came just as the king of Sodom was making a proposition to Abraham: “Now Abraham, it was nice of you to recover Lot and the rest of the people, and we appreciate that. I know you don’t want to make the people slaves; so give us the people, and you keep the booty. You keep it, Abraham, it’s yours.” Now according to the Code of Hammurabi of that day, the booty did belong to Abraham, but Abraham said, “Why, I wouldn’t do that at all. I won’t take even a shoestring from you—not even a thread. I refuse to receive anything from you” (see Gen. 14:23).
Then God appeared to Abraham and said, “I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward” (Gen. 15:1).
Melchizedek came and ministered to Abraham. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Great High Priest, and He ministers to us today. I will be very frank with you, if He doesn’t minister to you and bless your heart and life, it is because you are still a little babe and you haven’t grown up. You have not entered into the great truth presented here. My Christian friend, have you gone through trials and deep waters, and has Jesus ministered to you and helped you? Are you conscious of the fact that He blesses you every day?
On one tour that I conducted to Bible lands I left half-sick and would not have gone if my wife had not urged me to do so. I just didn’t feel up to the trip. On the trip I was sick several times and had to drop out of the tour a couple of days. But God was so good to us. We had good weather; we never had a bad flight, and the Lord was just good to me in so many ways. I was conscious of the fact that my High Priest was on the job; He was doing His job, my friend, and He was blessing. I’m talking to you about reality. I’m not talking to you about a theory, about a religion, or about a ritual that you go through. I’m talking to you about a Man in the glory who is alive, and He is the living God. Is He the living God to you?
Notice what it says in Genesis 14:19—“And he [Melchizedek] blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth.” You and I live in a universe that belongs to Him; He owns it, and He has said that all things are ours today. Do you enjoy a sunrise? Just this morning I went by myself out to a nearby golf course, and I saw the sun come up over the Sierra Madre mountains. He did that just for me this morning. What a performance He put on. He is wonderful! What a glorious day it is! He is the living Christ. I just thanked Him again for bringing me to another day, and I thanked Him for being so good to me, and I told Him that I love Him. The living Christ is yonder at God’s right hand. How real is He to you?
CHRIST IS PERFECT PRIEST
Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils [Heb. 7:4].
Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek. He recognized that Melchizedek was above him and that he was the priest of the most high God.
And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham [Heb. 7:5].
In Abraham the sons of Levi, who were descended from Abraham, paid tithes to Melchizedek. This shows that Melchizedek was superior to Aaron and his family.
My friend, one of the ways in which you recognize the lordship of Jesus Christ is by coming and making a gift to Him. Every gift ought to be more than just to a church or to some other ministry; it should be a gift to the Lord Jesus Christ. You recognize His lordship, and you are a priest worshiping when you bring a gift to Him.
But he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises [Heb. 7:6].
You would think that Abraham would be superior to Melchizedek, but he was not. Melchizedek was a Gentile who was the priest of the most high God. I do not know where he got his information about God, nor do I know the background of this man. If anyone tries to tell you more about him, he is guessing. Also there are a whole lot of things I can’t explain about the Lord Jesus because He is God. I do know that He is my Great High Priest today—and that’s all I need to know.
And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better [Heb. 7:7].
Abraham was blessed by Melchizedek who was better than he was. When you and I worship the Lord Jesus and bow before Him, we recognize His superiority.
And here men that die receive tithes; but there he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth [Heb. 7:8].
“Here men that die” refers to the Levitical priests; “but there he” refers to Melchizedek.
You can offer yourself to Him, and He will receive you. When I offer myself to Him, He doesn’t get much, but I have offered myself to Him and am thankful that he will accept me.
And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham.
For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him [Heb. 7:9–10].
“Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham.” The priestly tribe of Levi was in the loins of Abraham when he paid tithes to Melchizedek, and thus Levi also paid tithes to Melchizedek. In the same way, back yonder when Adam sinned, I also sinned. In Adam all died. The reason you and I are going to die, if the Lord tarries His coming, is that we are in Adam and we sinned in Adam. However, today I am perfect, because I am in Christ. Do you realize that? God sees me in Christ, and I am perfect in Him. I am accepted in the Beloved. My friend, this is great scriptural truth, and it is stated in simple language.
If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron? [Heb. 7:11].
In other words, the thing which characterized the Aaronic priesthood is that it was incomplete. It never brought perfection, complete communion with God. It never gave redemption and acceptance before God to the people. It never achieved its goal. Therefore we need Christ.
For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law [Heb. 7:12].
We are not under the Mosaic Law. The Mosaic Law belonged to the Aaronic priesthood where they offered bloody sacrifices. The Mosaic Law and the Aaronic priesthood go together.
For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar.
For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood [Heb. 7:13–14].
The Lord Jesus came in the tribe of Judah and therefore could never be a priest here on earth. The priestly tribe was the tribe of Levi. The priesthood had to be changed since Christ did not come from Levi.
And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest [Heb. 7:15].
This is what the prophecy in Psalm 110 said concerning the Messiah who was to come.
Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.
For he testifieth, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec [Heb. 7:16–17].
Christ became a priest by His resurrection from the dead; He has an endless life.
For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof [Heb. 7:18].
The Mosaic system went out of style—it wore out. It never gave what man must have: perfection.
For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God [Heb. 7:19].
We come to God through Christ. We have seen that the Lord Jesus Christ is a perpetual priest and He is a perfect priest. The Aaronic priesthood could not fill the bill. Now we have a perfect priest, and that one is the Lord Jesus Christ. He has provided salvation for you and me. God has taken us out of Adam and put us in Christ. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). We are no longer joined to Adam but are now joined to the living Christ.
We will summarize the contrast between the priesthood of Aaron and the priesthood of Melchizedek as follows:
Law vs. Power
(law restrains—power enables)
Commandment (external) vs. Life (internal)
Carnal (flesh) vs. Endless (eternal life)
Changing vs. Unchanging
Weakness and unprofitableness vs. Nigh to God
Nothing perfect vs. Better hope
And inasmuch as not without an oath he was made priest:
(For those priests were made without an oath; but this with an oath by him that said unto him, The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec:) [Heb. 7:20–21].
In Psalm 110 is a prophecy of the fact that the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, would be in the line of Melchizedek as priest. “The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 110:4). One thing that makes the priesthood of Christ superior is the very simple fact that it rests not only upon the Word of God but upon the oath of God. All the Old Testament tells us of the tribe of Levi is that they were set aside for that particular function—no oath was given concerning them.
By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament [Heb. 7:22].
The word testament should be “covenant.” We have not only a better priesthood in Jesus Christ, but it is also by a better covenant. Christ is our High Priest. He ministers in a superior sanctuary, by a better covenant, and built upon better promises—we will see this subject expanded in chapters 8 through 10. The Lord Jesus’ priesthood is superior in every department.
CHRIST IN HIS PERSON IS PERPETUAL AND PERFECT PRIEST
And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death [Heb. 7:23].
In other words, the Aaronic priesthood of the Old Testament always ended by death. Aaron died, just as Moses did. I have always felt that the death of Aaron—if it wasn’t greater—was just as great a loss to Israel as the death of Moses. In his death they lost their high priest, the one who had gone with them through the wilderness, the one who knew them and understood them. Now they would have to have a new priest. You and I don’t have a changing priesthood—Christ will always live to make intercession for us.
But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood [Heb. 7:24].
The Lord Jesus won’t be dying anymore. He died once for our sins, but never again will He die. He is there all the time for you.
I received a letter once from a man in Puerto Rico who comes home late at night from his work in an oil refinery. He listens every night at 11:30 to our radio Bible study program. The Spirit of God ministers the Word of God to him down there late at night. The Lord Jesus knew all about that man long before I got his letter and learned of him. I didn’t know him, and I didn’t know he was listening to the radio broadcast. The Lord Jesus knew all about him, because He has an unchangeable priesthood. He is on duty twenty-four hours a day. That means that at 11:30 at night He knows this man, understands him, and ministers the Word of God to him. I rejoice in being able to give out the Word of God today because I am assured that the Spirit of God will be ministering it to folk. The Lord Jesus is the Great High Priest. While that fellow was listening, I was asleep in bed on the other side of the continent. But while I am sleeping there is a High Priest up yonder who will make the Word effective. How wonderful this is! Let’s give Him all the praise and glory.
The following verse is perhaps the key verse to this entire section, and it is the very heart of the gospel.
Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them [Heb. 7:25].
“Wherefore”—again we have this little hinge on which a big door swings. It swings back into what has been said before and swings on into what is ahead.
“He ever liveth.” It says, first of all, that Christ is not dead, but He is living. Right at this very moment He is alive. We emphasize the death and resurrection of Christ, but we ought to go beyond that. We have to do with a living Christ. We know Him no longer after the flesh. We know Him today as our Great High Priest at God’s right hand. My friend, that is what we need to go on today—that is where we need to put the emphasis. He died down here to save us, but He lives up there to keep us saved.
“He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him.” He is able to keep on saying you. “To the uttermost” means all the way through. He is able to save us completely and perfectly. He is the Great Shepherd who up to this very moment has never lost a sheep. Do you want to know something? He never will lose one. If you are one of His sheep, you may feel like you are going to be lost, but He is up there for you and He is watching over you.
“He ever liveth to make intercession.” Intercession actually means “intervention.” He intervenes for us. “… We shall be saved by his life” (Rom. 5:10). John wrote, “My little children [born ones], these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.” Well John, you are not talking to me because I do lots of things that are wrong. Now, John, do you have a word for me? John went on to say, “And if any man sin”—now we are getting somewhere!—“we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). An advocate is a paraclete, a comforter, someone to stand at our side. He is Jesus Christ the righteous. Everything He does is right. Everything He does is righteous. We shall be saved by His life.
How wonderful to know we have a living Christ! You are not alone, my friend. It is just baby stuff to sit down and cry, “Oh, I’m having this problem, and I’m so alone. There’s nobody to help me. To whom shall I go?” My friend, what do you think He is doing up there? Aren’t you conscious of Him? Why don’t you turn to Him?
I remember talking to the mother of a man who was leaving his wife and running away with another woman. I took the mother with me when I went to talk with the other woman. She would not change her mind and was determined to go with this man. This poor mother, as I took her home, just got down on the floor of the car and began to cry out, “Oh, God, why have you forsaken me?” But by the time I got her home, she was more composed and apologized, “I’m sorry I said that God has forsaken me. I don’t believe that He has.” I assured her that we can be sure of the fact that He ever lives to make intercession for us. Though we are faithless, He is always faithful to us. It is wonderful to know He is up there, my friend.
For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens [Heb. 7:26].
He “became us” means Christ is just what we need. He is the one who fills the bill. He is just right for us—we couldn’t have anyone better than He is.
“Holy”—that is, in relationship to God. He is the holy one.
“Harmless” means that He is free from any malice, craftiness, or cleverness. When He gets you off when you sin, it is not because He is a clever lawyer. It is because He is the one who paid the penalty for you, and the penalty absolutely has been paid.
“Undefiled”—He is free from any moral impurity. My friend, this is God’s answer to the blasphemous films, songs, and literature of our day. The Bible makes it clear that the Lord Jesus was free from moral impurity.
He is also “separate from sinners.” He is like us, yet unlike us. He could mix and mingle with sinners, and they didn’t feel uncomfortable in His presence, but He was not one of them. His enemies accused Him of associating with publicans and sinners. He sure did, yet He wasn’t one of them. He was separate from sinners.
Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, First for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself [Heb. 7:27].
Notice that the Lord Jesus did not need to offer any sacrifice for His own sin—He had none.
If it were necessary for the Lord Jesus to come back and die for you again, He’d be back, my friend. He would be back today. But He won’t be back to die for you—He died once.
The continual sacrificing in the Old Testament must have gotten pretty old and pretty tiresome. I am sure that many times when the priests would meet there at the laver to wash their hands and feet, one of them would turn to the other and say, “How many times have you been here today?”
“Well, I don’t know. I’m sure I have been here at least a dozen times.”
The other would reply, “Well, I have been here fifteen times. I’ve washed my hands here so many times that I’ve got dishpan hands! And look at my feet—they look like I’ve been standing in water all day. I’m so tired of going to that altar and offering sacrifices again and again and again.”
I want to tell you, it must have been pretty wearisome, and if Aaron had overheard them talking, I think he would have said, “I agree with you that this ritual gets tiresome, but do you know what God is trying to tell us? He is trying to tell us that sin is an awful thing and that it requires the shedding of blood. But He has One who is coming someday who is going to die on a cross for us. When He does, there is going to be no more shedding of blood. He will have paid the penalty.”
For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore [Heb. 7:28].
The high priest in the Old Testament had to offer a sacrifice for himself—the Lord Jesus never did.
We have a High Priest who can be touched, who can be reached today. He is there to help and He understands, but He is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.
CHAPTER 8
Theme: The true tabernacle; the New Covenant is better than the old
The high watermark of this magnificent epistle is before us in this chapter—actually it began in the previous chapter at verse 25: “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” This verse is the key to this section. You see, the emphasis is upon the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is living. He is not dead—He is not on a cross; He is not lying in a grave. He arose from the dead, and the emphasis is upon our living Christ. Then verse 26: “For such an high priest became us [He is what we need], who is holy [in His relation to God], harmless [He never does anything to harm—He is never moved by anger], undefiled [free from any moral impurity], separate from sinners [in His life and character, although He is right down here among us and wants us to come to Him], and made higher than the heavens [He is in the presence of God].” The value of His sacrifice is stated in verse 27: “Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.” His sacrifice was not of silver or gold or bulls or goats; He offered up Himself! There is nothing of greater value than He. Verse 28: “For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore.” You do not place your confidence in a mere man when you place your confidence in Jesus; you place your confidence in the God-man. Because He is a man, He can sympathize with you and is able to meet your need. He is a royal priest. He is a righteous priest. He is a peace-promoting priest. He is a personal priest—He is for you personally. He didn’t inherit the office; that is, He didn’t come in the line of Aaron. He is an eternal priest.
Now here in chapter 8 we are told that He ministers in a superior sanctuary by a much better covenant, which is built upon better promises.
THE TRUE TABERNACLE
Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens [Heb. 8:1].
“This is the sum.” He is not actually summing this up, although that thought is included. He is doing more than that. Let me give you a literal translation: “In consideration of the things which are spoken, this is the focal (chief) point. We have such an high priest, who sat down in the heavens on the right hand of the Majesty.” As we have said, this is the high watermark of Hebrews.
“Who is set on the right hand of the throne.” Christ did something which no priest in the Old Testament ever did. There is not a priest in the line of Aaron who ever had a chair in the tabernacle where he sat down. He was on the run all the time. Why? Because he had work to do. All of these things are shadows that point to a finished sacrifice. Now that Christ has died, all has been fulfilled, and we do not need to wonder if we are doing enough to merit salvation. All we need to do is turn to Jesus Christ and trust Him as our Savior. He sat down because He had finished our redemption. He asks only that we accept it.
A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man [Heb. 8:2].
Bezaleel was the master craftsman who made the beautiful articles of furniture for the tabernacle. The mercy seat and the golden lampstand were of gold and highly ornate. It was all man-made, although the Holy Spirit directed him. In contrast, the Lord Jesus ministers in a tabernacle that He Himself has made in heaven.
Now we are going to see something that I feel totally inadequate to present.
For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.
For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law [Heb. 8:3–4].
This verse makes it clear that at the time the Epistle to the Hebrews was written the temple in Jerusalem was still in existence and that in it priests were still going about their duties.
Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount [Heb. 8:5].
It is my belief that when God instructed Moses to build the tabernacle in the wilderness, God gave him a pattern of the original in heaven, the true tabernacle (v. 2), meaning genuine.
The tabernacle in its beautiful simplicity furnishes a type of Jesus Christ (which is almost lost in the complicated detail of the temple). The tabernacle was called a tent, the sides of which were upright boards, covered on both sides with gold. It measured thirty cubits long and ten cubits wide and was divided into two compartments. The first compartment was called the Holy Place. In it were three articles of furniture: the golden lampstand; the golden table of showbread; and the golden altar where incense was offered—no sacrifice other than incense. The lampstand was a type of Christ, the Light of the World. The table of showbread symbolized Him as the Bread of Life. The golden altar at which the high priest offered prayer, spoke of Christ, our Great Intercessor. Then on the great Day of Atonement the high priest passed through the separating veil to the inner compartment, the Holy of Holies, in which were two articles of furniture. (1) The ark of the covenant was a box made of wood, covered with gold inside and outside, in which were the Ten Commandments written on tables of stone, a pot of manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded. The Ten Commandments speak of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ came to fulfill the Law, and He is the only one who ever kept it in all of its detail. Then the pot of manna speaks of the fact that He is the Bread of Life even today. Aaron’s rod that budded speaks of Christ’s resurrection. (2) The ark of the covenant was covered with a highly ornamented top called the mercy seat. Crowning it were two cherubim of beaten gold. Once a year the high priest placed blood on the mercy seat, and that is what made it a mercy seat. That was God’s dwelling place; that is, the place where God met with the children of Israel.
Around the tabernacle was a court, surrounded by a linen fence one hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide. In that outer court were two articles of furniture. The first was the brazen altar where all sacrifices were made. The sin question was settled there, but since saints still sin, there was also a laver where the priests could wash, signifying the cleansing from sin.
Now, the Holy Place is where the priests served and where they worshiped. We worship God when we pray, feed upon His Word, and walk in the light of His presence, that is, in obedience to Him.
No one but the high priest (and he only once a year) entered into the next compartment, the Holy of Holies. But when the Lord Jesus died, the separating veil was rent in twain—torn in two—signifying that He had forever opened the way into the Holy of Holies and the presence of God. We might say that the Lord Jesus Christ took the tabernacle, which was horizontal, and made it perpendicular to the earth so that the Holy of Holies is now in heaven—because that is where He is. And we are going to find in the following chapter that the golden altar of incense, together with the ark of the covenant, are now in heaven. They are there because Christ Himself is there.
If you had been in the wilderness with Israel, you would have seen the tabernacle in the heart of the encampment, with the tents of the tribes camped all around it. You would have seen the pillar of cloud over the tabernacle by day and the pillar of fire by night. You would have seen the priests busily running to and fro carrying on their ministry of offering sacrifices and observing all of the ritual which God had commanded.
Now all of that was a shadow of a reality. The reality itself was in heaven. And today Jesus is there in the heavenly tabernacle functioning in behalf of you and me.
Now perhaps you are saying, “You said that when we got to this section that the writer of this epistle would start serving porterhouse steaks. Well, it seems that we are still drinking milk, because what we have been studying so far seems very simple. When are we going to get something deep?” Well, the beefsteak is ready now, and I’d like to put it right down before you.
I’ll put it in the form of a personal question. My friend, is Christ real to you right now? If you still like to run around in a ritual and have a nice beautiful church service (there is nothing wrong with that—don’t misunderstand me), but if you think that is worship, and if you think that you are serving God by just teaching a Sunday school class or singing in the choir, I have news for you. He is trying to tell us, friend, that Jesus is up yonder in heaven for you right at this very moment. What does that really mean to you? Come now, don’t choke on this steak. Don’t ask for a glass of milk. Don’t start running around doing little things. Let the pots and pans alone, Martha; you don’t need to be handling them right now. Let’s sit at Jesus’ feet. Let Him be a reality in our lives. When you left the house this morning, did you take Him with you? Were you conscious of His presence? He is in heaven serving you, friend! Christ is your intercessor. You are to go to Him to make confession of your sin. Why is it that you are worrying your pastor to death with your problems? Why do you keep going to him for counseling? Isn’t Jesus real to you today? Quit being a little baby that has to be burped all the time. Grow up! Come into the presence of the living Savior. That is what the writer is talking about. Oh, may God take the veil from our eyes, and may He make Jesus Christ—in all of His power, and in all of His salvation, and in all of His love, and in all of His care for you—a true reality!
I have been asked, “Why don’t you run up the American flag? Why don’t you fight corruption and lawlessness?” The reason I don’t preach about those things is because I teach the Word of God, and I am trying to get folk into the presence of the living Christ. When that is accomplished, all of those other things will drop into their right places. If you walk in the light of His presence, you are going to walk with Him down the street. If you go into a barroom, Christ is going to have to go in with you. I don’t know whether you would want to take Him into a bar or not. When Christ is with you, there are many things you are going to have to stop and consider. You will watch your conduct when you are conscious of the presence of Jesus Christ with you all of the time. He is the living intercessor today. He is alive.
Again let me say that the Lord Jesus ministers in a better tabernacle, the genuine tabernacle in heaven. He has made the throne of God a throne of grace, and we have been bidden to come there with great confidence and assurance that He is there. The thing you and I need to pray above everything else is: “Lord, I believe. Help Thou mine unbelief.” I don’t know about you, but my unbelief is bigger than my belief. We need to come to Him by faith. “Without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Heb. 11:6). So you and I need to have the reality of Jesus Christ in our lives. You will not see Him with your physical eye nor hear Him with your physical ear, but you will behold Him with that inner eye and hear Him with that inner ear which only faith can open.
Oh, how wonderful this is! Perhaps you think we have bogged down in this section. No, we are in His presence. We are at the high watermark. We are walking in the tall corn now. This is a wonderful section of God’s Word.
THE NEW COVENANT IS BETTER THAN THE OLD
But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises [Heb. 8:6].
“He obtained a more excellent ministry.” The tabernacle down here was a shadow of the real tabernacle up yonder in heaven. Christ lives up there and He can keep us saved. Somebody asks me, “Do you think you can lose your salvation?” Well, I’ll make a confession to you. I would lose my salvation before the sun goes down if Christ were not up there right now. He is having a problem with me—and maybe He is having a problem with you—but, thank God, He is there. My, how we need Him!
“He is the mediator of a better covenant.” We have what is known as a New Covenant today; we call it a new testament. The New Testament is actually a New Covenant which God has made, and it is in contrast to the old covenant of the Old Testament. God gave to Moses the Law, then He gave to him instructions for the tabernacle with its service. It was there that sin was dealt with. No one was ever saved by keeping the Law. No one ever came to God and said, “I have kept all Your commandments, therefore receive me.” No, instead they were continually bringing sacrifices because they had transgressed God’s law. The Law revealed to them that they had come short of the glory of God. The sacrificial system was all shadow. Although the tabernacle God gave to them was a literal tabernacle, it was a shadow of the real tabernacle in which Christ ministers today. In other words, so far we have seen that we have a better priest; we have a better sacrifice; we have a better tabernacle. All of this converges yonder at the brazen altar because Christ is all three: He is the better priest who ministers there. He is the better sacrifice—He offered Himself And He ministers in a better tabernacle, for He offered His own blood for your sin and my sin.
At this point I would like to refer you to my book, The Tabernacle, God’s Portrait of Christ. In it I go into much more detail, and I take the position that Christ offered His literal blood in heaven. It is my opinion that He was on His way to do this when He appeared to Mary. “Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17). I think He was at that moment our High Priest on His way to offer His literal blood in heaven. And I believe it will be there throughout eternity to remind us of the price that He paid for our redemption. When my book was first published, it was reviewed by a Christian magazine. The critic recommended it but warned that I took this literal view. The critic called it a crude concept. Well, I don’t think that the blood of Christ is crude—either when it was shed on earth or offered in heaven. Simon Peter, who was not what one might call a cultured individual, called it precious blood. A society dowager approached a great preacher in the East years ago. Looking at him through her lorgnette (a lorgnette, you know, is a sneer on the end of a stick), she said, “I hope you will not be like our last preacher. He was rather old-fashioned and put great emphasis on the blood. The blood offends my aesthetic nature. Don’t you think it is crude?” His reply to her was, “Madam, I see nothing crude about the blood of Christ except my sin and your sin.” I agree with him wholeheartedly. I say to you very definitely and dogmatically that I believe His blood is even now in heaven, and throughout the endless ages it will be there to remind us of the awful price Christ paid to redeem us.
“Which was established upon better promises.” Back in the Old Testament God had given the Mosaic Law, and when the people of Israel broke it, they brought the sacrifices. Before God gave the Mosaic Law and the instructions for approaching Him through the tabernacle ritual, they came to God by faith like Abraham did. Then when we move back of the time of Abraham, we find that Noah was on a different basis altogether. I don’t feel that you can read the Bible intelligently without seeing that God dealt with men differently in different ages. If you don’t want to call them dispensations, then you use your own word, but if you accept the inerrancy of Scripture and believe it is the Word of God, you are faced with the dispensational system—if you read it aright.
The writer of this epistle says that now we have a “better covenant” and that it is based upon “better promises.” Although you and I as Christians have been made a part of it, God is not through with the nation Israel, and these “better promises” are going to be fulfilled for them in the future Millennium.
When you read the Old Testament prophets, you just cannot get away from the fact that God is going to return the children of Israel back to their land. (As far as I can see, the present return of the Jews to Israel is not the fulfillment of prophecy.) For example, notice this prophecy in Jeremiah: “Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I will bring again the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have mercy on his dwellingplaces; and the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof” (Jer. 30:18). Then in Jeremiah 31:8 we read, “Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither.” This verse mentions the north country, which is Russia. The Jews are having a hard time getting out of Russia today, but when God steps in, there will be no trouble getting out of Russia and going to Palestine. Continuing on in the Book of Jeremiah we are told, “Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock. For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he” (Jer. 31:10–11, italics mine). The Jews are not in Israel under God’s redemption today—they are far from Him. But when that day comes, there will be a fulfillment of what the writer to the Hebrews is talking about when he says that there are going to be better promises on a better covenant that God will make with these people. “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer. 31:31–33, italics mine). In effect, God says, “I gave it to them before and wrote it on a cold hard stone—and they couldn’t keep it, but now I am going to write it on the fleshly tablets of the heart.” He has not done this up to the present moment. As I write this, I have just returned from the land of Israel and I saw no turning to God at all. One of the tour guides whom I had the privilege of meeting was a very attractive and likeable fellow. After I had witnessed to him, I told him, “You ought to be telling me about Jesus. You are a Jew, and you are living here in this land where He lived. He died for the sins of the world. I’m a poor Gentile who has come from afar. You ought to be telling me about Him—and here I am telling you!” He just laughed. May I say to you, friend, the Jews are not back in their land according to this promise. But someday Jeremiah’s prophecy is going to be fulfilled. Listen to him: “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me [they don’t know Him today], from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:34). This is what the writer to the Hebrews is talking about. The New Covenant is established upon better promises. Christ is the mediator of the better covenant because it contains better promises.
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second [Heb. 8:7].
“For if that first covenant had been faultless”—the first covenant was not adequate, which created a necessity for a better covenant. Somebody says, “Then the old covenant was wrong.” Now, that is not the case. Listen to the next verse:
For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah [Heb. 8:8].
“For finding fault with them”—not with it. The problem never was with God’s covenant. There is nothing wrong with God’s law, but there is a whole lot wrong with you and me. You and I are not able to keep the Law; we are not able to measure up to its requirements.
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” We have just read about that in Jeremiah’s prophecy, and you can read about it in the rest of the prophets.
Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord [Heb. 8:9].
The people broke the first covenant. It did not enable them to perform what it demanded.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people [Heb. 8:10].
The New Covenant will be written upon their hearts—not upon tables of stone—so that they will be able to obey it.
And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more [Heb. 8:11–12].
There will be full forgiveness of sin. There will be complete pardon.
In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away [Heb. 8:13].
So, my friend, we are not under the Mosaic system. God says that it is an old model and He has brought in a new model. That New Covenant He has made through the Lord Jesus Christ who is our Savior. Let me repeat, He did it, not because there was something wrong with the old covenant, but because there is something wrong with us. I feel sorry for folk today who have come back to the old covenant. They try to keep the Sabbath day and they try to keep the Mosaic Law. Oh, my friend, if they will really study it and are honest, they know they are not keeping the Mosaic system. They come short. All of us need to come to God for mercy, and accept in His New Covenant the provision of a Savior.
The Law was totally incapable of producing any good thing in man. Paul could say, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing …” (Rom. 7:18). And, friend, that is Scripture, and that is accurate. Man is totally depraved. That doesn’t mean only the man across the street or down in the next block from you, nor does it mean only some person who is living in overt sin; it means you and it means me. The Holy Spirit is now able to do the impossible. The Holy Spirit can produce a holy life in weak and sinful flesh.
Let me illustrate this truth by using a very homely incident. Suppose a housewife puts a roast in the oven right after breakfast because she is going to serve it for the noon meal. Time goes by and the telephone rings. It is Mrs. Joe Dokes on the phone. Mrs. Dokes begins with “Have you heard?” Well, the housewife hasn’t heard, but she would like to; so she pulls up a chair. Someone has defined a woman as one who draws up a chair when answering a telephone. Mrs. Dokes has a lot to tell, and about an hour goes by. Finally our good housewife says, “Oh, Mrs. Dokes, you’ll have to excuse me. I smell the roast—it’s burning!” She hangs up the phone, rushes to the kitchen, and opens the oven. Then she gets a fork and puts it down in the roast to lift it up, but it won’t hold. She can’t lift it out. She tries again, closer to the bone, but still it won’t hold. So she gets a spatula. She puts the spatula under the roast and lifts it out. You see, what the fork could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, the spatula is able to do. Now, there is nothing wrong with the fork—it was a good fork. But it couldn’t hold the flesh because something was wrong with the flesh—it was overcooked. The spatula does what the fork could not do.
The Law is like the fork in that it was weak through the flesh. It just won’t lift us up; it can’t lift us up. But a new principle is introduced: the Holy Spirit. What the Law could not do, the Holy Spirit is able to do. Therefore, you and I are to be saved and are to live the Christian life on this new principle. We have a New Covenant based upon better promises; God has given to us the Holy Spirit and Christ, our intercessor, is up yonder to help us today.
This is a very wonderful passage of Scripture. If you want to get off the milk diet (although milk is good for you, and there is milk in the Word), learn to eat some meat along with it. The meat is to put the emphasis upon the living Christ, His ascension, and His intercession yonder in heaven for you and for me. My friend, when we lay hold on the living Christ, we have gone to the heights. We cannot go any higher than that in this age in which we live.
CHAPTER 9
Theme: New sanctuary better than old; the superior sacrifice
NEW SANCTUARY BETTER THAN THE OLD
Our subject is the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ who is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Presented to us are two ministries which are in sharp contrast. The Levitical service, the ministry of the Aaronic priesthood, was carried out in an earthly tabernacle down here. That sanctuary on earth was merely a type of the one which is in heaven, the sanctuary in which the Lord Jesus is serving today. This sanctuary in heaven provides for better worship. A great many people consider the Law from the standpoint of the Ten Commandments, but the Epistle to the Hebrews approaches the Law from the viewpoint of its place of worship and its priesthood. That approach puts the emphasis on the settling of sins, and, as the writer will point out, the Law never really settled the sin question. “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Heb. 10:4).
Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary [Heb. 9:1].
The word for “service” here would be better translated as “worship.”
“A worldly sanctuary” does not mean worldly as we usually think of it, but it means a sanctuary of this world; that is, it was made of materials of this world. It was made so long, so wide, and so high, and there was a ritual that the people went through in the sanctuary down here. In that sense it was of the world. The writer is going to further contrast it with the sanctuary that is in heaven.
For there was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which is called the sanctuary [Heb. 9:2].
“For there was a tabernacle made”!—notice that we are not taken back to the temple. There is no reference made to Herod’s temple for the sake of this illustration. Although the third temple was then in existence, when the type is given, the writer goes beyond them all to that very simple structure that God gave to Moses in the wilderness. “There was a tabernacle made,” and it was made of the things of this world. It was patterned after the one in heaven, but it was much inferior in many different ways, as we shall see.
“Which is called the sanctuary”—that is, it was the Holy Place. The tabernacle proper was just a big gold box thirty cubits (about forty-five feet) long, ten cubits (about fifteen feet) wide, and ten cubits high. It was divided into two sections. The first was the Holy Place in which there were certain articles of furniture: the table of showbread and the golden lampstand. Then, in the background was the golden altar, the altar of incense, which speaks of prayer—no sacrifices were ever made there.
And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all;
Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant;
And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly [Heb. 9:3–5].
In the Holy of Holies (which was separated from the Holy Place by a veil and into which only the high priest entered), there were two articles of furniture. There was the ark, which was just a box made out of gopher wood and overlaid inside and outside with gold, and on top of the ark was a highly ornamented top called the mercy seat. It was fashioned with cherubim, made of pure gold, looking down upon the top of the box. That was where the blood was placed, and that was what made it a mercy seat—for “without shedding of blood is no remission” of sins.
“Which had the golden censer,” that is, the golden altar. Notice that a change has been made—we are told that the golden altar is inside the Holy of Holies rather than inside the Holy Place. Why has it been moved to the inside? The veil between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies was made of fine twine Egyptian byssus linen with the cherubim woven into it, and it spoke of the humanity of the Lord Jesus. When He died on the cross, He gave His life, His human life, and at that time the veil was rent in twain. So the veil which was torn in two has been removed, signifying that the way to God is wide open, because Christ has made a way. He said, “No man cometh to the Father, but by me” (see John 14:6). The veil has been rent in twain, and we can come right into God’s presence today. But what happened to the golden censer or the golden altar? It has been moved inside the Holy of Holies. Aaron on the great Day of Atonement came with the blood to sprinkle upon the mercy seat, taking a censer filled with coals and with incense in it, and he went inside the Holy of Holies. He was actually transferring, as it were, the altar of incense to the inside. He took the censer of burning coals from off the altar with sweet incense on it, and took it into the Holy of Holies, but he brought it back out again. And he had to do that again the next year and then again the next.
However, we have a Great High Priest who is our great intercessor always at the golden altar making intercession for us. His prayers are heard, by the way. Therefore, the golden altar is on the inside, but it is also on the outside, because you and I can come through Him by prayer. That is what Paul meant when he said, “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access …” (Rom. 5:1–2).
The writer mentions also the things which were in the ark. “Wherein was the golden pot that had manna”—this speaks of the present ministry of Christ. He feeds those who are His own. He feeds them with His Word. He is the Bread of Life. The Bible is God’s bakery, and if you want bread, that is where you will go to get it.
“And Aaron’s rod that budded.” This speaks of the death and resurrection of Christ, because it was a dead rod and life came into it.
“And the tables of the covenant” speaks of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled all the law.
“Of which we cannot now speak particularly.” The writer means he doesn’t have time to dwell upon the tabernacle, because the things that he is emphasizing are the priesthood and worship. He is concerned about what real worship is and how we are to worship.
Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God [Heb. 9:6].
“The priests went always into the first tabernacle.” The priests went continually—they never finished the job. If they went today, they would be going again tomorrow, and the next day, and on and on and on. I am of the opinion that it must have become very monotonous over the years for a priest to continually go through this ritual. The very repetition of it meant that it was not sufficient, that is, that one time would not do. However, we are going to see that Christ went once into the Holy Place—it was necessary for Him to go just one time.
“Accomplishing the service of God” should be “accomplishing the worship of God.” This was the ultimate goal of it all, that God’s people might worship Him. This is speaking of real worship, not just a church service where an order of service is followed. When real worship takes place it is a worship that draws us into the presence of Christ where we can adore Him.
The word worship comes from the same Anglo-Saxon root word as worth. To worship is to give someone something of which they are worthy. The Lord Jesus Christ is worthy to receive our praise and our adoration. That is worship, and from that follows service. Real worship will always lead to service. In the midst of His temptation in the wilderness, the Lord Jesus answered Satan, “… For it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Matt. 4:10, italics mine). You will not have to beg and coax and goad people into doing something, if they are participating in real worship of Christ—because real worship leads to service. Many ministers spend a great deal of time urging people to do something—urging them to give, urging them to do visitation, urging them to teach, or urging them to sing. Real worship will lead to service. Such worship is possible only through Jesus Christ.
The ritual of the tabernacle never brought the people into the presence of God. The high priest alone went into the Holy of Holies.
But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people [Heb. 9:7].
He is speaking now of the great Day of Atonement. This was Yom Kippur, in one sense the high day in the life of the nation Israel. This is the day that the great high priest went into the Holy of Holies on behalf of the nation. And on the basis of his having done this, the nation was accepted for another year.
Our Great High Priest has gone into the Holy of Holies, into the very presence of God. He has gone in, and He has not come out. He is going to be there as long as we are in the world. When He does come out, He is coming out after His own—we are a part of Him; we are the “body” of Christ.
The purpose of all of this is to make real to your heart and mine the presence of the Lord Jesus. Did you start out the day with Him? This is a hurly-burly world you and I are in, and it has no time for Him. As you have rushed through this day, has He been with you? Have you worshiped Him? To worship Him we do not have to go to church and sing the doxology (although the writer of this epistle is going to urge us to do that, because we need to be with God’s people and participate in concerted, corporate worship; it is essential for our growth) but we can worship Him anywhere. You can worship Him at the end of a cotton row or a corn row. You can worship Him on the freeway. You can worship Him in the office. You can worship Him in the classroom. My friend, I don’t care where you are, you can worship Him. You and I need to pour out our hearts in adoration and praise unto His holy name.
Now our High Priest has gone into the Holy of Holies on our behalf this very day. And you can see how superior this is to the past when the high priest went in on just one day each year—and didn’t stay; in fact, he hurried out. Tradition tells us that he actually had a chain around his foot, because if he did anything wrong, he would have been struck dead and they would have had to pull him out and get a new high priest.
Oh, the wonder and the glory of it all! Our High Priest has gone into the very presence of God for you and me, and He is there today. Someone has given a little different translation of Hebrews 9:24, and I want to give it to you at this point: “For Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in pattern to the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us.” Moses asked to see God’s face but was told that no man could see God. However, you and I have a High Priest who has gone into the very presence of God.
We do not worship Him by going through a ritual. We do not worship Him by burning candles or incense, or by having a nice little altar fixed up. Some Protestant churches have really gotten involved in such things.
The last time I was in the church of a minister friend I asked him why he had a cross set up on the table used for the Lord’s Supper. He said, “Oh, not only that, but did you notice the candles?” I hadn’t noticed them, but he also had a candle at each end of the table. He said, “That’s to help the people with their worship.” My friend, if you need that kind of help, you are not worshiping Him. The woman at the well asked the Lord Jesus where the people should worship God, and the Lord replied, “The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him” (John 4:23). I have another minister friend who is very concerned with Jewish evangelism, and he has a menorah with seven candles on it in his church. He told me that it was to keep their minds centered on the fact that they have an obligation to the Jewish people. If we need that sort of thing in our churches, we are not really worshiping God.
Oh, that you and I could get into His presence and smell the sweet incense of His presence—not with our noses but with our hearts and our souls and our minds. I pray that I might be conscious of the sweetness of His presence, that I might walk in the light of His Word, and that there might be reality in my life every day. I covet that for you too. We need to put away our bottle of milk with its little nipple, and we need to feed on the meat of the Word. We need to get into the presence of the living Christ who is our Great High Priest ministering yonder at a better tabernacle than the one that was on this earth. We can worship the living Christ today.
The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing [Heb. 9:8].
In other words, all of this was a picture and a type that the way into the very presence of God (actually, right into the very face of God) had not yet been opened.
Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;
Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation [Heb. 9:9–10].
“That could not make him that did the service perfect,” could read “that could not make the worshiper perfect.”
The way to God in the tabernacle was actually blocked by the three entrances and compartments. In other words, the people could come only to that outer entrance and bring their sacrifice. If a man brought a little lamb, he would put his hand on it in an act of identification since it would die in his place, and then the priest would take it from there. It would be slain and offered upon the brazen altar. The individual who brought the lamb could go no farther than the entrance. Then, as far as the Holy Place was concerned, only the priest could go in there. And into the Holy of Holies neither the priest nor the people could go. Only the high priest could enter in there. Therefore, the tabernacle was a temporary, makeshift arrangement. The service of ritual and ordinances was given for just a brief time.
Now Christ can bring us to God, but only He can bring us there. “… No man cometh unto the Father,” He said, “but by me” (John 14:6). Such is real worship, and real worship will lead to service. Once we get into the presence of God, there will be no problem about serving.
Worship is something that the liberal today condemns. Years ago the late Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick said that the world tried to get rid of Jesus in two ways—one was by crucifying Him and the other was by worshiping Him! My friend, it is blasphemy to say that if you worship Him you are no better than those who crucified Him! We approach a holy God today on the basis of a crucified Savior. He alone can cause us to worship.
That is the reason for Paul’s writing to the Ephesians: “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” Now notice the first thing Paul speaks of after being filled with the Spirit: “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Eph. 5:18–19). That is worship. My friend, the greatest thrill in the world for a child of God is to be filled with the Spirit of God and to have the Spirit of God take the things of Christ and make them real to us. What joy that brings to our hearts! If you have been in the presence of God to worship, you will have joy in your heart and you will have a song in your heart. Some of us have difficulty getting that song to our lips—I always have!—but it is certainly down in my heart. It is wonderful to worship Him.
I want to recapitulate what we have said concerning the sanctuary here on earth which is inferior to the one in heaven. To do so, I will share from an outline put out by a good friend of mine, Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe (Be Confident). This is what we have seen concerning the sanctuary here on earth:
1. It was on earth. It was a worldly sanctuary, that is, it was made of earthly things, material things. It was erected on this earth down here.
2. It was but a shadow of things to come. It never was the reality. So many of us have things mixed up. We go back and study about the tabernacle, and we can really get our interest centered in that earthly tabernacle. But, at best it was just a shadow, a picture of the real one that is in heaven.
3. It was inaccessible to the people. You just couldn’t get in there. If you had been an Israelite in that day, you couldn’t go rushing into the presence of God. You would have been stopped at that first entrance. You would have needed a sacrifice there, and you couldn’t have gone any further—the priest served for you. However, today we are a priesthood of believers, and each one of us has access to God. That is one of the great privileges we have because Christ has rent the veil in twain. He has gone into the presence of God, into the face of God. He is right there, my friend, and He is there for us. The Israelites didn’t have that privilege under the old covenant.
4. It was temporary. But the Lord Jesus Christ is going to keep the way open for eternity. I have a notion that Vernon McGee is going to need someone who will keep it open for him throughout eternity. The earthly tabernacle was only a temporary arrangement.
5. It was ineffective to change the hearts of the people. This is the thing I want to emphasize above everything else. The earthly sanctuary had nothing in the world to do with changing people’s lives. But today you can come to Christ, and He can change your life. He alone can enable you to worship God in spirit and in truth and make Him a reality in your life. Many folk today just play church—like we played house by the hours when we were kids. I know a lot of Christians who are grown up and have gray hair, and they’re still playing church. They go to committee meetings, they’re on the board, some sing in the choir, some teach a Sunday school class—they are as busy as termites and just about as effective. They think they are serving God. My friend, you can never serve Him until you have worshiped Him.
THE SUPERIOR SACRIFICE
But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building [Heb. 9:11].
“Of good things to come” really means good things that have come to pass. Oh, the good things that have come through Him!
“A greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands.” This tabernacle is nothing that man has built down here. The better tabernacle does not belong to this natural creation as to materials or builders.
Let me say this very kindly. All of this business today of trying to sweeten up the worship service with pictures and stained glass windows and candles and crosses ministers to the flesh. It is fleshly—it ministers to the physical side of man. It doesn’t minister to his spiritual needs at all. We need to recognize that there is a real tabernacle in heaven; there is a real High Priest there, and there is spiritual worship. You can worship Him anywhere, and it is wonderful when people can come together in a church and really worship God. I’m sure many of you have been in a service like that, and it is a wonderful thing.
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us [Heb. 9:12].
I believe this verse proves that Christ took His literal blood to heaven. If that is not what the writer is talking about here, I do not know what he is saying. “Neither by the blood of goats and calves”—that is literal blood. “But by his own blood,” this is the literal blood which He shed on the cross. “He entered in.” How? By His own blood. His was a superior sacrifice and the only one worthy of the genuine tabernacle.
“Having obtained eternal redemption for us.” Notice that in your Bible the words for us are in italics, indicating that they are not in the original manuscript. They were added to smooth out the translation, which is all right, but they are not the emphasis of the verse. The emphasis is upon the contrast that Christ entered once into the Holy Place and obtained eternal redemption. The Israelite priests went in continually, and they got a temporary sort of thing. Only Christ went in once and obtained eternal redemption. This now puts the authority and the importance upon the sacrifice of Christ, and it reminds us that the life of Christ never saved anyone. You can follow His teachings and think you are saved, but, my friend, His teaching never saved anyone. It is the death of Christ, it is His redemption that saves.
For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh [Heb. 9:13].
“And the ashes of an heifer” is a reference to the ordinance of the red heifer in Numbers 19. The heifer was burned completely and its ashes kept in a clean place. When a man became ceremonially defiled (primarily by touching a dead body), the priest would take the ashes, mingle them with water, and sprinkle the offender. This served to ceremonially purify him so that he could be restored to fellowship. I would like to have you notice that here the heifer has a particular symbolism. A female, instead of a bull, is used. We are told in 1 Peter 3:7 that the female is the weaker vessel. Our defilement actually comes through our weakness. We are weak, and Christ came down and experienced physically, in the flesh, our weakness.
We are told also that a red heifer was used. The red, I think, speaks of the fact that Christ became sin for us—not in some academic way, but He actually became sin for us. How do we know that red is the color of sin? Isaiah said, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isa. 1:18, italics mine). So it must be a red heifer, speaking of the fact that He became sin for us.
The animal must also be without blemish. It certainly could not represent Christ unless it was perfect. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.
The red heifer must be an animal upon which a yoke had never been put. This symbolizes the fact that although Christ was made sin for us, He was never under the bondage of sin.
The heifer was to be led outside the camp and there slain before the high priest. In this we have pictured that the Lord Jesus is both the offering and the High Priest—He offered Himself.
The blood of the offering was to be sprinkled by the high priest before the tabernacle seven times. Many people think that seven is the number of perfection in Scripture. That is only indirectly true; the primary meaning is completeness. It speaks here of the fact that Christ’s sacrifice is a finished transaction—one sacrifice takes care of the sin of the believer.
The carcass of the heifer was to be burned—again in the sight of the high priest. You see, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Jesus freely gave Himself, but we probably have never thought of the sorrow that was in heaven the day He died.
Numbers also tells us that cedar and hyssop were to be put with the sacrifice. This is rather suggestive to me. First Kings 4:33 says, “And he [Solomon] spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall….” Solomon ran the gamut of trees and plant life; he was a dendrologist and knew the entire field. I think this is what Isaac Watts meant by “the whole realm of nature.” Therefore I believe this speaks of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ not only redeemed mankind, but He has redeemed this world. We live in a world that is cursed by sin; it is now groaning and travailing in pain, but it is to be delivered. Someday it is to be redeemed, and sin is to be removed.
A little later in this chapter we are told that even heaven itself had to be cleansed (see v. 23). Someone says, “My gracious, is it dirty in heaven?” Yes, that is where sin originated, where Lucifer led his rebellion. Therefore, Christ’s sacrifice was adequate and it was complete. It was a finished transaction that covered all of God’s creation which has been touched by sin.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”
—Isaac Watts
The ashes of the heifer were to be kept in a clean place and then mixed with water when they were used. I think that the water speaks of the Word of God. It is the Word of God which reveals sin in the life of the believer.
The sacrifice of Christ provided redemption for the future—for your redemption and my redemption. It also provided redemption for the sins of those in the Old Testament. The Old Testament saints were saved by faith—Abraham was saved by faith. How? He believed God and brought a lamb. Was that lamb adequate? No; it prefigured Christ. The sacrifice of Christ looks forward and it looks backward.
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? [Heb. 9:14].
If the blood of animals could remove ceremonial defilement, surely the blood of Christ can take away the guilt of sin. After all, if the blood of bulls and goats had been adequate, Christ never would have shed His blood to do the adequate job.
“Purge your conscience.” The ordinance of the red heifer in Numbers 19 speaks of the life of the believer and the fact that as believers you and I need constant cleansing. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth [keeps on cleansing] us from all sin…. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7, 9). You see, the blood of Christ cleanses, not the flesh, but the conscience.
It is the conscience of man that needs to be cleansed. You and I have not really arrived until we enter into this marvelous sacrifice of Christ, recognizing His authority to absolutely forgive and cleanse us from sin. It is the conscience that has been made alert by the Word of God, but it can also rest in a finished salvation. We can pillow our heads at night knowing that our sins are entirely, totally, fully forgiven. We can know that we are right with God because Christ has made it right.
I heard a story of a man who had a little boy who did something wrong and went to his father to ask him to forgive him. The father told the little boy he would, and said, “Because you have come and confessed it, I will forgive you.” But the little boy came again and asked forgiveness. The father said, “Sure. I’ve already forgiven you.” The little boy kept coming back and coming back and coming back. Finally, the father said, “Son, I’m going to paddle you, if you don’t quit coming to me! I told you I’d forgiven you.”
How many times do we find believers who say, “Oh, I’m not sure I’m saved. I’m not sure I’m saved.” And they keep going to the Lord. My friend, I think He would say, “I’ve already forgiven you. If you trust in My Son, your sins are forgiven.” We need to enter into that and rest upon His Word.
“Purge your conscience from dead works.” Dead works have to do with works that you do thinking they will save you. You see, we are dead in trespasses and sins, and all that a dead person can do is dead works. I have never heard of a dead person doing live work—it just can’t be done. Anything that you do to try to earn your salvation is a dead work.
Because good works are never a cause of salvation but are a result of salvation, the writer goes on to say, “purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” The word serve is actually worship—“to worship the living God.” Worship and service go together. You can’t serve God without worshiping Him; neither can you worship Him without serving Him. When I see a lazy saint doing nothing for God, I don’t question his salvation, but I do question his worship. Does he really worship God? Oh, if you fall down before Him in adoration and praise, then you are going to get up on your feet to start doing something for Him, my friend.
I had this bit of verse written in the first Bible I ever owned, which my mother had given to me:
I do not work my soul to save—
That work my Lord has done.
But I will work like any slave
For love of God’s dear Son.
—Author unknown
And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance [Heb. 9:15].
“And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament [or, covenant].” The emphasis is upon the fact that He is the mediator of the New Covenant. Those who came under the old covenant, the Old Testament saints, were saved because they were looking forward to His coming when they brought their sacrifices. I do not know how much they understood, and yet the Lord Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad” (John 8:56). Genesis doesn’t tell us that; the Lord Jesus did. I believe that all of the Old Testament worthies looked forward to the coming of Christ. In other words, God saved on credit. The blood of bulls and goats never took away their sins. They brought the sacrifices by faith, and when Christ came, He died “… for the remission of sins that are past …” (Rom. 3:25); that is, He died for the sins of all from Adam right down to the time of the cross. And since then, you and I also come to Him by faith.
For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth [Heb. 9:16–17].
“Testament” could be translated will. If you have made a will and you are still alive, your will does nothing for anyone. It doesn’t operate until you die. Now the reference here is to a will that was made by a man who died. He couldn’t save anyone as long as He lived. Don’t misunderstand me—what I am saying is that the life of Christ could never save you. It is the death of Christ which saves you.
Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood.
For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people,
Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.
Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry.
And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission [Heb. 9:18–22].
The word blood occurs in this section six times, revealing the place and the power of the blood in the Old Testament ritual. “Without shedding of blood is no remission” is the axiom of the Old Testament. Also the blood is very important in the New Testament. As the hymn writer put it, “there is power in the blood of the Lamb.” In Revelation we find that the victory was won through the blood of the Lamb, not through some individual’s ingenuity, or physical strength, or even spiritual strength.
It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these [Heb. 9:23].
These heavenly things needed cleansing because sin originated in heaven (see v. 11). The blood of bulls and goats has never been shed in heaven—there is no denying that that would be crude. However, the blood of Christ, we believe, is in heaven and that is not crude at all.
For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us [Heb. 9:24].
The tabernacle on earth was just a figure—the reality is in heaven. “Now to appear in the presence of God for us” means before the very face of God. Christ has not entered into a man-made sanctuary. It is spiritual but real. He died on earth to save us. He lives in heaven to keep us saved. He is there for us.
Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others [Heb. 9:25].
The high priest entered the earthly tabernacle with blood not his own, and he entered often.
For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself [Heb. 9:26].
“But now once in the end of the world” should read “the end of the age.” This has no reference to what some people call the end of the world. Actually, the Bible does not teach the end of the world; it does teach the end of the age.
“Hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Christ came, made under the Law. He appeared at the end of the Law age, and He instituted a new age, the age of grace.
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment [Heb. 9:27].
Death is in the natural sequence of events for man. For the unsaved man, after death there is nothing but judgment. If the death of Christ does not save you, there is nothing ahead of you but judgment.
Death is not appointed unto all men—thank God for that. It is appointed unto men once to die, but some are not going to die. I hear people talk today about old age and, oh, how they want to die and get into the presence of the Lord. I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind waiting. I’m in no hurry to die! I hope I can live until He comes. I don’t know whether I will, but that is the way I would like it.
Oh, joy! oh, delight! should we go without dying,
No sickness, no sadness, no dread and no crying,
Caught up through the clouds with our Lord into glory,
When Jesus receives “His own.”
O Lord Jesus, how long, how long
Ere we shout the glad song, Christ returneth!
Hallelujah! hallelujah! Amen, Hallelujah! Amen.
“Christ Returneth”
—H.L. Turner
These words by H. L. Turner in “Christ Returneth” express the thoughts we cherish about His coming.
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation [Heb. 9:28].
This is not speaking of the Rapture, but of His coming as sovereign to judge the earth. (However, believers will not come into judgment.) When He appears the second time it will not be to settle the sin question. He is not going to come the next time to walk around the Sea of Galilee or through the streets of Jerusalem to see what men will do with His sacrifice. He is coming in judgment.
Therefore today we can put it very simply: there is just one of two places for your sin—either your sin is on you, or it is on Christ. If you have not accepted the sacrifice of Christ, if you are not trusting Him as your redeemer, if He is no authority to you, then there is nothing ahead of you but the judgment of the Great White Throne. No one who appears there is going to be saved, but everyone will be given a fair chance to present their works and discover that God was right all along. And I have news for you: God is always right. So today if your sin is on you, there is nothing that can remove it but the death of Christ.
When Christ comes the next time it will be “without sin unto salvation”—that is, He will complete salvation at that time. Our salvation is in three tenses: I have been saved; I am being saved; I shall be saved. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Now that is going to be a great day. It is going to be a great day for Vernon McGee, so don’t you be dissatisfied with me, will you not? God is not through with me.
Down in Mississippi a dear little lady wearing a sunbonnet got up in a testimony meeting under the brush arbor and said, “Most Christians ought to have written on their backs, ‘This is not the best that the grace of God can do.’” Well, that should be written on the backs of all Christians. God is not through with any of us. Thank God for that! He is going to appear the second time without sin unto salvation—He is going to deliver us. But, my friend, He will not come to settle the sin question for anyone who has not accepted Him—to them He is coming as judge.
CHAPTER 10
Theme: Encouragement
Without a chapter break, the writer of this epistle continues with the subject of the superior sacrifice.
For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect [Heb. 10:1].
As he concluded chapter 9 the writer said that if Christ had failed to save in His death at His first coming, there would be nothing after ward but judgment. My friend, if you reject Jesus Christ as Savior, you will have the saddest funeral possible. I have conducted many funerals, and some of them were for unsaved people. There is no sorrow like that of a funeral in a family of unsaved people—and that’s the way it should be. I recall one instance in which a wife, who was almost an alcoholic, had lost her husband. She had leaned on him a great deal. I tried to give a message, not of comfort, but of good news, presenting the gospel. Afterward she came to me, looked into my face and asked, “Is there any hope at all?” I said, “Well, there is a hope for you.” There was no hope for him whatsoever. He was a blasphemer, and he had told me that he had no use for the church; he had no use for Jesus Christ; he had no use for anything Christian. There was nothing ahead for him but judgment.
Beginning with this word for the writer continues the theme of Christ’s sacrifice for sin.
“For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things.” The Mosaic Law served a good purpose in that it was a picture which taught Israel. Because God had taught Israel so thoroughly, He judged the nation severely. When the Lord Jesus was there in the flesh He said, “… how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!” (Luke 13:34). My friend, if you don’t believe that God’s judgment was really a severe one, go to Jerusalem and walk around the streets of old Jerusalem. Walk in the area where we know Jesus moved. All of it is covered over with debris today. Why? Because the city has been judged. Oh, how often the Lord had attempted to gather His chosen people to Himself? He had given them the Old Testament with the clear teaching of the tabernacle ritual.
Contrast the light that they had to the darkness in which my ancestors lived way up there in Germany. Boy, were they pagan and heathen in those days! And my ancestors over in Scotland were dirty and filthy. Then the gospel came to them, and, thank God, some of them trusted Christ. I had a grandfather on my father’s side who apparently was a godly man. I am thankful for the men who carried the gospel to Europe. That gave the Gentiles a break, you see.
But the nation of Israel had the Old Testament, which was (and still is) a picture book, a book of ABCs. That is the reason so many folk miss its meaning. When theologians come to it, they have to find something profound in it. But it is a simple picture book in which God is trying to tell all of us little children down here that He died for us. It is just as simple as that, my friend.
Now let me call your attention to another thing that is very important. Notice that the Law had to do with the tabernacle and the sacrifices. This idea that you can separate God’s commandments from His ceremonial law is entirely wrong. If you want to return to the legal system and put yourself under the Ten Commandments, you had better build a little tabernacle for yourself and start raising goats and sheep, because you are going to need them. But, my friend, Christ finished all of that. We now are on a different basis, a higher plane altogether. For instance, God wants to bring joy into your life. The Law never promised joy. There was thunder and lightning, and people were smitten dead at the giving of the Law. But when Jesus came, it was He who died that we might have life.
For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins [Heb. 10:2].
“For then would they not have ceased to be offered?” If the sacrifice they offered could have taken away their guilt, one sacrifice would have been enough.
It is very interesting to note that after the Lord Jesus died, it was only a few years until the temple was destroyed. And Israel has not been able to put up another temple. Oh, they have a little miniature temple for display over on the new side of Jerusalem at the Holy City Hotel, but they don’t have a temple today. It doesn’t look as if they will get one soon either. You see, when Christ became the sacrifice, that ended the need for the tabernacle and temple.
Today Israel is not offering sacrifices. I spoke to a very delightful Jewish guide in Jerusalem. His hair was as gray as it could be. He said that it had turned gray when he was only nineteen years of age after he had heard that his father and mother, sisters and brothers had been killed in Russia. He was a delightful fellow, and he took me around to show me the model of the temple at the hotel I mentioned. As we were looking at it, I asked him (although perhaps I should not have), “Where is the brazen altar?” He looked at me with surprise and said, “Oh, we have come past that. Today we have an ethical religion.” Well, a lot of folk have an ethical religion, but, my friend, that bloody sacrifice was necessary that the human family might have forgiveness of sins.
“For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.” They would no longer have any feelings of guilt or consciousness of sin.
But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year [Heb. 10:3].
So, actually, what those sacrifices did was to remind the Israelite that the sacrificial system was not complete—or they wouldn’t have to come back and repeat it every day. The sacrifices were only a shadow, skian in the Greek, meaning “a hazy outline.” The old sacrifices were shadow, never substance. And, my friend, shadows are not enough. You can’t live in the shadow of a house; you need a house.
Again, the sacrifices would not have had to be repeated if they had been complete. For instance, when a man says that he is cured of disease and yet he is still taking medicine every hour, that man is not cured. And when a man keeps bringing sacrifices every year, that man is not cured of sin. It is Christ who made the one sacrifice once and for all. In those sacrifices there was a reminder of sins year by year. Here they go through the great Day of Atonement every year. What did it mean? The answer had not arrived until yonder on Golgotha when Jesus cried out, “Tetelestai!” Finished! My friend, then it was finished. And the next year there was no need for a Day of Atonement. In fact, he will tell us that to go through a sacrifice today is to trod underfoot the blood of Jesus.
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins [Heb. 10:4].
The blood of the animal sacrifices only covered over the sins until the Lamb of God would come to take away the sin of the world (see John 1:29).
Now here is a tremendous passage—
Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:
In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;
Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all [Heb. 10:5–10].
I want to insert a cross reference here to make this section of the Word of God very meaningful to you. Going back to the Book of Exodus, we find in chapter 19 the preparation for the giving of the Mosaic Law, and in chapter 20 the giving of the Ten Commandments. After that, God makes a gracious provision by the sacrificial system. You see, the altar goes right along with the Law. Then in chapter 21 we come upon something that seems very much out of place. It is one of the most beautiful references in the Bible. The Law has been given, and now God says to Moses: “Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them. If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. [They couldn’t have a slave of their own people more than six years.] If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself. if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her masters, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl [the lobe of the ear would be pierced]; and he shall serve him for ever.” (Exod. 21:1–6).
In that day if you saw a man walking along with a hole in his ear, you would know that he had been given a wife, and that he had paid the price of permanent servitude for her. It was a tremendous law and certainly a lovely thing, but what is the meaning of it?
Well, let’s follow the meaning of it. In Psalm 40:6–7 we read, “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened [that is, pierced with an awl]: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me.” This is quoted in the Book of Hebrews and applied to the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is one of the most beautiful pictures in Scripture. The Lord Jesus came to this earth, grew to manhood, and at thirty years of age He began His earthly ministry. When He came to the end of that ministry, He could say, “Which of you convicteth me of sin?” (see John 8:46). He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. He could have stepped off this earth any day that He wanted to, gone back to heaven and left this earth in sin—left you and me in the slavery of sin. But He loved us, and God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. So instead of His ear being pierced with an awl, He was given a body. A body for what? For death—to die on the cross. “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:10). Referring back to that law in Exodus, if a master gave his slave a woman to marry, and he loved her, he could choose to stay in slavery with her. In like manner the Lord Jesus Christ has been given the body of believers which we call the church as His bride. In His prayer in John 17:9 the Lord said to His Father concerning them, “They are mine. You gave them to Me.” The Lord loves us; He paid the price for us. But the interesting thing is that He didn’t stay in slavery; He went back to the right hand of the Majesty on high, and some day He is going to take us out of the slavery of sin to be with Him. He alone could do that. How wonderful this is!
There is a green hill, far away,
Without a city wall.
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all.
There was no other good enough,
To pay the price of sin.
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven to let us in.
“There is a Green Hill Far Away”
—Mrs. Cecil F. Alexander
What a beautiful picture of Christ this section of Scripture gives us!
And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins [Heb. 10:11].
The offerings could only cover the sin; they were an atonement, but they could never take away sins. The offerings were just a reminder that men were sinners and that the sin question had not yet been settled.
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God [Heb. 10:12].
Why did He sit down? Was He tired? No. Did He sit down because He did not want to do anything? No. Jesus sat down because His work was finished—“one sacrifice for sins for ever.”
From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool [Heb. 10:13].
Our Lord is just waiting. There are a few more people to be saved. We pray, “O come now, Lord Jesus,” but He says, “No, not yet. We are going to wait, because I want to save some more.” He is giving you an opportunity, friend, if you are not saved. Psalm 110:1 says, “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool,” referring to the second coming of Christ to the earth. But in the meantime He is waiting for more of the human family to come to Him.
For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified [Heb. 10:14].
One offering does what many offerings could not do. If Christ cannot save you and keep you, then God has no other way to save you and keep you.
Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,
This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more [Heb. 10:15–17].
This is the essential part of the quotation from Jeremiah 31. God says, “I’m going to make a new covenant with Israel.” God is not through with them. If you will read your Bible you will see that.
Now let me remind you that in this section of Hebrews we are seeing the greatest division in the Word of God. It is like a Grand Canyon which is placed between the old covenant and the new covenant, the Old Testament and the New Testament. And let’s remember that God gave both of them. Referring back to verse 9, notice that it says, “He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.” He taketh away the first (that is, the first covenant), that He may establish the second covenant. When the Lord Jesus died upon the cross, something very important happened: the veil was rent in twain. No longer are men to come to God through the sacrifice of the blood of bulls and goats; now the Lord Jesus has made a way for us through His own body—a way for you and me. Notice again verse 10: “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once.” In the Authorized Version the two words for all that conclude this verse are in italics, meaning they were supplied by the translators. The verse is more accurate without them, because the emphasis is on the fact that Christ did it one time so that sacrifices are to end. It is interesting that ever since the destruction of the temple in a.d. 70 by Titus the Roman, there has been no bloody sacrifice offered in Jerusalem. There are no blood sacrifices being offered there today, and the prospects for them being offered in the near future are very dim. Christ took away the fist that He might establish the second.
The importance of this cannot be over-emphasized. You see, in the first covenant were many rules and regulations. The old covenant was a law, a law that had a great many details. There was the ceremonial law with many details in regard to the sacrifices; there were the Ten Commandments and other commandments or rules. Actually rules and regulations appeal to human nature. Men feel that it is easy to obey rules, which is the reason so many folk today will tell you that the Sermon on the Mount is their religion. They may not know exactly what it says or what it means, but they like it because it has rules, which they kid themselves into believing they can follow. The whole history of mankind and the multitude of cults and “isms” springing up in our day demonstrate that this is true. Man likes to live by certain rules and follow certain rituals.
Now in the new covenant we are under an altogether different system. Paul had mentioned to the Corinthian believers: “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament [the new covenant]; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2 Cor. 3:6) Some strange individuals have come up with the novel interpretation that this verse means they should not study the Bible! They say that “the letter” means the Bible and it is the Spirit that gives life. Well, of course that is not what Paul is saying, as the following verse makes clear. “But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious….” Obviously, this refers to the Ten Commandments, so now we know that the “letter” is the commandments. The Ten Commandments were the ministration of death. My friend, the Law kills. The Law never saved anyone. It will kill you because it brings you under the judgment of God. It is the Spirit who gives life, and you and I are living in this day when the Holy Spirit is the one who regenerates us, who leads us, and who shows us the will of God.
Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin [Heb. 10:18].
“Now”—the sacrificial system began with Abel and ended with the death of Christ. This verse concludes the doctrinal section.
ENCOURAGEMENT
Hebrews 10:19–25 is the practical section of this chapter, and it speaks of privilege and responsibility.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus [Heb. 10:19].
“Boldness” is boldness of speech; it has no thought of arrogance. Now notice this care fully—how do we get into the holiest, that is, into God’s presence? By the blood of Jesus.
By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh [Heb. 10:20].
That veil was torn in two when Christ was crucified on the cross, which indicated that the way to God was open.
“Through the veil, that is to say, his flesh”—flesh is the same word we find in the prologue of John’s gospel where he said that “the Word became flesh.” John didn’t say that it was a new and living way open to God, because the Incarnation, the life of Christ saves no one. We enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Our right of entrance is not through His incarnation but through the rending of the veil; that is, through His death. You and I have the privilege of worshiping God, not because of the life of Jesus, but because of His death for us upon the cross. Oh, my friend, this distinction is so important!
“By a new and living way.” The word new is from the Greek word prosphatos, meaning “newly slain.” It speaks of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has opened up for you and me a new and living way to God through His crucifixion, through His death upon the cross. The old sacrifices won’t help you anymore, friend.
And having an high priest over the house of God [Heb. 10:21].
What a wonderful privilege to have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, who always lives to make intercession for us.
“Through the veil”—when Christ dismissed His spirit as He hung there upon the cross, the veil of the temple was torn in two, which opened the way into the very presence of the Father.
Now we have an invitation. Some expositors believe it is directed to the unsaved. I believe it is both to the unsaved and to the saved. Since we have an High Priest at the right hand of God—
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water [Heb. 10:22].
This has to do with the dedication of priests in the Aaronic priesthood. Moses sprinkled them with the water of dedication. And they had to be washed, denoting that they were set aside for the service of God. In like manner our dedication to God enables us to draw near with a true heart.
“In full assurance of faith,” or in fullness of faith, has nothing to do with the amount of our faith; it has everything to do with the object of our faith. Real faith always depends on the object of faith. You see, faith can be misplaced—you can put your faith in some individual on earth and be disappointed. Faith is not just believing that there is a God—all that means is that you are not an atheist. Not only should you have a knowledge of God and know the way of righteousness, but you should act upon your faith. Real faith means that you have really received the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. That has been made very clear to us. In John 1:11–12 we read, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power [the authority] to become the sons of God, even to them that [do no more or less than] believe on his name.” Faith in Christ means to receive Christ as Savior. Faith is action based on knowledge. God never asks us to take a leap in the dark. I disagree with the theologian who said, “Faith is to leap in the dark.” If this is true, don’t leap, because you may find yourself going off a ten-story building! You don’t need to leap in the dark, because God has given us knowledge. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). God has put down a foundation for our faith. “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11). You get on the foundation, friend. That’s knowledge, but it is faith that puts you there. Faith is action that is based on knowledge, which means to trust Christ personally as your Savior.
“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” This means that you and I as believers are members of a priesthood. One of the great truths that John Calvin recovered was the priesthood of all believers. Every believer is a priest, and as such, you can come to God with boldness of speech. So many people ask the preacher to pray for them, which is all right, but we need to remember that all believers have access to God. You have as much right in God’s presence as I have, or as anyone else has, because we come by this “newly sacrificed” way that Christ has made for us. It is on that basis that we come to God.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) [Heb. 10:23].
“Let us hold fast the profession of our faith.” Actually, “faith” has in it the thought of hope. Let us draw near to God, but let us hold fast our confession of faith. Why? Because we have a hope, and hope is for the future, you see. How wonderful it is that we can come near to God in the full assurance of faith, and also that we can hold fast the confession of our faith because we have a hope. As the hymn writer has put it,
So near, so very near to God,
We cannot nearer be;
For in the Person of His Son,
We are as near as He.
So dear, so very dear to God,
We cannot dearer be,
For in the Person of His Son,
We are as dear as He.
—Author unknown
We are to draw near (v. 22). We are to hold fast (v. 23). And now a third thing:
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works [Heb. 10:24].
“Let us consider one another to provoke”—“provoke” is from the Greek word paroxusmos, from which we get our English word paroxysm, which literally means “with a view to excitement.” Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.
Do I annoy you? Some Christians tell me that I have troubled their conscience. Well, I hope I have troubled your conscience so that you will love one another and so that you will do some good works for God.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching [Heb. 10:25].
If there ever was a time when believers needed to come together, it is today. Instead of chopping down each other, we need to draw together in love around the person of Christ.
“Exhorting one another.” We need to study the Word of God together. God has something for a group that He will not give to any one individual. One of the reasons I like to teach the Word of God is selfish. It is because God won’t let me grow in the knowledge of His Word unless I share it. We are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. If you have a Bible study at your church, be sure to go because there is a blessing for you there that you can’t get when you study the Bible by yourself.
So these are the three “let us” verses:
Draw near in faith (toward God)
Draw near in hope (for ourselves)
Draw near in love (for others)
This presents again the three graces: faith, hope, and love. How practical this epistle is!
“As ye see the day approaching.” To the Jewish people who are being addressed in this epistle, “the day approaching” probably meant the day when their temple would be destroyed, which it was in a.d. 70. Remember that the believers were meeting together in the temple. That is where they were on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came. Peter and John were going into the temple when they met the lame man at the beautiful gate. But where will they gather together after the temple is destroyed? The writer is urging them, “As you see the day approaching when you won’t have a meeting place, just keep meeting together.” And the church started by meeting in private homes, by the way.
DANGER SIGNAL: THE PERIL OF DESPISING
This is the most solemn warning of all. In fact, it makes your hair stand on end!
For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins [Heb. 10:26].
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! Simon Peter said, “For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them” (2 Pet. 2:21). The warning is to the Hebrew believers because many of them were continuing to go to the temple and some were actually offering sacrifices there. They were keeping up a front, pretending that they were still under the Mosaic Law. In so doing they also were making it clear that the sacrifice of Christ was meaningless to them. Since the animal sacrifices prefigured Christ’s sacrifice, now that Christ had died on the cross, all of that was fulfilled. Therefore, what before had been done in obedience to God’s command, now has become willful sin. To continue to offer blood sacrifices which had been fulfilled by Christ was a frightful, terrible thing. They were acting as if the temple sacrifices were going on forever. The writer to the Hebrews is telling them that they cannot look to the temple any more, because there is no longer a sacrifice for sin. If a person rejects the truth of Christ’s death for sin, there is no other sacrifice for sin available, and there is no other way to come to God. They are to look to Christ now rather than to the temple. If they refuse to do this, there is nothing left for them but judgment. The Word of God is very expressive in this connection.
“If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth.” This means to go on sinning willfully by offering the sacrifices. It is an attitude toward the Word of God which God calls willful rebellion. There is no more sacrifice in the Old Testament or the New Testament for presumptuous sins.
But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries [Heb. 10:27].
If the death of Christ over nineteen hundred years ago was not adequate, then nothing is adequate. God is not going to do something else to redeem us. Christ is not going to die again—and, of course, it is not necessary for Him to do so. It becomes willful disobedience on the part of those who “have received the knowledge of the truth” to continue with the temple ritual and offering of sacrifices.
Now he will make a comparison.
He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses [Heb. 10:28].
Now note the comparison—
Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? [Heb. 10:29].
This is probably the most solemn statement in the Word of God.
“Wherewith he was sanctified” refers to Christ, the Son of God. They crucified “to themselves the Son of God afresh” (Heb. 6:6). To act as if the death of Christ is inadequate to settle the sin question, and to go on as if He had not died, is to treat the blood of Christ as something you despise. Knowledge creates responsibility. If, after you have heard the gospel, you turn your back on Jesus Christ—my friend, someone ought to tell you that you are going to hell! This is not what I say; it is what God says.
For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense. saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people [Heb. 10:30].
Friend, God is going to judge. He is the sovereign ruler of this universe. We are all going to have to appear before Him. God has a sovereign right to judge, which He has not surrendered. “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1 Pet. 4:17–18).
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God [Heb. 10:31].
This is a very interesting verse, and it will be profitable to spend a little time with it. This verse is for Christians and unbelievers also. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! In Ezra 7:9 we read, “For upon the first day of the first month began he [Ezra] to go up from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month came he to Jerusalem, according to the good hand of his God upon him.” In this verse the hand of God is upon this man for good. And God wants to put His hand upon you for good, but sometimes He puts a very heavy hand upon His children. He chastens them—or as we say, He takes them to the woodshed. I have been to the woodshed. Maybe you have been there, too. David had been there, and in Psalm 32:4 he says, “For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.” What was God doing? He was chastening David. He had taken him to the woodshed. David tried to cover up his sin, but God forced him to confess it and deal with it. For a similar reason sometimes God’s heavy hand is upon us who are His children.
However, God’s hand of chastening is altogether different from His hand of judgment. He says, “Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense.” God does not take vengeance in a spiteful or vindictive manner. But God is going to judge sin, and that is something that needs to be emphasized in our day. Listen again to the psalmist: “For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them” (Ps. 75:8). You see, the psalmist as well as the prophet spoke of judgment as a time coming when the cup of wrath will be filled up. And it is filling up today. God is in no hurry to move; He is longsuffering, not willing that any should perish, but that cup of judgment is filling up. And, my friend, it is a bitter cup.
This cup of God’s judgment is ahead of everyone “who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace.” My friend, if you despise what Christ has done for you on the cross, there is nothing ahead of you but judgment. You have no hope whatsoever.
This is the same point the writer is making to these Hebrew believers. Under the Mosaic Law they could bring a sacrifice every year—or any day if they wanted to. But they cannot do that any longer; that is over. Now they have to turn (even as we do) to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the writer gives a personal word to these Jewish folk to whom he is writing:
But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions [Heb. 10:32].
I assume that the Hebrews to whom this epistle was written were saved. There seems to be no question in the writer’s mind about their being believers.
Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used.
For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance [Heb. 10:33–34].
“Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock.” The Christians were made a public spectacle.
“And took joyfully the spoiling of your goods.” Apparently some of the believers had been imprisoned for their faith while others had experienced the seizure of their possessions. The writer is reminding them of their faith and patience during this trying time.
Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward [Heb. 10:35].
“Cast not away therefore your confidence” is another way of saying “let us hold fast the confession of our faith without wavering.”
For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise [Heb. 10:36].
Patience and faith are wedded in Scripture. After exercising faith in the midst of trials, then they are to display patience with the future hope of the fulfillment of faith.
For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry [Heb. 10:37].
I hear the expression many times, “I’ll see you next time, Dr. McGee, if the Lord tarry.” I’ve got news for people who say that. The Lord is not going to tarry. Some folks act as though He keeps putting off His coming, that He is tarrying. He is not going to tarry. It is on His calendar to come. Somebody asks, “When is He coming?” Well, the Lord won’t let me see His calendar; so I don’t know. I hear some folk talk as if they have seen His calendar, but I think they have been looking at man’s calendar, because nobody has seen God’s calendar. However, we can be sure that Christ will come on the day appointed; it is as certain as His first coming to this earth.
Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him [Heb. 10:38].
This verse is a quotation from Habakkuk 2:3–4, quoted also in Romans and in Galatians. It is an important verse. Each epistle that quotes this verse puts a different emphasis on it. In the Epistle to the Romans the emphasis is upon “the just shall live by faith”—how God justifies the sinner. Here in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the emphasis is upon “the just shall live by faith.” There have been several references to the living God, and this epistle tells of a living intercessor. He is the same one who died on the cross for us and came back from the dead. The emphasis is upon His resurrection and His being the living Christ at God’s right hand. Therefore since we who are His own have a living God and a living Savior at God’s right hand, we shall live by faith. As I have said before, our faith is not a leap in the dark. It rests upon the Word of God. The just shall live by faith. Now in the Epistle to the Galatians Paul emphasizes faith; the just shall live by faith.
“If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” Draw back means “to take in sail.”
But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul [Heb. 10:39].
The writer to the Hebrews did not consider that they had drawn back, but he is speaking of the danger of doing so, and he is giving them this warning. Since draw back means to “take in sail,” the believer is like a sailor who should let out all the sail. That is what the writer has been telling these folk—“Let us go on!” His thought is that a believer could reef his sails—become stranded because of discouragement, because of persecution, because of hardship, because of depression. But since we have a living Savior, let’s go on. Let’s open up all the sails. Let’s move out for God.
You remember the story of the French Huguenots. They were persecuted, and they were betrayed. When France destroyed them, it destroyed the best of French manhood and womanhood. The French Huguenots went into battle, knowing they were facing certain death, and their motto was: “If God be for us, who can be against us?” The nation of France has never since been the nation it was before it destroyed these people.
We believers today need a motto like the Huguenots. There is a lot of boo-hooing today among Christians. There is a lot of complaining and criticizing. There are a bunch of cry-babies and babies that need to be burped.
Oh, my Christian friend, the whole tenor of this marvelous epistle is “Let us go on.” So let us go on for God!
CHAPTER 11
Theme: Faith
CHRIST BRINGS BETTER BENEFITS AND DUTIES
Chapters 11–13 constitute the second major division of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Up to this point the epistle has largely dealt with that which is doctrinal, but we are now coming to that which is very practical. We begin with the chapter that is often called “the faith chapter,” and that is very interesting because the average person does not think that faith is a very practical sort of thing—we will find that it is.
Chapter 11 is also called by many “the catalog of the heroes of faith.” I want to look at this chapter from the viewpoint of faith—what faith has done in the lives of men and women in all ages, under all circumstances, from the very gate of the Garden of Eden down to the present moment. This chapter illustrates this for you and me, and these people are witnesses who encourage us to live by faith.
It is so easy to make the Christian life a series of rules. One of the reasons that so many people like to get under the Sermon on the Mount or the Ten Commandments is because men love rules and regulations. It seems so simple and easy to obey rules. Whenever I drive to a new location, I always ask the individual to tell me how to get there. They generally write it out for me: “Turn left here, go so many blocks, and then turn right.” I like it that way because it is easy to follow. Life is like that for a great many folk—they want to follow a neat set of rules. But in this chapter we are going to find people who went an altogether different route. They walked by faith, and that is the way God wants us to walk today.
We will also see in this chapter that unbelief is the worst sin anyone can commit. God has a remedy for every sin but the state of unbelief. This does not mean that there is an unpardonable sin. There is no act which you could commit today that God would not forgive tomorrow. But if you continue in a state of unbelief, God has no remedy for that at all.
DEFINITION OF FAITH
The first statement in this chapter is a scriptural definition of faith:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen [Heb. 11:1].
God has two ways in which men can come to Him today. The first is that you can come to Him by works. Yes, if you can present perfection in your works, God will accept you—but so far nobody has been able to make it. Adam didn’t, and no one since has ever been able to do it. Abraham didn’t, and David didn’t, and Daniel didn’t. None of them made it by being perfect. Therefore this is not a satisfactory way to come to God, but many people are hobbling along that futile route.
The only other way to come to God is to come by faith. Many folk don’t find faith a very satisfactory way either and feel like the little girl who was asked to define faith. She said, “Well, faith is believing what you know ain’t so.” That is what faith means to many. They think it is a leap in the dark, an uncertainty, or some sort of a gamble. If that is what it means to you, then you do not have faith, because “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” which means that faith rests on a foundation.
To other folk faith is a great mystery. It is a sort of sixth sense, some intuition into the spiritual realm, or an open sesame to a new world. Faith to some of these people is like belonging to a secret order into which you are initiated, and there are some mystical works which God will accept in lieu of good works if you just believe hard enough. My friend, the demons do a pretty good job of believing, and they are not saved. There are a lot of cults and “isms” today which are demonic and are run by demons. Faith for these people is like a fetish or some good luck charm which you hang around your neck or carry with you. But that is not faith.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon said: “It is not thy hold on Christ that saves thee; it is Christ. It is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee; it is Christ. It is not even thy faith in Christ that saves thee, though that be the instrument. It is Christ’s blood and merit.” That is what saves you, my friend. Faith just lays hold of it—that is all. Faith, therefore, is not something mysterious at all—it is that which looks to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Faith is not something which is added to good works. Some folk in our churches today treat faith like it is the dressing which is added to the salad of good works. You have a salad and you put French dressing on it, or bleu cheese dressing, or Italian dressing. Many people just add their faith as a dressing on top of their good works. My friend, that is not faith at all.
Let’s look at the scriptural definition of faith that is given to us here: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” I like very much what Dr. J. Oswald Sanders (of the China Inland Mission which is now called the Overseas Missionary Fellowship) said: “Faith enables the believing soul to treat the future as present and the invisible as seen.” That is good.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for.” The Greek word for “substance” is hupostasis. It is a scientific term, the opposite of hypothesis or theory. It is that which rests upon facts. In chemistry it would be the chemical which settles at the bottom of the test tube after you have made an experiment.
In my college chemistry class the teacher would give each one of us students a test tube and ask us to find out what was in it. I would take some of whatever was in the tube and add another chemical or two to it and heat it on the Bunsen burner to discover what was in the tube. One day I nearly blew up the laboratory with my experiment because something had been put in the test tube which should not have been put there. Five years later the janitor who swept out the laboratory told me he was still sweeping up little pieces of the big glass Florentine receiver which I had used in my experiment! Fortunately, the glass flew only onto my vest and not into my eyes. I experimented with one test tube for two weeks before I went to the professor to tell him what I thought was in it. I said it was a certain kind of powder and he told me I was right. I had a substance in the bottom of the test tube, and the professor, because he knew his chemistry, was sure of what it was (I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t too sure!). But that substance in the bottom of the test tube was what I was looking for. That is the reality. And that is what faith is—faith is a substance.
Dr. A. T. Robertson translates substance as “title deed.” What is the title deed? What is the substance? It is the Word of God, my friend. If your faith does not rest upon the Word of God, it is not biblical faith at all. It has to rest upon what God says. Actually, it means to believe God.
The question is whether you believe God or not. Don’t come up with the “I’ve got intellectual problems” excuse, because that won’t work. The thing that keeps men from the Word of God is sin. It is sin in your life that keeps you from coming to God. It is the heart that needs to believe—it is “the heart that believeth unto righteousness.” When you are ready to give up your sin, the Holy Spirit will make real to you the Word of God.
A very fine man who heads up a wonderful Christian organization in this country sent me (and other ministers) a book he had written and requested my evaluation of it. It is a very fine book, but it is in the realm of apologetics, proving that the Bible is the Word of God. It is one of the best books on the subject I’ve seen, and I told him so. But I also told him very candidly that I have come to the place in my ministry where a book like that is of no value to me. I already believe the Bible to be the Word of God. I’ve already been through all those little experiments. I have proven what it is. I know the Bible is the Word of God. I’ve put it all in the test tube. I’ve made the experiment. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.” I know it is the Word of God. The Spirit of God has made it real to me.
Paul wrote to the Colossian believers, “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Col. 1:9). To know the will of God is to know the Word of God. He prayed that they might know the Word of God. The Greek word for “knowledge” which Paul used is epignoµsis. There were Gnostics in that day who professed to have super knowledge. Paul told the Colossians that he wanted them to have superknowledge which was genuine by knowing that the Bible is the Word of God, and he believed that the Holy Spirit would make it real to them.
Don’t misunderstand me: I did go through a period in college when I almost gave up the ministry. I had an unbelieving professor who was an ordained Presbyterian preacher. I admired the man because he was an intellectual, but he was taking the rug out from under me and taking it out fast. The things he was teaching were about to rob me of my faith, and I had to go to God in prayer. Then I met a man who had two degrees for every degree the first professor had, and this man put me back on the track. He showed me that there were answers for the questions the other man had raised. So I have the answers for myself. I’ve got a substance in my test tube, and I don’t need to make any more experiments today. I know the Bible is the Word of God.
Therefore faith rests upon the Word of God. Our dogmatism comes from this Book. That is the reason the writer to the Hebrews said in Hebrews 10:39, “But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” There are only two ways to go. Either you are going backwards, or you are going to go forwards. Anything that is alive cannot stand still. Out yonder in the forest there is regression and deterioration taking place, but there is also growth and development. Nothing alive out there is standing still—it cannot.
“The evidence of things not seen.” We have seen that faith is the substance of things hoped for—that is scientific. The second word used here is “evidence.” In the Greek the word is elegchos. It is a legal term meaning “evidence that is accepted for conviction.” When I was studying classical Greek in college, I observed that this word is used about twenty-three times in Plato’s account of the trial of Socrates. Evidence is something you take into court to prove your case. It is that which the entire business world rests upon. Business is transacted by faith. I have a credit card, and when I drive into the gasoline station I hand it to the attendant. When he takes the card, he believes the oil company will pay him; he believes that I am the owner of the card and that I am the one who will pay for the gasoline in the long run. I say that man has a lot of faith. The oil company also believes that I’m going to pay. (Actually, they know I am going to pay, because they will take away my card if I don’t!) But the whole transaction takes place by faith. Any man who accepts a cheek written to him by another is moving by faith. This is elegchos, evidence which is accepted in a court of law.
Faith is not a leap in the dark. Faith is not a hope-so. Faith is substance and evidence—substance for a scientific mind, and evidence for a legal mind. If you really want to believe, you can believe. You can believe a whole lot of foolish things, but God doesn’t want you to do that. He wants your faith to rest upon the Word of God.
For by it the elders obtained a good report [Heb. 11:2].
Who are “the elders”? The elders could be one of three different groups. It could be just a group of old people, or it could refer to the office of elder in the New Testament church. Remember that Paul told young Titus that he was to appoint elders in the churches. Or, finally, “elders” could refer to Old Testament saints. These saints were referred to in Hebrews 1:1, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers….” The fathers are the elders. This verse could be rendered, “By such faith as this the fathers received witness.” These Old Testament worthies believed God, and for them it was not a leap in the dark and it was not a hope-so. Their faith rested upon evidence. Noah built an ark, and he did it by faith. What kind of faith? Was it just some dream he had? No. God gave him an abundance of evidence because Noah walked with God for many years.
The problem with many of us today is that when a crisis comes to us and we ought to be able to rest in God and lay hold of Him, we are not able to do so. When we haven’t been doing it all along, it is such a new experience for us that it is very difficult to do. However, if you learn to trust God when the sun is shining, it is easier to trust Him on the day when there are dark and lowering clouds in the sky and you are in one of life’s storms.
“The elders obtained a good report.” Because they were wonderful people? No, because they believed God. I think Abraham was a wonderful man. He probably had more going for him than the best Christian today. Even the world would have counted him an outstanding individual. But we are told that it was by faith that Abraham believed God. “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness” (see Gen. 15:6). God put righteousness to his account, not because of his good works, but because he believed God. “The elders obtained a good report,” and they did it by faith.
God wants us today not only to be saved by faith, but to walk by faith. Christ died down here to save us—we look back in faith to Him. Now we walk daily by faith—we look up to Him, the living Christ. That gets right down where the rubber meets the road. That’s for right now. Are you going shopping today? Are you going to work? Are you going to school or to some social engagement? Well, then go by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We walk by faith, not by sight. That is how God wants us to live this life.
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear [Heb. 11:3].
There are two explanations for the origin of this universe. One is speculation, and the other is revelation. By faith we accept revelation, and, my friend, by faith you will accept speculation. Speculation has many theories, and many of them have been abandoned. Right now the theory is evolution, but even evolution, I am told, is going out of style today. It is the best the unbeliever can hold on to, but it is mere speculation, and they have to have a whole lot of faith to go along with it!
“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.” Actually, this could read, “the ages were set up by the Word of God.” The Word of God, we have already been told, is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. The Word of God is more powerful than an atom or hydrogen bomb. Someone has said that atom bombs come in three sizes: “big,” “bigger,” and “where is everybody?” Well, the Word of God is even more potent than that, because the Word of God has the power to transform lives. And when you and I come to the Word of God, we either accept or reject God’s statement concerning the origin of the universe: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). That is revelation. Either you believe God, or you go by speculation. Don’t tell me that evolution is scientific. It is not. If it were, then all the scientists would be in agreement—and they certainly are not in agreement. Today many outstanding scientists are beginning to let go of their worship of evolution. They see so many fallacies in it that they are moving away from it. You either believe God (that’s revelation), or you believe speculation. Faith must be anchored in something.
I heard this whimsical story about a guide in a museum who was taking a group of people through the museum and they came to a reconstructed dinosaur. You know how they find one bone and make up the rest of it so that they have a great big dinosaur! Well, the guide said, “This dinosaur is two million and six years old!”
Of course, the crowd looked at him in amazement, and one extrovert said, “What do you meant two million and six years old? Where did you get the six?”
“Well,” the guide said, “when I came to work here six years ago, it was two million years old. Now it is two million and six years old!” My friend, that shows how utterly ridiculous all this dating—which goes back millions of years—can really become.
Faith means that you have a solid basis for the origin of the universe. I won’t have to change my theory as scientific knowledge grows; it has been in operation a long time: “God created the heaven and the earth.”
We come now to consider the faith of individuals. I want to give you a quotation from The Triumphs of Faith by Dr. G. Campbell Morgan which is fitting at this point. He said, “Life is to be mastered by faith, and not by doubt; it is to be forevermore illuminated by hope, and not darkened by despair; and in its activity love is to be practised in fellowship.” We are going to see this illustrated as we consider the lives of these people. Faith is not some jewel like a diamond which you put in a case and look at. That is the reason I do not want to call this chapter a catalog of the heroes of faith. These are men and women who got right down to the nitty-gritty of life—faith was operative in their lives. Faith is not something which you put on display in a showcase. Faith rests upon the Word of God.
We are given here the experience of three individuals who lived before the Flood—antediluvians we call them (one of them even lived through the Flood and after it). Abel is the first, and in him you have the way of faith. Then in Enoch we have the walk of faith. And in Noah we have the witness of faith. These men lived before the Flood, and faith was in operation at that time. These men walked by faith, lived by faith, and were saved by faith.
THE FAITH OF ABEL
Now with Abel God put down the principle once and for all that men must approach Him on only one basis: by faith, and that salvation will be by faith in Christ. Not only did Abraham see Christ’s day and rejoice, but so did Abel.
By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh [Heb. 11:4].
I want to go back to the Book of Genesis and the story of these two boys, Cain and Abel. I want us to see just what it was that Abel had and Cain didn’t have. What was the difference between these two boys?
In Genesis 4:1 we read, “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.” What she really said was, “I have gotten the man from the Lord.” What man is she talking about? Well, God had made it clear to Eve that there would be coming one in her line, “the seed of the woman.” Speaking to Satan, God said, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). But, you see, Adam and Eve did not know that the struggle with sin was going to last so long. They thought their first son would be the man who was coming to defeat Satan, but Cain was not the Savior; he was a murderer.
We read further in Genesis 4:2, “And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.” We ought to stop here and make a comparison between the boys, because they were actually antipodes apart, although they were brothers, the sons of Adam and Eve. The late Dr. Henry Rimmer thought they were twins. I don’t think they were twins, but I do think they were more alike than twins today could possibly be. For instance, in a family today you can have two boys, and the first boy might be a fine, upstanding boy. He goes through school, makes straight A’s, goes to college, and then becomes a professional man, perhaps a doctor. But the other boy doesn’t do well in school at all, and he drops out. He begins to drink and to smoke marijuana and get into trouble. Now what is the explanation? The psychologist will come along and say that according to the Mendelian theory the upstanding young man has taken after an ancestor on the mother’s side of the family, but the other boy takes after an ancestor on the father’s side. That is the explanation that is often given, but you cannot use that method with Cain and Abel. Who were the ancestors of Cain and Abel? They didn’t even have grandparents. You cannot use the explanation of heredity for the difference in these two boys. I think they were as alike as two peas in a pod—they looked alike and acted a like in many ways, but they were different.
Neither can you use the explanation of environment as making the difference between Cain and Abel. A great many people today think that environment is what makes the real difference between men. They say that if we could just make the environment all right, every person would be all right. If we could just get rid of the slums and put people into nice homes, then the people would be nice also. But it doesn’t always work that way. These two boys had the same environment. I cannot think of a home that was as much the same for two boys as was the home of Cain and Abel.
Genesis 4:3 goes on to say, “And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.” “In the process of time” means at the end of days. I think it was the Sabbath day, for these boys belonged to the first creation, the old creation. They came at a specified time.
“That Cain brought”—the word brought has in it the thought that it was brought to an appointed place.
“And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell” (Gen. 4:4–5). Now what was the difference between the two offerings? Didn’t both of them come in obedience to God? No, they did not. You see, God had revealed to them that they were to bring a sacrifice, a lamb, and that little lamb pointed to Christ. Someone will argue that Genesis does not say that. No, it doesn’t say that, but Hebrews 11 does say it: “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” How could he? He came by faith.
What is faith? Let’s look at it again: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (see Rom. 10:17). Abel had a revelation from God. So did Cain. They were both in the same family. But Cain ignored it, and he brought what he wanted to bring, the fruit of the ground—that which he had produced. In other words, here is the first man who brought his works to God. A lot of people are still coming to God the same way—they come by works. They have done this and that. Cain brought that which he had raised.
But Abel brought a lamb and slew it. If you had been there, you might have asked, “Brother Abel, why are you bringing a lamb?”
He would have said, “God commanded it.”
“Do you think the little lamb takes away your sin?”
“Of course not,” he would have said. “I just told you that God commanded us to bring it. He said to my mother that there is One coming in her line who is going to be a Savior, and that Person is the One to whom this little lamb points. I am coming by faith, looking to the time when a deliverer and a Savior will come.”
There at the very beginning God made clear the way to Himself. “Without shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.” We come to God on the one basis that we are sinners and that the penalty for our sins must be paid. That is the reason a little lamb had to be slain. That little lamb couldn’t take away sin, but it foreshadowed the coming of Christ who is “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” And it was offered in faith.
Abel’s offering pointed to Christ, and he came by faith—that is the way of salvation. God made the way very clear at the beginning, my friend. Today, though a man be a stranger and a wayfaring man and a fool, he need not err therein. God has made it very clear to us: Christ is the way to Himself; God gave Him to die for our sins. Abel, therefore, illustrates to us the way of faith—it is the blood-sprinkled way, the way that is Christ.
THE FAITH OF ENOCH
We come now to Enoch, and in him we see the walk of faith. If you come to God through Christ, then you are to walk with Him. It is then the walk of the believer that becomes important.
By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God [Heb. 11:5].
Genesis 5 is where we find Enoch mentioned for the first time, and it is a very sad chapter. “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him” (Gen. 5:1). We are told that Adam lived an hundred and thirty years and begat a son, Seth. Then Adam died, and Seth lived and begat a son. Then Seth died. “In Adam all die”—that is the way that it’s been going on for a long, long time. The fifth chapter of Genesis is just like walking through a cemetery and reading what is engraved on the tombstones. It really becomes monotonous, but it is still the rather sad story of mankind even today. It is the same picture as the present hour in which we live. Things haven’t changed much—man still dies. Oh, I know we have extended man’s life span, but what are a few years when you put them down next to a thousand years, or even eternity?
But in Genesis we read of Enoch: “And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died. And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: and Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: and all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: and Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him”(Gen. 5:19–24). That is the story of Enoch. Genesis 5 gives us a certain genealogy; it follows a very definite line. We are told that all these begat sons and daughters, but we are not told anything about them. Just one particular son is lifted out—Enoch, the son of Jared.
We are told that Enoch lived sixty-five years and begat a son by the name of Methuselah. Enoch had other children, but apparently his firstborn was Methuselah. “And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah.” I do not know what he did before he begat Methuselah, but I’m sure he did not walk with God. It might have been a careless life. It could have been a life that was lived in indifference, or perhaps in open sin. The record does not say. It simply says that he walked with God after he begat Methuselah. One day he went into the nursery and looked down into the crib at that little fellow who was kicking and gooing—his name was Methuselah. We always think of Methuselah as being an old man who had such a long beard that it got in his way and he walked on it. But at this time he was just a little baby, and when this man Enoch looked down at that little baby, he recognized his responsibility, and it changed his life. He started to walk with God.
My friend, if the presence of a baby in the home won’t change your life-style, nothing else will. Even the preacher won’t be able to say much that will affect you, but these little ones have a way of speaking for God, even though they don’t say a word. They come out of the everywhere into the here, and they seem so fresh, and somehow or other they bring a message from God. Certainly Methuselah did for this man Enoch, and it changed his life-style.
The record tells us that after Methuselah, Enoch had other children, but it does not tell us that he died. Notice: “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” In Enoch we see the walk of faith. The writer to the Hebrews says, “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death … for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” His walk pleased God because he walked by faith, not by rules and regulations. He believed in God, and he walked in a manner that pleased Him. Then God took him. He didn’t die—he was translated. This is the first rapture of a man recorded in the Bible. He was removed from this earth’s scene and was taken away.
We have quite a picture here, by the way, which I think has a spiritual message for us. There are those who believe the church will go through the Great Tribulation Period, and they have used Noah as an example. But Noah represents, not the church, but those in the world who are going to be saved during the Great Tribulation. God is going to keep them. Who are they? They are the 144,000 of Israel and also a great company of Gentiles. They are not part of the body of believers that we designate as the church. We are told in the Book of Revelation that before the winds of the Great Tribulation begin to blow across the earth and the four horsemen of the apocalypse begin to ride, 144,000 out of the nation Israel will be sealed and also a great company of Gentiles. These are represented by Noah. My friend, God can keep you in the Great Tribulation, but it is not a question of whether or not God can keep you, the question is what God says, and He says He is going to remove the believers. He told the church in Philadelphia, “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Rev. 3:10). What hour is going to try the earth? The only one mentioned in Scripture is the Great Tribulation Period. This great company of both Jews and Gentiles are to be kept—and Noah represents them. Enoch is the man who represents the church. Enoch didn’t go through the Flood. He had been translated. He was not in the ark. God could have put him in the ark, but He didn’t. He could have kept Enoch in safety during the Flood, but instead He removed him, and that is what He is going to do with the church—Enoch represents the church.
“By faith Enoch was translated.” Translated is a good translation, because it means to take something out of one language and put it into another. I have enjoyed listening to the tapes of our radio Bible study broadcasts in Spanish although I can’t understand a word that is being said. The man who is giving my message in Spanish is reading it, but you would never know it. He’s doing an excellent job. The manager of the station in South America says they have everything in that broadcast except my Texas accent! Well, I like the way the man does it, and it is a translation. It was taken out of the English language and put into the Spanish language for South America.
Enoch was translated out of one sphere of life and translated into another. The best way I know to describe it is the way it was told by a little girl who came home from Sunday school, and her mother asked, “What did your teacher tell you about today?”
The little girl said, “She told us all about this man Enoch.” You can see that this was a good Bible teaching Sunday school.
And the mother said, “Well, what about Enoch?”
So the little girl told her mama this story: “Enoch lived a long time ago, and God would come by every afternoon and say to him, ‘Enoch, would you like to take a walk with Me?’ Enoch would say, ‘Yes, I’d like to take a walk with You, God.’ And so every day God would come by Enoch’s house, and Enoch would go walking with God. One day God came by and said, ‘Enoch, let’s take a long walk today. I want to talk to you.’ So they started out. Enoch got his coat—even took his lunch, and they started walking. They walked and they walked and they walked, and finally it got late. Enoch said, ‘My, it’s getting late, and I am a long way from home. Maybe we’d better start back.’ But God said, ‘Enoch, you are closer to My home than you are to your home, so you come on and go home with Me.’ And so Enoch went home with God.” I don’t know how to tell the story any better than that. And that is what will happen one day with the church. The church, that is, the body of true, believers, walking with God like Enoch was, will one day go home with Him. The Lord Jesus is coming: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16–17).
But without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him [Heb. 11:6].
“But without faith it is impossible to please him.” Enoch pleased God. How did he do it? By faith. My friend, unless you are willing to come God’s way and believe Him, you cannot possibly please God.
“For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” In this Hebrew epistle there is a great deal said about rewards, and the reason is that the emphasis is on the Christian life. In light of the fact that we have a living Savior up there who is for us, there is a reward for living the Christian life. But salvation is not a reward—it is a free gift. You work for your reward, but not for salvation. Salvation comes by faith, and the walk of the Christian is also by faith. Enoch walked with God by faith.
THE FAITH OF NOAH
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith [Heb. 11:7].
Abel showed the way of faith; Enoch illustrated the walk of faith; and now Noah is the witness of faith.
“By faith Noah … to the saving of his house.” Many of us are accustomed to saying that Noah preached 120 years and never made a convert. Actually, that is not quite accurate. It is true that he didn’t win any of the Babylonians living there in Babel, but he surely won his family. He led every member of his family to the Lord, and that was really something.
Again, we need to go back to Genesis and look closely at this man Noah. We are told in Genesis 6:5, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” That is a sad commentary on mankind. Man surely got away from God in a hurry after he left the Garden of Eden. However, we are told that there was one godly man left: “These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God” (Gen. 6:9). Does this mean he was only a nice man who paid his debts and did many helpful things for people? No, he did more than that: “Noah walked with God.” How did he walk with God? The writer to the Hebrews tells us: “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saying of his house.”
This man Noah believed God when God told him He was going to destroy the earth by a flood. There are some people who suggest that up to this point it had never even rained on the earth—and that is probably true. But way up on dry ground, probably near Mount Ararat, away from even the Euphrates River, this man Noah began to build a boat because God said there was going to be a flood.
God gave Noah the instructions for the boat. It wasn’t that clumsy-looking thing that you see pictured in Sunday school papers. When I was a little boy, my thought was, Id sure hate to be in that boat! Probably it was very modern-looking equipment, and the size and construction of it would conform to modernship building. We are told that the length of it was 300 cubits, the breadth of it was 50 cubits, and the height of it was 30 cubits. And it didn’t have just one little window in the side. God said to Noah, “A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it” (Gen. 6:16). The window went all the way around the top, and the roof came down over it. The ark was 300 cubits, or about 450 feet, long, and it had three decks. The men in that day were good builders and they were familiar with this type of construction. Therefore Noah began to do what I’m sure the population in his day considered to be a very foolish thing. I’m of the opinion that the sightseeing buses ran a tour out to where he was building the boat—and I’m sure it was a popular tour.
I have often wondered what it was that brought Noah’s three sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, back home. These boys, I’m sure, had moved away and started their own businesses. Perhaps Ham was a contractor, a successful builder himself, down in Babel. Maybe one day he was meeting with a contractors’ convention where he heard a man telling about a trip he’d made to the north country. There he had heard of a man who was building a boat on dry ground. He felt it was really ridiculous, and everybody agreed, including Ham. But then Ham, knowing his dad lived up there and having heard some things about his dad, asked the man if he had seen the boat builder. The man said he had seen the builder and the builder’s name was Noah. Ham probably turned white when he heard that. He stood up and said, “Listen, that’s my father who is building that boat. I agree with you—it sounds foolish. I laughed as you laughed, but you don’t know my dad. My dad walks in the fear of the living God. I’ve gotten away from that, but if my dad says a flood is coming, it’s because God has caused him to give out a message of warning. You can just put it down that God has spoken to him and a flood is coming. I was brought up in that home, and I know that I might cut corners but my dad wouldn’t. My dad never told a lie. My dad lived for God. If you don’t mind, I’m going to get my hammer and saw, and I’m going up there to help him build that boat!” I think Shem and Japheth had similar experiences and went back home to help their dad. Why? Because this man Noah had a witness for God.
My friend, I say this very candidly, the most important thing you can do is to witness to your own family—not by everlastingly giving them the gospel, but by living it before them and letting them see that you have a reality in your life. This reminds me of an encounter that Gypsy Smith had when he was holding meetings in Dallas, Texas. A lady came up and told him that God had called her to preach. He felt the same way about women preachers as I do, and so he asked her if she was married. She was. He said, “How many children do you have?” She had five children. “Isn’t that wonderful,” Gypsy told her, “God has called you to preach, and He’s already given you a congregation!” May I say to you, whether you are a preacher or not, if you are a child of God and you have a family, that is your congregation. God gave you that congregation. Noah won his family. No one outside his family believed, but his family believed because they knew his witness. Noah “prepared an ark to the saving of his house.” What a wonderful thing that he was able to do that!
THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM AND SARAH
We come now to Abraham, the man who is known as the man of faith. That is the way he is identified in the Word of God. Abraham is the supreme illustration of faith in the Epistle to the Romans and also in the Epistle to the Galatians. The writers of the Gospels refer to him, and even the Lord Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad” (John 8:56). In Abraham we will see the worship of faith.
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went [Heb. 11:8].
We have seen in this epistle that the worship of God leads to obedience to God. It leads to work for God. It leads to doing the thing God wants you to do. We do not need to spend time browbeating people, telling them they should get busy for God—that is not the proper motivation. But if they can truly worship God and catch something of the glory of the person of Christ, then you can depend on them to work for God and to obey Him. The most important word in this verse and in this entire section is obeyed, and worship leads to obedience.
In Genesis 12 where the story of Abraham begins, we read that he came out of Ur of the Chaldees and went to Haran. He delayed in Haran and lost a great deal of time, but finally he went to the land of Canaan. When he appeared in the land, God appeared to him. “And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him” (Gen. 12:7). Everywhere this man went he built an altar. When he came into the land of Shechem he built an altar. When he went down to the plains of Moreh he built an altar unto the Lord. Everywhere Abraham went he built an altar to God. I have been impressed on my trips to the Holy Land with the number of buildings that Herod put up. He not only built the temple, which was never really completed, but he also built palaces and forts and cities all over that land. But there was no actual worship of God on his part. All Abraham did was put up an altar, but he worshiped God, and that led to obedience of God. He worshiped God by faith; then he obeyed God by faith.
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised [Heb. 11:9–11].
When God told Sarah at ninety years of age that she was to have a child, she laughed because it was ridiculous—it seemed utterly preposterous. She couldn’t accept it, but God gave her the strength and power to believe Him. Many of us need such strength. Do you remember the man who brought the demonpossessed boy to the Lord Jesus? The Lord Jesus told the man that He could help him if he would believe. The man said, “I believe. Help thou mine unbelief.” The man recognized that he had a weak faith, but the Lord Jesus must have given him the faith because He healed the boy (see Mark 9:17–27). Sarah had a little boy named Isaac. Why? She “received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.” Sarah represents the power (or strength) of faith.
Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable [Heb. 11:12].
This is what happened, and it all took place by faith. But notice that Abraham and Sarah never saw the fulfillment of God’s promise to them:
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth [Heb. 11:13].
Walking by faith will cause all of us to recognize that as children of God we are just pilgrims and strangers down here on this earth.
For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country [Heb. 11:14].
Faith looks out yonder to the future. And the child of God today is looking to the future.
I am not in the employ of the local chamber of commerce, but I very frankly love Southern California. I have lived here longer than I’ve lived any place in my life—since 1940—and I love it, in spite of the smog and the traffic and all these people who followed us out here. I wish we could have put a wall around California (after we got here, of course!), and then we could have had this wonderful place to ourselves. All of us who have come out here certainly haven’t helped the place, but I still prefer it to any other. I have a “ranch” out here in California. It’s not what you call a big ranch—it’s about 72 feet wide and about 128 feet deep. But I have my house right in the middle of it, and I have it well stocked. I have orange trees, avocado trees, tangerine trees, nectarine trees, apricots, plums, and lemons. You see, I’m really a rancher. The other day I just looked up and thanked the Lord that He gave me that place. It is the first place I have ever owned and paid for, but He gave it to me, and I thank Him for it. However, I told Him, “Don’t let me get in love with this place, or I won’t want to leave it to go to a better place.” We are strangers and pilgrims down here, because we are walking by faith, looking to a better place. “For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.”
And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city [Heb. 11:15–16].
Anyone can turn around and go back to the world if he is satisfied with the things of the world. However, a child of God, by faith, is going ever onward.
By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son [Heb. 11:17].
Now we come to the end of Abraham’s life, and the supreme sacrifice he made in offering up Isaac, the boy that God had given to him.
Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called [Heb. 11:18].
Abraham had other children, but Isaac is the one called “his only begotten.” (The word son in verse 17 is not in the original text.) Isaac was the only begotten because God gave the promise concerning him.
Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a Figure [Heb. 11:19].
God did not ask Abraham to offer up Isaac until he had come to the end of his life. The reason is that Abraham would not have had the faith to do it. God will never test you “above that ye are able” (see 1 Cor. 10:13). Therefore God never asked Abraham to give up Ishmael, that is, to sacrifice him on an altar. Do you know why? Well, to begin with, Ishmael wasn’t the promised son. And the second thing is that Abraham would not have done it, you can be sure. Abraham even begged God not to send Ishmael away but to let him keep the boy and make him the son of promise. You see, Abraham wasn’t ready at that time to do such a thing. And certainly at the beginning of Isaac’s life when he was just a baby, Abraham never would have offered him. When Isaac was about thirty-three years of age, Abraham was ready to obey God and trust Him. Therefore, we have here the testing of faith.
I want to look at Abraham a little bit differently from the way we ordinarily see him. We usually think in terms of the great promises which God made to him concerning the land to be given to him and the multitudes which would come from him. But what was it that Abraham actually received during his lifetime? What was it that he actually saw? He did not see the fulfillment of those great promises, but what God did give to him was a home. When he was a young man living in Ur of the Chaldees, he one day said to a beautiful young girl, “I love you. I want to marry you.” And so Abraham and Sarah got married.
Then one day Abraham came home—it was a home of idolatry—and he said to Sarah, “The living God has called me. He wants me to leave this place.”
I can just hear Sarah say, “But you have a good business. All your relatives live here. Your friends live here. And, by the way, where are you going?”
Abraham would have to say, “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean that God called you and you don’t know where?”
He said, “God will lead me, and I’m going out.”
And Sarah said, “I’ll go with you.” And so this young couple went out. They didn’t have too much faith. They took papa with them and some of the relatives, and they came to Haran. They hung around Haran until Papa Terah died and they buried him.
Then Abraham moved into the land and God appeared to him. God said to him, “Abraham, I am going to do all these things I promised, but I am also going to give you a son.” Now that is what is going to make the home—Abraham and Sarah are going to have a son.
Abraham and Sarah had the basis for a godly home in that day. It was the kind of home God wants young people to have today—we call it a Christian home. To establish this godly home God did not give them a course or send them to a preacher for counseling. Frankly, we preachers have done too much counseling, telling young people how they ought to do it. We have become too idealistic, but God was very practical. He said, “Abraham, if you are going to have the kind of home I want you to have, you are going to have to get away from papa and mama.” That is what God meant at the very beginning when He said to Adam and Eve, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). Although Adam and Eve didn’t even have a mother and father, God set down this great principle at the very beginning.
I never thought that I would be a grandfather who would tell the parents how to raise a child. I didn’t do so well myself as a parent, but I have learned that it is the easiest thing in the world to tell them how to do it. Well, they will make mistakes, but it is none of my business. We made our mistakes, and they will make theirs. Papa and mama are not to interfere with the home of the children. God got Abraham as far away as possible where relatives were not going to be able to interfere. I think this is primary to building a godly home.
God had Abraham leave his home. It was a godless home he left, a home of idolatry. Joshua made that clear (see Josh. 24:2).
A great many rules and regulations concerning marriage are being given to young couples in our day. I don’t want to sound revolutionary, but I do want to say what the Word of God says to do. You can forget the rules and regulations until you are walking by faith. If you are a child of God, you are to walk by faith in that home. The father is to walk by faith, and the mother is to walk by faith. And do you want to know something? The home will never be an ideal home. I am weary of hearing folk tell how they went to a counseling session and now they have the most glorious home you have ever heard of. Well, may I say to you, I have been married to my wife for a long time and we disagree on many things. The fact of the matter is, she has a right to be wrong! But we’ve always been able to come to the place where I could put my arm around her and tell her I love her in spite of the fact that she is wrong. My young Christian friend, if you think you are going to start an ideal Christian home, I think you are mistaken. You will find that you will be tested just as Abraham was tested when he ran off to Egypt. I am of the opinion that all the way to Egypt, Sarah said, “Abraham, I don’t want to go down to Egypt.” But they went to Egypt. He almost lost Sarah to someone else down there because he lied and said she was not his wife. That certainly is not an ideal home, is it?
When Abraham returned to the Promised Land from Egypt, we find that he had trouble there with his nephew. Maybe Abraham should have left him in Ur of the Chaldees, but finally Lot moved down to Sodom, leaving Abraham alone up in the hill country. Here again, we see that neither Abraham nor Sarah were what we would call ideal. Abraham doubted God. He didn’t believe that God ought to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. God had to make it clear to him that what He was doing was a righteous and just thing. And He had to make it clear to Sarah that He could give her power to have a son. He gave them that little child to raise in their home.
Abraham and Sarah’s home was the kind of home God wants you to have. If you think that following a few little rules is going to avoid all the rough places and hardships in life, you are wrong. You will find out that one day you will argue with your wife. You are going to find out that one day you are going to have a problem with the child God gives you. Your home will not be ideal by any means. How are you going to handle all these problems? By faith, my friend, by faith. When you and I have reached the place where we are willing to put our child upon the altar for God, then you and I have arrived. Abraham and Sarah’s home was just about as near to what God wants down here as any of us will be able to attain.
Christian friend, if it is going hard with you and you are having problems, then God is trying to teach you something. Let God be your teacher. Don’t run to your pastor or think you can take a course that will solve all your problems. You and I are going to have problems, but if we walk by faith, He will see us through.
Abraham’s worship of faith led to obedience in his life, so that it could be said of him, “… Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (Rom. 4:3).
THE FAITH OF ISAAC
By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come [Heb. 11:20].
Notice that very little is said concerning Isaac, especially when it is in contrast to his father Abraham. What can we say concerning Isaac? He represents the willingness of faith. Isaac was a grown man, probably around thirty-three years of age, when his father Abraham offered him on the altar. That certainly demonstrates his willingness!
“By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.” The one thing that is pinpointed in Isaac’s life is his faith in blessing his sons. Now that seems a very strange thing. Isaac was a well digger. He would dig a well in a certain place, and the enemy would take it away from him. He would then dig another well, and again it would be taken away from him. In many ways he was a rather colorless individual, but the thing that characterized him was willingness. He was willing to bless Jacob and Esau concerning things to come, but there was nothing in the immediate present that would cause him to bless them.
THE FAITH OF JACOB
We come now to a very colorful individual—
By faith Jacob, when he was a-dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff [Heb. 11:21].
This man Jacob lived a life of faith in relationship to his father, and to his son Joseph, and to his grandsons. But the one thing that was selected out of his life happened when he was dying. You must wait until the end of this man’s life before you can say that he was a man of faith. At the time of his death he blessed both of the sons of Joseph, his grandsons, and he worshiped “leaning upon the top of his staff.”
There are several things which we can observe from the life of Jacob. He is an illustration of human nature and of the fact that it is by grace that we are saved. If it had not been for the grace of God, Jacob would have been lost. He had no human merit—none whatsoever. I’m not sure but what that is a picture of all of us.
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling.
“Rock of Ages” —Augustus M. Toplady
Dr. J. Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, had a way of emphasizing the fact that before God we are nothing, and that God is the only one who can take nothing and do something with it. He told the story of a young, self-confident missionary who arrived on the field with his wife. Finally one day the young fellow came to Dr. Taylor and told him that it was difficult for him to think he was nothing. “Young man,” Dr. Taylor said, “you are nothing, whether you believe it or not. You can just take God’s word for it!”
This man Jacob is a picture of our human nature. We hear a great deal today in psychology about prenatal care, natal care, and postnatal care, and how important these are in shaping the life of the individual. The gynecologist and the psychologist give a lot of emphasis to the care of a baby before birth, at birth, and immediately after birth. What can be said of Jacob’s life in these respects? The Bible tells us that Jacob and Esau struggled within their mother. Even before birth, Jacob was wrestling and trying to get the upper hand! He struggled even at birth. He came out last, but he came out holding on to the heel of his brother. He was a heel-grabber, and he was that all of his life. Also Jacob was a deceiver and he was a rascal. God, however, did transform his life.
First of all, in the life of this man, we find that he was a deceiver in relationship to his father. God had promised Jacob the blessing, but he couldn’t wait for it. He took it from his brother Esau by a very deceptive method, which forced him to leave home, and he spent the night in Beth-el. He was very homesick, but no change had taken place in his life. Even when he went down to live with his Uncle Laban he was still relying on his wits. Then God had to stop him when he was finally returning to the land. The Lord wrestled with him that night at the brook Jabbok. That night God crippled him—He had to get Jacob.
Later in the life of Jacob we see that the very sin he committed came home to him in the life of his son Joseph. One day his sons brought that very bloody coat of many colors which belonged to Joseph, and they said to Jacob, “Is this the coat of your son? Do you recognize it?” And Jacob began to weep. In the same way in which he had deceived, he was deceived by his sons into thinking that Joseph had been killed. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children—this is certainly an example of that.
However, at the end of this man’s life, the writer to the Hebrews shows us Jacob’s faith in relationship to his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh. “By faith Jacob, when he was a dying….” He is on his deathbed, and this is the first thing in his life you can lift out and say, “By faith Jacob….”
He “blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped.” For the first time there will be obedience in his life. It has always interested me that he worshiped “leaning upon the top of his staff” What staff? Remember that he had been crippled, and he had a staff that enabled him to walk. Even when death came, this man did not want to lie down and die. There was no blessing in the life of Jacob. It was a life of sin and deception, chicanery and crookedness—and no blessing ever eventuates from sin.
The important thing for you and me to see is that God can take any life and straighten it out. Where there is confusion and deception, if there is faith anchored in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can lay hold of Him. Faith was operative in the life of Jacob, but we have to come to the end of his life to see it.
THE FAITH OF JOSEPH
By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones [Heb. 11:22].
I am confident that the writer to the Hebrews and the Holy Spirit of God could have chosen many incidents from the life of Joseph which would illustrate faith. We could cite the time when this man was down there in Egypt and put into prison. You would think that this was going to be the end for him, and many of us would have cried out in complaint at that time. But that incident was not recorded here. And there are so many other illustrations of faith in the life of this man Joseph. What a contrast he is to his father Jacob! There are no faults or flaws in his life.
There is probably no one in the entire Old Testament who is more closely a type of the Lord Jesus Christ than is Joseph; however, he is never spoken of as a type in Scripture. The analogy between the two is striking. Joseph was the best beloved son as was the Lord Jesus. Joseph had a coat of many colors which set him apart from his brethren and gave him lordship over them; he had a vision and his brethren thought he was a dreamer. The Lord Jesus, too, came with a message, and they thought he was a dreamer. Joseph obeyed his father, and the Lord Jesus said He had come to do the Father’s will. Joseph’s brethren hated him; it is said of the Lord Jesus, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11). Joseph was sent by his father to seek his brethren, and the Lord Jesus came to this earth seeking the lost. Joseph found his brothers who were shepherds in a field; shepherds came by night when the Lord Jesus was born. His brethren mocked Joseph, refused him, and plotted to kill him; the same happened to the Lord Jesus. Joseph was sold into slavery, and the Lord was sold for thirty pieces of silver. Joseph’s coat was dipped in blood; the soldiers gambled for the vesture of the Lord Jesus Christ, with His blood upon it. Joseph was sold into Egypt where God raised him up to save (in a material way) the world; the Lord Jesus went down into death—after having been tempted by the world, the flesh, and the Devil—to become the Savior of the world—both Jew and Gentile. While on the throne, Joseph gave bread to the people; Christ is the Bread of Life. While in Egypt, Joseph got a gentile bride; the Lord Jesus is calling out of this world a people to His name. Joseph made himself known to his brethren when they came to Egypt; someday the Lord Jesus will make Himself known to His own brethren.
The interesting thing about Joseph is that he had faith in the dream which was given to him, faith while in the pit into which he was placed, faith all the while he was in Egypt, and faith was what buoyed him up through all the adverse circumstances. You would think that at the end of his life he would be satisfied with Egypt—but not this man. He said, “When the day comes that the children of Israel leave this land, be sure and take my bones with you” (see Gen. 50:25). Why didn’t they take his body right then and bury it yonder in the land of Ephraim? The reason is quite obvious: this man was a national hero at the time. But there came a day when there rose a pharaoh who knew not Joseph, and when the children of Israel left, they took up his bones and buried them at Shechem in the Samaritan country.
THE FAITH OF MOSES
Now we move down quite a few years to the time when the children of Israel are in slavery in the land of Egypt. Moses represents the sacrifices of faith.
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment [Heb. 11:23].
Moses had godly parents who were willing to take a real stand for God. Faith was involved in the very birth of Moses.
By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;
Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season [Heb. 11:24–25].
We see faith at work in the life of Moses. He was brought up in the palace and would have been the next pharaoh, but Moses had faith to choose the right.
Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward [Heb. 11:26].
Someone else other than Abraham saw Christ’s day and rejoiced—Moses did.
By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible [Heb. 11:27].
Moses had faith to act—faith will lead to action. Many folk today are saying, “I believe, I believe,” but do nothing. May I say, faith reveals itself in action. God saves us without our works, but the faith that saves produces works. Therefore Moses “forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.”
Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them [Heb. 11:28].
Moses had faith to obey God. God said to do this, and Moses did it. This is exemplified in the life of this man. He forsook the pleasures of Egypt, went out into the desert, and came back to deliver his people. This is faith to obey God.
By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned [Heb. 11:29].
Whose faith do we see here? Is this the faith of the children of Israel? No. They had none. When they saw Pharaoh and his chariots coming, they said in effect to Moses, “Let’s get back to Egypt as quick as we can! We made a mistake in leaving.” It was Moses who had faith. He went down to the water’s edge and smote it with that rod; and it was by his faith that the waters opened up and they were able to march over to the other side. Then they sang the song of Moses. The people are identified with Moses, but this was Moses’ faith.
THE FAITH OF JOSHUA
By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days [Heb. 11:30].
We have in the life of Joshua the watch of faith. If you had met Joshua about the fifth day they were marching around the city of Jericho, you might have said to him, “It doesn’t look like you are getting very far. Why are you doing such a foolish thing? You are a general with a whole lot of intelligence, but you are not using your intelligence.”
He would have said to you, “You have forgotten that I saw the captain of the hosts of the Lord, and He told me that headquarters is not in my tent, but in heaven. I found out that I am not the general. I happen to be a buck private in the rear ranks, and I am to take my orders from Him. He said to march around the city, and I am marching around. You just watch—these walls will come down. I’m following the strategy of Someone who knows.”
In Joshua we see the watch of faith. Faith to believe God—General Joshua had learned that.
THE FAITH OF RAHAB
By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace [Heb. 11:31].
I want to call Rahab’s story the wonder of faith.
Her story is in connection with the story of the walls of Jericho. She was living inside the city, and I am sure that after seven days those on the inside were wondering what was going to happen.
“By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not.” Many years ago a book was published with the title Religion in Unlikely Places. I do not know if Rahab was included in that book—I never read it—but she certainly should have been. Jericho was the last place in the world you would have looked for faith. Rahab lived in a very wicked, pagan, and heathen city—and she practised the oldest profession there. Those who practice that profession have usually been considered to be sinners—until recently, of course, when the “new morality” came along. This woman was a sinner, and yet we are told here, “by faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not.” I’m sure that the mayor of the city and others who were in high position felt that they were good enough to have been saved, but they were not saved. We are told they perished in the city because of just one reason: they did not believe God.
We will see that God was very generous in the way He dealt with the city of Jericho. I know the critic finds a great deal of fault with God for destroying the people of Jericho. I had a professor in college who could weep crocodile tears because of what happened to the people in the city of Jericho. The thing that always disturbed me about this man was that he showed very little interest in other people—including his students, by the way—but he could really work up a lather when it came to the people of Jericho.
We want to look closely at this woman Rahab, because she expressed her faith in a very definite way. When the people of Israel had crossed over the Red Sea, that word got to Jericho, and the inhabitants of Jericho lost their courage. But they never dreamed that during flood season the great host of Israel could be brought across the Jordan River. There was no bridge on which they could cross, and the river was on a rampage at that time. How in the world could the people get over? The people of Jericho had felt that they had time to plan a defense and didn’t have to worry until the flood season was over.
Then Joshua sent spies into the city of Jericho, and they came into contact with the harlot Rahab. I have a notion she made a business proposition to them, but I do not know whether they accepted or not. I do know they made it very clear that they were on a mission, that they needed protection, and that God was going to give the city of Jericho into their hands. They at least gave her that much information. She took them in and hid them on the roof of her house and no doubt risked her own life in doing that. She asked one favor from these men, “When you take this city, I want you to remember me and my family. I want you to save us.” And they promised to do that. They told her to put out a scarlet line in the window to identify her house, and that when Joshua took the city he would be very careful to save her and her household.
Rahab’s testimony is found in the Book of Joshua: “And he said unto the men, I know that the Lord hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath” (Josh. 2:9–11).
This is a strange statement that comes from this woman, but it is a tremendous revelation of the fact that God did not arbitrarily destroy the city of Jericho. You see, for forty years word had been filtering into Jericho about a people who crossed the Red Sea. In other words, Rahab said, “It was forty years ago when we heard about that. And I for one believed. Others believed the facts, but they did not believe in God. They never trusted the living God.” Later on, they heard how God was leading Israel and that He had given them victory on the other side of the Jordan against the Amorites. Jericho should have profited from that information. Finally Israel miraculously crossed the Jordan River and parked right outside the door of Jericho. What had God been doing? He had been giving the city an opportunity to believe in Him, to trust Him, and to turn to Him.
I think it should be obvious to anyone that if God saved this harlot who believed in Him, He would have saved the mayor of Jericho and He would have saved anyone in the city if he had trusted Him as this woman trusted Him. He saw all of them on one basis—He saw them all as sinners. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Rahab probably was a more open sinner than the mayor was. I am of the opinion that the mayor’s private life would not have stood inspection, and I am sure that that was true of many others in that city, but they had ample opportunity to trust God. They had forty years to decide whether they would believe God, and they did not.
If that college professor of mine were still alive, there is a question I would love to ask him. God gave them forty years to make up their minds whether they would trust Him or not. Only one woman made up her mind to trust God, and God saved her. It is obvious that since she was saved, anyone else would have been saved if they had trusted God. Now if you think forty years was not quite long enough, do you feel that God probably should have given them forty-one or forty-two years? My friend, if after forty years they are not going to believe God, they are not ever going to believe God. God is longsuffering. He is patient. He is not willing that any should perish. Even a harlot who will trust Him, God will save. The people of Jericho believed the facts which they heard, but they didn’t trust God. If they had, they would have been saved.
Now when this woman evidenced that she believed God by asking the spies to save her when they took the city, she took a step of faith, and in that step of faith she risked her life. Her faith began to move. Faith goes into action—it does not sit on the sidelines. So this woman Rahab “perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.” Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. “We have heard what God has done through you, and we believe it,” she said. “I trust Him. I trust Him to the extent that I am willing to risk my life.” She evidenced the faith that she had.
We see in this woman Rahab the wonder of faith. We see that in this lost world God doesn’t view one group of people as so much better than another group of people. God sees us all as sinners, and when anyone will turn to Him, God will save him. How wonderful He is!
THE FAITH OF “OTHERS”
And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets [Heb. 11:32].
The writer of this epistle has come to a point in the history of the Old Testament at which he says, “What more can I say now?” He could go in any direction and could list heroes of faith, if you want to call them that. He could demonstrate how faith has worked in the lives of many men and women. So he gives us a list and makes it clear that he is not able to discuss them in detail, but that all should be included in this marvelous chapter.
We see the war of faith in the lives of these men he mentions. Not one of them is dealt with in detail, but all have something in common: everyone mentioned here was a ruler. Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, and Samuel were all judges; David was a king. They were all rulers, and they were all engaged in a war for God. Each one of them won that battle by faith.
I will not be able to go into detail with each of these men, but I would like to take note of this man Gideon. Many people say that all they have in their church is a “little Gideon’s band.” What they mean is that they have a small number of people. But, my friend, it was not the small number that was significant about Gideon’s band—it was the faith these men had. Yet Gideon was a man who actually had very little faith at the time when the Lord called him.
Gideon was a judge at the time the Midianites had taken the land of Israel. The Hebrews couldn’t even harvest their crops—the Midianites would take it from them. This young man Gideon was down by the winepress harvesting grain. That is not where he should have been. The grain was usually taken up to the top of the hill, pitched up in the air where the wind could drive the chaff away. In that land the wind blows in the afternoon. But Gideon was a coward. He took the grain down there by the winepress—way down in the valley, where no one could see him. Talk about an operation of frustration! You can just see Gideon down there pitching up the grain. When there is no wind to blow the chaff away, do you know what is happening? The straw comes falling down around his neck. I can’t think of anything more uncomfortable and discouraging than to pitch up the grain and have all the straw down your back!
Well, that was Gideon, and it was at that time the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said, “… thou mighty man of valour” (Jud. 6:12).
That really wasn’t the proper address for Gideon, and he didn’t think the angel was talking to him. I think he looked up and said, “Who me?” He was the biggest coward of all, and he was willing to admit it. “Why,” he said, “I belong to the smallest tribe. My family is the small family in the tribe. And I’m the smallest potato in the family. You picked the smallest pebble on the beach—I’m a nobody.”
And God said to him, “That’s the reason I picked you—because you are a nobody. I want you to believe Me.” We will find that God began to strengthen the faith of that man until the day came when with only three hundred men he was able to get a victory over the Midianites. Faith operated in the life of this man Gideon.
How many Christians today feel like there must be some great big show, some big demonstration, some big meeting if the ministry is going to be of the Lord? May I say to you, God doesn’t move quite like that. I’m of the opinion that the greatest work for God is being done by individuals and by little groups throughout this country and around the world. I was amazed to meet a man in Lebanon who, by the way, is a member of the Gideons International. He is an active Christian layman and a real witness for Christ. You don’t hear about him—he’s not one who is getting publicity. And then, in the land of Israel, there is a very wonderful Hebrew Christian who has been persecuted a great deal, but he is a real witness to God. There are a great many “Gideons” around today, and they move by faith. God will use a nobody if he will trust Him. God is moving in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.
The writer to the Hebrews mentions Gideon, Barak, and Samson. I don’t know whether I would have put Samson in the list or not. Samson was a real failure as far as his service was concerned, but He did believe God. There was a time when the Spirit of God came upon him and he began to deliver Israel; he never completed the job, however. The writer goes on to mention Jephthah and David (oh, we could stop and talk a long time about David!) and Samuel and the prophets. But the writer makes it clear that time would fail him to mention them all.
Now notice what all these men did—theirs was the war of faith:
Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions [Heb. 11:33].
“Stopped the mouths of lions”—we know this refers to Daniel, although he isn’t mentioned by name here.
Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens [Heb. 11:34].
This is the war of faith, and these are the victors.
We see now the wideness of faith—faith has moved into every area of life:
Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection [Heb. 11:35].
“Women received their dead raised to life again”—remember the widow of Zarephath whose son Elijah raised back to life (see 1 Kings 17:17–24).
“And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection.” In other words, he is now talking about martyrs.
And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:
They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
(Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth [Heb. 11:36–38].
Here is another group of people. They didn’t gain great victories out on the battlefield. They didn’t enter the arena of life before large audiences and perform great feats for God. These are the “others,” and they are the ones who, if you want heroes, are really God’s heroes. They had trials and mockings and scourgings and bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned and they were “sawn asunder.” Jerome insists that it was Isaiah who was sawn asunder, but of course that is only tradition. We don’t know who suffered that cruel, horrible death. And others were tested, tempted, and slain by the sword.
I want you to notice a contrast here. Back in verses 33 and 34 when we were talking about the victories which were won, it spoke of how they “subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword.” They escaped the edge of the sword, but here in verse 37 the others were “slain with the sword.” How do you explain this? One group by faith escaped the edge of the sword, and another group by faith were slain with the sword. We have come to a question which is still to me a very difficult subject: Why do the righteous suffer?
I know that if you are in good health today it is easy for you to toss it off and say of others, “Well, God is testing them.” However, these people went through all these things by faith. They didn’t look upon it as if they were being tested. They endured because they did it by faith. They could trust God when the day was dark, when the night was long, the suffering was intense, and when there was no deliverance for them at all.
Others were tortured; others were slain by the sword. It is wonderful to be able to get up and quote Scriptures such as Psalm 34 which says, “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them…. The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles” (Ps. 34:7, 17). That is wonderful, and God does that. But what about the “others,” the others who didn’t escape the edge of the sword? What about those who suffered? Stephen could look at the religious rulers of his day and say, “Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?” Prophets never had it easy, my friend. Stephen himself was the first martyr to the Christian faith. Before they stoned him to death, Stephen told them, “…they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers” (Acts 7:52). And when the Lord Jesus called Saul of Tarsus, that brilliant young Pharisee, He said, “For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Acts 9:16). The Lord Jesus has also made it very clear to us, “…In the world ye shall have tribulation [trouble]: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Finally, it says of Paul and Barnabas as they went out on one of their missionary journeys that they went “confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation [trouble] enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
My friend, there are a great many people who have demonstrated their faith by winning battles and by being delivered, but there are others, multitudes of them, who have suffered for the faith. Down through the long history of the church there have been the Waldensians, the Albigenses, the Huguenots, the Scottish Covenanters, and many others.
The poetess Martha Snell Nickelson was a member of my church when I was pastor in downtown Los Angeles, and I had the privilege of baptizing her. She suffered a great deal—so much so that we had to baptize her in the bathtub in her own home. She screamed with pain whenever she was touched. This woman went through untold suffering before she passed on into the presence of the Lord. And right now there are literally thousands of heroes of faith lying on beds of pain. It is nice to read about walking out onto the stage of life and gaining a great victory. It is wonderful to be able to report that you have been healed. But what about those who are suffering? What about that unknown missionary out yonder on the field who is suffering for Jesus’ sake? What about the minister who suffers?
Let me pass on to you something which I learned recently that deals with this question. The apostle Peter wrote, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” (1 Pet. 4:12–13). Paul made this statement to the Colossians: “Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church” (Col. 1:24). How could Paul fill up the sufferings of Christ? Wasn’t Christ’s redemption for us complete and perfect? It certainly was, but there are certain sufferings that the Lord Jesus experienced in His life down here which were not redemptive sufferings. His redemptive sufferings took place on the cross—none of us can add anything to that. But you and I, if we are going to stand for Him, are going to have to pay a price for it. Some of us may have to suffer just a little.
Will you forgive me for being personal here? When I had my first bout with cancer, the Lord healed me. I rejoice in His goodness and grace and mercy to me. I have gloried in that, and I promised Him that I would give Him all the glory if He would heal me. I guess I have talked pretty loud about what God has done for me. Then I began to receive hundreds of letters from people—people who have terminal cancer and ask for prayer. I try to be faithful in remembering them in prayer. But frequently I get a letter from a loved one saying that one of these suffering saints has gone to be with the Lord. I especially remember a letter from a woman whose husband had suffered a great deal with cancer and then died. I had to take a second look at this thing. God doesn’t always raise up a person from a bed of sickness. While some are healed, there are thousands today who are in the hospitals, thousands lying on beds of pain.
Do you know what the Lord did after healing me of cancer? He gave me gallstone trouble. It took a while for the doctors to even diagnose the problem, and I suffered a great deal. I think the Lord was saying to me, “I’m going to give you a thorn in the flesh so you will keep your mouth shut. You boast too much about the way I moved in your behalf. I want you to remember that I do not always heal everyone. The ones who really suffer are the greatest saints. They are the ones who know what real faith is. You don’t know what it is to trust Me in a time like that.” The Lord put me flat on my back, and I have never suffered as I suffered at that time. Then the Lord sent me through a battle with hepatitis, and I want to tell you, I thought He was against me. I went to Him and talked this thing over. It was at that time that He spoke to me from this chapter about the “others”—the others who were slain by the sword, the others who suffered—and who did it by faith.
My friend, if you can walk up and give your testimony and tell how God has healed you—and I could join you in that—or if you can get up and say how successful you have been in business, I want to remind you that there are multitudes of God’s saints today who are suffering. They are paying a tremendous price. Do you know how they are doing it? They are doing it by faith. They have lots more faith than I have, and I think they are choicer saints than I am. I have been humbled by many a letter from some wonderful saints who are doing a work for God, tucked away in out-of-the-way places and suffering for their faith.
The writer to the Hebrews is speaking of a company of people who lived by faith. He simply calls them “others”—I love that! I don’t want you to forget the “others” who are today living by faith and dying by faith. The suffering has ended for many of them, and they have already gone into the presence of the Lord and will never have to die again. This passage means something to me that it didn’t before, and I hope it means something new to you also.
And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise [Heb. 11:39].
What promise is it that they did not receive? God made many promises, and many of them received the promises that He made to them. But the promise is His promise that He will raise them up and that there will be a kingdom established here on this earth. They have not received that promise yet, because God is still today calling out a people to His name, and, as it says here in Hebrews, “bringing many sons home to glory.” “And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.” We are told here the reason for that—
God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect [Heb. 11:40].
God has us in mind! Wasn’t that gracious of Him? “That they without us should not be made perfect.” God is very patiently calling people out of this world to His name—and that is the church. And until that church is completed, He is just going to keep calling them out.
We have seen in this chapter the world and the work of faith. I want to say something, and I hope I will not be misunderstood. I do not want to hear the testimony of a person who has been saved a week or a month or three months, although I do rejoice in their salvation. But let me illustrate my point: I got a letter the other day which told me about a man who had accepted the Lord Jesus under my ministry in 1943. He had just died, and I understand that a marvelous testimony was given at his funeral as to the wonderful man of faith he was. When I am told by young people how many have accepted Christ through their witnessing, I want to say to them, “Well, it will be wonderful if three years from today or thirty years from today you can come back to me and say that these all lived and died by faith.”
Some people feel that faith is something untried, something you really can’t be sure of, something that doesn’t really rest upon a foundation. My friend, we have had here a company of witnesses. Many of them lived long lives—they lived by faith. They found out that it works.
Again may I say that I no longer give apologetic messages, proving that the Bible is the Word of God. I just give messages from the Bible. I let the Holy Spirit minister the Word to folk. I just preach the Word of God to them and, when I do that, I receive many letters telling how their faith has been strengthened. You do not have to tell me how wonderful faith is. I am an old man now. I’ve been at this a long time, and you don’t have to tell me this thing works. I know it works.
You see, when they made the first airplane and even when the thing flew off in the air, there were those present who said they didn’t believe it and they couldn’t believe their eyes. Well, there are a lot of folk today who are just as blind as a bat spiritually. They say, “I want it proven to me.” My friend, if you are honest and are willing to put away the sin in your life and turn to Jesus Christ and trust Him as your Savior, then I would like to talk to you three years from today, because nobody would need to prove anything to you. You would know faith works.
There are multitudes around us right now who can say “Amen” to all of this. They already know that faith works. It’s operative. It’s real. It is something genuine. My friend, have you come out of the realm of make-believe and into the realm of reality? Have you found out what Jesus Christ really can do for you?
CHAPTER 12
Theme: Hope
We are in the practical section of the Epistle to the Hebrews where we see that Christ brings better benefits and duties. Chapter 11 is the faith chapter; chapter 12 is the hope chapter; and chapter 13 is the love chapter.
THE CHRISTIAN RACE
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God [Heb. 12:1–2].
We read in the first part of this epistle of the peril of drifting; that is, of just being hearers, drifting along, and doing nothing at all about God’s salvation. Now in the last part of the epistle the writer is speaking to believers of the peril of remaining stationary. He is saying, “Let’s get into the race. Let’s get moving and not just drift along. We are racers.” I would say that one of the greatest dangers in the Christian life is the peril of just remaining stationary, of doing nothing.
When someone becomes lost in the extreme cold of the far north there is grave danger of freezing to death. The first step in that process is to fall asleep. You have to fight sleep, and you must keep moving or you will freeze to death. In a spiritual sense, the danger is the same for us as believers. We have to force ourselves to stay awake and keep moving forward in our relationship with Christ. Otherwise we will just fall asleep.
I like to tell the story about the old cowboy at one of the great camp meetings they used to have years ago in West Texas. A little lady got up and gave her testimony. She said, “The Lord filled up my cup twenty years ago. Nothing has run in, and nothing has run out.” The old cowboy sitting in the back spoke out and said, “I bet it’s filled with wiggletails by now!”I think that is the condition of a lot of believers today. They can say the Lord has filled their cup, but there’s no running over. They’ve just remained that way. I agree with the cowboy, there are a whole lot of wiggletails in the cups that people are boasting of today.
“Wherefore,” we are told, we are to move out, and we are to live by faith. Why? Wherefore is another one of these little words that cement the chapter that goes before with the chapter that is coming up—and that is what it does here. “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.”
For many years I took the position that the “witnesses” are the Old Testament saints, many of whom are listed in chapter 11, and that they are sitting in the grandstand watching us run the race of life today. I personally couldn’t think of anything more boring for them than to watch us run the Christian race down here the way some of us are running it! And I no longer believe that that is what this verse means.
When my understanding of this verse changed, it cost me the use of a marvelous illustration, but I will pass it on to you because it is a very sentimental story which does make a point. Years ago a friend invited me to the kickoff luncheon for the Rose Bowl game in Pasadena where I heard a newscaster tell this story. He told of a famous football coach in the East. The coach had a player who was known for two things. The first thing he was noted for was his faithfulness at football practice. He was the first one out and the last one to leave, but he never could make the team—he just wasn’t quite good enough. The second thing he was famous for was that his father often visited him on campus and they would be seen walking arm in arm across campus, very much engrossed in conversation. Everyone noticed that and thought it was wonderful. Well, one day the coach got a telegram saying that the boy’s father had died. The coach was the one chosen to tell the sad news to the boy, and so he called him in and told him. The boy was greatly shaken, of course, and had to go home for the funeral. But he was present at the next game, sitting there on the bench. Then he came over to the coach and said, “Coach, this is my fourth and last year, and I’ve never played in a game. I’m wondering if today you could put me in for just a few minutes and let me play.” And so the coach put him in because the boy’s father had just died. To his amazement, the boy turned out to be a star! The coach had never seen anyone play a better, a more brilliant game, than this boy played—so he never took him out of the game. When the game was over, the coach called the boy off to the side and said to him, “Listen, I’ve never seen anyone play like you played today, but up to today you were the lousiest football player I’ve ever seen. I want an explanation.” And the boy said, “Well, coach, you see, my dad was blind, and this is the first day that he ever saw me play football.”
If this Scripture means that the Old Testament saints who have gone before are sitting in the grandstand watching us run the race, then that story would be a good illustration. However, that interpretation is not accurate at all. The witnesses are not sitting in the grandstand; they are the ones who have already run the race down here. They are the ones who were down on the racetrack as you and I sat in the grandstand watching them run the race of life in chapter 11. And they ran it by faith. Those who would be called a howling success by the world ran the race by faith. And those who suffered what the world would call miserable defeat, also ran the race by faith. Although they suffered and were slain by the sword, they were just as great heroes. They all witnessed to us. We watched them as we went through chapter 11, and there were many more in the Old Testament, as the writer told us that time would fail him to tell of all of them. They witnessed to us, and encouraged us to run by faith and to live by faith.
Therefore the Christian life is here likened to a Greek race. Christ is the way to God, and along the way the Christian as a soldier is to stand firm, as a believer is to walk, but as an athlete, he is to run the race. And one day we are going to fly, my friend—that will be at the Rapture. We are going to do a little space travel to the New Jerusalem.
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” We have here another “let us” salad. Now this is not a danger signal that is put up here at all, but it is a challenge to us. Let us now get out of the grandstand; let us get down on the racecourse of life, and let us do whatever God has called us to do wherever He has called us to live and move and have our being. Let us run the Christian race, and let us move out for God. That is the whole thought here.
We are challenged to run with patience, having laid aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us. God has saved us from sin. He has brought us into the heavens, actually, into the holy place, and He has made us to sit in heavenly places. He’s given to us His Holy Spirit. But in spite of all that He has provided, the average Christian falls down and stumbles and wanders like a man lost in the dark. What is wrong with the Christian life as it is being lived at the present time? I will come back to the same string which I play on all the time, because I think this is the answer: the problem is that Christians do not go on with God. They get saved, give a testimony of their salvation, and that’s all they ever have. They never maintain a serious study of the Word of God, which is essential to growth. They are like the little girl who fell out of bed one night. When the little girl began to cry, her mother rushed in and said, “Honey, how come you fell out of bed?” The little girl replied, “I think I stayed too close to the place where I got in.” That is the problem of the Christian today. We stumble and falter and fail because we are staying too close to the place where we got in. We need to go on—this is a race, you see.
The Christian life is a race—win or lose—and it is the only race where everybody can win. Paul wrote, “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all …”—they all run to receive a prize. He went on to say, “I therefore so run, not as uncertainly …” (1 Cor. 9:24, 26). And again, he rebuked some of his followers saying, “Ye did run well; who did hinder you …?” (Gal. 5:7).
We are encouraged by these witnesses. They are not spectators; they are testifying to us. They are in the cheering section, encouraging us to run the Christian life. Abraham is saying to you and me, “Move out by faith.” Moses is saying to you and me, “Move out by faith.” Daniel is saying to you and me, “Move out by faith.”
Now there are two conditions to be met: “Lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us.” What does he mean by “lay aside every weight”? Weights are highly unnecessary in a race; in fact, they are a hindrance. We ought not to be using weights.
I remember years ago when Gil Dodds, a very fine Christian, was a famous runner in this country. Some of us went out to the track at the University of Southern California, to watch him run. He ran around the track a couple of times with tennis shoes on. Then he stopped and changed into some other shoes. One of the fellows there asked why he needed to change shoes. He took one of the tennis shoes and one of the lighter pair of shoes and tossed them both to the man who had asked the question. Believe me, there was not much difference in the weight of the shoes, but just enough, he said, to cause him to lose the race.
In the Christian life there are a lot of things that are not wrong in and of themselves, but Christians should not be carrying those weights around. Why? Because you won’t win the race. I’m going to use an illustration, but please don’t think I am picking on this one particular thing, because I am not. You must determine for yourself what you can do as a child of God, and I must determine that for myself. But one young lady went to her pastor and asked, “Is it all right to dance?” Her pastor replied, “Sure it is, if you don’t want to win.” The point is that it is not a question of right and wrong for a Christian in his conduct—it is taken for granted that you are going to do what is right. The question is: Will it hurt my testimony? Will this keep me from winning the race? Will this be a weight in my life? There are many Christians today who are carrying around a weight they ought not to be carrying around. Don’t ask me to argue with you about whether dancing is wrong. I won’t argue about any of those things which separationists say you cannot do if you are a Christian. I don’t say you can’t do it. All I’m saying is: Are you in a race? Do you want to win? Are you looking to Jesus? That becomes the important thing.
“And the sin which doth so easily beset us.” What is “the sin”? This is not just sin in general; it is the sin. Again, we are cast back into the previous chapter by the wherefore which opened this chapter. What was the great sin in the last chapter? It was unbelief. Unbelief is the sin, and there is nothing which will hold you back as unbelief will. It is just like trying to run a race with the weight of a sack of wheat on your shoulder and your feet stuck inside an empty sack! You’ll never be able to do it, and you cannot do it in the Christian life either. Unbelief is what holds many of us back, and if I may make a personal confession, I am confident that it has held me back more than anything else in my Christian life.
BELIEVERS ARE NOW IN CONTEST AND CONFLICT
For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds [Heb. 12:3].
The words patience (in v. 1) and endured (in v. 2) are from the same root. Trouble generally produces patience and endurance.
These Hebrew believers had come out of a religion that had a tremendous ritual and a great temple. The temple of Herod, although it was not completed even at the time it was destroyed in a.d. 70, was a thing of beauty and actually awe inspiring. Also there was a great ritual that went with it. It had been a God-given religion at the beginning, but it had been debauched and prostituted by the time this Hebrew epistle was written. Nevertheless, as far as religion was concerned, they had it. Now these believers had given up all of that; they no longer were going through all that religious ritual. They had now come to consider Him, that is, Christ, and He was everything. He was the temple. He was the ritual. He was Christianity. He was all of it. There was this simplicity in Christ, and the writer now calls them to consider Him.
They are to know what He endured when He was down here and how He learned patience. We are told in the beginning of this epistle, in the section which presented His humanity, that He learned a great many things down here although He was and is God. In the flesh He learned something which God had to experience by taking on our humanity and suffering for us. He endured and He learned patience.
“Lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.” May I say this to you very candidly: unless you stay close to the Word of God where the Holy Spirit can take the things of Christ and make them real to you, you are going to get weary of the Christian life, and you are going to faint in your minds. This is the reason there are so many discouraged Christians around today. My friend, if you come to the Word of God and get close to Jesus Christ, you are going to be encouraged. You will not grow weary of this life down here. Oh, my friend, we are living in the greatest days that have ever been!
Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin [Heb. 12:4].
This simply indicates that at this time the temple was not yet destroyed. The persecution from the Gentiles of the Roman Empire which was going to come had not yet broken upon these believers. “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood.”
He is saying to them, “Although you are having a very difficult time and you are having your problems and troubles, the only cure for your weakness, your weariness, your faltering, your failing, your stumbling, and your discouragement is to consider Him. Consider Christ.”
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face;
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.
“Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” —Helen H. Lemmel
And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him [Heb. 12:5].
The writer is quoting here from Proverbs 3:11–12— “My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.”
Their only resource was Christ—not a temple, or a ritual, or a religion. They were almost outcasts at this time, and the writer is telling them not to forget this exhortation from God to His children.
The word children is used in the Authorized Version, but in the Greek son and sons are used six times in verse 5–8. The Greek word for “son” is huios, and it means “full-grown son.” Now there are a great many saints today who do not think they need to be disciplined, but discipline is for mature saints, people who have been walking with the Lord for a long time. There was a time when I had come to the place where I thought I didn’t need to be disciplined anymore. I thought I had come a long ways. But the Lord put me flat on my back physically to let me know that there was some more disciplining to be done.
The word chastening means something a little different from what we think today. We think that chastening is punishment. The Greek word is paideuoµ, and it means “child training or discipline.” You see, the Lord disciplines His own children.
For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons [Heb. 12:6–8].
The question is sometimes asked, and it is a very pertinent question: Why do the righteous suffer? When illness confined me to my home and I spent most of my time flat on my back for about a month, I had a great deal of time to study, and I want to pass on to you what the Lord has shown me through my own experience.
Let’s put this down as an axiom of Scripture: God’s children do suffer. The Bible doesn’t argue about that—the Bible just says that it is true. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all” (Ps. 34:19). In the Book of Job we read, “Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). The Lord Jesus said, “… In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). And even Paul said, “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12).
Why do God’s people suffer? There is no pat answer to that. No one little verse of Scripture answers it. I have gone through the Scriptures and listed seven reasons why God’s children suffer. I would like to share them with you:
1. The first reason that we suffer as God’s children (and even as His mature sons) is because of our own stupidity and our own sin. First Peter 2:20 reads, “For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently….” The word faults refers to a sin where you missed the mark—you just didn’t quite make it. “For what glory is it, if … ye shall take it patiently?” Peter says there is no value in the suffering which was caused by our own foolishness.
How many of you years ago invested some of your savings in a wildcat oil well in Texas? I was a pastor in Texas for many years, and I can tell you about a whole lot of folk who own dry oil wells. I know of one man in particular whose family is practically in poverty today because of such an investment. He has suffered because he played the fool.
I know another man who came to me in Los Angeles, and said, “Dr. McGee, I have certainly played the fool. My wife and I haven’t been getting along too well recently. I had to work late one evening and called my wife and told her so. There is a very attractive woman in my office who has been very sympathetic toward me, and she had to work late also. All of a sudden it occurred to me that it would be nice to have dinner together. We didn’t do anything but go out to dinner, and it was a friendly sort of dinner. But the wrong person was in that restaurant and saw us. He called my wife and told her. It never went any further than that, but it could have turned into a really bad thing. I played the fool.” You know, a lot of saints suffer because of stupidity.
2. The second reason we suffer is for taking a stand for truth and righteousness. I can guarantee that if you take a stand for truth and righteousness, you are going to suffer. How many men and women could testify to that? Peter says, “But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled” (1 Pet. 3:14). Many people deliberately take a stand for God, and they have suffered for it.
However, we can be foolish and misguided in our thinking concerning this. One man came to me and told me that where he worked everybody was his enemy because he had stood up for God. Well, another Christian man who was an official in that same concern told me that this man was trying to lecture everybody—even during work hours! He was making an absolute nuisance of himself by attempting to witness to people while they were busy on their jobs. You see, he wasn’t really suffering because he took a stand for truth and righteousness.
3. We suffer for sin in our lives. Paul says, “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged” (1 Cor. 11:31). However, if we are God’s children and refuse to deal with the sin in our lives, God will deal with it. He will judge us.
4. The fourth reason we suffer is for our past sins. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). One time when I was a pastor in Nashville, Tennessee, we had Mel Trotter, the great evangelist and converted drunkard, for a series of meetings. One night after the service we all went to a place called Candyland. The rest of us got big sodas or malts, but he got a little glass of soda water. The others began to kid him about it, and he made this statement, “When the Lord gave me a new heart, He didn’t give me a new stomach.” Liquor had ruined his stomach, and he was still suffering because of that.
5. The fifth reason God’s children suffer is for some lofty purpose of God which He does not always reveal to the believer. We see this in the Book of Job. Job suffered because he was demonstrating to Satan and the demon world and to the angels of heaven that he was not a timeserver, that every man does not have his price and that he loved God for Himself alone. I hope I never have to suffer as Job did.
6. The sixth reason Christians suffer is for their faith, as we saw in chapter 11 of this epistle. Some demonstrated their faith, and great victories were won. Some were delivered by the sword; some were slain by the sword. I think of the French Huguenots who went into battle, knowing they would all be slain. Yet they went into battle saying, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” You see, they suffered for their faith.
7. The seventh and last reason God’s children suffer is for discipline. That is what we have here in verse 6: “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” This means child training or discipline, not punishment. Punishment is to uphold the law. A judge punishes, but a father chastens and he does it in love. God uses chastening to demonstrate His love for us. And the writer makes it very clear that you are an illegitimate child if you are not chastened by the Lord, my friend. Many people say, “Oh, why did God let this happen to me? I must not be a Christian.” The fact is that your suffering is the proof that you are a child of God.
I think that if you are an intelligent Christian, when you are in trouble and do not know why, you will go to the Lord and talk to Him about it. I am sure that He will get the message to you and let you know why you are in trouble. The reason may not be that He is judging you. God does judge us, and that is punishment, but He is also our loving, heavenly Father who disciplines His children.
When I was a boy I, with several other boys at school, got into trouble. My dad came down to the school where there were several hundred children, but when he walked across that schoolyard, do you know who he was after? He was after his son, and he took his son home and disciplined him. He didn’t discipline those hundreds of other children—because they weren’t his. He disciplined only his boy, the boy whom he loved. My dad died when I was fourteen, and now I have a heavenly Father who does the same thing—He disciplines me in love.
Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? [Heb. 12:9].
Believe me, I listened to my dad. I hadn’t heard about the new psychology in which you don’t pay any attention to your parents, and your parents aren’t supposed to discipline you. My dad disciplined, and I listened to him. The writer says that if we listen to our earthly parents, “shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?” Whether or not you listen to your earthly father, you had better listen to your heavenly Father.
The writer to the Hebrews goes on to make a suggestion. He says, “Be in subjection to the father of spirits, and live.” Does he mean live it up? I think he means to live a Christian life in all its fullness—that’s the positive side. But I think there is also a negative aspect, which is that the heavenly Father disciplines in very severe ways sometimes, and there is a sin unto death. The sin unto death is a sin that a child of God can commit, and sometimes the heavenly Father will take a disobedient child out of this world because he is disgracing Him. The writer is saying that you had better listen to your heavenly Father because He is disciplining you in love, but if you persist in going on in sin, He may take you home.
For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness [Heb. 12:10].
Sometimes I think my earthly dad got a little angry with me and vented his anger on me—but even then he did it for my profit, I’m sure. My heavenly Father disciplines me for my profit also—there is no doubt about that!
“That we might be partakers of his holiness.” I believe that there is no way you can become a full-grown child of God living in fellowship with Him (that is the main thought behind “holiness”) except through the discipline of God.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby [Heb. 12:11].
This is like the boy whose father said to him before he whipped him, “Son, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” The boy said, “Yes, Dad, but not in the same place.” God chastens His children. He does not get any particular joy out of it, but He does it because you and I need it. Not only does chastening not seem to be joyous, it isn’t joyous, but grievous—that is our experience.
Although no chastening at the time is fun, “afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” God does not discipline you without purpose.
I am reminded of the story of the man who lived in a home for the mentally ill. There was a visitor one day who saw the man beating himself on the head with a baseball bat. The visitor went up to him and said, “Why in the world are you hitting yourself on the head with the baseball bat?” The man replied, “It feels so good when I quit!” God does not discipline you just to make you feel good when it is over. He doesn’t give you ill health just so you will appreciate good health when it returns. There is always a purpose in the discipline of God for you.
Now what is your reaction when God disciplines you? There are four reactions we can have to God’s discipline that are mentioned in this chapter. I want us to take a look at each of them:
1. “And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord …” (v. 5). The first reaction is that you can despise the chastening. You can treat it lightly and accept no message from it at all. You simply become a fatalist and say, “Well, I’m having trouble. Everybody has trouble.” You do not recognize the fact that your heavenly Father is disciplining you, and you do not get His message in it at all.
2. “… nor faint when thou art rebuked of him” (v. 5). There are those who respond in this way (I would call it the crybaby reaction): They begin to cry and say, “Why did this happen to me? It is not worth living a Christian life. I have served the Lord, and now He’s letting this happen to me.” In other words, they just faint away. Many saints take that attitude. However, when I was going through a serious illness several years ago, I received several thousand letters from people all over this country and throughout the world. Many of those people were suffering much more than I, and their attitude made me feel ashamed of myself. They had been on beds of pain for months—several of them for years—and they wrote the sweetest letters I have ever read. Those letters came from folk who had real victory. We hear of meetings where people are healed and where they talk of great victories. Well, to be very frank with you, if you want to know where the great victories are being won today, go to the hospitals or visit some dear shut-in saints who have been in bed for months, and listen to them talk. You can faint, but these saints don’t faint because the Lord is strengthening them.
3. “If ye endure chastening …” (v. 7). This is a dangerous response to have because it is so close to that which is true, but this is the response of the super-duper pious saints. To me they are like the Indian fakir who crawls up on a board filled with nails and lies down. He doesn’t have to lie down there, but he does it. There are a lot of saints who accept the discipline of the Lord in a passive way: “Oh, this is of the Lord, and I will endure it.” God never asks you to take that pessimistic, super pious attitude. If you are in trouble, why don’t you go and ask Him, “Lord, why did You send this to me? There is a lesson here, and I want to learn it.” Don’t accept it in a passive manner, simply enduring it but complaining all the time.
4. “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (v. 11). Have you ever done sitting-up exercises? Once I became acquainted with a man who jogged around the golf course where I played golf. He was inclined to be a little chubby, so he exercised in order to lose weight. Are you exercised when you get into trouble? When you have to suffer? When an enemy comes across your pathway? Stop and ask God, “Why in the world did You let that fellow come across my pathway?” You know, God does it for a purpose. God does all these things for a purpose, and we need to be exercised by them. The apostle Paul said, “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (1 Cor. 9:27). Paul exercised himself—that is, he didn’t give in to the desires of his body—because he did not want to come before God’s presence some day and be disapproved. My friend, whoever you are or wherever you are, it is time to take your sitting-up exercises.
I would like to give this word of personal testimony. A number of years ago when I had cancer, my first question to the Lord was, “Why?” It didn’t take me long to discover that it was my heavenly Father punishing me—I understood that. I was a hardheaded child of God, but I got things squared away with Him. He healed me of the cancer and richly blessed the growth of our radio broadcast ministry. Then suddenly I was knocked down with another illness. The doctor told me to stay on my back, and I did so for three weeks or more. I learned something during that time which I would like to pass on to you. God wasn’t judging me this time, because I’ve learned to keep my account short with Him. I get things straightened out with Him about every day. I do fail Him—I guess I’m still as hardheaded as I ever was—but I go to Him and confess my sin. I believe I am in the will of God. So I went to Him that second time and cried, “Lord, why in the world did You let this happen to me? I want to go on with the radio ministry.” He put me flat on my back, and He said, “You are My son, and I am your Father. There are a lot of things you haven’t learned yet. You may have the notion that your radio ministry is essential and that I can’t get along without you, but how did I get along without you before you got here? You are going to lie here and learn something. I am your Father, and you need to learn to endure for Me. You do not know how to rest, and you do not know how to wait on Me.” It took me a while, but I finally said to Him, “All right, Father, if You want me to lie here, I’ll lie here. I want to learn the lesson You have for me.”
We need to be exercised by the Lord’s discipline, and then we will not find ourselves in the position described in the following verse—
Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees [Heb. 12:12].
Don’t go through life as a Christian, complaining all the time. I used to have a friend who, when I asked how he felt, always told me how he felt—he took fifteen minutes to tell me how he felt, and he never felt good. Therefore I quit asking how he felt. He was going around all the time with his hands hanging down and with feeble knees. May I say to you, someone is watching you. How do you endure the trouble that comes from God? Do you endure it by being exercised by it? Do you say to yourself, It is my Father, and He is chastening me. There is a purpose in it and a lesson I want to learn. We should start our sitting-up exercises: “One, two, three. One, two, three. Lord, I’d like to know why I am suffering this way.”
And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed [Heb. 12:13].
I’ll be very honest with you and admit that I have never clearly understood what the writer meant when he said, “Make straight paths for your feet.” Are we to walk the straight path so that the weak saints might follow in our footsteps? Or, are we to walk the straight path so that we don’t get in the habit of limping through life? There are a lot of lamebrained Christians today who complain and criticize and are not witnesses for God at all—and yet they appear very super pious.
Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord [Heb. 12:14].
Be encouraged and be at peace with all men; that is, with all who will let you be at peace with them. There are some people who just won’t be at peace. Follow peace with all men—with all Christian men. We should make this one big cross-country race where there are a lot of us running the Christian life together.
“And holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” If that means that I have to produce holiness, then I am going to give up, because I haven’t any holiness. But, oh, the peace that I have which came through the blood of Christ! “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). If I have any holiness, it is because Christ has been made unto me righteousness—He is my righteousness. If I get into the presence of God it will be because Christ died for me. That is encouraging, my friend. It makes me want to get out and run the Christian race.
DANGER SIGNAL: THE PERIL OF DENYING
Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled [Heb. 12:15].
“Looking diligently” has in it the thought of direction. And what is that direction? “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith …” (Heb. 12:2).
“Lest any man fail of the grace of God.” The word here for “fail” is not apostasy—this is not speaking of the danger of apostatizing. It means simply to fall back. In other words, a believer must keep his eyes on the Lord Jesus, not on men. If he doesn’t keep his eyes on Him, he is apt to get to the place where he does not avail himself of the grace of God.
Now God has a tremendous reservoir of grace, and He wants to lavish it upon His children. He is prepared to do that, and He is able to do that. Christ paid the penalty for our sins, and God is rich in mercy, rich in grace, and He wants to expend it upon us. The problem is that many of us do not avail ourselves of His grace. But you see, we are talking here about reality—something that you can go to God for and lay hold of it. That is the glory of it all, and that is the message of this epistle. Have you gone to Him today, my Christian friend? Have you talked to Him—yes, reverently, but really talked to Him like He is your Father? Tell Him about yourself. Tell Him you need grace. We all need grace and it is available, but we’ve got to apply for it. We need to ask Him for it. Do not fail of the grace of God.
“Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.” One critical, ugly saint in a church can stir up more trouble than you can possibly imagine, just like one rotten apple in a barrel spoils all the others. We need to ask God for grace to endure whatever we are going through, and not become bitter toward any one or toward any circumstances.
Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright [Heb. 12:16].
Fornication here is spiritual fornication. There is the danger of turning from God to the things of the flesh, and it could be most anything of the flesh. As far as Esau was concerned, it was the selling of his birthright, a spiritual birthright that entailed so much. It meant that Esau would be in the line that led to the Messiah, and it meant that he should be the priest of the family of Abraham. But he didn’t care for it; he was not interested in spiritual blessings.
“Profane person” does not mean that Esau cursed a great deal. It has no reference to that at all. The word profane comes from two Latin words: pro, meaning either “before” or “against,” and fanum, meaning “temple.” Therefore, it means against the temple or against God. It means that Esau was just a godless fellow. He saw no need of any recognition of God, or of any relationship to Him, or of any responsibility toward Him. So he despised his birthright and counted it as something of no value. He was even willing to trade it in for a bowl of food! There is many a man who has sold his soul. Some have sold it for liquor, some for drugs, some for sex, and some for dishonesty. There is a danger for the child of God to turn from God to the things of the flesh. We will either go forward in our relationship with Christ or fall back—we won’t stay in the same place.
For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears [Heb. 12:17].
Few passages have been as misunderstood as has this passage of Scripture. It gives the impression that poor Esau wanted to repent and God wouldn’t accept his repentance. However, the writer is saying something altogether different from that. Esau despised his birthright and then found out later that there was also an inheritance attached to it—he would inherit twice as much as any other son of Isaac. The point is that Esau was interested in that which was physical. When it says, “he sought it carefully with tears,” it means that he did a great deal of boohooing. He was like the thief who began to weep when he was caught and to say he was sorry. But he wasn’t sorry he was a thief; he was sorry that he’d been caught. Likewise, Esau was not repenting because he wanted to turn to God and receive His spiritual blessing. He repented because he had missed out on something material. He was actually against God.
For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,
And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more:
(For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart:
And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) [Heb. 12:18–21].
The writer is speaking here of the giving of the Law to Moses on top of Mount Sinai, and he is speaking of the old covenant. The people to whom he was writing were Hebrews who had turned to Christ. We need to keep that in mind all the time in this epistle. We must remember that the early church—the three thousand who were saved on the Day of Pentecost—were not Gentiles but were Jews. Until Paul and Barnabas and the other missionaries began to move out, the early church for those first few years was 100 percent Jewish.
Now these Jews in Jerusalem who had turned to Christ find themselves at a great loss. They had been accustomed to going to the temple. They had been accustomed to hearing the Mosaic Law read. But now they are shut away from the Law, and now they are shut out from the temple. They are no longer a part of the system at all, and they feel very much on the outside. Therefore, I think the writer is saying to them, “You come now to a mount that is different from Mount Sinai, and you do not want to go back to that.” Mount Sinai was the place where the Law was given and three thousand people were slain (see Exod. 32), but three thousand people were saved on the Day of Pentecost. There was death at the giving of the Law; there was new life when the gospel was preached on the Day of Pentecost. The giving of the Law was by no means a delightful experience. There was thunder and lightning, earthquake and storm, blazing fire and the blast of a trumpet that grew louder and louder and louder. It was a terrifying experience—so much so that the people said to Moses, “Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die” (Exod. 20:19). Now the writer to the Hebrews says, “You don’t want to go back to that system. We have left all that behind us.”
When I was a pastor in Nashville, Tennessee, there was a lady in my church who was a very lovely person, but I always felt that she was one of those Paul spoke of when he said, “… Silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:6–7). She was a woman who was sort of a social hanger-on. She belonged to a very wealthy family, went to their cocktail parties, and engaged in their sins, but she still wanted to go to the Bible classes. She attended my church but never became a member. And she pretended to be quite a Bible student. She said to me one day after I had preached a sermon about the Law, “Dr. McGee, the giving of the Law is so beautiful, isn’t it?” I had to say to that dear lady, “The giving of the Law is not beautiful. I think it is one of the most frightening scenes in the Bible! And it was a law that these people were told would never be able to save them. God gave them a sacrificial system whereby they could bring a sacrifice. A little animal had to die because the Law couldn’t save them. The Law actually condemned them.”
These Hebrew Christians had been accustomed to going to the temple and going through that ritual. Now there was nothing for them to go to, no ceremony, and no sacrifice to bring. So the writer tells them that they really do have something—
But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels [Heb. 12:22].
Remember that he is speaking to Hebrews. Mount Zion was David’s place in Jerusalem. His palace was located there, and he was buried up there. Zion was David’s favorite spot. Many of the Jewish believers had still been going up to the feast in Jerusalem, but the persecution had broken out, and Christians had been driven out of Jerusalem. So he assures them they have a Jerusalem in heaven. Mount Zion is the heavenly city, the eternal city of the living God. The Book of Revelation calls it the New Jerusalem. I cannot give you the number or the street name, but my future address is in the New Jerusalem. This is what we have come to by God’s grace. We have something far better in Christ than the Jews ever had under the Law.
“And to an innumerable company of angels.” I have made the statement—and I will stick to it—that angel ministry is not connected with the church. But we are going into the New Jerusalem some day, and the Book of Revelation shows us a huge worship scene there, a great scene which John saw and tells us about. John said in effect, “There is a company of created intelligences there, ten thousand times ten thousand of them.” And then he looked around and said, “My, I didn’t see that other crowd out there—there are more than any man can number.” They are God’s created intelligences called angels.
I have never seen an angel, but I’ve often wondered about them. I am going to come some day to the New Jerusalem and join with you in that great worship of the Lamb, and all these created intelligences will be there. One thing I want to do is just to talk to some of them. Wouldn’t you like to talk to them? I’ve never had the privilege. Whenever I meet someone who tells me they have had a dream or a vision and an angel spoke to them, I tell them they ought to think back to what they had for supper the night before—that may explain the presence of an angel! You haven’t seen an angel my friend; you may think you have, but you haven’t. Yet the time will come when we will go to the place where they are.
To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect [Heb. 12:23].
“The firstborn” does not refer to Christ here, although He is called that elsewhere in Scripture. The writer is speaking of the ones who have been born again. They are the only ones who are going to be there. This is the church of firstborn ones, those who at the Rapture will be caught up to this place.
Their names “which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all.” I thank God that when I get into the presence of “the Judge of all,” there is one who will already have paid the penalty for my sins, and my record will be clear.
“And to the spirits of just men made perfect.” “Perfect” does not mean complete or perfect as you and I think of it. It refers to Old Testament saints whose salvation has been made complete now that Christ has died as the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world.
And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel [Heb. 12:24].
“And to Jesus”—then we are going to be brought into the presence of Jesus.
“The mediator of the new covenant.” He is the mediator of the New Covenant—He is not going to thunder from Mount Sinai. Even when He was here, He sat down on a mountain and gave the law for His kingdom. I think it is going to be lots sweeter when we come into His presence some day and see Him as the mediator of the New Covenant.
“And to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” Abel’s blood cried for vengeance, but the blood of Christ speaks of salvation. This is wonderful.
Back in verse 3 we read, “Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself….” The writer is trying to get these Hebrew Christians to take their eyes off the temple, off a bloody sacrifice, off a ritual, and on to the person of Christ. Today we need to get our eyes off a church, off religion, off an organization, and off a man. No man down here should be the one to whom we are looking. Look to Jesus—look only to Him. The temple with all its splendor and ritual was passing away and was to be destroyed—now they are under a new economy.
Consider Him. Look to Jesus. Someone has said that this is the simplicity of our faith, and I agree with that, but there is a danger of oversimplification under the evangelistic methods which are being used today. I have a little book which I have entitled Faith Plus Nothing Equals Salvation because I believe this is true. Faith alone can save. However, today we have an epidemic of easy believism. Many folk have made salvation a simple mathematical equation: If you can say yes to this, yes to that, and yes to a half-dozen questions, then you are a Christian. This type of approach leaves no room for the work of the Holy Spirit and for the conviction of sin. It just means a nodding assent, a passing acquaintance with Jesus. It does not mean that you are born again.
There is a word that is being overworked today: commit your life to Christ. What kind of life do you have to commit to Christ? If you are coming to Christ as a sinner, you don’t have any life—you are dead in trespasses and sins. The Lord Jesus is the one who said, “I have come that you might have life.” You do not commit a life, but He committed His life for you and He died for you. You are dead in trespasses and sins, and He has life to offer to you: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
We also hear people say, “Give your heart to Jesus.” Well, my friend, what do you think He wants with that dirty, old heart? Read the list of things He said come out of the heart (see Matt. 15:19). They are the dirtiest things that I know. He didn’t ask you to give your heart to Him. He says, “I want to give you a new heart and a new life.” We need today the conviction of sin, to know that we are sinners. We have made salvation a very jolly affair. An evangelistic crusade today is just too ducky; it’s so sweet, and it’s so lovely. I don’t see people come weeping under conviction of sin.
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven [Heb. 12:25].
“See that ye refuse not him that speaketh.” Since the Lord Jesus Christ is so wonderful and since His words are very important, it pays you to give attention to Him—it will be very profitable to you.
“For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven.” If you want to see what happened to a people under the Law, go to the nation of Israel even today. They are not dwelling in peace. Theirs has been a really sad story for over nineteen hundred years. Why? Because they refused to hear Him. They also refused to hear the Law, and for that God judged them. It is a serious business not to listen to this warning. Jesus said, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17). If you do His will you will find out whether it is true or not, but if you refuse—how will you escape if you neglect so great a salvation?
Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven [Heb. 12:26].
At the giving of the Law there was an earthquake, and at the crucifixion of Christ there was an earthquake. Now God is saying that the day is coming when He is going to shake everything. When I look at the tall buildings in downtown Los Angeles, I am tempted to say to them, “I want to get a good look at you today because you may not be here tomorrow.” God says He is going to shake the earth and heaven itself. Do you know why He is going to do that? God is going to shake everything to let all His created universe know that there are some things which are unshakeable, and one of those things is living faith in Jesus Christ. He is the Rock that we rest upon, and He cannot be shaken. Do you want a secure place today? He is the place to go. He is the air raid shelter that is safe today. Men want to make the world safe, but no man can make this world safe, nor can any world organization such as the United Nations make it safe. It is not even safe for me to walk at night down the street on which I live. However, God is going to make it safe some day, and in order to do that, He is first going to shake everything.
And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain [Heb. 12:27].
In other words, we had better be very careful that we build our lives on the right foundation. Are we building on sinking sand? Or are we building upon the Rock which is Christ?
“That those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” God will remain. His word will remain, and the eternal kingdom to which believers belong will remain.
Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear [Heb. 12:28].
As believers we are moving toward a heavenly kingdom, but as we move toward the heavenly kingdom we need to recognize that we should be serving God down here. But how are we to serve Him? Well, we are to serve Him “acceptably.” How do we serve Him acceptably? “With reverence and godly fear.” My friend, Christianity is not playing church, and it is not assuming a pious attitude. It is a living, vital, and real relationship with Jesus Christ that transforms your life and anchors you in the Word of God.
For our God is a consuming fire [Heb. 12:29].
You can take that or leave it, but it just happens to be in the Word of God. This is a solemn reminder that grace is available for you to serve God, but don’t trifle with God, my friend. Don’t think you can play fast and loose with God and get by with it.
I remember that when I first came to Pasadena as a pastor in 1940 I was asked by a lady to go see her husband. They were a lovely couple, but the husband was sick and in bed at home. In fact, he never got out of that bed; he died there. When I went to see him, I presented the gospel to him. He heard me courteously and then said this, “Dr. McGee, I would like to tell you right now that I accept Christ as my Savior, and I will do that, but I have trifled and played with God so often down through the years that I don’t even know myself when I’m sincere and when I’m not sincere.”
My friend, don’t trifle with God. That day may come when you won’t even know where you stand with Him at all. I tell you, our God is a consuming fire, but he is also a gracious, glorious, wonderful Savior.
CHAPTER 13
Theme: Love
As we have said, chapter 11 is the faith chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews; chapter 12 is the hope chapter; and chapter 13 is the love chapter. Another outline that has been suggested for this section is as follows: chapter 10 the Christian’s privilege; chapter 11 the Christian’s power; chapter 12 the Christian’s progess; and chapter 13 the Christian’s practice. That is not the best outline, but it is good for Chapter 13—in chapter 13 we will see the Christian’s practice.
SECRET LIFE OF THE BELIEVER
Let brotherly love continue [Heb. 13:1].
“Brotherly love” should be translated as brother love. The writer of this epistle is writing primarily to Hebrews, but what he has to say has application to us. Both Jew and Gentile have been brought into one body, the body of believers. The cement, the Elmer’s glue, that holds us together is brother love—not brotherly love, but brother love. We are not to love like brothers, but we are to love because we are brothers.
Now if you are a child of God you are my brother. I get many letters that say, “I am a black person. But I listen to your program and I want you to know that I am a believer and I love you.” I appreciate that so much. What difference does the color of the skin make when we are children of God? When He has given us new hearts and washed us white as snow, we are brothers, we are in the family of God, and we are to love one another.
I like to illustrate the Christian life as a triangle: The Christian life is a life of faith and of love toward God and of love toward others. “Let brother love continue.”
Now here is stranger love—
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares [Heb. 13:2].
“Some have entertained angels unawares.” The word angel may refer to superhuman beings or it may refer to human beings who are messengers from God. The same word is used to address the leaders of the seven churches of Asia Minor in chapters 2 and 3 of the Book of Revelation, in which I take the position that the “angels” are human messengers; that is, they are the teachers or leaders of the churches being addressed.
The writer mentions that there are those in the Old Testament who “entertained angels unawares.” Abraham was one of them, and Jacob was another (although he didn’t do much entertaining that night as he was too busy wrestling!); Joshua also entertained an angel.
The basic thought of this verse in the Hebrew epistle is that we are to extend love to strangers by showing hospitality to them. We ought to be careful that our love is exercised with judgment, but we need to recognize that there are folk around us to whom we could be very helpful. We should extend our love to them, and in doing this we might meet some very wonderful people.
Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body [Heb. 13:3].
Paul himself was in bonds. He knew a great deal about that, and so he says, “Remember the needy and those in trouble. Show love to those who are in need.” You see, the church is a body—when one member suffers, all of us suffer. When I was seriously ill sometime ago I had the opportunity to experience this myself. A letter from one dear lady caused me to shed tears: “Dr. McGee, I’m inactive now, and I’m not able to do anything. I prayed to God that I would be able to take your disease upon myself so that you could go on with your ministry.” May I say to you, we don’t find that kind of spirit in every church or every group of believers, but we need it and I thank God there is a lot of it around.
We talk a great deal about the Christian fellowship which we have in our little group meetings or around the banquet table. But what about the poor saint who is off yonder lying on a bed and whom no one has visited? Many of you could have a wonderful ministry visiting the sick and lonely. This is the brother love that he is talking about here. Brother love is not something that takes place only in the church or in little groups that meet together. There has been a new phrase coined in our day: “body truth.” Gracious, that truth has been in Scripture all these years; it is not something new. And you exercise that body truth by going out there to that individual who is in need. We do not hear that aspect emphasized very much today.
Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge [Heb. 13:4].
“Marriage is honourable in all.” The writer is condemning asceticism here. Young man, if you find a Christian girl who will have you, get married. Young lady, if you find a Christian fellow who will have you, get married. I believe that God will lead you to the right one, if you are willing to be led in that way.
Marriage is honorable in all, and sex is to be exercised within the framework of marriage. God gave marriage to mankind for the welfare of mankind. I know I sound like a square, because this idea of living together without being married has become very commonplace, but I must tell you, young person, that you will surely pay for it if you attempt to live together outside the bonds of marriage. The home is the very center of the whole social structure, and it is the very center of the church.
“And the bed undefiled.” There is nothing wrong with sex—except that it is being taught too much in our schools today. When I was in London sometime ago, I learned that they were going to cut down on teaching sex. They found that it led to more rapes in the schools than ever before, and they felt it to be responsible for an epidemic of venereal disease.
“But whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). This is very severe, but after years in the ministry, I have watched many Christians who have tried to get by with sexual sins, and I do not know of any who have been able to do it. Maybe they have not been detected, but they have not gotten by with it; God has judged them.
Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee [Heb. 13:5].
“Your conversation” means your manner of life. Don’t be known as a moneygrabber, as one who puts the almighty dollar above almighty God. He may not make you a millionaire, but He will never leave you or forsake you. Isn’t it wonderful to have Him say that to you? It does not matter who you are or what you do, if you have responded in faith to the Word of God, you have been brought to the place where you can know that He will never leave you or forsake you. I have a notion that I have friends today who would forsake me, and I may have relatives who would forsake me. But the Lord Jesus will never forsake me. I hope you have Him on your side.
So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me [Heb. 13:6].
The Hebrew Christians in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria were going to face punishment and trials in the next few years. They needed to remember that God was not going to forsake them, and that they could say in spite of what happened, “The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”
It is interesting to note what happened when some of the prisoners of war finally were able to return home after the war in Vietnam. During the war, many radicals in the United States were concerned over the fate of the POWs, and they made trips to Vietnam and led protest rallies on their behalf. But when the POWs were released, very few of the radicals showed any interest in them. When the prisoners of war came back to this country many of them testified that they had turned to Jesus, and it was Jesus who helped them. Of course, the news media didn’t like that or want to talk about that. But Jesus never forsook them—He stayed with them and saw them through. He is the one who will see you through, too. I don’t think the radicals or the politicians will help you much. I am tired of listening to them. I want to listen to Jesus, because He will never leave me nor forsake me.
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE BELIEVER
Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation [Heb. 13:7].
There are some ministers who use this verse and say that the members of their church are to obey them. However, it seems rather that the thought here is of leadership. He is speaking of spiritual leaders, and spiritual leaders are to lead folk to Christ. If a man is presenting Christ and is attempting to bring people into the presence of Christ, then that is a man to whom you should be loyal. But to be loyal to a man simply because he is the pastor of a church is not what Paul is talking about at all.
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever [Heb. 13:8].
“Jesus Christ.” There is no accident in the Word of God; that is, no word is ever used carelessly. Jesus is His human name; Christ is His title, that which speaks of His deity.
Jesus is the name which links Him with mankind. It identifies Him as the most wonderful person in this world.
Jesus, Name of sweetness,
Jesus, sound of love;
Cheering exiles onward
To their rest above.
Jesus, oh the magic
Of the soft love sound;
How it thrills and trembles
To creation’s bound.
—Author unknown
How wonderful Jesus was as a person when He was down here. People crowded around Him because He was so human. The mobs followed Him and they loved Him. It was the teaching of Jesus they hated—it was not Jesus the man. He was wonderful, my friend.
Christ is a title which speaks of His messianic mission to this earth—He is God manifest in the flesh. “Jesus Christ”—how marvelously these two are meshed together here. He is Jesus Christ, and He is the same.
I feel inadequate to deal with this very marvelous verse, but I do want to say that it has probably been misapplied as much as any verse in the Word of God. There are many who use this verse and say, “When Jesus was here nineteeen hundred years ago, He performed miracles; therefore we ought to perform them today. He healed nineteen hundred years ago, and so we ought to be healing today. He is still in that same business.”
Jesus Christ is the same, but we need to understand how He is the same. He is the same in His character, in His person, and in His attributes, but He is not the same in place or in performance. When I was in the land of Israel I didn’t see Him over there. I saw very little evidence at all of Him in that land. Over nineteen hundred years ago He was in Bethlehem as a little baby, but He is no longer a baby and He is not in Bethlehem. Later He was a little boy playing in the streets of Nazareth. I walked down the streets of Nazareth, but I didn’t see Him. I saw a lot of little boys, but He was not one of them. A few years later as a man He walked through that land, and He did heal. I was in Jerusalem and I saw Golgotha, but there is not a cross there and He is not on a cross today. The whole thought of this epistle is that He is now at the right hand of God: “… We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens” (Heb. 8:1); and we are to look “unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith …” (Heb. 12:2). He accomplished our redemption nineteen hundred years ago, and He sat down at the right hand of God. Right now He is up yonder, but some day He will come as the King to the earth to establish His kingdom. He has not yet called His church out of the world, but some day He will do that. You see, Jesus is not the same in place and performance, but He is the same in His attributes.
When He was here nineteen hundred years ago, He was God who came down to our level. When I have been in the land of Israel and have considered that fact, I have truly marveled at it. He came to a place where there was no great wealth or pomp or ceremony. He did not come to Rome, the center of power and government. He did not come to Athens, the great cultural center. He did come to an insignificant outpost of the Roman Empire, and He came to the level of the common man.
Because we are often afraid that we will be misunderstood when we speak of Christ’s humanity, we do not emphasize it as we should. Rather, we emphasize His deity, and we need to do that because the liberal speaks of nothing but His humanity, and even that he does not truly understand. But in His humanity, I think that Jesus was the most attractive person who ever walked this earth—not because He was God, but because He was a man, a real man.
Have you ever wondered why the crowds were attracted to Him and followed Him? He was strong but gentle—so gentle that little children came to Him. However, He could drive the money-changers out of the temple and they ran for cover, because He was man enough to put them out. Also He was attractive. He had what we call today charisma. People followed Him because they loved Him, and they knew they were in the presence of a man who was a man. In Capernaum He healed a leper and then had to leave because the crowds pressed around Him so that He couldn’t even continue His ministry. Even publicans and sinners came to Him, which was the thing that so angered the religious crowd. If He came to your town today—I hate to say this—I don’t think He would come to your church. I have a notion you would find Him where the crowd is; He would be mixing with people and probably holding a child or two. When He went to Jericho at the end of His ministry, again we find that the crowds lined the way so that little Zacchaeus had to climb up a tree in order to see Him, but even there our Lord stopped and brought him down out of the tree. How sensitive the Lord Jesus was to human need, and how wonderful He was in His person!
I want to say something very carefully: it was the person of Christ that appealed; it was not His teachings. His great declaration that He was going to die to redeem men was not popular. At the very beginning of His ministry, it was His teaching that offended. He taught that He was the Bread of Life and that He had come to give His life that men might have spiritual food, and added, “Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” And John’s record tells us, “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:65–68). The crowd narrowed down, and only twelve stayed with Him. Why? Because of His teaching. And actually Simon Peter rebuked Him when He spoke of His impending death, “… Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee” (Matt. 16:22). Even His loyal disciples didn’t like that kind of teaching. When men came into contact with the Lord Jesus Christ, they found grace and truth; they found sweetness and strength; they found meekness and majesty; they found light and love. He appealed to men, but when he died on a cross that cross became an offense. The Cross is still an offense, but Jesus is still attractive.
It is said that when Savonarola in the city of Florence went before the great populace and said, “Be free,” they applauded him. But when he said to them, “Be pure,” they ran him out of town. They refused his teaching when it did not appeal to them. The Lord Jesus said to men, “You have to turn from sin. You cannot live in sin. I have come to make you free, but I will have to give My life for you and you will have to come as sinners to Me.” And sinners came—when men were desperate, they would come to Him. I believe that is the only way men will come to Him even today.
I wish that I could present Him as He really was nineteen hundred years ago when He came to this earth. How wonderful He was! Today, your sorrow is His sorrow, and your joy is His joy. He will be the same in the future—“the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.” He is never going to change. Some day we will be in His presence. How wonderful that will be!
Before we leave this subject, let me share with you an excerpt from a booklet written by Dr. C. I. Scofield, entitled The Loveliness of Christ:
First of all, as it seems to me, this loveliness of Christ consists in His perfect humanity. Am I understood? I do not now mean that He was a perfect human, but that He was perfectly human.
In everything but our sins, and our evil natures, He is one with us. He grew in stature and in grace. He labored, and wept, and prayed, and loved. He was tempted in all points as we are—sin apart. With Thomas, we confess Him Lord and God; we adore and revere Him, but beloved, there is no other who establishes with us such intimacy, who comes so close to these human hearts of ours; no one in the universe of whom we are so little afraid. He enters as simply and naturally into our twentieth century lives as if He had been reared in the same street.
He is wonderful, my friend, and you ought to know Him. Paul, who came to know Him, found that even at the end of his life he wanted to know Him better. He said, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection …” (Phil. 3:10). Today my one ambition is to know Him and to get out His Word—I cannot think of anything better to do.
Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein [Heb. 13:9].
It is amazing that most of the cults today go in for special diets. I believe that food is important as far as the health of the body is concerned, but it has nothing to do with your relationship to God. Paul wrote, “But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse” (1 Cor. 8:8). He is saying the same thing here. Do not go off into these strange cults and teachings in which diet and ceremonies and rituals and little study groups are supposed to make you a super-duper saint. Nothing in the world is going to build you up but the Word of God. The Word of God will build you up if it brings you to the person of Christ, and only the Holy Spirit can take the things of Christ and make them real unto you.
We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle [Heb. 13:10].
A comparison is being made here between what Israel had under the old covenant in contrast to the better things of the new covenant. Believers today have an altar, but this altar is not the Lord’s Supper as some people have mistakenly interpreted it to mean. We do not have a material altar with a local address, but we have an altar which is in heaven. It is the throne of grace up yonder. It was a throne of judgment—He condemned us there—but now that the blood has been placed there, we can come and find grace and salvation.
I would like to say at this point that Christian fellowship is not a church banquet. For years while I was in the ministry I heard it said: “Come to the banquet. We are going to have some marvelous Christian fellowship.” No, you’re not, my friend. You are just going there for a good time and to fill your little tummy. The only place you can have real Christian fellowship (koinoµnia) is around the Word of God. It is the Word of God which brings you to the person of Christ and enables you to see Him in all His glory. It is then that you will have fellowship and a good time with other believers. Our Lord is wonderful, my friend—it is terrible to pass Him by.
For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp [Heb. 13:11].
The writer is referring to the sin offering. When Christ died it was for the fact that you and I are sinners. Not only do we commit sin, we are sinners by nature, and He took our sins on Himself that He might give us a new nature.
Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate [Heb. 13:12].
Jesus died outside the city. Why? Because He was the sin offering. The sin offering was taken away from the temple and “burned without the camp.” Jesus was our sin offering, and He paid the penalty for our sin.
Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach [Heb. 13:13].
The writer is saying to these Hebrew Christians, “Don’t mind leaving the temple. Don’t mind leaving the rituals. Those things are not helpful. Go to Him—Go to Christ.”
My friend, we, too, are to go to Him. We are on our way to a heavenly Jerusalem. This is real separation he is talking about here. Today we put the emphasis on separation from; we are separated from something—that is, “I don’t do this and I don’t do that.” Real separation is not from; it is unto. Paul said he was separated unto the gospel, separated unto Christ, separated unto the Word of God. In fact the word Hebrew means the “one who crossed over.” Abraham was called a Hebrew because he had come from the other side of the Euphrates River, signifying that his old life was gone. The children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, and they were delivered from slavery; they were redeemed, and a new life was then possible. Then they had to cross the Jordan River to live in the Promised Land, the land of Canaan, the kind of life that we also should live down here.
We are to go “without the camp, bearing his reproach.” The Hebrew Christians hated to leave the temple and their religion. Many people today are wrapped up in “churchianity,” thinking that because they are members of a church they are saved. They need to get away from ritual and religion and come to Christ. Come to Him—that is real separation, and that is real salvation.
For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come [Heb. 13:14].
Again the writer makes it clear that we have nothing permanent down here.
SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE BELIEVER
By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name [Heb. 13:15].
A child of God is a priest today and can bring sacrifices to God. There are four sacrifices of a believer. (1) You can sacrifice your person (see Rom. 12:1). Someone has said, “When one truly gives himself to the Lord, all other giving becomes easy.” (2) You can sacrifice your purse (see 2 Cor. 8:1–5). If He doesn’t have your purse, He doesn’t have you. (3) You can offer the sacrifice of praise, which we find in this verse: “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.” (4) Finally, you can offer the sacrifice of performance or doing good, which we find in the following verse—
But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased [Heb. 13:16].
When you took that basket of fruit over to that dear, lonely, and sick child of God whom everyone has forgotten about, you were a priest offering a sacrifice to God. It was well pleasing to Him—He took delight in your doing that. Again I must refer to the time when I was seriously ill and flat on my back. At that time I received many letters from folk who were lots worse off physically than I was. They wrote lovely letters, and every one of them was a sacrifice. And many folk helped me in a tangible way, and that too was a sacrifice well pleasing to God. My friend, if Christianity does not walk in shoe leather it is no good at all. The Lord Jesus is up yonder at the right hand of God—that is where He is as Head of the church—but His feet are down here right where the rubber meets the road. He wants Christianity to be in shoe leather, and He would like to walk in your shoes.
Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you [Heb. 13:17].
We had this same thought in verse 7. If your pastor is a man of God who is teaching the Word of God then you are to obey the Word of God as he has given it to you. It would be better to not hear the Word of God, than to hear it and not obey it.
Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly [Heb. 13:18].
“Pray for us.” Evidently the readers of this epistle knew the writer, and I believe the writer was Paul.
“For we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.” It is wonderful to pillow your head at night with a good conscience, a conscience enlightened by the Word of God. A great many people are not walking in the light. “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:6–7).
But I beseech you the rather to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner [Heb. 13:19].
This statement also makes me believe that Paul wrote this epistle. Apparently he was in prison at this time, and he is saying to these Hebrew Christians, “I want to come back and be among you again”—after all, he was a Hebrew himself.
BENEDICTION
Now we come to the benediction, a benediction which I have used thousands of times in my ministry.
Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen [Heb. 13:20–21].
“That great shepherd of the sheep.” The Lord Jesus is here called the Great Shepherd. In Psalm 22 He is presented as the Good Shepherd, and in John 10:11 He calls Himself the Good Shepherd. As the Good Shepherd He gave His life for the sheep. As the Great Shepherd He is the one who perfects the sheep and builds them up. We see that here and also in Psalm 23. He leads us beside the still waters and leads us to the place where the grass is good and green and very tender, that is, to the Word of God. Then in Psalm 24 He is presented as the Chief Shepherd. “And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away” (1 Pet. 5:4). He died in the past as the Good Shepherd; He is the Great Shepherd today; and He is coming some day as the Chief Shepherd for His sheep. He started out with one hundred sheep, and do you know how many sheep He is going to have with Him in heaven? Ninety-nine? No. He is going to have all one hundred sheep with him there.
“Through the blood of the everlasting covenant.” Christ’s blood is the basis of every covenant God has ever made.
“Make you perfect”—this has been the purpose of the Epistle to the Hebrews. We have been told, “Let us go on to perfection.” He means for us to go on to maturation, to being full-grown children of God. It is marvelous to admire a little baby lying in the crib, but if you come back in twenty years and he is still lying there, saying, “Da-da-da,” something is radically wrong. There are a lot of such saints who need to come to maturation, to grow up, and the Epistle to the Hebrews will help them to do that.
“In every good work to do his will.” What is the important thing for a child of God? To do His will—to allow Him to work His will in your life, “working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
And I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation: for I have written a letter unto you in few words [Heb. 13:22].
Notice how personal this is. I have to smile when he says he wrote this “in few words.” To my judgment this is a long letter, but he calls it “few words.”
Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you [Heb. 13:23].
Again, this sounds like Paul. Apparently Timothy had been in prison. A note in my Bible at the bottom of this chapter says, “Written to the Hebrews from Italy by Timothy.” That is not part of the text, but it is some man’s interpretation. This man could be wrong, and I could be wrong in saying that Paul wrote this epistle. The important thing is that the Holy Spirit wrote it and that He takes the things of Christ and shows them unto us.
Salute all them that have the rule over you, and all the saints. They of Italy salute you [Heb. 13:24].
The writer was in Italy, and so was Paul.
He closes this epistle with a wonderful benediction, and I will close with it also. I cannot improve on it because it interprets itself—
Grace be with you all. Amen [Heb. 13:25].
APPENDIX
Theme: The authorship of Hebrews or did Paul write Hebrews?; internal evidences on authorship; date and destination; arguments available on authorship; a defense of the Pauline authorship
THE AUTHORSHIP OF HEBREWS OR DID PAUL WRITE HEBREWS?
The Epistle to the Hebrews presents many moot problems. Some of them are in conjunction with the question of authorship, which we shall consider under the following divisions:
1. Internal evidence on authorship (Is Hebrews an epistle or treatise?)
2. Date and destination
3. Arguments available on authorship
4. A defense of the Pauline authorship
It is evident that we are contending for the Pauline authorship of Hebrews. First we shall present all arguments against it, as indicated by the headings. Then we shall present the evidence that establishes the Pauline authorship in our own thinking.
INTERNAL EVIDENCES ON AUTHORSHIP
The deciding factor in determining the authorship, according to one writer, is that tradition and history shed no light upon the question of the authorship of Hebrews. This probably is being considered first because we do not agree with the writer on this statement. Rather, we believe that both history and tradition lend a deciding voice to this question.
We are therefore thrown back, in our search for the author, on such evidence as the epistle itself affords, and that is wholly inferential. It seems probable that the author was a Hellenist, a Greek-speaking Jew. He was familiar with the Scriptures of the OT and with the religious ideas and worship of the Jews. He claims the inheritance of their sacred history, traditions and institutions (1:1), and dwells on them with an intimate knowledge and enthusiasm that would be improbable, though not impossible, in a proselyte, and still more in a Christian convert from heathenism. But he knew the OT only in the LXX [Septuagint] translation, which he follows even where it deviates from the Hebrew. He writes Greek with a purity of style and vocabulary to which the writings of Luke alone in the NT can be compared. His mind is imbued with that combination of Hebrew and Greek thought which is best known in the writings of Philo. His general typological mode of thinking, his use of the allegorical method, as well as the adoption of many terms that are most familiar in Alexandrian thought, all reveal the Hellenistic mind. Yet his fundamental conceptions are in full accord with the teaching of Paul and of the Johannine writings.
The central position assigned to Christ, the high estimate of His person, the saving significance of His death, the general trend of the ethical teaching, the writer’s opposition to asceticism and his esteem for the rulers and teachers of the church, all bear out the inference that he belonged to a Christian circle dominated by Pauline ideas. The author and his readers alike were not personal disciples of Jesus, but had received the gospel from those who had heard the Lord (2:3) and who were no longer living (13:7) …. The letter [Paul] quotes the OT from the Hebrew and LXX but Hebrews only from LXX …. For Paul the OT is law, and stands in antithesis to the NT, but in Hebrews the OT is covenant, and is the “shadow” of the New Covenant. (The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. II, p. 1357.)
We have quoted voluminously from this writer because his main thesis is to show that Paul could not have been the author. His sole proof is based on the internal evidence from the epistle.
In considering the internal nature of the epistle, a word must be said relative to the question: Is it really an epistle? There is no word of salutation or greeting in this Epistle to the Hebrews, such as marks the other New Testament books, with the possible exception of 1 John. It is in the form of a treatise rather than a letter. In it are long, philosophical sentences written in purest idiomatic Greek. It bears no mark of a translation from the Hebrew, as Clement of Alexandria suggests. This is an inference on his part because it was written to Hebrew-speaking Jews. The length of the epistle is another thing that might suggest a treatise, yet note the author’s own words in this respect, “… for I ave written a letter unto you in few words” (Heb. 13:22). Delitzsch has this enlightening comment to make on this epistle:
We seem at first to have a treatise before us, but the special hortatory reference interwoven with the most discursive and dogmatic portions of the work soon show us that it is really a kind of sermon addressed to some particular and well known auditory; while at the close the homiletic form changes into that of an epistle.
According to Deissmann’s definition of an epistle as distinct from a letter, we feel sure that this would allow it to fall under the category of an epistle. Its conclusion is that of an epistle. Later in our discussion we shall present a reason for the omission of a greeting. These problems are intimately tied up with the question of authorship, especially when one attempts to maintain the Pauline authorship. We agree with Plumer that this is an epistle.
As we conclude this section on the internal nature of the Epistle to the Hebrews, we should note that this epistle is in composition and lofty concept the masterpiece of the New Testament, although there is no conclusive evidence for the authorship. Only suggestions and intimations shed light on this problem. In our defense for the Pauline authorship we shall undertake to show that the suggestions and intimations point to Paul as the author, yet we are not dogmatic in stating that the proof is positive.
DATE AND DESTINATION
The latest date for the composition of Hebrews is a.d. 96. The earliest date cannot be determined so easily. It must have been written after a.d. 50 if it is made dependent on Paul’s epistles. All critics fix the dating between these two terminal points. Moffatt shows that Clement, Justin Martyr, Hermas, and Tertullian knew of it and quoted from it. Clement quoted from it at length. By the second century it was widely circulated and read. Rees places the date around a.d. 80, Moffatt around a.d. 85. Here is a list of the probable datings: Basnage—a.d. 61; L’Enfant and Beausobre a.d. 62; Horne and Bagster—a.d. 62 or 63; Pearson, Lardner, Tomlin, Mill, Wetstein, and Tillemont—a.d. 63; Authorized Version and Lloyd—a.d. 64; Michaelis—a.d. 64–65; Scott—a.d. 65; Ebrard before a.d. 58. The number of dates given suggests that the means used to arrive at a date was by way of the lottery, not by process of scholarship. However, Hebrews must have been written before the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. Because there is constant reference to the Old Testament ritual being in progress at that time, certainly there would have been reference to the destruction of the temple. Having examined the arguments carefully, we are fully persuaded that those who place the dating of it after the destruction of Jerusalem do not sufficiently answer the question of why the writer omitted reference to this catastrophe.
E. Schuyler English gives us this word:
It is also obvious that the epistle was written before the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. For at the time of its composition Mosaic institutions were still being observed—priests were offering gifts according to the Law (8:3–5) and the temple was still standing (13:11–12). The temple was in Jerusalem.
Godet has a fitting comment:
This epistle, without introduction or subscription, is like the great High Priest of whom it treats, who was without beginning of days or end of years, abiding an High Priest continually. It is entirely fitting that it should remain anonymous.
The epistle was first accepted by the Eastern church. Athanasius accepted it, and the council of Carthage confirmed it in a.d. 397. Paul’s name was on the epistle about the time it began to circulate.
The consensus is that Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians. But where were the Jewish Christians located? It was not written for the whole body of Jewish believers everywhere. It was written to a particular church located in a particular place. The epistle bears testimony to this: The church had for some time obeyed the gospel (Heb. 5:12); past conduct inspired confidence in their sincerity (Heb. 6:9); they had been kind to God’s people (Heb. 6:10); note other personal references in Hebrews 10:32–34; 13:19, 23. Was this church in Palestine or out of Palestine? It is around this question that the argument on destination is based.
First of all, there is evidence that the first readers were Jews. The epistle assumes an intimate knowledge with the Old Testament. The readers were of the same lineage as Jews in the Old Testament (Heb. 1:1; 3:9). Zahn has this comment to make:
Hebrews does not contain a single sentence in which it is so much as intimated that the readers became members of God’s people who descended from Abraham, and heirs of the promise given to them and their forefathers, and how they became such. 13:13 shows that both the readers and author were members of the Jewish race.
Now we shall try to determine to whom or rather what particular church the author was addressing. This epistle is addressed to the Hebrews, which word in the New Testament does not apply to all Jews. It was used for those who were more thoroughly of Jewish origins and habits and who spoke the vernacular of Palestine. The other Jews outside of Palestine were designated Hellenists. Lindsay says that Acts 6:1 makes this distinction clear. DeWette says that Eusebius, speaking of the Jews of Asia Minor, styles them not Hebrews but ex Hebraion ontes. Chrysostom says that this epistle was sent to Jerusalem. The fact that the epistle was written in Greek does not negate the evidence that it was sent to Palestine, for it is natural for a writer out of Palestine to write in the universal language of his day. The Palestinian Jews were well acquainted with Greek, as Deissmann has clearly demonstrated. In fact, it was the language of communication. DeWette held to the opinion that this epistle was destined to parts other than Palestine; yet he acknowledges that the Jewish character of the epistle—the persecutions which they were enduring, the consequent risk of apostasy, and the ancient opinion—reveal Palestine as the more probable destination. Ebrard wrote, “We are at liberty to seek these Jewish Christians only in Jerusalem.”
ARGUMENTS AVAILABLE ON AUTHORSHIP
We can say with Shakespeare that we have now come to the very heart of the matter. There is less evidence for the authorship of this epistle than of any other book of the New Testament. Others have problems of authorship, but there is some definite evidence available and some general agreement, at least, regarding the author. For example, nearly all critics say that some John wrote the fourth Gospel. But there is no such agreement regarding Hebrews. Moffatt rightly says that few characters in the New Testament have escaped the attention of those in late days who have sought to identify them as the author of Hebrews. Apollos, Peter, Philip, Silvanus, Prisca, Barnabas, and Paul have all been suggested as the possible author. To Moffatt’s list we might add the names of Luke, Silas, Clement of Rome, Ariston, and Titus, all of whom have been suggested as the possible author. Out of this dozen, one is privileged to take his choice—or refrain from doing so, as Moffatt does. Moffatt concludes that the author was one of those unknown personalities in whom the early church was more rich than we realize. There is absolutely no basis, other than conjecture, for asserting that most of these were the author, although several have a plausible claim.
As we examine their claim to authorship, Luke and Clement are easily eliminated because a comparison of their writings to the Epistle to the Hebrews reveals a difference in style, composition, and influence. Clement quotes from Hebrews, and his own writings show marked differences. (See introduction of Moffatt’s commentary on Hebrews.) So little is known of the others, with the exception of Barnabas, that it is impossible to establish a case for or against them. Barnabas will be considered in the three theories that are presented.
In the early church were three traditions regarding the authorship of Hebrews: The Alexandrian tradition supported the Pauline authorship; the African tradition supported the authorship of Barnabas; Rome and the West supported the idea that it was anonymous.
1. Alexandrian tradition: Clement says that his teacher, probably Pantaenus, explained why Paul did not address his readers under his name. He further states that Paul wrote it in Hebrew and Luke translated it into Greek. Origen follows Clement, but knowing that the view of Alexandria was criticized, he concludes that the author is “known only to God.” By the fourth century the tradition of the Pauline authorship was well established in Alexandria, Syria, and Greece. This tradition prevailed until the revival of learning. Eusebius favored the Pauline tradition, as did Dionysius of Alexandria, Alexander of Alexandria, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, the Council of Laodicea of a.d. 363, and Erasmus. Among those who denied the Pauline tradition were Irenaeus, Cyprian of Carthage, Tertullian, Caius and Novatus, presbyters of the church at Rome. Calvin did not accept the tradition, for he says, “I, indeed, can adduce no reason to show that Paul was its author.” Luther and Moll defend the authorship of Apollos against the Pauline tradition. Thus we see that tradition was probably equally divided.
2. African tradition: This view supported Barnabas as the author of Hebrews. Tertullian was the leading exponent, for he attributed the epistle, without question, to Barnabas. This is the most tempting suggestion, as Wickham remarks. It suits the character of Barnabas. Barnabas was a “Levite of the country of Cyprus,” a Hellenist by birthplace, but a Hebrew by race, interested in the sacrificial system, companion of Paul (yet one who entertained views of his own), the “son of consolation,” the mediator and peacemaker between old and new. Zahn infers that this tradition arose in Montanist churches and originated in Asia. However, this tradition was superseded by the Alexandrian tradition, for in a.d. 393 the council of Hippo reckons thirteen epistles to Paul, but in a.d. 419 the council of Carthage reckons fourteen to Paul, which would include Hebrews.
3. Roman tradition: This view said the author was anonymous. No tradition of authorship appears before a.d. 400, according to Rees. Stephen Gobarus, writing in a.d. 600, says that both Irenaeus and Hippolytus denied the Pauline authorship. The epistle was known to Clement of Rome, and he mentions no one as author. Another suggestion as to the authorship of Hebrews is mentioned by Plumer. It is that of Zenas, the lawyer. This makes thirteen guesses as to the author of Hebrews.
A DEFENSE OF THE PAULINE AUTHORSHIP
We are not holding dogmatically or tenaciously to an obsolete view. Rather, we have examined the evidence and find no reason to reject the Pauline authorship. It is not our purpose in this section to affirm that Paul wrote Hebrews, but to set forth our reasons for tentatively accepting the Pauline authorship, or the authority, that this epistle rests upon, for the canonicity of this epistle depends largely upon the view of authorship. It was accepted into the canon on Pauline authority; and with that removed, it is possible to reject this great epistle.
Under the first heading (Internal Evidences on Authorship) we attempted to show that all the light from the epistle itself reveals only the fact that the author is anonymous. His name is nowhere mentioned in the epistle. Now, using the internal evidence, we want to show how Paul could be the author.
So far we have tried to show two things: (1) there is no evidence, external or internal, to support any claim as to the authorship, except it be Paul; (2) there is nothing incompatible with thinking that Paul wrote it.
Now we shall take our third burden of proof and attempt to show that internal and external evidence support the Pauline authorship.
1. Internal Evidence: Origen remarked that the thoughts (noemata) of this epistle all bore the stamp of Paul’s mind, but the language was Hellenikotera, purer Greek than his. Following is Lindsay’s list of representations and images which are found in Hebrews and in Paul’s other epistles, which are not found in the works of other New Testament writers.
Compare Heb. 1:1, 3 with 2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15–16.
Compare Heb. 1:4; 2:9 with Phil. 2:8–9.
Compare Heb. 2:14 with 1 Cor. 15:54, 57.
Compare Heb. 7:16, 18–19 with Rom. 2:29; Gal. 3:3, 24.
Compare Heb. 7:26 with Eph. 4:10.
Compare Heb. 8:5; 10:1 with Col. 2:17.
Compare Heb. 10:12–13 with 1 Cor. 15:25.
DeWette and Bleek have concluded that since Hebrews reads more like Paul’s writing than any other New Testament writings, it was written by a disciple of Paul. The opponents of the Pauline authorship are quoted to show that this book is not unlike Paul’s writings and could have been written by Paul. Paul obviously meets this requirement.
Some have claimed that Hebrews 2:3 excludes Paul as the author because he says in Galatians 1:11–12 that he received his gospel not from men but from God. However, this is not incongruous with Paul’s statement in Galatians. Paul is evidently using the editorial “we” that is used so effectually in the New Testament. If Paul places himself in the same category with the other Christians at Jerusalem, he could not say that we received it from God on the road to Damascus about midday on a mule. Paul’s conversion was peculiar to himself. Then the Galatians passage does not exclude the fact that Paul did not have it confirmed unto him by the ones who heard the Lord. In Galatians he is defending his apostleship and is therefore showing from whence he received his authority.
As to the statement that Hebrews 13:7 reveals that the apostles were no longer living at the time Hebrews was written, we can hardly see where this verse establishes any such view.
Regarding the fact that the Epistle to the Hebrews quotes the Old Testament from the Septuagint Version, it is possible for Paul to have quoted only from the Septuagint in Hebrews and from both the Septuagint and the Hebrew in his other epistles. The fact that there are more quotations in this book than in any other New Testament book shows that the author is placing a great deal of stress on these quotations. Instead of quoting from memory, he would have a copy of the Old Testament at hand. Paul did quote from the Septuagint frequently, and he could easily have used it exclusively in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Rees says that Paul’s Christology turns about the death, resurrection, and living presence of Christ in the church. In contrast, the Epistle to the Hebrews centers about the high priestly nature of Christ’s work. He evidently is thinking of Ephesians, Colossians, 1 Corinthians, and Romans, for the rest of Paul’s epistles deal no more with these subjects than does Hebrews. This method of trying to distinguish different authors by difference of style is not conclusive, to say the least. Certainly it is not a valid argument in this epistle.
We come now to the problem of the absence of the author’s name in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Why did the author conceal his name? The theory has been advanced that had Paul been the author he would have subscribed his name, and the fact that his name does not appear shows he did not write it. We submit Plumer’s answer to this sort of reasoning:
Moreover, if Paul is proven not to be its author because it lacks his name, the same reasoning would prove it had no author at all, for it bears no name whatever.
Now let us examine the reasons why Paul might have concealed his name. Dr. Biesenthal, writing on Hebrews, advances a new and interesting theory for the reason the writer concealed his name. He shows that Christianity’s teaching that animal sacrifices were no longer needed was being felt in heathendom. Consequently, sacrifices at births, marriages, and other occasions, were being neglected. The priestly class, which lived by these sacrifices, and the large cattle industry, were being threatened by utter ruin. This created a great antagonism against Christianity. Dr. Biesenthal, a Hebrew by race, concludes that for this reason the writer withheld his name from this epistle which so bitterly denounces animal sacrifices.
Also Paul himself was a man who was hated by the Jewish nation. To them he was no less than a traitor. This brilliant young Pharisee, who was well versed in the ritual of Moses, as he himself claims, was anathema to his brethren in the flesh. In writing to them this learned work, composed in the best Greek, he withheld the name that would prevent its circulation among those to whom it was originally destined.
There is another reason we think to be more valid, which was presented even by the Alexandrian tradition. It is that Paul left off his salutation, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,” because he was not the apostle to the Jews but to the Gentiles. Another more recent suggestion on this line comes from a consideration of Hebrews 3:1: “… Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.” Christ is the great Apostle in this epistle and the writer would not subscribe his name beside the one of Christ. Certainly the fact that the writer did not mention his name does not eliminate Paul from the list of possible authors.
There are a few suggestions in the epistle that point to Paul as author. The writer was a Jew acquainted with the details of Mosaic ritualism (Heb. 13:13). He was acquainted with Greek philosophy, or rather, Alexandrian thought. The author of this epistle had been in prison in the locality where the ones addressed resided (Heb. 10:34). He was at that time in prison in Italy (Heb. 13:19, 24).Timothy was his companion and messenger (Heb. 13:23). When Paul was in Rome in prison he used Timothy to carry messages, and he sent him on a trip from the west to the east (Phil. 2:19). The writer hoped to be liberated (Heb. 13:19). This is the same thought that is expressed in Philippians 1:25 and Philemon 22. While these suggestions are not conclusive, who better fits this description than Paul? An appropriate supposition from Lightfoot concludes this section on internal evidence: “The very style of it may argue the scholar of Gamaliel.”
The dating of the Epistle to the Hebrews does not conflict with the Pauline authorship. If it were written before the destruction of Jerusalem, which we believe to be correct, it coincides nicely with Paul’s imprisonment at Rome. Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem helps explain the epistle. The Book of Acts tells us that Paul went up to Jerusalem in spite of the warning of the Spirit. His arrest was the result of having gone into the temple to purify himself with the four men who had a vow. This he was asked to do and to make apparent that he walked orderly and kept the Law. Did he do wrong. This is not a question for us to answer. The point is that he—knowing that he was dead to the Law—acted through zeal and love for his brethren. The believers at Jerusalem still clung to the Law and to the temple. When Paul was in Rome, he wrote this epistle to show these Jews the better things of the New Covenant and to warn them not to be drawn back into Judaism. This throws a great deal of light on Hebrews 13:13: “Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp [Judaism], bearing his reproach.”
The Spirit of God could have used this epistle for the comfort of Jewish Christians right before the destruction of the temple. We suggest this to show that the dating and destination are not incompatible with the Pauline authorship.
2. External Evidence: Several of the early church fathers who favored the Pauline authorship have been mentioned, but we have reserved for this section other evidence that confirms us in our view that Paul wrote Hebrews. This is Origen’s statement in full regarding the author of Hebrews.
The thoughts are Paul’s, but the phraseology and composition are by someone else. Not without reason have the ancient men handed down the Epistle as Paul’s, but who wrote the Epistle is known only to God.
We especially note that clause which is italicized. Evidently there was already in Origen’s day a tradition that Paul wrote this epistle. Quite evidently it was the opinion of the earliest church in the East that Hebrews was Paul’s epistle. It was not until a later day, and by a church more remote from Palestine, that the tradition arose of another author. Jerome, the greatest of the Latin fathers, considered Paul the author. It was during the third and fourth centuries that the Pauline authorship was denied in Rome. It is also interesting to note that during this same period the epistle was held in disrepute. After it regained its place as canonical Scripture, it was also considered as Pauline. Lindsay makes this valuable comment on the Western tradition. Jerome suggests that at first it was received in Rome as Scripture and received also as Pauline. It is significant that both go together.
Others could be mentioned, but they would add nothing decisive either way.
We now turn to a bit of evidence that is enlightening. Peter wrote to those of the circumcision, to believing Jews everywhere. In 2 Peter 3:15 he mentions the fact that Paul had written to them. He separated this epistle from the others of Paul (v. 16). No epistle of Paul other than Hebrews answers, to this statement. If Hebrews is not the epistle, then the epistle to which he refers has been lost.
To conclude our remarks, we quote a statement from Weymouth that illustrates how easy it is to defend a theory and support it with misinformation:
The only fact clear as to the author is that he was not the Apostle Paul. The early Fathers did not attribute the book to Paul, nor was it until the seventh century that the tendency to do this, derived from Jerome, swelled into an ecclesiastical practice. From the book itself we see that the author must have been a Jew and a Hellenist, familiar with Philo as well as with the Old Testament, a friend of Timothy and well known to many of those whom he addressed, and not an Apostle but decidedly acquainted with Apostolic thoughts; and that he not only wrote before the destruction of Jerusalem but apparently himself was never in Palestine. The name of Barnabas, and also that of Priscilla, has been suggested, but in reality all these distinctive marks appear to be found only in Apollos. So that with Luther, and not a few modern scholars, we must either attribute it to him or give up the quest.
This statement is very sweeping, incorrect, and superficial. He does not even present the facts.
While we do not dogmatically assert our thesis of the Pauline authorship with any such note of certainty, we do not see fit to change our view without sufficient evidence. We still believe it to be reasonable to accept the Pauline tradition.
We deplore the fact that the King James Version carries the heading, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews. It should read, The Epistle to the Hebrews. Such is the tenet that we affirm in this paper.
BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR APPENDIX
Calvin, John. Commentary of Paul the Apostle on Hebrews. 1567 Reprint. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, n.d.
Edwards, T. C. “The Epistle to the Hebrews,” Expositor’s Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, n.d.
Gaebelein, Arno C. “The Epistle to the Hebrews,” The Annotated Bible. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, n.d.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, article on the Epistle to the Hebrews. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1925.
Lindsay, W. Lectures on The Epistle to the Hebrews. International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh, Scotland: T. & T. Clark, 1867.
Moffatt, James. “The Epistle to the Hebrews,” International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh, Scotland: T. & T. Clark, 1924.
Plumer, William. Commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews. Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth, n.d.
Wickham, E. C. Epistle to the Hebrews. London, 1910.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Recommended for Further Study)
Bruce, F. F. The Epistle to the Hebrews. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964.
DeHaan, M. R. Hebrews. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959. (Message given on the Radio Bible Class.)
English, E. Schuyler. Studies in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, 1955.
Hoyt, Herman A. The Epistle to the Hebrews. Winona Lake, Indiana: Brethren Missionary Herald Co., n.d.
Hughes, Philip Edgecumbe. A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977.
Ironside, H. A. The Epistle to the Hebrews. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers.
Kelly, William. An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Addison, Illinois: Bible Truth Publishers, 1905.
Kent, Homer A., Jr. The Epistle to the Hebrews. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1972. (Excellent.)
MacDonald, William. The Epistle to the Hebrews. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, 1971.
Meyer, F. B. The Way into the Holiest. Fort Washington, Pennsylvania: Christian Literature Crusade, 1893. (A rich devotional study.)
Murray, Andrew. The Holiest of All. Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1894. (Excellent devotional treatment.)
Newell, William R. Hebrews, Verse by Verse. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1947. (Excellent.)
Pfeiffer, Charles F. The Epistle to the Hebrews. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1962. (Good, brief survey.)
Phillips, John. Exploring Hebrews. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1977.
Thomas, W. H. Griffith. Hebrews: A Devotional Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1962. (Excellent.)
Vine, W. E. The Epistle to the Hebrews. London: Oliphant, 1957.
Wiersbe, Warren W. Be Confident. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1977.
Wuest, Kenneth S. Hebrews in the Greek New Testament for English Readers. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1947.
The General Epistle of
James
INTRODUCTION
The Epistle of James is the first in a group of epistles customarily called General Epistles, which includes James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, and Jude. They are designated as general or “catholic” epistles in the sense that they are universal, not being addressed to any particular individual or church, but to the church as a whole.
The problem of authorship is a major one. There is no question that James wrote the Epistle of James, but which James was the author? Some find at least four men by the name of James in the New Testament. I believe that you can find three who are clearly identified:
1. James, the brother of John and one of the sons of Zebedee. These two men were called “sons of thunder” by our Lord (see Mark 3:17). He was slain by Herod who at the same time put Simon Peter into prison (see Acts 12:1–2).
2. James, the son of Alphaeus, called “James the less” (see Mark 15:40). He is mentioned in the list of apostles, but very little is known concerning him. I automatically dismiss him as the author of this epistle.
3. James, the Lord’s brother. He was a son of Mary and of Joseph, which made him a half brother of the Lord Jesus. In Matthew 13:55 we read: “Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?” In the beginning, the Lord’s brethren did not believe in Him at all, but the time came when James became head of the church at Jerusalem. In Acts 15 James seems to have presided over that great council in Jerusalem. At least he made the summation and brought the council to a decision under the leading of the Holy Spirit. I believe it was this James whom Paul referred to in Galatians 2:9, “And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.” This James is the man whom we believe to be the author of this epistle.
This epistle was written about a.d. 45–50. There have been those who have said that James wrote his epistle to combat the teachings of Paul; they argue that James emphasizes works while Paul emphasizes faith. However, the earliest of Paul’s epistles, 1 Thessalonians, was written about a.d. 52–56. Therefore, even Paul’s first epistle was not written until after the Epistle of James, which was the first book of the New Testament to be written.
It is clear that James’ theme is not works, but faith—the same as Paul’s theme, but James emphasizes what faith produces. Both James and Paul speak a great deal of faith and works. They give us the two aspects of justification by faith, both of which are clear in the writings of Paul:
1. Faith—we are not justified by works. Paul wrote, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8–9). And he also wrote, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us …” (Titus 3:5).
2. Works—we are justified for works. In Titus 3:8 Paul says, “This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works….” In Ephesians 2:10 he tells us, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
Faith is the root of salvation—Paul emphasizes that; works are the fruit of salvation—that is the thing James emphasizes. Or, we can express it this way: Faith is the cause of salvation, and works are the result of salvation.
When Paul says that works will not save you, he is talking about the works of the Law. When James emphasizes that works are essential, he is talking about works of faith, not works of the Law. He said, “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works” (James 2:18). God looks down and sees your heart, and He knows whether you believe or not—that is justification by faith. But your neighbor next door doesn’t see your heart; he can only judge by your works, the fruit of your faith.
The following are what I consider to be the two key verses of this epistle. “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). “But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” (James 2:20).
The Epistle of James deals with the ethics of Christianity, not doctrine. He is really going to bear down on the practical, but he will not get away from the subject of faith. James was evidently a very practical individual. Tradition says that he was given the name “Old Camel Knees” because he spent so much time in prayer.
Due to its practical nature, this epistle has been compared to the Book of Proverbs as well as to the Sermon on the Mount. James argues that justification by faith is demonstrated by works; it must be poured into the test tube of works (ch. 1–2), of words (ch. 3), of worldliness (ch. 4), and of a warning to the rich (ch. 5).
OUTLINE
I. Verification of Genuine Faith, Chapters 1–3
A. God Tests Faith by Trials, Chapter 1:1–12 (Twofold result: development of patience here, v. 3; reward hereafter, v. 12.)
B. God Does Not Test Faith with Evil, Chapter 1:13–21 (Evil comes from within—the flesh, v. 14.)
C. God Tests Faith by THE WORD, Not by Man’s Words, Chapter 1:22–27 (Doing, not doctrine, is the final test of faith; knowing is not enough.)
D. God Tests Faith by Attitude and Action in Respect of Persons, Chapter 2:1–13
E. God Tests Faith by Good Works, Chapter 2:14–26 (Abraham is an illustration of works, v. 21.)
F. God Tests Faith by the Tongue, Chapter 3 (“What is in the well of the heart will come up through the bucket of the mouth.”)
II. Vacuity and Vapidness of Worldliness, Chapter 4 (Worldliness is identified with fighting and the spirit of dissension, vv. 1–2.)
III. Vexation of the Rich; Value of the Imminent Coming of Christ, Chapter 5 (The soon coming of Christ produces patience, vv. 7–8, and prayer, vv. 13–18.)
A. Riches Are a Care (Rich Warned), Chapter 5:1–6
B. The Coming of Christ Is a Comfort, Chapter 5:7–12
C. The Prayer of the Righteous Is a Power, Chapter 5:13–20
CHAPTER 1
Theme: God tests faith by trials; God does not test with evil; God tests faith by the Word, not by man’s words
The Epistle of James is a very practical book which deals with the ethics of Christianity rather than with doctrine. James will really bear down on some practical issues, but the theme of faith is also seen throughout his entire epistle. The emphasis in James is on the works which are produced by faith. In the first three chapters he is going to speak of the verification of genuine faith and give us some of the ways God tests faith.
GOD TESTS FAITH BY TRIALS
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting [James 1:1].
“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” “Servant” is literally a bond slave. Now I do not know about you, but I am confident that if I had been the Lord’s half brother on the human side, somewhere in this epistle I would have let you know that. I would have brought in that fact in a very pious and humble way, but I surely would have let you know. However, James does not do that. Instead, he calls himself a bond slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
At first the Lord Jesus’ human brethren did not believe He was the Son of God. They had been brought up with Him and had played with Him. They had seen Him grow. They noticed that He was unusual, but they did not believe that He was the Savior of the world. Our Lord Jesus was so human when He was here on this earth that even His own brethren did not believe at the first. Of course, your family members are always the hardest people to reach, yet they are the ones we should reach. James came to know the Lord Jesus not only as his blood brother but as his own Savior, and then he became His bond slave. Notice what James calls Him—he uses His full name, the Lord Jesus Christ. James says, “He is my Lord.” Jesus was His human name, and James knew Him as Jesus, his half brother; but he also knew Him as Christ, the Messiah who had come and had died for the sins of the world. Jesus was not just a name, but He was called Jesus because He would save His people from their sins.
“To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.” It is obvious that James is referring to the believers in Israel. He is writing to the Christian Jews of that day. After all, the early church was 100 percent Jewish for quite a period of time. A few Gentiles became believers, and then a great revival broke out in the heart of the Roman Empire in the area of what is Turkey today. That is where the seven churches of Asia Minor were located. But James, evidently writing before this took place, is addressing the Jewish believers.
“To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.” Today people speak of the “ten lost tribes of Israel,” but no tribes really got lost. God scattered them throughout the world. They did not settle in England or the United States, although there are many Jews in both places. They are on every continent of the world. There is a tremendous Jewish population in Russia. There are some in China, some in Japan—they are “scattered abroad.” James wrote this epistle to believing Jews of that day who were scattered abroad.
“Greeting”—that translation is a little stilted, for the word in the Greek literally means “rejoice.” He writes to them and says, “Rejoice.” James was not sour-tempered. James was a man with a lot of life in him.
Now James is going to speak of rejoicing under unusual circumstances—
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations [James 1:2].
“Divers temptations” means various trials. In other words, when you are having trouble, don’t start crying as if something terrible has happened to you. You are to rejoice and count it all joy that God is testing you in this way!
The question is often asked whether the Christian is to experience joy in depth in all the trials and tensions of life. Very frankly, the answer is no—that is not what James is saying here. It leads to unreality to say that you are reconciled to the will of God when troubles come to you when you really are not reconciled. People piously say they have accepted God’s will yet go around with a long face and weep half the time. My friend, you are not reconciled to the will of God until you can rejoice.
James goes on to make it clear that God does not give us trouble for trouble’s sake; it is not an end in itself.
Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience [James 1:3].
God has a goal in mind—you can count on that. James is speaking here about the attitude of your heart toward your trouble. The Greek aorist tense used here suggests that the joy is the result of the trial. In Hebrews 12 we see that one method God uses in the life of the believer is chastening, which literally means “child training.” Trials are meaningless, suffering is senseless, and testing is irrational unless there is some good purpose for them. God says there is a reason for them, and it is a good reason. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). When the external pressures of testing are upon us and we are placed in the fires of adversity and tragedy and suffering, the attitude of faith should be that God has permitted it for a purpose and He has a high and lofty goal in view. We can know that God is working something out in our lives.
I must hasten to add that this does not necessarily mean that we will understand what purpose God has in it. This is the test of faith. We walk by faith and not by sight. Someone in the Middle Ages said, “God nothing does, nor suffers to be done, but what we would ourselves, if we could see through all events of things as well as He.”
What are some of the purposes served in the testing of faith? In this epistle, James says that testing is the proof positive of genuine faith. Let me use a rather homely illustration. Some years ago I had the privilege of leading to the Lord a secretary to one of the officers in a large airplane plant here in Southern California. On a number of occasions she asked me to speak to a Bible study class in that plant. While I was there I learned something of how airplanes are built. They start out by designing a new plane on the drawing board. Then blueprints are drawn up and models are made. The models are tested, and then construction begins. After about two years the first plane will roll off the assembly line. The question remains: Will it fly? Will it perform? Will it stand the test? So a test pilot must then put the plane through the paces up in the air. When the plane has proven to be all that the maker has said it is, there is confidence in the plane and the airlines will buy it. It is then brought to the airport where passengers will board it, and the plane thus becomes serviceable and useful. In the same sense, ore is brought to an assayer to prove that it is gold or that it is silver. He will put a fire under it and pour acid on it, and then he declares whether or not it is genuine. Likewise God puts faith to the test to prove that it is genuine. Someone has expressed it like this: “The acid of grief tests the coin of belief” There is a lot of truth in that.
God tests our faith for a purpose: “Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.” He tests us in order that He might produce patience in our lives.
But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing [James 1:4].
It is patience which will make you a full-grown Christian, but how does God produce patience in you? The very interesting thing is that patience is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. You will never become patient by trying to be patient, but neither will the Holy Spirit place it on a silver platter and offer it to you as a gift. Patience comes through suffering and testing.
“But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” You will never be a “perfect”—that is, a complete, fully mature—Christian without patience. Some Christians therefore have never really grown up but have remained babes. I made the statement as a pastor one Sunday morning that there were more babes in the church service than there were in the nursery downstairs. I tell you, I didn’t get too many laughs from that comment. The difference, however, is that the babies in the nursery were beautiful, but the ones sitting in the church service were not very pretty. There is much clamoring and criticizing, turmoil and tension in our churches today. The reason is that many Christians have not grown up; they are still babes.
David wrote in Psalm 131, “Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child” (Ps. 131:1–2). In other words, David said, “I found out I had to grow up. I needed to get off milk and start eating porterhouse steak. I needed to eat of the Bread of Life.” God tested David, and that testing enabled him to grow up.
Paul wrote in the Book of Romans that patience is one of the results of being justified by faith: “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope”(Rom. 5:3–4). There is a purpose in it all, you see.
There are many shallow and superficial saints today. There are many who are insecure as Christians. There are believers who try to be intellectual and who question the Word of God. And there are those who feel that as Christians we should try the “new morality.” My friend, the problem with such believers is that they have never grown up—they are still little babes. God gives testing and trials to produce patience in our lives and that we might become full-grown children of God. How we need that today.
God must send us trouble so that we learn patience, which will also produce hope and love in the lives of men and women. Over the years of my ministry I have seen the Holy Spirit work this out in the lives of many folk. I recall one man who, when I first knew him, was always finding fault; as a pastor I had never had such a critic before. Then he began to attend the midweek Bible study at the church. I noticed that he brought his Bible and took notes. Over a period of ten years God sent that man a great deal of trouble, but he grew up and became one of the sweetest Christians I have ever known in my life. This is the type of testing which God gives to those who are His own.
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him [James 1:5].
“Wisdom” here is related to the trials which James has been talking about. You and I have troubles and trials and problems. How are you going to solve this problem? How are you going to meet this issue? How are you going to deal with this person? If you lack wisdom in regard to a problem, you need to go to God in prayer.
Wisdom is the exercise and practical use of knowledge. Many people have knowledge, but they do not have any practical sense whatsoever. Even to this day I get a good laugh just thinking about the man with a Ph.D. with whom I used to play golf. One day out on the golf course it began to rain, and he looked at me in utter amazement and asked, “What shall we do now?” Well, you don’t need a Ph.D. to know that you need to get in out of the rain! I said to him, “I think we’d better seek shelter.” Wisdom is to know how to act under certain circumstances of testing, of trial, or when problems or questions arise. Life is filled with these, and you and I need wisdom from God.
“That giveth to all men liberally, and up-braideth not.” God is in the business of giving out wisdom “liberally,” that is, simply. He will just simply help you out in times like that. He “upbraideth not” means, according to Marvin R. Vincent in his Word Studies in the New Testament, it is the “pure, simple giving of good without admixture of evil or bitterness.” If we lack wisdom, let’s go to God who will hear and answer our prayer.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed [James 1:6].
Maybe it is not your problem, but it has been my problem over a great deal of my Christian life that I simply have not believed God. Don’t misunderstand me—I have trusted Christ as my Savior, and I believe with all my soul that He saved me and is going to save me for heaven. I believe that with all my heart, but down here in this life, where the rubber meets the road, is where I have had my problems. For example, I went through college in almost total unbelief—I didn’t believe God could put me through college. I was a poor boy who had to borrow money and work at a full-time job. It was difficult. Every year I would finish, thinking I would not be able to come back the next year. Lo and behold, God always opened up a door, and I was able to continue. I was actually a miserable fellow as I went through college; when I look back, I realize I could have had a lot more fun if I had only believed God.
“But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.” Why don’t you believe God, my friend? Do you as a Christian have a long face today? Are you wondering how your problems are going to work out? I know exactly how you feel—I’ve been there. Why don’t you believe God? Why don’t you trust Him and turn them over to Him? I know I do not have the brains to meet the problems of life; I know I am not capable of living in this complex civilization, but I have a heavenly Father who can supply the wisdom that I need.
“For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.” We say, “I believe God is going to work this out,” but then we jump at it ourselves and make our own decision. So often I turn a problem over to the Lord and believe Him, but then the next day I do not believe Him. I decide that nothing has shown up by way of solution, so I will solve it myself. That’s where I make my mistake. Such a man is “like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”
For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord [James 1:7].
If you are going to work out your problem for yourself, then God cannot work it out for you. Instead of going like a bull into a china closet and trying to work something out, why not turn it over to God?
Now James gives a proverb, and it is a good one—
A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways [James 1:8].
This was Israel’s big problem. Hosea said Israel was like a silly dove. She first flew off to Egypt seeking help, and then she flew to Assyria. She turned first to one and then to the other, but she did not turn to God. Many times when a problem comes up we go here and there trying to solve it, until it occurs to us that we have never taken it to God. When you started out today did you turn the issues of the day over to God? I used to do a great deal of counseling as a pastor, and I would meet many new people during the day. One of the prayers I always prayed was, “Lord, I’m going to meet some new people today, and I don’t know how to treat them. This man may prove to be a wonderful friend who wants to help me get out the Word of God. This other man may be seeking to hurt my ministry. Lord, help me to know the difference. Help me to be able to know which man I can put my arm around and help, and make me wary of the man who does not want my help at all. Lord, give me wisdom today.” We need wisdom to meet the issues of life.
Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted [James 1:9].
You may say, “I’m just a poor individual. I don’t have very much. I don’t have any wealth.” My friend, if you are a child of God you have a lot of wealth. You have treasure in heaven. And have you ever stopped to think what you have down here, what you have in Christ? We have everything in Him. Paul wrote, “Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor 3:21–23). I belong to Christ, and everything He has He will make over to me. I have life. I have blessings. Even death is coming to me someday, if Christ doesn’t come in the meantime. All of that is from Him, and all of these things we can rejoice in. It does not matter if you are the humblest saint or the poorest person on earth, you are rich in Christ, my friend, and you have something to rejoice over.
But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away [James 1:10].
I always think of this verse when I walk across the campus of my alma mater. Every building there is named for some rich man. Do you know where those rich men are today? They are like the flowers which bloomed yesterday but are gone today. I think of how powerful they were, the riches and the influence they had, but today they are pushing up daisies somewhere and they have faded away. Don’t rejoice in the fact that you are a rich man, because you will not have your money very long. You may have invested in gilt-edged bonds, and you may have stocks which you do not think you will lose. My friend, you may not lose them, but those stocks and bonds are going to lose you one of these days. In death you will not be able to hold on to them. The old adage says, “There’s no pocket in a shroud.” You won’t be able to take it with you. The rich man is like the flower of the grass—he shall pass away.
For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways [James 1:11].
I had the privilege years ago of speaking occasionally to a group of Christians in Hollywood, California. Among those who attended was a movie star who had become a Christian later on in life. She was getting old at that time, and when I looked at her I thought of how that beauty, which had brought her fame and fortune at one time, was now passing away. God says that the rich man shall “fade away in his ways.”
My friend, rejoice today that you have a Savior who is not only going to save you for heaven—that’s good enough for me—but He is going to help you this very day.
When I teach the Book of Proverbs I liken it to a young man who is considering the catalogs he has received from different universities—among which is the University of Wisdom. Here in the Epistle of James we find a different school—the School of Hard Knocks. That is the school most of us are in today. God wants to bring all those who are His own to full maturity as Christians, and He has many tests for doing that. He tests all of His children to see whether or not they are genuine, to weed out the phonies and the pseudosaints. He also wants to give assurance to His children. We should not regard our trials as evidence that we are not His children but rather as proof positive of our faith. My friend, if you are not having a little trouble today, you should question your salvation; if you are having trouble, that is a good sign that you belong to Him. While God has many goals in His testing, the one James has emphasized here is patience. God not only wants to give you proof that you are a genuine child of His, he also wants to produce patience in your life.
Much has been written about testing and God’s purposes in it. William Penn, the man from whom the state of Pennsylvania got its name, made this statement: “No pain, no balm. No thorn, no throne. No gall, no glory. No cross, no crown.”
Someone else has expressed it like this: “If I must carry a burden, Christ will carry me. Sometimes we must be laid low before we look high. In ourselves we are weak, even where we are strong. In Christ we are strong, even where we are weak. It’s not how long you’ll live, but how you are going to live.” This perspective is important to have.
Many people wonder why in the world they must endure a particular experience. A number of years ago I received a letter from a Christian man who wrote: “I have a wife who has been sick for the past twenty years and has been paralysed for the last ten years with Parkinson’s disease. There is no hope of her ever leaving the hospital. How can a loving Father make a person suffer and linger as she has? And I know she loves the Lord.” This man was genuinely concerned. He didn’t have an answer for his problem, and neither did I. I couldn’t tell him why it was happening, but I could tell him there was a purpose in it and that God was working out something in her life.
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him [James 1:12].
“Temptation” is the same word as we have had before, which is sometimes translated as “testing” or “trying.” “Temptation” is a good translation if you understand it in a good sense, as we will see later in this chapter.
“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.” Testing is one of God’s methods of developing us in the Christian faith. This is the way He is going to enable us to grow and develop patience in our lives down here, but He also has something in mind for the future—“the crown of life.”
Testing of any kind, but especially if it is a severe calamity or tragedy, has a tendency to produce a miasma of pessimism and hopelessness. I do not blame the man whose wife was ill with Parkinson’s disease for feeling like he did. I do not blame him for asking, “Why?” But the child of God can have the confidence that God is doing it for a very definite reason and that He has a purpose in it all.
However, the man of the world will sink beneath the waves of adversity. Life, even at its best, makes him pessimistic. How many pessimists are there today? How many cynics? How many are there who are filled with bitterness, although they have everything? We are seeing an epidemic of suicides among teenagers, and thousands of other young people are dropping out of society today. Why? It is because they have no goal in life. One of the more sensible news commentators made this remark: “Back during the Depression people had a will to live and there were very few suicides, but today when everything has been given to them they want to die.”
When faith is tested and surrounded by darkness, when the waves are rolling high and all seems lost, the child of God knows that this is not the end. It may be gloom now, but it will be glory later on. As the psalmist said “… weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Ps. 30:5). James says here, “He shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”
I have noticed that people who have suffered a great deal have been brought into a closer loving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Someone has expressed it like this:
Is there no other way open, God,
Except through sorrow, pain, and loss,
To stamp Christ’s likeness on my soul—
No other way except the cross?
And then a voice stills all my soul
As stilled the waves of Galilee,
“Can’st thou not bear the furnace heat
If midst the flames I walk with thee?
“I bore the cross. I know its weight.
I drank the cup I hold for thee.
Can’st thou not follow where I lead?
I’ll give thee strength. Lean hard on Me.”
—Author unknown
You see, suffering brings an individual into a loving relationship with Christ. And it causes him to look forward to that day when he will be brought into the presence of the Lord Jesus who will give him the crown of life.
What is “the crown of life”? There are many crowns mentioned in Scripture which are given as rewards to believers. A crown is not salvation, but it represents a reward. It is something that is given to an individual as a reward. For example, there was an unknown boy from California who went to the Olympic Games and won six gold medals. Suddenly his face was seen on every billboard, on television, and even in commercials. I am told he also signed a movie contract. He won six medals—he received his rewards. My Christian friend, the Lord Jesus has a reward for those who will endure down here. James says, “He shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”
Testing will either drive you to the Lord or it will drive you away from Him. So many Christians become bitter. My friend, it is not going to be a pleasant experience to come someday into the presence of Christ if you have let the very thing your heavenly Father was using to develop your character and to bring you into a loving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ make you bitter. We will have testings, but there is going to be a crown of life for those who persevere under trial.
I have done a great deal of reading about the crowns which are mentioned in Scripture, and I sometimes wonder where some of the interpreters get all their information. Let me give you my very simple interpretation of what I think a crown of life is. We find in Scripture that there are different kinds of punishment for the lost. Some will receive so many stripes, others will receive more stripes. There are degrees of punishment for the lost. Likewise there are degrees of rewards for believers. I do not expect to receive the reward that a man like Paul the apostle or Martin Luther or John Wesley will receive. Although I don’t expect to receive a reward as they will, I do hope that I can come in for something—I am very much interested in that. I think that a “crown of life” is that which can bring you into a closer relationship with the Lord Jesus more than anything else possibly could.
In the Book of Revelation it speaks about the Lord giving to each of His own a stone with a name written on it (see Rev. 2:17). We have assumed that that means He will give each of us a new name. There’s an old favorite gospel song that says, “There’s a new name written down in glory….” Well, it is not the new name spoken of in Revelation, but it is your name that is written down in glory if you are a child of God. As best as I can determine, the new name spoken of in Revelation means that God is going to give each of us a stone on which there is written a name of Christ which applies to our experience with Him. To you He means something a little special other than what He might mean to someone else. In other words, the Lord Jesus means something to you that He does not mean to me. He means something to me that He does not mean to you.
I can remember a time in my life as a young fellow that I stood at the crossroads at a Bible conference, trying to decide if I would go into the ministry or continue to follow a life of sin. There was a girl there at that conference in whom I was very much interested, but she was not really what you would call Bible conference material. I never shall forget that night yonder in Middle Tennessee. I crawled in under a water maple tree which was thick with leaves. In the shade—for the moon was shining brightly—I got down on my face and told the Lord Jesus that I needed His help and strength to make a decision. As a result of that night He means something to me that I’m sure He does not mean to you. You probably have a precious moment in your life which I have not experienced. I believe that the new name written on a stone is going to reflect what Christ means specially to you.
It is my conclusion that the crown of life means that you are going to have a degree of life in heaven which someone else will not have. There are a lot of folk who have gone through this world without doing anything for God. I thank God there was one thief on a cross who turned to Christ, but I cannot imagine that he will get very much of a reward, especially when I compare him to a man like Paul the apostle. Imagine what it is going to be like someday when Paul receives the crown of life!
Paul was very much interested in the crown of life, and James was interested in it too. There will be a crown of life, but you cannot receive that crown of life until you have been out on the racecourse of life, until you have gotten right down where the rubber meets the road and where life is being lived out. If you can live for God down here, my friend, He has a crown of life for you someday. That is something to which we can look forward.
When I think of the testings of this life, I am reminded of the deacon who got up in a testimony meeting in which the people were being asked to give their favorite verses of Scripture. This deacon got up and said, “My favorite verse is ‘It came to pass.’” The minister looked up in amazement, and all the people were puzzled. Finally, the pastor asked, “Brother, what do you mean your favorite verse is ‘It came to pass’?” The man replied, “When I have trouble and trials, I just go to the Lord and praise Him and say, ‘I thank You, Lord, that it came to pass—it didn’t come to stay!’” Thank God for that, my friend. I don’t know a better way of putting it: The trouble hasn’t come to stay.
James uses the same argument to warn the rich when he says, “You are like the grass and the flower of the grass.” It may look pretty for you today. Life may be beautiful, my friend, but the flower is withering and your riches will not deliver you. Someday you will stand before Jesus Christ. Every human being is to stand before Him—the unbelievers will stand before God at the Great White Throne judgment. Also all believers, called the church, will go beforehand to the bema seat of Christ to see whether or not they will receive a crown of life. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to have that crown, the crown which He offers to those who, after they have endured the testings of this life, love Him.
GOD DOES NOT TEST WITH EVIL
“Temptation” is used in two senses: testing under trial, as we have seen in verse 12, and now solicitation to evil, verses 13–14. James is now going to talk about that temptation, which is temptation to do evil. People often say that the Lord tested them when it wasn’t the Lord at all. God cannot be tempted with evil, and He does not tempt with evil. James deals with something here which is very important for God’s children to understand, because we often blame God for a great many things in our lives for which He is not responsible.
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man [James 1:13].
We have seen in the preceding verses that God tests His own children, but now James makes it very clear that God never tests men with evil and with sin. “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God”—a more literal translation is this: “Let not one man being tempted say, I am tempted of God.” Notice that James is no longer using the noun temptation as he was previously. He is now using the verb; he is speaking of the action.
The natural propensity of mankind is to blame God for his own fumbles, all of his foibles, all of his faults and failures and filth. From the very beginning, since the time of the fall of man, this has been true. Adam said, “… The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat” (Gen. 3:12)—he really passed the buck! The woman did the same thing; she said, “… The serpent beguiled me …” (Gen. 3:13). Actually, all three of them were responsible.
We often hear questions like this: Why does God send floods and earthquakes and allow the killing of babies? We blame God today for the result of the greed and avarice and selfishness of mankind—that is what is really responsible for floods and earthquakes. Man builds too close to a river and, when in the natural course of events the river rises, he calls it a flood and an act of God. But man thinks it is more pleasant to build by the river, or it’s nearer transportation, or that is where the business is. It is actually the greed and avarice of man that causes him to build where it is really dangerous to build.
If you are going to live in Southern California, for example, you are going to take a chance on having an earthquake—you can be sure of that. We had a small one just the other evening as my wife and I were sitting in our den. The seismologists predict that we are in for a big earthquake here, yet people are still streaming into Southern California and putting up high-rise buildings. We ought not to blame God if a slab of concrete falls off one of those high-rise buildings and kills one of our loved ones. It would be much safer in the wide open spaces of Texas. I’m a Texan, but who wants to go back there? I know it’s nicer there than when I was just a boy growing up, but I want to stay here in California. However, I’m not going to blame God when the earthquake comes. We have already been warned that it is coming.
Men also blame God in their philosophies today. Pantheism, for instance, says that everything is God, but good is God’s right hand and evil is His left hand. Fatalism says that everything is running like blind necessity. If there is a God, they say, He has wound up this universe like an eight-day clock and has gone off and left it. Materialism’s explanation of the problem with the human race is that the loftiest aspirations and the vilest passions are the natural metabolism of a physical organism.
God has answered these philosophies in His Word. There is no evil in God. In Him all is goodness and all is light and all is right. John wrote in his first epistle, “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light [that is, He is holy], and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). The Lord Jesus made this very interesting statement: “… for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30). That means there is no evil or sin in Him. But every time Satan gets around me, he is able to find something in me.
Let me introduce something which is theological at this point: Jesus could not sin. Someone will immediately ask, “Why, then, was He tempted?” In Matthew 4:7 our Lord said to Satan, “… It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” God wants to save from sin, and He does not tempt men to sin—He wants to deliver men. He never uses sin as a test, but He will permit it, as we shall see. The Lord Jesus had no sin in Him—“The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.” The reason He was tempted was to prove that there was nothing in Him. After He had lived a life down here for thirty-three years, Satan came with this temptation, a temptation that appealed to man’s total personality—the physical side, the mental side, and the spiritual side of man. The Lord Jesus could not fall, and the testing was given to demonstrate that He could not fall. If He could have fallen, then any moment your salvation and mine is in doubt. The minute He yielded to sin, we would have no Savior. His temptation was to prove that He could not sin.
Let me illustrate this with a very homely illustration from my boyhood in west Texas. My dad built cotton gins for the Murray Gin Company, and we lived in a little town that was near a branch of the Brazos River. In the summertime there wasn’t enough water in that river to rust a shingle nail, but when it began to rain in wintertime, you could almost float a battleship on it. One year a flood washed out the wooden bridge on which the Santa Fe railroad crossed the river. They replaced it with a steel bridge, and when they completed it, they brought in two locomotives, stopped them on top of the bridge, and tied down both of the whistles. All of us who lived in that little town knew for sure that something was happening. We ran down to see what it was—all twenty-three of us! When we got there, one of the braver citizens asked the engineer, “What are you doing?” The engineer replied, “Well, we built this bridge, and we are testing it.” The man asked, “Why? Do you think it’s going to fall down?” That engineer drew himself up to his full height and said, “Of course it will not fall down! We are proving it won’t fall down.” For the same reason, Jesus was tested to prove that you and I have a Savior who could not sin. God cannot be tempted with sin, and God will not tempt you with sin.
However, God does permit us to be tempted with sin. In 2 Samuel 24:1 we read, “And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.” Frankly, that was sinful. Then, did God tempt David with evil? My friend, to understand the Bible you always need to get the full story. In 2 Samuel you have man’s viewpoint of the events recorded. From man’s viewpoint it looked as if God was angry with Israel and He simply had David do this. However, in 1 Chronicles we are told God’s viewpoint of it: “And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel” (1 Chr. 21:1). Who provoked David to sin? It was Satan, not God. God merely permitted Satan to do that because He was angry with Israel and their sin. God never tempts men with evil.
Who is responsible for our propensity to evil? What causes us to sin? Someone will say, “Well, you have just shown that it is Satan.” Let’s look at what James has to say in verse 14—
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed [James 1:14].
We are talking here about the sins of the flesh. Who is responsible when you are drawn away to do evil? When you yield to evil temptation? God is not responsible. The Devil is not responsible. You are responsible.
A man got lost in the hills of Arkansas back in the days of the Model T Ford. He had lost his way, and there were no highway markings. He came into a small town and saw some little boys playing there. He asked one of them, “Where am I?” The little fellow looked at him puzzled for just a moment. Finally he pointed at the man with his finger and said, “There you are!” My friend, when you ask, “Who tempted me to do this?” God says, “There you are. It’s in your own skin—that is where the problem is.”
“Every man is tempted.” Every man—this is the declaration of the individuality of the personality in the race of mankind. Just as each one of us has a different fingerprint, each one of us has a different moral nature. We have our own idiosyncrasies, our own eccentricities. All of us have something a little different.
One man was talking to another and said, “You know, everybody has some peculiarity.” “I disagree with you,” said the other. “I don’t think I have a peculiarity.” “Well, then, let me ask you a question. Do you stir your coffee with your right hand or with your left hand?” asked the first man. “I stir it with my right hand,” the other man replied. “Well, that’s your peculiarity. Most people stir their coffee with a spoon!” May I say to you, all of us have our peculiarities. One person may be tempted to drink. Another may be tempted to overeat. Another may be tempted in the realm of sex. The problem is always within the individual. No outside thing or influence can make us sin. The trouble is here, within us, with that old nature that we have.
I think of the little boy who was playing around one evening in the pantry. He had gotten down the cookie jar. His mother called to him and said, “Willie, what are you doing in the pantry?” He said, “I’m fighting temptation!” He was in the wrong place to fight temptation, but that is the same place a lot of grown-up people are today. Many things are not bad within themselves, but it is the use we make of them that is wrong. Food is good, but you can become a glutton. Alcohol is medicine, but you can become an alcoholic if you abuse it. Sex is good if it is exercised within marriage. When it is exercised outside of marriage, you are going to experience several kinds of damage. Our society has an epidemic of venereal disease because of the looseness of the “new morality” today.
Many psychologists are trying to help us get rid of our guilt complexes. A Christian psychologist who taught in one of our universities here in Southern California told me one time, “You need to emphasize in your teaching that guilt complex more than you do. A guilt complex is as much a part of you as your right arm. You just cannot get rid of it.”
However, the godless psychologist may attempt to remove the guilt complex in the wrong way. For example, a Christian lady called me one time and said, “Dr. McGee, a most frightful thing has happened to me. I’ve been having a real problem and have been on the verge of a nervous breakdown due to certain trials I’ve been going through. I went to a psychologist whom my doctor recommended. When he found out that I was a Christian, he said, ‘What you need to do is to go downstairs to the barroom and pick up the first man you find there. Then you’ll get rid of your guilt complex.”’ I agree with the woman that such counsel is frightful indeed!
Then there are other psychologists who say, “What about your background? Did your mother love you? Did anything unusual happen while you were in the womb?” If you said, “Well, my mother was caught in a rainstorm while she was carrying me,” the psychologist would say, “That’s the reason you’re a drip!” Well, he practically says that when he blames his patient’s problems on the mother.
My friend, you could solve a great deal of your problems for which you are blaming someone else if you would say to the living Lord Jesus who is right now at God’s right hand, “I’m a sinner. I’m guilty.” Then He will remove your guilt complex—He is the only One who can do that.
Proverbs says, “For as he [man] thinketh in his heart, so is he …” (Prov. 23:7). The solicitation to sin must have a corresponding response from within. James says that it is of your own lust (lust is an overweening desire and uncontrolled longing) that you are drawn away into sin. The Lord Jesus said, “I will draw all men unto Me” (see John 12:32), but the scoffer says, “He’ll not draw me!” My friend, He will not force you. Hosea tells us that He will only use bands of love to draw us to Himself. He wants to woo and win you by His grace and love. Frankly, evil is attractive today; it is winsome. We are told that Moses was caught up at first in the pleasures of sin. Man can be enticed; the hook can be baited. If he yields, before long a person will become an alcoholic or a dope addict.
Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death [James 1:15].
In other words, when the desire of the soul, having conceived, gives birth to sin, the sin, having been completed, brings forth death. James uses a very interesting word here: “when lust hath conceived.” The word actually means “to become pregnant.” Conception is the joining or union of two. The desire of this old nature of ours joins with the outward temptation that faces us and thus becomes sin. The Lord Jesus said, “If you are angry with your brother, you are guilty of murder”—because it begins in the heart and moves out into action. He also said, “If you look upon a woman to lust after her, you have already committed adultery with her”—because it begins in your heart. That is where sin always begins.
The natural question at this point is: Is temptation sin? Of course it’s not sin; the answer is definitely no. It is when the conception takes place—when the thought in the heart is carried out in action—that temptation becomes sin. Martin Luther expressed it in this novel way: “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.” Sin is the consummation of the act inwardly and outwardly.
Temptation in and of itself is not sin. We all have an evil nature—there is no use trying to kid ourselves concerning that. We all have been tempted to do evil; everyone has a weakness in the flesh. One person may be a glutton and another may be a gossip. Both sins are absolutely of the flesh; both come from within. It is only the Lord Jesus who could say, “… for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30).
“Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin.” There cannot be a stillbirth. Lust is going to bring forth something. When that evil thought in the heart is joined to the outward temptation, there is a birth—a birth of the act, a birth of sin.
Now we rationalize sin today. We rationalize our bad tempers. We rationalize our gossip. We rationalize a lot of polite sins, and we even rationalize gross immorality; but the Bible calls them sins.
“And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” There are three kinds of death spoken of in Scripture. There is (1) physical death, and that comes to every man, you can be sure of that. Then there is (2) spiritual death, which is the condition of the lost man—he is “dead in trespasses and sins” (see Eph. 2:1). Finally, there is (3) eternal death, which is the fate of the man who dies an unbeliever. The word death here primarily means “separation.” Therefore, for a believer it means that when sin is born in his life, when it becomes an action, his fellowship with God is broken. There is a separation. In 1 John 1:6 we read, “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” You cannot have fellowship with Him and permit sin continually to happen in your life.
The great sin today, I suppose, is adultery. It is something that nearly every person has been faced with—and it is not something new. I think that the emphasis that is given to sex in our society and the present-day mode of dress have led to the committing of adultery probably more than it ever has been committed in American history. Certainly, adultery along with the free use of alcohol have pulled down the great nations of the past. Wine, women, and song have brought down the great nations of the world. Rome did not fall to some outside conqueror; Rome fell from within because it was honeycombed with sin.
I recall a fine-looking young man who came to me and said, “I’ve fallen in love with a very beautiful girl. I want her to be mine.” I asked him, “Have you asked her to marry you?” “Well, not exactly,” he said. “She’s married.” I said, “You had better give up this notion right now.” The young man went on to say, “But I want to ask you if it would be wrong for her to get a divorce and for us then to get married?” I told him, “Certainly it would be. You’ve been tempted, and I mean tempted a great deal, but as a child of God you would never be able to get by with such sin.” I went on to tell him of several instances of couples who thought they could get by with it but were never happy.
It is tragic today when people think they can get by with sin. When lust conceives, it brings forth sin. The only kind of little brat that lust can bring into the world is sin, and sin will bring forth death. Sin will bring forth separation of fellowship with God if you are His child, and He will judge you for it unless you judge yourself.
That young man left my office after I had tried to put the fear of God in him. He was a wonderful Christian, and he surely had been tempted. He came back a few weeks later and said, “Dr. McGee, we have made our decision.” I was certainly afraid they had made the wrong one, but he went on, “We recognize that in this life we never could be joined together. That’s entirely out of the question for us. I’m simply asking God to let us be together someday in heaven.” He worked with a very large company, and he told me that he had asked for a transfer to another city. I don’t think a month went by before he came to me after the morning church service, shook my hand, and told me good-bye.
Temptation—there is a lot of it today. Many Christians say, “Oh, the Devil tempted me.” My friend, temptation cannot conceive until it is joined with the desire of your evil nature. The important thing is that when it is joined, it will bring forth sin, and sin eventually brings forth death. If you are a child of God, it immediately breaks your fellowship with Him—and that is a death, by the way.
Do not err, my beloved brethren [James 1:16].
“Do not err”—the word here means to wander, to roam about, or to stray. It is like the little lost sheep the Lord Jesus told about which the shepherd went out after. James is saying, “Don’t wander. Don’t think that somehow you can get by with sin.” The habitual and perpetual sinner definitely does not have a line of communication with God; he never has been born again. If you can live in sin and enjoy it, you are not a child of God—it’s just that simple.
The story is told of the Calvinist and the Arminian who were having an argument. The Calvinist believes that once you are saved you can never be lost; the Arminian believes you can lose your salvation. The Arminian said, “If I believed your doctrine and were sure I was converted, I would take my fill of sin.” To which the Calvinist replied, “How much sin do you think it would take to fill a genuine Christian to his own satisfaction?” May I say to you, that is a tremendous answer. If you can be satisfied with sin, you need to examine yourself to see whether or not you are in the faith. “He that falls into sin is a man,” someone has said. “He that grieves at sin is a saint. He that boasts of sin is a devil.” My friend, all of us are subject to temptation, but let’s make sure that we do not give birth to sin. There can be no abortion here if you go through with temptation. Sin and death will be the end result.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning [James 1:17].
One side of the moon is dark, and the other side is light. But in God there is no dark side. In all of us there is a shadow; you and I cast a shadow. The story is told that when Alexander the Great had conquered the world and returned to Greece, he looked up his old teacher, Aristotle, to tell him all that had happened. When he found Aristotle, he was taking a bath. Alexander stood in the doorway and told Aristotle what had happened. Then he said, “Now I am prepared to give you anything in the world that you want. What do you want?” Aristotle looked up and replied, “I want you to get out of my light!” May I say to you, that’s all any of us do—we cast a shadow. But there is no shadow in God at all.
“With whom is no variableness.” God doesn’t vary, He doesn’t change, as the laws of creation reveal. God is not on a yo-yo like a lot of Christians are today—up today and down tomorrow, and round and round they go.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” I have a friend who is an insurance agent, and I like to kid him about the wording in his house insurance policy. It says that the policy does not include certain things which might happen to your house, including “any act of God.” I said to him, “What in the world do you think God is going to do to my house?” “Well,” he said, “there could be a cyclone or something like that.” I asked, “Do you think God is to be blamed for that?” I realize that it is just an expression which is used, but it has been the custom down through the centuries to blame God for such things. My friend, if you have a good gift, it came from Him. Count your many blessings today: the sunshine, the rain, the cloudy day, the bright day, the green grass, the water you drink, and the air you breathe. God gave us clean air and pure water. It is man who has polluted it. God gives good gifts, my friend. God is good! You and I don’t really understand how good He is.
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures [James 1:18].
This is definitely a reference to the new birth. How does He beget us? “With the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” Beget means “to bring forth.” There are those who say, “Well, if I am predestined to be lost, there is nothing I can do about it. And if I am to be saved, I’ll be saved.” There are two wills involved here—“Of his own will begat he us.” Again, you have in conception two coming together—there is no other way for a conception to take place. Therefore, when His will is joined with your will, you will be born again. Don’t tell me that you are not responsible. It is not His will that any should perish. You are begotten by the Word of God. When you are willing to come, when you believe the Word of God and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, you will be born again. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Pet. 1:23).
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to bear, slow to speak, slow to wrath [James 1:19].
“Wherefore, my beloved brethren”—James is talking to the child of God.
“Let every man be swift to hear.” Swift to hear what? To hear the Word of God, of course. After you have been begotten by the Word of God, you are not through with it. You are going to grow by the Word of God. You have something that is living, powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword (see Heb. 4:12). “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). However, as a child of God you are in dwelt by the Spirit of God who wants to teach you the Word of God. The Creator of this universe and the Redeemer of lost sinners wants to talk to you, my friend. James says, “Be swift to hear. Be alert.” As I stand before a church congregation, I sometimes feel like crying out to them, “Wake up!” or, “The place is on fire!” because I would like to get them alert and moving. Oh, how we need to be alert and quick to hear the Word of God.
“Slow to speak.” God gave us two ears and one mouth—there must be a very definite reason for that. There is a real danger of our talking too much. There are those who argue that the minute someone is saved they should begin to witness. I do not think a newborn Christian is quite ready to witness. If he got saved last night, we want to hear his testimony today—especially if he is a prominent person, if he is a rich man, if he has been a gangster, if he is in the entertainment business, or if he happens to be an outstanding politician. Those are the ones whose testimonies we are eager to hear. I often regret it when singers give a little talk before they begin their song. Many times I have just bowed my head in embarrassment at some of the things they have said. One sweet little girl had a lovely voice, but when she got up and said, “I’ve just been saved two months,” I cringed, and I had a right to, because what she went on to say was as contrary to the Word of God as anything possibly could be. I also think it is a tragedy that some of these Hollywood entertainers have been encouraged to testify shortly after their salvation experience simply because they are well-known persons. Their theology is sometimes as rank as it can be. They need to study and know the Word of God before they are pushed up front to speak. God says we are to be quick to hear but slow to speak.
Someone will ask, “But aren’t we to witness?” Yes, but be very careful how you witness and make sure about your own life first. The story is told about Socrates and a young man who was brought to him to enter his school. Socrates was a school teacher as well as a philosopher. The young man came in and was introduced to Socrates. Before he could say a word, the young man started talking, and he talked for about ten minutes. Finally, when the young man finished, Socrates said, “I’ll take you as a student, but I’m going to charge you twice as much.” The young man asked, “Why are you going to charge me double?” Socrates’ reply was this: “First I am going to have to teach you how to hold your tongue and then how to use it.” James says, “Quick to hear but slow to speak.” Christians need to be very careful not to reveal their ignorance of the Word of God. Listen to Him. Yes, the Bible says, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,” but we need to be very careful what we say.
“Slow to wrath”—that is, slow to anger. Don’t argue about religion and lose your temper. It is good to be a fundamentalist, but don’t start fighting about every little jot and tittle of theology with everybody in sight who disagrees with you. After all, you don’t have all the truth.
Be “slow to wrath.” Don’t get angry. Jonathan Edwards was the third president of Princeton and probably one of America’s greatest thinkers and preachers, but he had a daughter who had an uncontrollable temper. One day a fine young man at the school, who had fallen in love with her, came to Jonathan Edwards and asked for her hand in marriage. (That was the custom in that day, but it seems to have fallen by the wayside now.) Jonathan Edwards said, “You can’t have her.” The young man said, “But I love her.” Edwards said, “You can’t have her.” The young man said, “But she loves me.” Again Edwards said, “You can’t have her.” “Why can’t I have her?” he protested. “Because she is not worthy of you,” replied Jonathan Edwards. “Yes, she is a Christian, but the grace of God can live with some people with whom no one else could ever live.” May I say to you, there are a lot of unworthy Christians today with uncontrollable tempers that spoil their testimonies as much as anything in this life can spoil them.
For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God [James 1:20].
The anger of man is contrary to the will and work of God. This is the reason we shouldn’t argue about religion. I have never yet found anybody who agrees with me 100 percent or with whom I agree 100 percent, but that is no reason for me to fall out with him. Someone came to my office the other day while I was listening to our broadcast as it came over the radio. He said to me, “What are you doing?” And I said to him, “You know, I am listening to the only man with whom I agree 100 percent!”
James says, “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” You may feel that you are angry because you are a defender of the faith, but, my friend, the wrath of man simply does not work the righteousness of God. Don’t kid yourself that you are angry for His sake, because He’s not angry—He’s in the saying business.
Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls [James 1:21].
“Wherefore lay apart all filthiness”—that is, put away all filthiness of the flesh. “And super-fluity of naughtiness” is better translated as “abundance of wickedness.”
“And receive with meekness the engrafted word.” The word engrafted should be “implanted”—the implanted Word of God. In other words, you are to receive the Word of God. I believe the Word of God is the greatest preventative against the sins of the flesh. The old Scottish preacher said, “Sin will keep you from the Bible, or the Bible will keep you from sin.” He was certainly accurate in that.
“Which is able to save your souls.” James is speaking to those who have been saved. You have received the implanted Word—it has been planted in your hearts. The Word has already brought salvation to you, but you have a life to live as a Christian. Salvation is in three tenses: I have been saved; I am being saved; I shall be saved. James is speaking here of salvation in the present tense.
GOD TESTS FAITH BY THE WORD, NOT BY MAN’S WORDS
The child of God can never get away from the Word of God. Every child wants to hear the voice of his father, especially if it is a voice of comfort as well as a voice of correction. One who isn’t interested in the Word of God or doesn’t stay near it—if he is a child of God—is going to get into trouble.
For a great many people this is the most familiar verse in the Epistle of James—
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves [James 1:22].
You and I live in day when we have many translations of the Bible. They are multiplying—every year, two or three new translations are published. Personally, I have not found a new translation that I feel is really adequate to take the place of the Authorized Version. I think the Authorized Version needs improving in certain places, but I still use it, as you well know. However, we do need a new translation! It should be different from Tyndale’s and from the Authorized Version and from the American Standard and from all of these new translation. Any Christian could make this new translation. You could make a new translation of the Bible. You might say, “You don’t know me. I’m not capable—I’m not familiar with the original languages, and I know nothing about the handling of manuscripts.” My friend, in spite of your limitations—which may be many—it is still possible for you to make the best translation of Scripture that has ever been made. Do you know what the name of the translation is? It is known as the Doer’s Translation. “Be ye doers of the word.” That’s a good translation—a Doer’s Translation.
Paul put the same thought in just a little different phraseology: “Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart” (2 Cor. 3:2–3). The world today is not reading the Bible, but they are reading you and me. Someone has expressed it poetically.
The Gospel is written a chapter a day
By deeds that you do and by words that you say.
Men read what you say, whether faithless or true.
Say, what is the Gospel according to you?
In verses 22 through 25 we have come to the real pragmatism of James. I like to outline these verses like this: (1) Verse 22—the demands of the Word; (2) verse 23–24—the danger of the Word; and (3) verse 25—the design of the Word. We have in this section that which is substantive, that which really gets down to where we live.
Here in verse 22 we have the demands, or the imperatives, of the Word: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” There is an element about the Word of God which makes it different from any other book. There are many books which you can read to gain information, knowledge, intellectual stimulation, spiritual inspiration, amusement, or entertainment. But the Word of God is different, and this is probably the reason it is not as popular as other books: it demands action. “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.” It requires attention. The Lord Jesus said, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17, italics mine). The Word of God demands action: “O taste and see that the Lord is good …” (Ps. 34:8, italics mine).
You can read history, but it asks nothing of you. You can read literature, but there are no imperatives, no declarations, and no explanations, although it may have a lesson to teach which may or may not have been in the mind of the author. You can read science, but it makes no demands on you whatsoever. You can read a cookbook and it gives you a recipe, but it does not say you have to cook. There is no demand that you mix up a batch of biscuits or that you make a chocolate cake. However, the Word of God is a command. It is a trumpet. It is an appeal for action. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). The message of the Lord Jesus Christ is (1) “repent”; (2) “come unto Me”; and (3) “believe” (see Matt. 11:28; Mark 1:15). The Word of God demands belief.
All advertising today is high-pressured. It is being used on radio, television, billboards, and in newspapers and magazines. They all use the hard sell. We are not only being brainwashed by the news on television and radio, we are also being brainwashed by advertising. Madison Avenue is throwing everything at the consumer. You are to buy a certain make of car, and you are told how wonderful it is over last year’s model—when about all they did was to make the steering wheel a little smaller than last year’s. And you are told if you don’t use a certain deodorant you will lose your job. But the Word of God says that you are going to die in your sins if you don’t turn to Christ! Talk about high pressure—that is high pressure! The Word of God says, “… behold, now is the accepted time …” (2 Cor. 6:2, italics mine), and, “… To-day if ye will hear his voice” (Ps. 95:7, italics mine).
I believe that the greatest failure of the Christian church in recent years has been at this point. After World War II the Western world came out of the bomb shelters and went to church—prompted by fear of the bombs but not by fear of God. Church membership and attendance soared to new heights. I am very thankful I had a ministry during that period. I had a full church, and it was to me a glorious, wonderful time for ministry. But at that same time, lawlessness and immorality increased dramatically. Drunkenness, divorce, and juvenile delinquency escalated. And in the lives of Christians there was a total breakdown in separation from the things of the world. What had happened? The church had been getting out the Word of God in the passive voice; it had been giving it out in the subjunctive mood, but God had originally given it in the imperative mood. We had forgotten that a leather-bound Bible needs some shoe leather to go with it. Memorizing Scripture is good, but it also demands action.
“But be ye doers of the word.” James does not use the ordinary Greek verb for “be,” which is eimi; the word here is ginesthe which literally means “to become, to be born, to come into existence.” The imperative given here is for the born-again child of God. God is not asking the unsaved person to do anything, except one thing—and that is actually not doing, but believing. When the people came to the Lord Jesus and asked, “What shall we do that we might inherit eternal life?” He replied, “Do? Why, this is the will of God that ye believe on Him whom He has sent” (see John 6:28–29). Doing, as far as God’s will is concerned, for the unsaved is believing on Christ. God is not asking the unsaved to do anything at all; He wants to tell them that He has done something.
As a boy I played baseball on the school lot on Saturdays. I played first base, and it was a wonderful thing to which I really looked forward. We played the teams of other high schools around us, and it generally ended up in a fight no matter who we played. One Saturday as I was playing ball, I saw my dad coming up, and I knew he wasn’t coming to see the game. He had come to tell me he had some work for me to do. The truth is, I had neglected taking care of my chores before I had left home. My dad didn’t ask any of the other boys to do a single thing—he just asked me. Why? Those other boys weren’t his sons; I was.
My friend, God isn’t asking anything of you until you become His child. But to those of us who have become children of God, He says, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”
It is sometimes difficult for us preachers to see that we also need to be doers of the Word. I remember one time playing golf with a medical doctor friend who is also a wonderful Christian. Another friend of this doctor wanted to join us, so the doctor introduced me to his friend, saying, “This is Dr. McGee.” The man said, “Oh, we have two doctors.” I wanted to make it clear to him what kind of doctor I was, so I said, “I’m a doctor who preaches, and he’s a doctor who practices.” May I say, we need more Th.D.’s who practice as well as preach!
Someone expressed it in a little poem like this:
It’s easier to preach than to practice;
It’s easier to say than to do.
Most sermons are heard by the many,
But taken to heart by the few.
—Author unknown
Hearing the Word of God will lead to doing by those who are His children. It will not lead to rote and ritual and habitual action; it will not lead to the drab, the monotonous, or the routine. The intent of the Word is to produce creative action and to make for productive performance, exciting living, and a thrilling experience. If we are motivated by an inner desire and are enjoying Spirit-filled living, you and I can go out on the golf course and enjoy playing golf and then enjoy Bible study equally as well—in fact, it will be thrilling to us.
Hearing the Word will lead to doing for God that which is motivated by an inner desire. As we began our radio broadcast ministry, we also began to build up our office staff. I know that it is the finest staff I have ever had in all my years of ministry. God has sent each individual to us, and each has made a marvelous contribution. They are creative and dedicated workers. It is my feeling that in God’s work we need that which is creative, that which is dynamic, that which produces.
“And not hearers only.” There is a difference between being a student in a class and being an auditor. I used to have quite a few folk who would audit my classes when I was teaching at the Bible Institute in downtown Los Angeles many years ago. I had more trouble with the auditors than I ever did with the students. They were constantly telling me I was too hard on the students. They didn’t realize I needed to be hard-boiled, but the students understood that I was kidding them half the time. Those auditors never had to take exams; they never had to make preparation; they never wrote any papers; they never got a diploma. They didn’t do anything. They just sat there. Faith leads to action, my friend—it will make you more than an auditor.
The story is told of a man who was always talking about his faith—he never did anything for anybody, he just talked about his faith. One day a friend came along and saw him stuck in the mud with his wagon. The friend said, “Well, you sure are well established in the faith!” May I say to you, what we need to do today is to keep moving. After we get established, we need to keep moving in the faith and not get stuck in the mud.
“Deceiving your own selves.” Self-deception is a terrible thing. The apostle John says that those who say they don’t have any sin in their lives do not deceive anyone but themselves (see 1 John 1:8). It is very easy to fall into the trap of rationalizing our sin and rationalizing our inaction.
In verses 23 and 24 we have the danger of the Word—
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass [James 1:23].
“A man beholding his natural face in a glass.” A very highly polished piece of brass was used as a mirror in that day. A mirror is a very interesting thing, and it is used here as a picture of the Word of God. When you look into a mirror, you see a reflection of yourself—you see yourself as you really are.
You may have noticed that on some pictures of Abraham Lincoln there is a wart on his cheek but that on others it is not there. As one artist was preparing to paint his portrait, he began to have Lincoln move around. He said, “President Lincoln, will you sit here?” Then this man would move his easel and have Lincoln shift around again. President Lincoln began to smile because he saw what the artist was doing. He was trying to get Lincoln in a position where the wart would not show. Finally the artist was satisfied, and he asked, “President Lincoln, how do you want me to paint you?” Lincoln replied, “Paint me just as I am—wart and all.” That’s what a mirror would tell you; if you have a wart, it will show up. That is one reason many of us don’t like to spend too much time in the presence of a mirror. My friend, the Word of God will tell you what you are.
“For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass.” Someone will say,“It ought to say woman.” A woman usually carries a little mirror around with her to be sure her hair and makeup are all right. But what about men? Do they look in mirrors? They are just as vain, my friend. A man likes to be sure his tie is straight and his hair is combed. We are living in a day when our appearance seems to be important. A mirror reveals our flaws.
There is a danger, though, of looking into the mirror, seeing the flaw but doing nothing about it.
For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was [James 1:24]
James is answering what he has said in verse 19 where he wrote, “Be swift to hear, slow to speak,” Here his emphasis is, “Don’t be so quick or hasty as you look into the mirror.” The thought in being “swift to hear” is to give it all your attention, to be alert to the Word of God. What James is saying here is, “Don’t treat it casually. Don’t go over it hurriedly like that.” Any man who is just a hearer of the Word and not a doer—his knowledge of the Bible doesn’t lead to action—is like a man beholding his natural face in mirror,“for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.”
Folk who do not like to read in the Bible the fact that they are sinners simply pass over those sections. That is the reason, I think, that textual preaching is outmoded. I feel that we need to go through the entire Word of God and not pull out nice, sweet verses here and there. God did not give His Word in verses; verses are man-made. We need to take the Word of God as it is. The Word is a mirror that reveals what is wrong with you. A man who goes to the doctor and has an X-ray taken which reveals a cancer in his body can respond by saying, “Now, look, doctor, I don’t put such much confidence in X-rays. I think I’ll just ignore it and forget it.” I’ve known some people who have said that, and they have died. When the doctor told me that I had cancer, I wanted treatment just as quickly as I could get it. My friend, you cannot afford to read the Word of God and not respond to it. It demands your response, and if you don’t respond,you are responsible. If the doctor tells you you have cancer and you don’t do anything about it, is the doctor responsible? He absolutely is not responsible at all. God has given you His Word, and you are responsible for your response to it. To a man who has been born again, the Word will say, “Look, you are no longer growing. You are actually leaving your first love.” God uses His Word to remind us of Himself and to call us back.
One time I heard a song leader down in Chattanooga, Tennessee, say, “Let’s stand and sing ‘Standing on the Promises,’ but the trouble is that we sing ‘Standing on the Promises’ when we are really sitting on the premises.” That is what James is telling us not to do. The Word of God is a mirror which reveals our shortcomings, and we are not to forget what it says. “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). The Word reveals us as we. are, penetrating below the surface of our beings.
The Bible is not a popular book today. It is the best seller but the worst read. It is not popular because it shows us who we are. Many years ago in eastern Tennessee the story went around about a mountaineer’s contact with some tourists who had camped in the hills around his area. Because the mountain folk didn’t see many tourists in those days, when the tourists left, this particular mountaineer went to look around the area where they had camped. He found several things they had left behind, including a mirror. He had never seen a mirror before. He looked into it longingly and said, “I never knew my pappy had his picture took!” He was very sentimental about it, of course, and took it home. He slipped into the house, climbed up into the loft and hid the mirror. His wife saw him do that but didn’t say anything. After he went out of the house, she went up to see what he had hidden. She found the mirror, and when she looked into it, she said, “So that’s the old hag he’s been running around with!” May I say to you, it is so easy to read the Word of God and to think it is a picture of someone else. It is a picture of you, and it is a picture of me.
In verse 25 we see the design of the Word—
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed [James 1:25].
Looketh means “to look attentively, penetratingly.”
“The perfect law of liberty.” This is not the Mosaic Law; it is the law of grace. James does not talk about law here in the same sense that Paul does. When Paul talks about law, he is talking about the Mosaic Law. When James talks about law, it is the law of faith. There is love in law in the Old Testament, and there is law in love in the New Testament. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). However, the Lord also said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15), and Paul said, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). What law? Christ’s law. John says in his first epistle, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments …” (1 John 5:3).
When you are driving down a freeway, you will see that it is loaded with traffic, and it is also loaded with laws. If you want to have freedom to drive down that freeway, you had better obey the laws. There is liberty in Christ, and it is the only true freedom. However, you can be sure that if you are in Christ, you are going to obey Him—and His laws are not hard; they are not rigorous. Because you are a child of God, your freedom does not entitle you to break the Ten Commandments. Those laws are for the weak, for the natural man. Laws are for lawbreakers: what to do, where to go, and how, with a punishment prescribed for those who break over. Honest citizens do not need the law. I do not know one half of the laws of this state in which I live, but every shyster lawyer knows them, because he is seeking loopholes to break those laws.
Today God has called His children to a higher level. A child of God has a spiritual spontaneity, a high and lofty motive, an inspiration of God. The believer has no desire to murder. He lives above the law. He is now motivated by the love of the Savior, and he desires to obey Him. The more we read and study the Word, the more we will learn, we will love, and we will live. Joy fills and floods the soul. We are not like galley slaves, whipped and chained to a bench and doing that which we do not want to do.
You and I may not need to know all the laws of our state or of our country, but we certainly need to know the Word of God if we are to live for Him. I do not agree with the popular song today which says, “You don’t need to understand, you just need to hold His hand.” My friend, you do need to understand. You’re not apt to be holding His hand unless you do understand. There are too many folk today who are ignorant of the Word of God. It is no disgrace to be ignorant. I don’t know about you, but I was born ignorant. I didn’t know A from B when I was born. I couldn’t even walk or talk. I was in bad shape, but I didn’t stay in that shape and neither did you. It’s no disgrace to be ignorant, but it’s a disgrace to stay ignorant if you are a child of God.
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain [James 1:26].
Religious and religion are not actually Bible words—that is, they occur only about half a dozen times in the New Testament. James uses them more than any other New Testament writer. The word religion comes from a Latin word which means “to bind back.” Although Herodotus used the word, it was not a word used commonly in the Greek language. He spoke of the religion of the Egyptian priests. The word has to do with going through a ritual, a form, or a ceremony.
There are many religions today, and they can demonstrate that they have faithful, zealous followers. But you cannot call a religion Christian simply because it conforms to certain outward forms of ritual. Christianity is not a religion; it is a person, and that person is Jesus Christ—you either have Him or you don’t have Him.
James is saying here that if a religious man does not control his speech, his religion—regardless of what it is—is vain. What about the Christian and his tongue? James is going to have a great deal to say in chapter 3 about the child of God and this matter of bridling the tongue. Someone has said, “You can’t believe half of what you hear, but you can repeat it.” That is a real problem in the church today. We have too many people who have unbridled tongues.
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world [James 1:27].
This is a tremendous statement. “Pure” is the positive side, and “undefiled” is the negative side. You need to have both if you are to have the right kind of religion—and Christianity certainly ought to produce this.
“To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction.” This is the positive side. A child of God ought to be in personal contact with the sorrow of the world and the problems of the people of the world. This is where the politicians are very clever. They go out and meet the people and shake their hands. They make a personal contact. In the same way, Christians should be getting out where the people are. I feel there is a grave danger in our having a religion of the sanctuary but not a religion of the street. We need a religion of the street also. We should be in contact with the world in a personal way, with tenderness and kindness and helpfulness.
“And to keep himself unspotted from the world.” This now is the negative side. Contact with the world does not mean that we should become implicated in the things of the world. As believers we are in this world but we are not of this world.
I think of the story of the little boy whose mother had died. His father was a poor man, but he worked and tried to raise the little fellow. There was a wealthy couple, relatives, who became interested in the boy. They said to the father, “You are not able to give the boy everything in life. We are wealthy; we can give him everything.” So the father went to the little boy to talk to him about going to live with these folks. He said to the little fellow, “They’ll give you a bicycle, give you toys, and give you wonderful gifts at Christmas. And they will take you on trips. They will do things for you that I can’t do for you.” The little boy said, “I don’t want to go.” And the father said, “Why?” The boy said, “They can’t give me you.” That’s what the little fellow wanted. There are a lot of people out yonder today who want that personal contact. My friend, you can bring a Christian contact to these people with sweetness and love and consideration and kindness. But let us remember to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. We can get so implicated in the things of the world that it becomes a dangerous thing.
CHAPTER 2
Theme: God tests faith by attitude and action in respect of persons; God tests faith by good works
GOD TESTS FAITH BY ATTITUDE AND ACTION IN RESPECT OF PERSONS
In the first thirteen verses of this chapter, James is going to deal with how we are to treat people in the different strata of society. How do you treat the rich man? How do you treat the poor man? How do you treat the average man whom you meet today? This section deals with God’s war on poverty and, interestingly enough, also God’s war on riches. This is God’s war on poverty and riches. His war on poverty is a little different from that of our government; no matter which political party has been in office, neither the federal nor the state governments have been able to deal successfully with this problem.
Both poverty and riches can be a curse. Part of the curse on the human race is poverty and riches. The writer in the Book of Proverbs says, “… give me neither poverty nor riches …” (Prov. 30:8). The most difficult people to reach are those who are the most poverty-stricken and those who are the richest; it seems to be almost impossible to reach either class with the Word of God.
The real problem is actually the imbalance of wealth in the world. The problem today is not between political parties, and it is not even between the races. The problem in the world is the imbalance of wealth. Take for example the nation of India where it is estimated there will soon be a population of one billion. There is great famine and starvation in that land; they starve by the thousands over there. Contrast that with the luxury and abundance which the wealthy have today. God goes after this problem in this epistle. He is on the side of the poor—I’m very, delighted to say that. After all, when the Lord Jesus came into the world, He wasn’t a rich man’s boy; He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in His mouth. He was born in poverty. He was born in a borrowed stable. He had to borrow loaves and fishes from a little lad to feed the crowd. He spoke from a borrowed boat. He said, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (see Matt. 8:20). He had to borrow a coin to illustrate a truth. He borrowed a donkey to ride into Jerusalem. He borrowed a room to celebrate the Passover. He died on a borrowed cross—it belonged to Barabbas, not to Him. They put Him in a borrowed tomb—it belonged to Joseph of Arimathaea.
When I was in college, we had a preacher who came and talked about “the blessings of poverty.” Now I was a poor boy, and I mean poor, my friend. I was going to school on borrowed money and was working full time. That man spoke every morning in chapel, and I was told that he got $15,000 a year (that was back in the days when a dollar was worth a dollar). It was a lot of money for a preacher in that day. You know, what he had to say just ran off my mind like water off a duck’s back—he had no message for me. The blessings of poverty? I just happen to know, since I was born that way and haven’t gotten too far from it yet, that there are no blessings in poverty. Poverty is a curse, and part of the curse which Christ bore was poverty.
Riches can also be a curse, as James will show in this epistle. Paul said, “For the love of money is the root of all evil …” (1 Tim. 6:10). Paul and James certainly agree here. You can spend your money for the wrong items. You can deposit your money in the wrong bank. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal” (Matt. 6:19). All the banks are telling us where to put our money, but God says, in effect, “I’ve got a bank, and I will keep investments up there for you.” James will be harsh with the rich, as we will see in chapter 5. Proverbs 30:8 should be the philosophy of every Christian: “Give me neither poverty nor riches.”
What is God’s solution to the problem of poverty? It is not to rob the rich in order to take care of the indigent, the lazy, the indolent, the drones, the loafers, the sluggards, and the laggards. On the other hand, God would never destroy the dignity and the self-respect and the integrity and the honor of the poor by placing them on charity. God’s war on poverty and riches does not march under the banner of the dollar where millions are appropriated for relief. And it is not aimed primarily at the head or at the stomach, but at the heart. It is a war against class. James is talking about distinctions and divisions among believers which have been brought about by money.
My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons [James 2:1].
“Have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ” should be “Hold not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Notice that James is His half brother according to the flesh, but he gives Him here the full name, “our Lord Jesus Christ.” And he calls Him “the Lord of glory.” Here is a strong assertion of the deity of Christ. I know of no one who was in a better position to determine the deity of Christ than a younger brother of the Lord Jesus who was brought up in the same home with Him. Frankly, I think James is in a better position to speak on the deity of Christ than some theologian sitting in a swivel chair in a musty library in New York City, removed from the reality of even his own day. Such a man is really far removed from the reality of the first century and the home in which Jesus was raised. Therefore, I go along with James, if you don’t mind. He is the “Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.”
What James is telling us here is not to profess faith in Christ and at the same time be a spiritual snob. Don’t join some little clique in the church. All believers are brethren in the body of Christ, whatever their denomination. There is a fellowship of believers; friendship should be over them as a banner. James is addressing the total community of believers—the rich, the poor, the common people, the high, the low, the bond and free, the Jew and the Gentile, the Greek and the barbarian, male and female. They are all one when they are in the body of Christ. There is a brotherhood within the body of believers, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the common denominator. Friendship and fellowship are the legal tender among believers.
James says, “Don’t hold your faith with respect of persons.” If you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ and another person belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, he is your brother. Furthermore, if a sinner comes into your assembly or you otherwise come into contact with him, remember that he is a human being for whom Christ died. He stands at the foot of the cross, just as you stand at the foot of the cross.
The Old Testament taught Israel not to regard the person of the rich or of the poor. God, in the Mosaic system, cautioned: “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour” (Lev. 19:15). Simon Peter learned this lesson at Joppa when God let down from heaven the sheet full of unclean animals and commanded him to eat of them. Peter concluded from that experience, “… Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34).
James uses a stinging illustration to make his point:
For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment [James 2:2].
The word assembly here means synagogue. Evidently the Jewish Christians were calling the place where they met a synagogue. They had erected no buildings and frequently met in private homes, but the chances are that in many places they rented a synagogue. They met on Sunday rather than on Saturday and therefore did not conflict with the meeting of the Jews.
“A man with a gold ring” doesn’t mean he wore a single ring, but that he had his fingers loaded down with gold rings, which was an evidence of wealth. “Goodly apparel” means that he had on fine clothes, bright clothes. He was ostentatious, if you please. His clothing is contrasted with that of the poor man.
Someone has said, “Some go to church to close their eyes, and others go to eye the clothes.” We have made Sunday a time when we Christians put on our Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. A great many people come to church overdressed. There is a dash and a splash and a flash about them. There is a pomp and pomposity. It’s glitter and gaudy, and vulgar and vain, also.
This rich man makes his entrance into church with flags flying and a fanfare of trumpets. There is parade and pageant. It is as if he drives up in his gold Cadillac, getting out as his chauffeur opens the door for him. He walks in, strutting like a peacock. He is like the rich man the Lord Jesus spoke of in the true story of the rich man and Lazarus: “There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day” (Luke 16:19). He “fared sumptuously” means that life was one continual party for him.
In contrast, the poor man, whom James mentions here, comes in with tattered and torn clothing. It may be clean, but there is evidence of patches and poverty. He may even be shabby and shoddy. He may be dilapidated and deteriorated. He may have seen better days, but he doesn’t have any Sunday clothes. James places these two men in contrast—each is at an extreme end of the social ladder.
In our affluent society we use other occasions as an excuse to dress up, but certainly many people use church as an occasion to do that. Easter Sunday is a good example of this. In Southern California, ladies usually don’t wear hats to church, but on Easter Sunday we always have a parade of new hats in church. When I was a pastor I would sometimes look out over the congregation and say, “Well, they are as wild as ever!” and everybody knew I was talking about the hats. My wife told me the ladies didn’t like my wisecracks, so I had to quit doing that. Another example is that when I began in the ministry I wanted to look like a preacher, and I think I really overdid it. I wore a Prince Albert coat and striped trousers. I had a wing collar and a black bow tie. I even wore a derby hat. You would have thought I was a barker in a circus or the maitre d’ at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. Then one day I looked down into the congregation at a couple who were people of means; in fact, they were very wealthy. I noticed how unostentatiously this man was dressed. He had on a highpriced suit, but it was very modest. And his wife was well dressed, but not overdressed. I thought, My, here I am up here dressed as a person ought not to be dressed who is coming in to worship God. So the next Sunday I came to church in everyday clothes, and I have been wearing them ever since, just like the man who is sitting in the pew. My friend, there is a danger of putting an emphasis upon clothes.
And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool [James 2:3].
In our day this would be like putting the poor man way back where the ushers sit or telling him to stand up in the rear. In that day there were a few seats down front where only the prominent people were allowed to sit. In the United States there was a day when we had paid pews in our churches. They had a little door to them, and only the family which paid for that pew could sit there on Sunday. You couldn’t sit with whomever you wanted to sit. Today we have our little cliques who take a certain section in a church, and woe to the stranger (especially if he is not well dressed) who comes in and sits next to that crowd! I can assure you he will get a cold shoulder.
Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? [James 2:4].
After James has put these two men in contrast, he asks, “Aren’t you actually being partial in yourselves or aren’t you making distinctions among yourselves and becoming judges with evil motives?”
Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? [James 2:5].
“Hearken, my beloved brethren”—James is talking to believers, and he calls them “brethren.”
A poor believer certainly is looked down upon in certain churches, and yet he may be the richest man spiritually in that church.
The Word of God says a great deal about the poor. God has made it very clear from Genesis to Revelation that He has a concern and consideration for the poor. It is as true in Moscow, Russia, as it is in the cities of New York, Washington, or Los Angeles that the poor never get a fair deal, and they never have. As long as men are natural men who are not born-again Christians, the poor will never get a fair deal in this world. Their only hope is in Jesus Christ.
Listen to the Word of God: “But he saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty” (Job 5:15). And in Job 36:15 we read, “He delivereth the poor in his affliction, and openeth their ears in oppression.” Psalm 9:18 says, “For the needy shall not alway be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.” Again in Psalms we read, “Thy congregation hath dwelt therein: thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor” (Ps. 68:10). “For the Lord heareth the poor …” says Psalm 69:33. “For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy” (Ps. 72:12–13). Then in Psalm 102:17 we read, “He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.” There is Scripture after Scripture that speaks of the poor and of God’s concern for them. In marvelous Psalm 45 we read of the One who is coming who will reign on this earth in righteousness, and in Isaiah 11 we read, “But with righteousness shall be judge the poor …” (Isa. 11:4).
God has a great deal to say about the mistreatment of the poor on this earth by the rich and by those who are in power. Someday they will have to answer to Him for it. But the poor can be rich in spiritual things, and that is the important thing for the poor man to see.
But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? [James 2:6].
Whether it is at the hands of a rich corporation or of a rich labor union, the powerful are not giving the poor an honest deal. Every year the politicians come out to us when they are running for office and say that they are going to work for and help all of us poor people. It does not make any difference what political party is in power, they wind up exploiting us. If I sound rather cynical, my friend, it is because I was born a poor boy and I have not gotten very far from that even to this day. From that viewpoint I am cynical because I have seen the way the poor are treated on this earth. Their only hope is in Jesus Christ. They have been despised by the world. The rich and powerful want their vote, but that ends their interest in them.
Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called? [James 2:7].
Worthy is better translated as “honorable.” My friend, when you mistreat the poor, you are blaspheming the name of Christ.
If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well [James 2:8].
If you want to please God, to obey Him, and to discharge your responsibility, James makes it very clear what you are to do: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” That is the summation of the whole manward aspect of the Mosaic Law.
But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors [James 2:9].
The Law condemns discriminating between the rich and poor. Someone will say, “Well, I didn’t commit murder, and I haven’t committed adultery.” You haven’t? Listen to what James says—
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all [James 2:10].
James is not saying that if you break one commandment, you have broken them all. He is saying you are guilty of breaking the commandments no matter which one it is that you broke. A man may be in prison as a murderer, look across the aisle and say to another fellow, “I’m not a rapist. I never broke that law”—yes, but he is behind bars; he is a murderer. It is ironic when a prisoner actually murders another prisoner because he considers his crime a terrible thing! But, my friend, you do not have to go to the penitentiary to find that attitude; you will find people outside of prison who are looking down upon others in the same way.
We all stand before God as lawbreakers.
For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law [James 2:11].
To break one law makes a lawbreaker.
So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty [James 2:12].
The “law of liberty” is the law of Christ. The Lord Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). What is His commandment? “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12).
For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment [James 2:13].
Many years ago in New York City there lived a wealthy couple by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Whitemore. They were entertaining guests one night and, in order to do something different, they went down to the Bowery to the mission of Jerry McAuley. These people went in and sat down in the back to take in the service that night. This wealthy couple belonged to a very fashionable church, but they had no more heard the gospel than a person living in the darkest heathenism in the world. As they heard Jerry McAuley preach, their hearts were touched, and they saw themselves as sinners. They went forward, and that night the mink knelt with the rags as they accepted Christ. Mr. and Mrs. Whitemore became workers in that area, and she established a home for wayward girls. She became known as the Rose of Mulberry Bend and was instrumental in beginning the movement for a ministry to such troubled girls.
How we need to recognize today that it is sinful to think that we are better than someone else and to look down upon others. It does not matter who the man is, before God that man is on the same plane as you are. We are sinners and need to come as that rich couple came—we need to come to the Cross and accept Christ as our Savior.
Another story is told that took place in London when a great preacher, a very fine young man, by the name of Caesar Milan was invited one evening to a very large and prominent home where a choice musical was to be presented. On the program was a young lady who thrilled the audience with her singing and playing. When she finished, this young preacher threaded his way through the crowd which was gathered around her. When he finally came to her and had her attention, he said, “Young lady, when you were singing, I sat there and thought how tremendously the cause of Christ would be benefited if you would dedicate yourself and your talents to the Lord. But,” he added, “you are just as much a sinner as the worst drunkard in the street, or any harlot on Scarlet Street. But I am glad to tell you that the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, will cleanse you from all sin if you will come to Him.” In a very haughty manner, she turned her head aside and said to him, “You are very insulting, sir.” And she started to walk away. He said, “Lady, I did not mean any offense, but I pray that the Spirit of God will convict you.”
Well, they all went home, and that night this young woman could not sleep. At two o’clock in the morning she knelt at the side of her bed and took Christ as her Savior. And then she, Charlotte Elliott, sat down and, while sitting there, wrote the words of a favorite hymn “Just As I Am”:
Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come!
Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come!
And then the final stanza:
Just as I am—Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come!
My friend, may I say to you, that this is the basis on which all of us must come to Christ.
GOD TEST’S FAITH BY GOOD WORKS
In verses 14–26 James shows that God tests faith by good works. There are those who say that we have in this section a contradiction to the writings of Paul, because Paul made it abundantly clear that faith alone could save you. We have his clear statement in Galatians 2:16—“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified”(italics mine).
I have divided this section up as follows: (1) The interpretation of faith (v. 14); (2) the identification of faith (vv. 15–20); and (3) the illustration of faith (vv. 21–26).
First we have the interpretation of faith. When we understand the definition of faith as it is used by Paul and James in the context of their writings, we can see that Paul and James are in perfect agreement, that they are discussing the same subject from different viewpoints.
Paul says that a man is not saved by the works or the deeds of the Law. In Romans 3:28 he writes, “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” In Galatians, as we have noted, Paul says that a man is justified not by works but by faith in Christ Jesus. How then are we going to reconcile Paul and James? As someone has said, “Paul and James do not stand face to face, fighting against each other, but they stand back to back, fighting opposite foes.” In that day there were those who were saying that you had to perform the works of the Law (the Mosaic Law), that you had to come by the Law, in order to be saved. Paul answered that by saying that the works of the Law will not save you and that only faith in Christ can save you. Both Paul and James, therefore, are defending the citadel of faith. To see that, we need to understand the use of their terminology. Paul says that saving faith—a faith which is genuine and real—will transform a person’s life. Paul said of himself, “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ” (Phil. 3:7). A real revolution took place in his life when he came to Christ. In 1 Corinthians 15:1–2 Paul wrote, “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain;” that is, unless it was just an empty faith (italics mine).
Now let us look at what James has to say—
What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? [James 2:14].
James is not talking about the works of the Law. He simply says that the faith which saves you will produce works, works of faith. The faith that James is talking about here is professing faith, that which is phony and counterfeit. Paul refers to the same idea when he says in 1 Corinthians 15:2, “… unless ye have believed in vain.” Paul also wrote, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith …” (2 Cor. 13:5).
One of the greatest dangers for us preachers of the gospel is that we like to see people converted, and we are willing to accept a brazen and flippant yes from some individual who says, “Yes, I’ll trust Jesus.” However, it might be just an impertinent, impudent, and insolent nod of the head; it is so easy today to be as phony as a three-dollar bill.
The story is told that the Devil had a meeting with his demons to decide how to persuade men that God was nonexistent. Since they themselves believed in His existence, they wondered just how to do it. One demon suggested that they tell people Jesus Christ never really existed and that men should not believe such fiction. Another demon suggested that they persuade men that death ends all and there is no need to worry about life after death. Finally, the most intelligent demon suggested that they tell everyone that there is a God, that there is Jesus Christ, and that believing in Him saves, but all you have to do is profess faith in Christ and then go on living in sin as you used to. They decided to use this tactic, and it is the tactic the Devil uses even today.
Paul and James are in perfect harmony in their teaching. When Paul speaks of works, it is works of the Law. He says in Romans 3:20, “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” He is saying in effect, “Yes, the Law is a mirror—it reveals you are a sinner—but it cannot save you; the works of the Law cannot save you at all.” James also says that you have to have something more than just the works of the Law. He wrote, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (v. 10). As someone has put it, “Man cannot be saved by perfect obedience, for he cannot render it. He cannot be saved by imperfect obedience because God will not accept it.” The only solution to this dilemma is the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and both James and Paul emphasize that.
In Galatians 2:16 Paul made it clear that men are not saved by the Law, but later in that epistle he wrote, “And let us not be weary in well-doing …” (Gal. 6:9). There is a lot of doing that goes with believing. “Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:6–7). In this section of his epistle when James speaks of works, he is speaking of the works of faith. Paul also wrote about works of faith: “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love” (Gal. 5:6). Both of these men taught that faith must be a working faith. As John Calvin put it, “Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.”
Saving faith, therefore, is alive; professing faith is dead. We have a lot of so-called professing Christians today who are members of churches. They are nothing in the world but zombies. They are walking around as if they are alive, but they are dead.
A girl once asked her Sunday school teacher, “How can I be a Christian and still have my own way?” The teacher gave to her Romans 8:5 which says, “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.” If you are a child of God, you cannot have your own way. You are going to do His way. “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be …. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you …” (Romans 8:7, 9). Paul says that now that you are indwelt by the Spirit of God, you can produce the fruit of the Spirit in your life; if you don’t, there is something radically wrong. A Christian doesn’t do as he pleases. he does as Christ pleases.
During the depression there lived in Pittsburgh a tycoon who was having all kinds of problems in his life. He went to his pastor and, after talking over his problems, he said, “I love my Savior. I love my family. I love my church. I love my business. But there are times I feel like walking out on all four of them.” The pastor looked him straight in the eye and said, “Well, why don’t you?” The man replied, “The reason I don’t is that I am a Christian.” May I say to you, saving faith which makes one a Christian will lead to good works. However, we are so anxious to get church members that we accept them on the slightest profession. As a result, many churches are filled with professing Christians who are really unbelievers.
When we understand how Paul and James use the words faith and works, we can see that they are in total agreement in their teaching.
Now James deals with the identification of faith. Saving faith can be recognized and identified by certain spiritual fingerprints. There is a verification of genuine faith. James gives us this practical illustration—
If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; not-withstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? [James 2:15–16].
Pious clichés and Christian verbiage are not the evidence of saving faith. There must be a vocation to go along with the vocabulary. You can be very pious and say to an individual, “Brother, I will pray for you, and I know the Lord will provide.” My friend, the Lord put you there as a child of God to do the providing. I get a little weary sometimes when wealthy Christian laymen pat me on the back and say, “Dr. McGee, you are doing a fine thing. You are doing the right thing in giving out the Word of God,” but they do not have a part in supporting this ministry financially. I have a hard time believing they are sincere. You may piously say to someone, “Oh, brother, I’m for you.” Are you for him? Are you back of him? My friend, a living faith produces something—you can identify it.
The Lord Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35). Then in Romans 13:8, Paul says, “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” The point is that you cannot say you are a child of God and live like a lawless individual. I do not mean that whenever a bum asks you for twenty-five cents in order to buy wine you should give it to him. And I do not think that you should believe every individual who professes to be a Christian. We need to test them out to see whether they are or not. My heart is warmed when I think of a certain man I know who is rendering financial assistance to someone in need and of a lady of means who is supporting a missionary abroad and telling no one about it. May I say to you, you are telling by your life whether your faith is genuine or not.
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works [James 2:17–18].
“Faith, if it hath not works, is dead.” The faith is dead? Why? Because living faith, saving faith, produces works. You have to draw that conclusion from James’ illustration. He is talking about the fruit of faith. Paul talks about the root of faith. Those are the separate emphases of each man, but both Paul and James say that faith alone saves. Paul also says that faith is going to produce fruit—“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace …” (Gal. 5:22). The Lord Jesus said, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit …” (John 15:5).
A minister once talked to a man who professed conversion, and he asked, “Have you united with the church?” “No, I haven’t,” the man replied. “The dying thief never united with the church, and he went to heaven.” The minister asked, “Have you ever sat at the Lord’s table?” “No, the dying thief never did, and he was accepted” was the answer. The minister asked, “Have you been baptized?” “No,” he said, “the dying thief was never baptized, and he went to heaven.” “Have you given to missions?” “No, the dying thief did not give to missions, and he was not judged for it” was the reply. Then this disgusted minister said to the man, “Well, my friend, the difference between you two seems to be that he was a dying thief and you are a living thief.”
My friend, we often sing, “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise,” but we do not even use the one tongue we have. And we sing, “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small,” and then we give nothing at all to Him. James says it is faith that saves, but saving faith produces something.
Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble [James 2:19].
Lip service is not the evidence of saving faith—even the demons believe.
But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? [James 2:20].
Faith without the fruit of faith is empty and futile as far as the world is concerned.
Now James will give us the illustration of faith—in fact, there will be two illustrations.
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only [James 2:21–24].
Paul said that Abraham was justified by faith (see Rom. 4:3), and Genesis tells us that he was justified by faith (see Gen. 15:6; 22:1–14). Was Abraham justified when he offered his son Isaac? The question is: Did he offer his son Isaac? And the answer is: No, he didn’t. Then what was Abraham’s work of faith? How did works save him? His faith caused him to lift that knife to do a thing which he did not believe God would ever ask him to do. But since God had asked him, he was willing to do it. He believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead. Abraham never actually offered Isaac, because God provided a substitute, but he would have done it if God had not stopped him.
This is a choice illustration of the fact that you demonstrate your faith by your actions. The action of this man was that he believed God.
James uses a second illustration—
Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? [James 2:25].
How was Rahab justified by works? She received the Israelite spies, concealed them from her own people, then told them how to escape without being detected (see Josh. 2). That woman living there in the city of Jericho jeopardized her life by turning her back on her old life and on her own people. What was gain to her became loss. She did not say to the Israelite spies, “I’ll just stand on the sidelines when you enter the city and sing, ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow.’” She did not just say, “Jesus saves and keeps and satisfies.” She did not say, “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!” She said to them, “I’m going to do something. I will hide you because I believe God is going to give the people of Israel this land. We have been hearing about you for forty years, and I believe God.” My friend, she believed God, and she became involved. She was justified before God by her faith: “By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace” (Heb. 11:31). However, before her own people and before the Israelites, she was justified by works.
Many years ago I went to a nursery and bought a bare root which was labeled “Santa Rosa plum.” It wasn’t even as big as a broom handle, and it looked no more alive than a broom handle. I was told to put it in the ground in a certain way, and I did that. I watched it, and the next spring it began to shoot out leaves. In three years them were blossoms on it, and then there was fruit. Do you know what kind of fruit was on that tree? Plums. The root of that tree was a plum root.
Faith is the root, and the root produces the kind of fruit that the root itself is. If you have a living faith, there is going to be fruit in your life. Paul says, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves …” (2 Cor. 13:5).
And James continues—
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also [James 2:26].
Faith without works is like a dead body in a morgue. James said that; Paul said that, and Vernon McGee believes both of them because they are giving us God’s Word for it.
CHAPTER 3
Theme: God tests faith by the tongue
GOD TESTS FAITH BY THE TONGUE
Ihave written a booklet on the third chapter of James, and it has a sensational title; but my sensationalism is no greater than that of the Bible, for my title is a Bible title: Hell on Fire. We will see that that is the expression James uses here in talking about the tongue.
We have heard a great deal in recent years about freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and it has become sort of a sacred cow. However, freedom of the press in our day means that they can brainwash you according to the liberal viewpoint, and freedom of speech means that you can use vile language. I would like for someone to grant us freedom of hearing. I have only one mouth, but I have two ears, and I think my can ought to be protected as well as my mouth. We need freedom of hearing today as well as freedom of speech.
This chapter deals with “Freedom of Speech in God’s University,” which is another way I have labeled this particular chapter. I also like the title, “God Bugs Your Conversation.” There is no question that God has the right to bug, or to listen in on, our conversations. He has had that right for a long time, and He has heard everything that you and I have said. It is estimated that the average person says about thirty thousand words every day. (I know two or three people who exceed that number!) That is enough to make a good-sized book. In a lifetime, you or I could fill a library with the words we have said. God has that recorded, by the way, because He bugs your conversation.
I suppose that the present-day movement for freedom of speech began at the Berkeley campus of the University of California some years ago. It was given coverage by the news media out of all proportion to its importance; that news coverage itself was another attempt at brainwashing. A great many taxpayers and prominent citizens were concerned that this great university, which is supported by their tax money, could be shut down and made a ridiculous spectacle by a few radicals, while the majority of the students were intimidated and their good intentions of getting an education were reflected upon.
Now the problem of freedom of speech is not only out yonder in the university and in the news media, but it is in the church also. The problem in the church is the problem of gossip. Each one of us who is a Christian needs to be concerned about our freedom of speech.
Just as I do with the Book of Proverbs, I liken the Epistle of James to a course in God’s university. James is the dean of God’s university as we consider this controversial subject, and he has quite a bit to say concerning the use and abuse of the tongue. We have seen in this epistle that God tests faith in many different ways. Here God tests our faith by our tongue. We want to reach up on the shelf of the laboratory of life and take down an acid to test our faith. Actually, this acid is more potent than hydrochloric or sulfuric or any other acid. The label on the bottle is “Tongue.”
However, we are not talking about the chemistry of the tongue but about the theology of the tongue. James has already indicated that he was going to come to this subject. He said back in chapter I, verse 26, “If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.” He also said, “let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak” (James 1:19). You have two ears, and God gave them to you so that you can hear twice as much as you can say.
The tongue is the most dangerous weapon in the world. It is more deadly than the atom bomb, but no careful inspection is made of it. Some wag made the statement that it was a miracle in Balaam’s day for an ass to speak, but today it is a miracle when he keeps quiet. Someone else pointed out that it takes a baby two years to learn to talk and fifty years to learn to keep his mouth shut.
The story is told of a man who had been fishing out on a pier for several hours and had not caught anything. As two women walked out on the pier, he finally pulled in a fish. It wasn’t a very large fish, and one of these two women took it upon herself to rebuke this man: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for so cruelly catching this poor little fish?” And the man, without even looking up, because he was a little discouraged anyway, said, “Maybe you are right, lady, but if the fish had kept his mouth shut he wouldn’t have been caught.”
Another has expressed it this way:
If your lips would keep from slips,
Five things to observe with care:
To whom you speak, of whom you speak,
And how, and when, and where.
—Author unknown
The importance of the tongue has been expressed in many different ways, and practically every nation has had something to say about it. I read this in Spurgeon’s “Salt Cellars” years ago:
“The boneless tongue, so small and weak,
Can crush and kill,” declared the Greek.
“The tongue destroys a greater hoard,”
The Turk asserts, “than does the sword.”
A Persian proverb wisely saith,
“A lengthy tongue—an early death”;
Or sometimes takes this form instead,
“Don’t let your tongue cut off your head.”
“The tongue can speak a word whose speed,”
The Chinese say, “outstrips the steed”;
While Arab sages this impart,
“The tongue’s great storehouse is the heart.”
From Hebrew wit this maxim sprung,
“Though feet should slip, ne’er let the tongue.”
The sacred writer crowns the whole,
“Who keeps his tongue doth keep his soul!”
All of these sayings are very wise. I believe fervently that the most dangerous thing in the world is the tongue. I think the church is more harmed by the termites within than by the woodpeckers on the outside. Someone has put it like this: “Thou art master of the unspoken word, but the spoken word is master of you.” In other words, my friend, once you have said it, it is beyond your control.
All of that is preliminary. Let us look now at what James has to say concerning the tongue—
My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation [James 3:1].
Mastersmeans “teachers.” James is saying that a teacher has a greater responsibility, and the reason for that is the grave danger of teaching the wrong thing. I am absolutely amazed and overwhelmed at the way so many Christian folk fall for all kinds of teaching, particularly that which has to do with prophecy. All a teacher needs today is a glib tongue. People are accepting all kinds of methods and cults and “isms”; yet many of these teachers, as far as the total Word of God is concerned, are absolutely ignorant. I rejoice in home Bible classes, and I think they have filled a real vacuum that existed, but I find that some of the leaders are teaching all kinds of vagaries, giving the wrong interpretation of Scripture. They need to know more of the Word of God than they do.
The ease with which people fall for their teachings has ministered to a great deal of conceit and pride on the part of many teachers. One young fellow that I had the privilege of leading to Christ has gone off on a tangent in his teaching. I tried to get him to study the Word, but he did not. He has now started a class, and he is very glib of tongue. Someone in his class went to him and said, “Do you know that what you have taught is contrary to most Bible teachers and especially to the man who led you to the Lord?” The young man replied, “Oh, Dr. McGee? Well, maybe he needs to correct his theology.” Well, frankly, maybe I do. I am amazed the more I study the Word of God. The thing that discourages me is that it reveals my ignorance, not my knowledge. I realize I have a long way to go, but the young man who made that statement has even farther to go. However, he does not recognize his own ignorance.
I am reminded of what a preacher said of another young man who had just started out in the ministry. When someone pointed out his prideful attitude, the preacher said of the young man, “Yes, he thinks he is the fourth person of the Trinity.” It is so easy for a preacher or teacher to become proud.
The tongue is very dangerous. James is saying here, “My brethren, be not many teachers.” Don’t think that the minute you become a child of God you can start a Bible class and teach the Book of Revelation.
“Knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.” Frankly, it is frightening to realize that God will judge us for the way in which we teach His Word, and we will be under His condemnation if our teaching is wrong. My friend, the more opportunity you have to give out the Word of God, the greater is your responsibility to God Himself.
For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body [James 3:2].
“For in many things we offend all” means that in many ways we all stumble. All of us do—there is no exception to that.
“If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.” The word perfect means he is a full-grown Christian as he should be—just as a baby grows up, becomes a little child and matures to full adulthood.
James says the perfect man is “able also to bridle the whole body.” In other words, if he can control his speech, he can control his entire body, in fact, his whole life. The tongue lifts man from the animal world. It keeps him from being a gibbering ape or an aping parrot. Man is not an inarticulate animal or a mockingbird. Man can put thought into words; he can express himself; he can be understood; he can communicate on the highest level. The tongue is a badge which you and I wear—it identifies us. It is the greatest index to life. It is the table of contents of our lives.
Our tongues give us away; they tell who we are. Quite a few years ago I was rushing with my wife and little girl from a conference at Salt Lake City to a conference in the San Francisco Bay area. As we came over the High Sierras and Donner Pass, we stopped at a little town—I don’t even know the name of it—and pulled into a filling station. I stepped out of the car and said to the young man there, “Fill ’er up!” That’s all I said, but as I was looking out at those mountains and the lovely scenery, I became conscious that he was eyeing me. Finally, I turned to him and smiled. He said to me, “Are you Dr. McGee?” I said, “I sure am. Do I know you?” He said, “No.” I said, “Do you know me?” He said, “No. I’ve never seen, you before, but up here, especially during the wintertime when we are all snowed in, we listen to you every Sunday night on the radio. We’ve been doing it for years. I’d know your voice anywhere.” I’ve had that same experience a number of times. You see, my tongue gives me away.
Remember the maid who said to Simon Peter, “… thy speech betrayeth thee” (Matt. 26:73)—he could not deny that he was from Galilee. Your speech tells who you are; your tongue gives you away. It tells where you came from. It tells whether you are ignorant or educated, cultured or crude, whether you are clean or unclean, whether you are vulgar or refined, whether you are a believer or a blasphemer, whether you are a Christian or a non-Christian, whether you are guilty or not guilty. My friend, I am of the opinion that if you had a tape-recorded message of everything you have said this past month, you would not want the world to hear it.
Now let’s put the acid down on your tongue and mine. James will first deal with the unbridled and unrestrained tongue—
Behold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body [James 3:3].
The illustration James uses here is the horse. It was David who said, “I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me” (Ps. 39:1). In other words, David said that because he wanted to give the right kind of testimony, he would put a bridle on his mouth. My friend, there are a lot of Christians today who ought to have a bridle put on their mouths.
The bridle bits are not impressive in size, but they can hold a high-spirited horse in check and keep him from running away. If you are old enough, you may have recollections of the horse-and-buggy days. I can recall seeing a horse run away, turn over a buggy, and bring death and destruction to a family. In the same way, the tongue can run away. Someone said of another individual, “His mind starts his tongue to wagging, and then goes off and leaves it.” We should not go through life like that—there needs to be a bridle for the tongue.
Now James is going to use a different illustration—
Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth [James 3:4].
Large ships can be controlled by a little rudder which few people even see. A fierce storm may drive a ship, but a little rudder can control it. The tongue can also change the course of our lives. Men have been ruined by the tongue; many the fair name of a woman has been wrecked by some gossipy tongue.
James says that the tongue is more dangerous than a runaway horse or a storm at sea. I believe that liquor is eating at the vitals of our nation today, but did you know that the tongue is condemned more in Scripture than alcoholism is condemned? Liquor and alcoholism may bring our nation down, yet the tongue is even more dangerous than that. Proverbs 6:16–17 says, “These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.” A lying tongue is one of the seven things God hates.
The tongue can really get us into trouble—there is no question about that. Again, someone has put it in words like this:
A careless word may kindle strife;
A cruel word may wreck a life.
A bitter word may hate instill;
A brutal word may smite and kill.
A gracious word may smooth the way;
A joyous word may light the day.
A timely word may lessen stress;
A loving word may heal and bless.
—Author unknown
I was very impressed when I read General Montgomery’s farewell words addressed to the Eighth Army in Italy following World War II. He said to them, “Command must be personal and it must be verbal; otherwise it will have no success, because it is wrapped up in the human factor.” Continuing, he said this: “I often have at the back of my mind a passage from the New Testament, ‘Except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken?’” (see 1 Cor. 14:9). That is the kind of tongue I want to have as I teach the Word of God—the tongue that both a little child and the older folk can understand. Someone asked me one time, “How in the world can the same message bring a nine-year-old child and a university professor to the Lord?” I must confess, I do not know the answer to that question. But I do believe that God blesses His Word and that it must be taught simply. We must put the cookies on the bottom shelf where the kiddies can get them. God did not say, “Feed My giraffes”; He said, “Feed My lambs” (see John 21:15).
Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!
And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell [James 3:5–6].
This is where I got the title for my little book on this third chapter of James, Hell on Fire. That is what the tongue can be and is in many cases. There are those who have questioned my use of the word hell, arguing that it is not properly translated in this verse. The Greek word used here is gehenna; it is not sheol. It refers to the valley of Hinnom where the fire never went out. This word is used only twelve times in the New Testament; the Lord Jesus used it eleven times, and James used it once. This is a correct translation: the tongue is “set on fire of hell.”
It is quite impressive that James compares the tongue to a fire. I do not know whether you have ever seen a forest fire, but each summer out here in California we have an epidemic of them. They are very devastating, and many times absolutely uncontrollable; they have to burn themselves out in many instances.
Fire has been, of course, one of the greatest friends of man and nature. Some historians say that civilization began when man discovered fire. When it is under control, it warms our bodies, it cooks our food, and it generates power to turn the wheels of industry. It is dangerous, though, when it is out of control. It is a tragedy when a house is on fire. You hear a siren in the night, and you know that a group of men is rushing to put out a fire. Even in our present civilization we are not able to control fires. The London fire of 1666 destroyed London. Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern in Chicago in 1871 and started that great and historic fire. And still today we see great devastations caused by fire.
The tongue is like a fire; when it is under control, it is a blessing; when it is out of control, it is devastating. It can be a cure, or it can be a curse. In Proverbs 12:18 we read, “There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.” The tongue can be like a sword that kills, but it also can be health itself. What a picture this is of the tongue! Again in Proverbs we read, “The heart of him that hath understanding seeketh knowledge: but the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness” (Prov. 15:14).
Let me repeat the proverb I quoted a little earlier: “Thou art master of the unspoken word, but the spoken word is master of you.” If you haven’t said it, you cannot be held responsible, but once you’ve said it, it can condemn you. I have learned through personal experience that a slip of the tongue (especially if it’s made on a radio broadcast which is heard by many) can have great repercussions. You remember that Simon Peter’s tongue betrayed him, and he denied that he knew his Lord. But on the Day of Pentecost, what was it that the Lord used? It was the tongue of that blundering, stumbling, bumbling fellow, Simon Peter. The tongue can be either a curse or a cure.
Brush and forest fires scorch and blacken and are a plague. Like a fire, the tongue can burn through a church, burn through a community, burn through a town, and even burn through a nation.
For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison [James 3:7–8].
In my younger days, when the circus was coming to town, a group of us young folk would gather at some home, have a time of fellowship and a late dinner, then go down to the railroad yards to watch the circus come in and unload. As the parade of moving it out to the circus grounds was in progress, we would go along with it and then watch the tent being put up. One time we were even invited to have breakfast with them in the cook tent. My, what a thrill that was! Clyde Beatty was then with the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus, and he had charge of the wild animals. He was the one who went into the cages and put them through their paces. We were in that tent, not as paid customers, but just watching them put up everything. Clyde Beatty went to a cage in which there were some little lion cubs; I think there were three or four of them. He took them out and began to play with them. He rolled them, and they bit at him; he grabbed them and turned them over, just having a big time with them. We went over and asked him why he did that. He said this: “I would never go into a cage with a lion that I had not brought up from the time it was a cub. You cannot train an old lion. I begin with these little ones, and when they grow up into fine, fierce-looking young lions, I will take them into the cage with me. But they know me, and I know them.” May I say to you, you can tame a lion; you can tame an elephant, but you cannot tame the little tongue. As someone has said, “The most untamable thing in the world has its den just behind the teeth.” That’s one little animal which no zoo has in captivity, no circus can make it perform, no man can tame it. Only a regenerate tongue in a redeemed body, a tongue that God has tamed, can be used for Him.
It is interesting to note that Paul said, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:9, italics mine). In other words, we are to sing a duet, the tongue and the heart are to be in tune. The Lord Jesus said, “… for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matt. 12:34)—what is in the heart will come out. Someone has said, “What is in the well of the heart will come out through the bucket of the mouth.” If it is in your heart, you are going to say it sooner or later. It is interesting that when our Lord came to that dumb man, the gospel writer is very careful to say, “He touched his mouth!” My friend, if He has touched you, He has touched your mouth also.
Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.
Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be [James 3:9–10].
The tongues which you and I have are capable of praising God or blaspheming God. As we have said before, the tongue is that which lifts man above the animal world. Man is not a gibbering ape or a mockingbird. Man can communicate with man, and he can communicate with God. When a man can sing like an angel on Sunday and then talk like a demon during the week—you label him as you want to—the Bible calls that man a hypocrite.
When I announced in the bank where I worked as a young man that I was going to study for the ministry, one of the vice-presidents of the bank called me into his office. He had been a good friend of mine, and he knew something of my life and how I had lived. He said to me, “Vernon, I hope you are going to be a genuine preacher and a genuine servant of God.” He said, “The reason I am not a Christian today is because of an experience had during the war.” (He was referring to World War I.) He went on to tell me how the bank had set up a branch bank at the powder plant at Old Hickory outside of Nashville, Tennessee. One of the tellers there was also a soloist in a church in downtown Nashville. One Sunday as that teller came out of church, the bank vice-president overheard one of the ladies say, “You know, that man is one of the most wonderful men in the world. He sings just like an angel!” This vice-president made no comment at the time. But that woman owned property, and she had business at the bank out at Old Hickory. She came in one day and was talking to him when suddenly they heard the vilest language imaginable. It came from the teller who had attempted to balance and he hadn’t balanced. (I was a teller for several years, and I know that this is one of the most discouraging things that can happen.) Well, when this man didn’t balance, he began to explode with blasphemies, and the lady said, “Who in the world is that?” The bank vice-president said, “That’s your soloist who sings like an angel on Sunday!” A man can bless God with his mouth, and he can blaspheme God. You can do both with the mouth you have. The Lord Jesus said that what is in the heart will come up through the mouth; you can be sure your tongue is going to say it.
Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?
Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh [James 3:11–12].
In other words, a man can be a two-faced, double-minded, and forked-tongued individual—he can say both good and bad. But no fountain down here on this earth is going to give forth both sweet and bitter water, nor will a tree bear both figs and olives.
Now the tongue reveals genuine faith, because it is with the mouth that confession is made of that which is in the heart—
Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom [James 3:13].
The tongue can reveal genuine faith. It can give a testimony for God. It can speak wisdom.
But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth [James 3:14].
Strife and bitterness are certainly not the fruits of faith, but the tongue can stir up that kind of thing. James is making a contrast between the tongue of the foolish believer and the tongue of the wise believer. In fact, an uncontrolled tongue raises the question in the minds of others whether a man is a child of God or not. You cannot make me believe that a genuine believer can curse six days a week and then sing in a choir on Sunday. He cannot tell dirty jokes and then teach a Sunday school class, telling about the love of Jesus. That tongue which you have can do either one, but if it does both, it is that which stirs up strife. We are told here, “Lie not against the truth.” A lying tongue is one that denies the Lord during the week by its conversation.
This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish [James 3:15].
James makes it very clear that strife and envying do not originate with God. They do not come from Him at all—it is “earthly, sensual, devilish.”
Knowledge is proud that she has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that she knows no more.
—Author unknown
For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work [James 3:16].
An uncontrolled tongue produces envying and strife which lead to “confusion and every evil work.” Scripture makes it very clear that God is not the author of confusion. The confusion we find in the world today is a confusion brought about by the work of the Devil using that little thing, the tongue, which causes so much trouble. This verse will tie in very closely with what James has to say in the next chapter where he will define what worldliness really is.
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy [James 3:17].
“But the wisdom that is from above is first pure”—that is, it’s not mingled or mixed; it’s undiluted; it’s the original. It is that wisdom which comes down from God, and James clearly identifies it: it is “then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.”
Dr. Samuel Zwemer mentions the fact that false teaching always produces strife and envy and trouble. He says, “You cannot explain the wickedness of the world as merely human. It is human plus something, and that is why non-Christian religions are successful. They are supernatural, but from beneath.” Anything that causes divisions and strife—it matters not which church it is in—is not of the Lord, you may be sure of that. You may boast of your fundamentalism, but if you are causing strife, you are sailing under false colors.
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace [James 3:18].
These are the fruits of faith. There must be righteousness before there can be peace. I wish this idea would reach the United Nations. I wish it would reach Washington, D.C., and Moscow and Peking and all the other capitals of the world. You cannot have peace without righteousness. There is a day coming, the psalmist says, when peace and righteousness will have kissed each other (see Ps. 85:10). Today they don’t even know each other; they wouldn’t even recognize each other.
Chapter 3 concludes the first major division of the Epistle of James in which James has dealt with the verification of genuine faith. There is a difference in faith: you can believe the wrong thing, or you can just nod your head and call that faith, but saving faith is that which produces good works.
In these three chapters James has shown various ways in which God tests our faith to prove that it is genuine. First of all, God tests faith by trials. Dr. Richard H. Seume is an outstanding Bible teacher who has suffered with kidney trouble for a number of years. I would like to share with you something which he said (as quoted by Dr. Lehman Strauss in his book, James Your Brother), because I know that it comes from a preacher who is not giving us his theory or is ideas but who knows what it means to suffer. Dr. Seume wrote:
Life on earth would not be worth much if every source of irritation were removed. Yet most of us rebel against the things that irritate us, and count as heavy loss what ought to be rich gain. We are told that the oyster is wiser; that when an irritating object, like a bit of sand, gets under the mantle of his shell, he simply covers it with the most precious part of his being and makes of it a pearl. The irritation that it was causing is stopped by encrusting it with the pearly formation. A true pearl is therefore simply a victory over irritation. Every irritation that gets into our lives today is an opportunity for pearl culture. The more irritations the devil flings at us, the more pearls we may have. We need only to welcome them and cover them completely with love, that most precious part of us, and the irritation will be smothered out as the pearl comes into being. What a store of pearls we may have, if we will!
We saw, therefore, that (1) God tests faith by trials; (2) God does not test faith with evil; (3) God tests faith by the Word; (4) God tests faith by attitude and action in respect of persons; (5) God tests faith by good works; and (6) God tests faith by the tongue. James has made it very clear that genuine faith will be evident in the life of the believer.
CHAPTER 4
Theme: Vacuity and Vapidness of Worldliness
VACUITY AND VAPIDNESS OF WORLDLINESS
James will deal with several very important questions in this chapter: What is worldliness? How does a Christian right the Devil? What is your life? All of these will anchor back into the subject of worldliness.
James will first answer the question: What is worldliness? I believe the average Christian in our so-called fundamental churches would give one of several answers. Some would say that worldliness is a matter of the kind of amusements you attend or indulge in: What kind of movies do you go to? Do you dance? And, do you drink? That is what they would call worldliness. May I say to you, James would not agree with them.
Others would say that it is the kind of crowd you run with, the gang you hang around with. After all, birds of a feather flock together, and if you are with a worldly crowd that engages in these things, then you are worldly. I am sorry to have to tell you, if you gave that answer in Jame’s college, you would fail; you wouldn’t pass the course.
Still others would say that worldliness is a matter of the conversation you engage in. You must learn to say “Praise the Lord” and “Hallelujah” at the right times. Worldliness is when you engage in worldly conversation. Again, that is not the answer; you have failed the course.
Someone else will answer that worldliness is the way that you dress. I have news for you: you have not passed the course.
Others may say it is a person who engages in business and the making of money to the exclusion of all else and who neglects the church; that person, they say, is a worldly individual. You still have not passed the course in James’ college.
Yet another may answer that it is the person who does not go to church, but spends time on the golf course, fishing, boating, or watching his favorite team play baseball.
My friend, I do not approve of any of the things which I have mentioned here, but they just don’t happen to be worldliness. Most of those sins are sins of the flesh—not of the world. If you put down any one of those as your answer to James’ question, you have flunked the exam; you’ve failed the subject, and you’ve busted the course. None of those answers is correct. They may be symptoms of the disease, but nobody ever died of symptoms—they die of the disease. These are simply evidences of the real problem, which is deeper.
A brother of Henry Ward Beecher, a pastor in upper New York state, had a clock in his church that never would keep accurate time. So this man put a sign under that clock which read: “Don’t blame the hands. The trouble lies deeper.” This is what we need to recognize in ourselves. What we call worldliness is just the hands of the clock; the real trouble lies deeper.
William Thackeray, who was a Christian, dealt with this subject in his novel, Vanity Fair, in a way that probably no one else has dealt with it. His novel is about the world, and he wrote it on the background of the wars of Napoleon. He presents characters who are all filled with weaknesses and littleness, pettiness and jealousy, envy, discord and strife—all of that is there. Someone once asked Thackeray, “Why don’t you have some wonderful heroes in your novels? You always present little people.” Thackeray replied, “I hold a mirror up to nature, and I do not find heroes among mankind. They are filled with littleness and pettiness and strife and sin.” When you get to the end of Vanity Fair, Thackeray does a masterly thing. He says, “Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.” That is man. As Shakespeare said, he “struts and frets his hour upon the stage.” Man is filled with worldliness.
Dr. Griffith Thomas pinned it down a little closer when a person who was very much distressed came to him one day and asked, “Don’t you think that the world is becoming Christian today?” Dr. Thomas said, “No, I do not think that is true. I think the world is becoming a little churchy, but I think the church is becoming immensely worldly.”
Since World War II there has been a breakdown of the wall of separation between the church and the world. The separation that many had practiced was legalistic and, I think, unscriptural. The church was like the little Dutch boy who was keeping his thumb in the dike. Then, in the aftermath of the war, along came television, lawlessness, immorality, and juvenile delinquency; first the beatniks, then the hippies, then dope and marijuana, and the philosophy of existentialism. A tidal wave swept over the dikes of separation, and even the little Dutch boy was washed away.
There is no simple answer to the question: What is worldliness? But I am going to let James give what I think is his very definitive answer. What is worldliness? James says that worldliness is strife and envy. We need to go back to chapter 3 to pick up his thoughts. In James 3:13 we read, “Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.” Faith is the major in James’ university, and all elective courses are related to faith. Works of faith bring meekness. Then we read, “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle” (James 3:17). There is meekness or humility, and humility means submission.
In James 3:16 we read, “For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.” That is worldliness. And worldliness in the church has produced all the cults, denominations, factions, divisions, and cliques which have arisen and abound in the church today. There is a spirit of rivalry and jealousy in the church. In the previous verse, James describes this as “earthly”—that is, it is confined to the earth. It is “sensual”—that is, psychological. And then it’s “devilish” or demonic, which is something quite terrible, my friend.
What do envy and strife produce in this world? They produce “confusion and every evil work.” With this as background, we can recognize what James is saying now in chapter 4—
From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? [James 4:1].
“Wars” have to do with the wars of nations. “Fightings” have to do with little skirmishes—that little fight you had in the church—you remember?
“Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” You wanted to have your own way. “Lusts that war in your members” are actually sensual pleasures. Strife and turmoil are created by conflicts and the overweening demands of the members of the body for satisfaction.
Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not [James 4:2].
Selfish desires, James makes it very clear, lead to war. This spirit of strife is worldliness; it is not Christian, and it is not the Christian approach. These are the things which represent the old nature. A man must be regenerated by faith in Christ and be indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
What James describes here is the spirit of the world. When the spirit of the world gets into the church, you have a worldly church. My friend, do you think it is bad out on the battlefield? Did you think it was bad in Vietnam? Well, it was, but inside some churches and inside the hearts of some individuals it is just as bad. In the business world there is dog-eat-dog competition—that is worldliness. Political parties split, and one group becomes pitted against another. As capital and labor meet around the conference table, there is a battle going on. In the social world there are climbers on the social ladder who are stepping on the hands of others as they go up. In your neighborhood and mine one family does not speak to another family. Within families there are quarrels, brother against brother. Then that spirit gets into the church. That, my friend, is worldliness.
“Yet ye have not, because ye ask not.” Our desires should be taken to the Lord in prayer—to have them satisfied or denied or refined—and then we need to accept the answer from Him. What is the cure for worldliness? It is prayer. It is, therefore, faith in God. The apostle John put it like this, “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). The answer is to trust in God absolutely, to go to Him in prayer and commit to Him that which is in your heart. When you find that there is strife and envy in your heart, talk to Him about it. Many of us go to the Lord to tell Him how good we are. And because we have been good little boys and girls who have gone to Sunday school, we think He ought to give us a lollipop or a Brownie button or something of that sort. My friend, we need to get right down to the nitty-gritty where we live. Consider these words which were written by a great saint, a mystic of the Middle Ages, Fénelon:
Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them; talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself as to others.
If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject. It is continually being renewed. People who have no secrets from each other never want subjects of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back; neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration, just what they think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God.
When I was laid aside for some time with an illness, I found that all things do work together for good. My wife and I were able to sit at home for a longer period of time than we ever had since we were married. Even on our honeymoon I candidated at a church. From that day to this we have been on the go. We found that there were some things we really needed to talk over that otherwise might have been misunderstood. We had wonderful talks, and we just laid bare our hearts to each other. It was the most joyous experience. I said to her, “Honey, this is more wonderful than our honeymoon was!” That is the kind of relationship we ought to have with God.
Having studied the Word of God and having read these words by Fénelon, I came to the conclusion that I was going to tell the Lord Jesus everything. I have talked to Him about everything in my life that was sinful and questionable. He knows, He understands, and He’s forgiven me.
The only way to take away that envy and jealousy and strife which is in your heart is to go to the Lord Jesus. You don’t need to go to the psychiatrist; he’ll just move your problem from one area to another. You need to get rid of that hang-up by going to the Lord Jesus, getting on His couch, and telling Him everything.
James says that the solution is for you and me to pray, but we often pray for selfish ends—
Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts [James 4:3].
Even when we do ask God for something, we ask in order that we might spend it in a very selfish way.
Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God [James 4:4].
Because we are willing to compromise with the world in order to attain our goals, James calls us “adulterers and adulteresses.” This is the way of the world: take by force what you want; by hook or by crook lay hold of it; be envious and jealous of other folk, and cause strife. That is worldliness.
“Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” I have never joined any of the clubs or lodges such as the Lions, the Moose, the Elks, or the Rotary Club. I have been asked to join, but I do not join them. I’ll tell you the reason. I have enough trouble with worldliness in the church; I do not need to join a worldly organization.
Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? [James 4:5].
Are we trying to kid ourselves that we are nice, sweet, little folk who have no envy and jealousy in our hearts? I heard a woman say one time, “I have a very wonderful husband. He is not jealous of me.” I want you to know that something is wrong if a husband is not jealous of his wife. If he loves her, he will be jealous of her. God says that He is jealous of His children. But what about jealousy in the wrong sense—jealousy when we do not get elected to a committee or do not receive recognition in the church that we feel we deserve? And what about the strife we cause with these tongues of ours? James says that the solution to the problem is to go to the Lord Jesus and tell Him about our problem, tell Him everything.
But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble [James 4:6].
I have said this again and again: God is overloaded with grace. You and I just don’t know how gracious He is. He has an abundance of grace. Grace has been defined as unmerited favor, but I call it love in action. God didn’t save us by love. He gave His Son, and it is by His grace that we are saved. He has so much of it. You may say, “Oh, I am so wrong on the inside, so sinful.” Go to Him and tell Him you are wrong on the inside, and ask Him for grace to overcome it. He will give you grace. He is the living Christ, interceding at God’s right hand for you.
Now some may doubt the surplus of His grace. May I say to you, all the medicine in the world cannot cure the sick; the remedy must be taken. Likewise, God has the grace, my friend; lay hold of it! It is possible for a man to die of thirst with a pure spring of water right before him. He has to drink of it; he has to appropriate it before it can save his life. You don’t blame soap and water for the fact that there are dirty people in the world, do you? There is plenty of soap and water to clean you up, my friend.
“God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” This is the kind of container that the grace of God must be carried in; it must be carried in an humble individual.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you [James 4:7].
When you go to a doctor for medical care, you submit yourself to him. One time when I was sick, the doctor gave me half a dozen prescriptions. The man might have been trying to poison me, but I had faith in him and took his pills. They helped me because I submitted to him. “Submit yourselves therefore to God.”
“Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” You may ask, “How am I going to resist the Devil?” James is going to be very practical. He has just said that we need a little more grace—He “giveth grace unto the humble.” In other words, you are not going to be able to resist the Devil in your own strength. You and I are surrounded by evil influences. Temptation, as we have seen, is on every hand. God supplies His grace as needed, and His supply never runs out. “This is yours,” God says. “You are to lay hold of it.”
Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded [James 4:8].
God comes to the door of your heart; He will not come any farther. He knocks, and you have to let Him in. That is the only way He is going to get in, my friend.
It is said that one time Martin Luther threw an inkwell at the Devil. Somebody might say that was a crazy thing to do, but it is not if you are resisting the Devil. James tells us that the way to resist the Devil is to draw near to God. The Devil will flee from you, because he doesn’t like God as company. The Devil will not get to you unless you get too far away from God. A wolf never attacks a sheep as long as it is with the rest of the sheep and with the shepherd. And the closer the sheep is to the shepherd, the safer it is. Our problem is that we get too far from God.
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness [James 4:9].
There are certain conditions which call for mourning and not for joy. Sin is never to be treated lightly. When I hear a Christian make light of sin, I have a sneaking notion that, on the side, when nobody is looking, he is indulging in sin. You are not to treat sin lightly, my friend; you are to mourn over your sins. The problem today is that Christians are not mourning over their sins.
We have several outstanding evangelists and some great evangelistic meetings in our day, but why is it that there is no revival in the church? I think James is giving us something to think about in what he says here. I remember asking this same question of Dr. John Brown, who was one of the great evangelists in the past. As we sat on his front porch in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, I asked him why, even in that day, evangelism was not reviving the church as it had when he was active in the ministry. He told me about the meetings which he had held in my present hometown of Pasadena, California, where he had a tent set up on a big vacant lot at the corner of Washington and Holliston. He said this to me, “Dr. McGee, I preached six weeks to the Christians before I ever attempted to give an altar call for the unsaved—and revival came to the churches.” When I came as pastor to a church in Pasadena, I could still see the effects of Dr. Brown’s meetings in that church. Why? For the very simple reason that sin had been dealt with in the lives of believers. Too often we refuse to deal with it. We need to mourn over our sins.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up [James 4:10].
“He shall lift you up.” This is our problem today: We think we are smart. We think we are strong. We think we have ability. We think we are good. God says that there is no good within us. There is nothing in us that attracts Him, that is, in the way of goodness; it is just our great need that draws Him to us. If we are willing to humble ourselves and get down where He can lift us up, He will lift us up.
I observed a lifeguard once as he hit a drowning fellow with his fist and knocked him out. The lifeguard explained that the drowning man was struggling and that he could not help him until he gave up. I think sometimes God gives us the fist so that we just give up and let Him take over.
Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another? [James 4:11–12].
If you judge your brother, you disobey the law, which is putting yourself above the law and treating it with contempt. In other words, who do you think you are? When you begin to talk like that, you are moving into the position of God. There are two types of people today who seek to take the position of God. One is the sinner who says, “I’m good enough to be saved. Lord, I don’t need your salvation. You just move over, and I am going to move up and sit beside you. I am my own savior.” But, my friend, God says in His Word that He is the only Savior. Then there is the other fellow who sits in judgment on everyone else. He doesn’t judge himself, but he judges everyone else. James is saying that judgment is God’s business. Jesus said, “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (John 5:22). There are many Christians who, in effect, say to the Lord Jesus, “You move over. I’m going to help You. We are going to have a Supreme Court, and I am going to be one of the judges.” We have a lot of believers like that today; boy, what a Supreme Court the church could furnish Him! James says that we are to judge ourselves and to go to Him in humility.
Go to now, ye that say, To-day or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain [James 4:13].
Here is something else Christians do—we like to make big plans for the future. It has taken me a long time in life to learn just to play it by ear. Normally I accept speaking engagements quite some time ahead of schedule, but in periods of serious illness I have been forced to cancel some engagements. I have hated to cancel them, but the Lord has brought this passage of Scripture to my mind: “Come now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and hold a Bible conference. We will have a wonderful time there, and we believe it is the Lord’s will.” That is not exactly what James said, but that is how the Lord has said it to me.
Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away [James 4:14].
James says that we do not know what tomorrow holds. “For what is your life?” He says it is just a vapor, a fog. “It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” We have a lot of fog here on the West Coast. You can be driving along the coast on a marvelous day when the ocean is as blue as indigo and the sky almost as blue as the ocean, but if you stop at a motel for the night, you may find in the morning that everything is shrouded by fog. Life is like a mist on a mountainside—uncertain, transient, and temporary.
Human life lived apart from and without God is the most colossal failure in God’s universe. Everything else serves a long and useful purpose. The sun in the sky is prodigal of its energy—we use very little of it. The moon also serves a purpose; many of you fellows got married because of that moon up there. It is the poet who said, “Only man is vile.” Human life apart from God is out of joint, dislocated, a colossal failure. One of the reasons is the brevity of this life. We are allotted only three score and ten years; if we get any more, they are filled with aches and pains. Oh, the brevity of human life! Many of us never learn to really live down here upon this earth.
For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that [James 4:15].
Our lives are in the hand of God.
But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil [James 4:16].
Man cannot boast; if he does, it is sin.
Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin [James 4:17].
There are a great many people today who are sinning and don’t know it. If you know to do good in certain cases—if you know that you should do a certain thing or help a certain cause—and you do not do it, that is sin.
Our lives are brief, and we should not spend our time in strife and envy and jealousy. It spoils a life. We need to come to Christ, put our lives down before Him, and really start living. He has said, “… I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). He wants to give you a life that is a life indeed. Are you living that life today?
CHAPTER 5
Theme: Riches are a care; the coming of Christ is a comfort; the prayer of the righteous is a power
RICHES ARE A CARE
We have come to a remarkable section of the Epistle of James which may seem out of place in this epistle. A cursory reading of these first six verses might give the impression that James is teaching a socialistic doctrine of “soak the rich” or “let’s divide the wealth.” But on the contrary, a careful reading of these verses reveals that James is not teaching any such thing. He was instructing believers as to their attitude and action in a world that was going to the bowwows, a world filled with injustice, where freedom was only a dream. The Roman world of James’ day was not like the modern world in which we live. The life-styles were entirely different. There was no middle class in the days of James. There were the very rich, the filthy rich, and the very poor, the filthy poor. The majority of the Christians of that day came from the very poor and slave classes. They had no great cathedrals on boulevards, and they were not building kingdoms as are many of these great churches which are spending millions of dollars these days. The early church just wasn’t that kind of church.
As we approach this passage of Scripture, we should understand that James is not condemning riches. Riches in themselves are not immoral; they are not moral, either. They are just unmoral or amoral. The Bible actually does not condemn money. A great many people have the viewpoint that there is something dirty about money; they call it “filthy lucre.” Scripture doesn’t say that. What Scripture does say is that “… the love of money is the root of all evil …” (1 Tim. 6:10). The problem is not in the coin; the problem is in the hearts of men and women. It is the love of money that is the root of all evil. James was not condemning people just because they were rich but because of their wrong relationship to their riches. He was concerned with how they got their money and what they were doing with it after they got it.
The Lord Jesus Christ had a great deal to say about money and about riches. He gave three parables which I think will help us to understand what James is saying. In Luke 16:19–31 we have the story (which I think is a true story) of the poor man, Lazarus the beggar, and the rich man. This parable has to do with the way the rich man spent his money. He was really living it up. It is interesting that this beggar, Lazarus, was placed at his gate. Who put him there? I don’t know, but in some way the rich man was responsible for him. And the rich man let the beggar have the crumbs from his table. May I say to you, I would wager that the rich man deducted those crumbs from his income tax! Nevertheless, we are told that the dogs licked the beggar’s sores while the rich man “fared sumptuously.” It was the way this man became rich that in some way made him responsible for the beggar’s condition. Someone will ask, “What makes you think that?” Well, where did the two men go after death? Lazarus went to Abraham’s Bosom, and the rich man went to hell. That shows us how God judged the lives of these two men, my friend.
In Luke 12 the Lord Jesus gave a second parable about a rich man. This man is the one who built bigger barns—at least he had plans to build them. However, he never did build the barns because he died. The Lord Jesus Christ never condemned that man for being rich; when He stated it, He just stated it as a fact. To all outward appearances, this man was a good man and an honest citizen. But he hoarded his money. He wanted to live it up in his old age, and he gave no thought to eternity. The Lord Jesus called him a fool. Actually, he was more than covetous; he was selfish. He was hoarding his money for himself, and that, may I say, is a form of idolatry. We are told in the Word of God that covetousness is idolatry; it is the worship of things. But selfishness is when you worship yourself. There is a lot of that going on today; in fact, it is even being taught as a Christian virtue. We are told that we are to have great respect for ourselves and great confidence in ourselves. But the Lord Jesus said, “… without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5).
There is a third parable concerning riches which the Lord Jesus gave. It is the parable of the unjust steward by which we are taught the wise use of money by Christians. God holds man responsible not only for how he makes his money but also for how he spends it.
There is another question we should consider before we examine the text. Are the rich whom James is condemning here Christians or non-Christians? Are they the godly rich or the godless rich? There is some controversy and difference of opinion among commentators on this question. I personally believe that they are the godless rich, and in that I follow the opinion of one whom I respect a great deal, John Calvin. Thomas Manton writes that it was Calvin’s judgment that “these six verses are not so much an admonition as a denunciation, wherein the apostle doth not so much direct them what to do, as foretell what should be done to them, that the godly might be encouraged to the more patience under their oppressions; for that the apostle inferreth plainly.”
Why does James turn from talking to the godly and begin talking to the ungodly? The fact of the matter is that he doesn’t change. He is still speaking to the godly. How can that be, when he is so obviously speaking to the rich? As he speaks to the ungodly, he is at the same time telling the godly that they live in a godless world, where the godless rich will impose certain hardships upon them and take advantage of them and where they will be at the mercy of these wicked, rich men. The Lord Jesus Christ had already made a general reference to this when He said, “… In the world ye shall have tribulation [trouble]: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
The godly are to be patient in these circumstances, knowing that God will deal with the godless rich in eternity if not here. This is made very clear in verse 6 of this chapter: “Ye have condemned and killed the just”—God condemns these actions of the rich; “and he doth not resist you”—but God permits them, so it seems, to get by with it. However, He will judge them in the end. May I make this rather startling statement. I would rather go to hell a poor man than a rich man. But I thank God that I am not going there, and that is because Christ died for me and I have accepted His gift of eternal life.
David was troubled by the prosperity of the wicked; it bothered him no end. In Psalm 37:35–36 we read, “I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.” Earlier in this psalm, David gives the same advice that James gives: “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not thy self because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass” (Ps. 37:7). That is a tremendous statement, and he is speaking of the godless rich. David was troubled by this until he went into the temple and saw that, in time, God would deal with these people.
Let us come now to the text—
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you [James 5:1].
Is James speaking to the godless rich of his day or of some future day? He is giving a warning to the rich in his day, and it has an application for any day and certainly for our day. James wrote this epistle, we believe, somewhere between ad. 45 and 50. Many others now give the date as a.d. 60. Regardless of the date, the destruction of Jerusalem was in the near future, for in a.d. 70 Titus the Roman came and destroyed Jerusalem as it had never been destroyed before. He plowed it under. He hated Christians and he hated Jews, and they both were in that city. Believe me, when he got through, there were no rich Jews left. They had either been killed or had been put in slavery, and all the riches had been destroyed or lost or confiscated. James can make these strong statements in view of what was coming, for the Lord Jesus had predicted this before He ascended back to heaven. He told His disciples, “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh” (Luke 21:20). That was fulfilled in a.d. 70.
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten [James 5:2].
In light of the coming of Christ, they are warned that all the riches of the world will come to naught. This obviously would not impress a godless rich person in that day any more than it would today; however, the rich man knew that the future was uncertain for him, just as many realize that today. There is always a danger of a panic, a crash, a drought, or a depression. That has been the order of the day since men started to mint money.
There will always be good years, and there will always be bad years. Some of us can remember the depression of the early 1930s when millionaires by the score leaped out of the windows of skyscrapers, and many rich found that they became paupers overnight. Some former millionaires sold apples at street corners, and gilt-edged stocks and bonds in safety deposit boxes were not worth the paper they were written on.
Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days [James 5:3].
James says, “Do you know how your silver and gold are going to rust? It is because you are going to decay.” This is the judgment that comes upon the godless rich like the men in two of the parables which Christ gave. Death came to both of them, and death certainly separates a rich man from his money. It is said that when one of the Vanderbilts was dying, the family was waiting in an outer room. When the lawyer and the doctor came out, one of the more outspoken members of the family stepped up to the lawyer and asked, “How much did he leave?” The lawyer replied, “He left it all. He didn’t take any of it with him.” May I say to you, that is the way that it rusts, my friend. A gentleman was being shown through the magnificent grounds of a rich nobleman’s estate, and he said to the owner, “Well, my lord, all this and heaven would be noble; but this and hell would be terrible.”
James is condemning the godless rich for hoarding their money. Gold and silver do rust. It’s boom today and bust tomorrow. When a man makes a million, he is not satisfied with that. He wants to make two million. It’s like drinking sea water—the more you drink, the thirstier you get. The rich keep on making millions, but it doesn’t make them any happier.
We had here in America two men who were billionaires whose lives are an example of the futility of riches. Both of them were remarkable men who built great financial empires. Howard Hughes was one of them, but in his last days, from all we can learn, he was a recluse and a sick man. He could not have been happy in those years. All that money just didn’t seem to do him very much good. The other man, J. Paul Getty, was reported in the press to have made this statement: “I’d give all my wealth for just one happy marriage.” How tragic!
God gave wealth not to be hoarded but to be dispensed. The rich man in Christ’s parable planned to build bigger barns in which to store his goods and his fruits. But you can eat only so much; you can drink only so much, and you can wear only one suit at a time. After the first million dollars, when you start gathering more millions, they are just like a pile of rocks. You cannot eat them; there is nothing you can do with them. That is the reason our Lord called that man a fool. Instead of filling his own barn, he should have gone and filled someone else’s barn.
I know a Christian farmer who lives in the fruit belt of California. He told me that the organization of farmers to which he belonged asked him to dump some of his fruit crop in order to keep the prices up. He said that tons of fruit had been destroyed. There were a lot of folk who could have used and enjoyed that fruit. James says that wealth is to be dispensed and not hoarded.
Let me pass on to you two little stories which have come my way. A certain young person very impatiently said, “I’m living now, and I mean to have a good time. The hereafter isn’t here yet!” A very wise companion replied, “No—only the first part of it; but I shouldn’t wonder if the ‘here’ had a good deal to do with shaping the ‘after.’”
There was an irreligious farmer who gloried in the fact that he was an agnostic. He wrote a letter to a local newspaper, saying, “Sir, I have been trying an experiment with a field of mine. I plowed it on Sunday. I planted it on Sunday. I cultivated it on Sunday. I reaped it on Sunday. I hauled it into my barn on Sunday. And now, Mr. Editor, what is the result? I have more bushels to the acre in that field than any of my neighbors have had this October.” The editor wasn’t a religious man himself, but he published the letter and then wrote below it: “God does not always settle His accounts in October.” God has eternity ahead of Him, my friend.
Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth [James 5:4].
James condemns the godless rich not only for hoarding money but for making it in a dishonest way. They have robbed the poor to get rich. In the parable, the rich man let fall some crumbs for the beggar. What a message is in that! That beggar had been placed at the rich man’s gate because the rich man was responsible for him.
In Proverbs 22:7 it says, “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” God condemns the godless man who makes his money in a dishonest way, especially when it is by putting down the children of God. God may do nothing now, but He is going to judge in the future. If men are making their riches by stepping on the hands of those beneath them, then God will judge that. This should serve as a word of warning to the rich man, to great corporations and labor unions, and also to great church organizations. God will judge the way men make their money and the way they spend it.
Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter [James 5:5].
The rich were spending their money in a sinful manner. The miser says, “Dollars are flat to stack them,” but the spendthrift says, “They are round to roll them.” Either way, God says that you are wrong, my friend.
Again, let me quote a proverb: “The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit” (Prov. 18:11). Then in Proverbs 28:11 we read, “The rich man is wise in his own conceit; but the poor that hath understanding searcheth him out.” This is the picture of the two godless rich men whom the Lord Jesus told about; both wanted to live it up. One wanted to store it up now and then live it up in his old age. The other rich man was living it up at the time while the beggar lay outside his gate. If you have decided to live for this life only, be sure to live it up, but God says you are a fool, my friend.
Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you [James 5:6].
“Ye have condemned and killed the just.” When we look about us at our own government and the other governments of the world, it would seem that there is a power structure which manipulates government and which manipulates the economy. We hear a great deal about the freedom of the press, but that freedom is a freedom to brainwash people to their way of thinking. Although we are supposed to have freedom of speech and of religion, on the most powerful radio stations in any city in this country, you cannot buy time on weekdays for the teaching of the Word of God. That is true no matter how much money you might have to pay for it.
“And he doth not resist you.” The rich seem to be getting by with it today, and the sinner is getting by with it. That disturbed David at first. He said, “They spread themselves like a green bay tree and do not cease from flourishing.” If I do something wrong, I get punished for it. God takes me to the woodshed, but the king of Babylon just keeps on going and nothing stops him. Actually, that is God’s judgment on the wicked. He is not judging them now, but the end to which they come is very terrible. Riches have never brought happiness to mankind at all.
There is a lesson here for the rich man who is a Christian. How big is your bank account? If Jesus should come right now, would you be willing to let Him look into your safety deposit box? He is going to do that someday. How are you making use of your riches?
Proverbs 30:8 says, “… give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.” I am thankful that I am neither rich nor poor, because if I were rich, I would forget God, and if I were poor, I might steal. I thank God that I can go down the middle of the road today in the middle class.
THE COMING OF CHRIST IS A COMFORT
James had made it very clear what kind of world we live in. It’s a big, bad world with a dog-eat-dog philosophy. Those who are climbing up the ladder of riches are stepping on the fingers of others as they go up. Should Christians join some organization and go all out for good government? Certainly we ought to be interested in trying to elect the best men. However, we cannot change this world, my friend. What, then, can we do? Listen to God; He is speaking now to His own children—
Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain [James 5:7].
The Word of God has a great deal to say about the fact that when Christ comes and sets up His kingdom, the poor are going to get a good deal, a right and honest deal, for the first time in the history of the world. This is something that all of the prophets mentioned and which they emphasized. In Isaiah 11:4 we read, “But with righteousness shall he judge the poor.…” Believe me, the poor have not had a good deal yet. If you think that by changing a political party you will somehow get a good deal for the poor, you are wrong. I don’t mean to be a pessimist, my friend, but you simply cannot look to mankind, to men who are grasping for power and money, and expect them to act righteously. It does not matter what they promise, they are not going to take care of the poor. Our only hope is in Jesus Christ. If there is any group of people who ought to be interested in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is the poor people of this world, because He is going to give them the right kind of deal when He establishes His kingdom here upon earth.
“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” This is a tremendous statement. The coming of Christ will correct the wrongs of the world. We can read this again and again in Scripture. Not only do the prophets mention it, but Christ Himself made it clear in the Sermon on the Mount (which will be the law of His kingdom) that He intends to give the poor a square deal under His reign (see Matt. 6:19–24).
“Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.” In other words, when the farmer plants his grain, he doesn’t go out the next morning to see if it is time to harvest it. James says, “Be patient. The harvest is coming.”
We often hear it said that Christians are harvesting when they go out in evangelism to give out the Word of God. I disagree with that. The Lord Jesus was at the end of an age when He said to His disciples (He was sending them out to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, not worldwide), “… The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few …” (Luke 10:2). They were at the end of the age of law. Every age has ended in judgment; the present age will end in a judgment from God. That will be the harvest. In Matthew 13 the Lord Jesus said that He will send His angels to do the gathering in for the harvest. Believers do not harvest. He is the one who separates the wheat from the tares. Therefore, what are we doing when we give out the Word of God? The Lord Jesus is also a sower, and today He is sowing seed. I consider that to be my business. I teach the Word of God, and there is nothing in the world I can do but simply give it out. I’m just sowing seed. Some falls on good ground. Maybe not too much of it, but some falls on good ground. Hallelujah for that! Our business is growing seed.
Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh [James 5:8].
All the way through Scripture we are taught that we should live in the light of the coming of Christ.
Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door [James 5:9].
It would be very embarrassing if the Lord should come while you are sitting in judgment on someone else. You would suddenly find yourself in His presence with Him judging you. What James is really saying here is, “Set your house in order. Get your affairs straightened out before He comes, because He is going to straighten them out if you don’t.” This is very important for believers to realize.
Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience [James 5:10].
The prophets are an example to us. They suffered, and they were patient.
Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy [James 5:11].
“Ye have heard of the patience of Job.” That is about all I know about Job’s patience—I’ve heard of it. As I read the Book of Job, I feel Job was very impatient. Actually, he learned patience. He was an impatient man, but he learned patience.
“And have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” In other words, the Lord is full of pity or compassion and is merciful. You have to go to the end of Job’s trial to see that he learned a great lesson and that the Lord was indeed compassionate and generous with him.
But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation [James 5:12].
In other words, my friend, when you say you are going to promise something, it ought to be as if you were in a courtroom and had taken an oath to tell the truth. All your conversation ought to be like that. I can remember when my dad went to the bank one year to borrow money to get his cotton gin started. The banker was busy and said to my dad, “Go ahead and take the money.” My dad said, “But I haven’t signed the note.” I never shall forget what the banker said, “If you say you will repay it, that is just as good as if you have signed a note. So come in later and sign up.” May I say to you, a man’s word ought to be just that good. Some people, even if they take an oath on a stack of Bibles, do not honor their word.
THE PRAYER OF THE RIGHTEOUS IS A POWER
Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms [James 5:13].
James says that the afflicted are to pray and the merry are to sing psalms. Sometimes a song leader will get up in a service and say, “Now everybody sit up and smile.” I used to have a song leader like that in a church I pastored years ago. I told him, “Don’t you know that in this congregation there are people who are really burdened? As I look out there, I see one man who is a doctor and who has been busy all week taking care of patients. I also see a lady who is a buyer in a department store. She is weary and tired. And you ask them to sit up smile!” No, you don’t have to sit up and smile. The afflicted are to pray. The merry are to sing psalms. Some people go to church and then try to work up some enthusiasm. We ought to have the great passion and enthusiasm in our hearts even before we go to church, but we do not need to put on a false front.
Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord [James 5:14].
A few years ago there was a tragic incident which occurred in a little town near Los Angeles where a man threw away the insulin that his little son was supposed to take because he said God was going to heal his son. The little fellow died, and then the man, who must be very fanatic, said, “The Lord is going to raise him up from the dead because he has been anointed.” The leaders of the denomination to which the man belonged said that he had never been taught anything like that. I believe that is true because I have had the privilege of meeting on several occasions with the man who taught theology in one of the outstanding Pentecostal schools. He said this to me, “Dr.Mcgee, I want you to know that I agree with you that not everyone can be healed. It must be the will of God in order for someone to healed.” That is my position, and I agree with what he said.
If you say that it is God’s will for every Christian who gets sick to be healed, you must agree that the logical conclusion of that line of thinking is that the Christian will never die. He will be healed of every disease which causes death. May I say, that is ridiculous. I have been healed of cancer, but I expect to die, if the Lord does not come in the meantime. It is a cruel hoax perpetrated upon simple believers that it is God’s will for all to be healed.
James is not actually asking a question here. He is saying, “Someone is sick among you.” What are you to do? “Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him”—that’s the first thing. The second thing is—“anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.”
There are two Greek words which are translated “anoint” in the New Testament. One of them is used in a religious sense; that word is chrioµin the Greek. From that we get the word Christos; Christ was the Anointed One. It means to anoint with some scented unguent or oil. It is used only five times in the New Testament, and it refers to the anointing of Christ by God the Father with the Holy Spirit.
The second word translated “anoint” is aleiphoµ. It is used a number of times in the New Testament. In Matthew 6:17 we read, “But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face.” That simply means to put oil on your hair so that you will look all right. Trench comments that aleiphoµ is “the mundane and profane word.” The other, chrioµ, is “the sacred and religious word.” The word used in this verse in James is aleiphoµ, and all it means is to rub with oil. You remember that when Hezekiah was sick, they put something medicinal on that boil he had. James is saying something very practical here. He says, “Call for the elders to pray, and go to the best doctor you can get.” You are to use medicine, my friend. It is a mistaken idea to say that this refers to some religious ceremony of putting a little oil from a bottle on someone’s head, as if that would have some healing merit in it. It has no merit whatsoever. James is too practical for that.
James is also a man of prayer. He says, “Call for the elders to pray” This is the reason that when I get sick I ask others to pray. I believe in the priesthood of believers. James makes this very clear in the following verses—
And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall he forgiven him.
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may he healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much [James 5:15–16].
“And the prayer of faith shall save the sick.” I believe you are to call on God’s people to pray for you when you are sick.
“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.” We are to confess our sins to God but our faults one to another. If I have injured you, then I ought to confess that to you. But I will not confess my sins to you, and I do not want you confessing your sins to me. You are to confess that to the Lord. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). I cannot forgive sins; neither can any clergyman forgive sins—only God can do that.
“The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” James was a great man of prayer. He was called “Old Camel Knees” because, having spent so much time on his knees in prayer, his knees were calloused. He speaks now of another great man of prayer, Elijah (Elias is the Greek form of Elijah)—
Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit [James 5:17–18].
Can you imagine that? Elijah was a weatherman for three and a half years, and for three and a half years he held back the rain! It did not come until he prayed. You are the same kind of person Elijah was. Elijah wasn’t a superman; he was “a man subject to like passions as we are.” But he was a man who prayed with passion, and that is the kind of praying we need today.
Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;
Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins [James 5:19–20].
“Converteth the sinner from the error of his way.” Some expositors believe that this refers to a child of God who has gone astray. However, I believe it refers to an unsaved person who has not yet come to the truth.
“Shall hide a multitude of sins.” When he comes to a saving knowledge of Christ, his sins—though they be multitudinous—will be covered by the blood of Christ. The wonder of justification by faith is that once God has pardoned our sins, they are gone forever—removed from us as far as the east is from the west.
This is a wonderful conclusion for this very practical Epistle of James.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Recommended for Further Study)
Adamson, James. The Epistle of James. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1976. (For advanced students.)
Brown, Charles. The Epistle of James. London: The Religious Tract Society, 1907. (Devotional.)
Criswell, W. A. Expository Sermons on the Epistle of James. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1975.
Gaebelein, Frank E. The Practical Epistle of James. Great Neck, New York: Doniger & Raughley, 1955.
Gwinn, Ralph A. The Epistle of James. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1967. (Shield Bible Study Series.)
Hiebert, D. Edmond. The Epistle of James. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1979. (Highly recommended.)
Ironside, H. A. Notes on James and Peter Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, n.d.
Johnstone, Robert. Lectures on the Epistle of James. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1871. (Comprehensive.)
Kelly, William. The Epistle of James. London: G. Morrish, n.d.
King, Guy H. A Belief That Behaves. Fort Washington, Pennsylvania: Christian Literature Crusade, 1945. (Excellent.)
Knowling, R. J. The Epistle of St. James. London: Methusen, 1904.
Luck, G. Coleman. James, Faith in Action. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1954. (A fine, inexpensive survey.)
Neibor, J. Practical Exposition of James. Erie, Pennsylvania: Our Daily Walk Publishers, 1950.
Plummer, Alfred. The General Epistles of St. James and St. Jude. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., n.d. (Expositor’s Bible.)
Robertson, A. T. Studies in the Epistle of James. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1915. (Excellent.)
Strauss, Lehman. James, Your Brother. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, 1956. (Very practical.)
Tasker, R. V. G. The General Epistle of James. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1957. (Tyndale Commentary series.)
Vaughan, Curtis. James, A Study Guide. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1969.
Zodhiates, Spiro. The Behavior of Belief. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970. (Comprehensive.)
The First Epistle of
Peter
INTRODUCTION
Simon Peter—“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers” (1 Pet. 1:1).
Peter has been called the ignorant fisherman, but no man who had spent three years in the school of Jesus could be called ignorant. The Epistles of Peter confirm this. Peter deals with doctrine and handles weighty subjects. In the first few verses he deals with the great doctrines of election, foreknowledge, sanctification, obedience, the blood of Christ, the Trinity, the grace of God, salvation, revelation, glory, faith, and hope. My friend, you just couldn’t have any more doctrine crowded into a few verses! The way in which he handles these great themes of the Bible reveals that he was by no means an ignorant fisherman.
A great change is seen in the life of Peter from these epistles. He had been impetuous, but now he is patient. He was bungling, fumbling, and stumbling when he first met Jesus. Our Lord told him in effect, “You are a pretty weak man now, but I am going to make you a Petros, a rock-man. And you will be built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ who is the Rock.” Peter made it very clear that the Lord Jesus is the Rock on which the church is built. It is very interesting that although his name means “rock,” he says that all believers are little rocks also: “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house” (1 Pet. 2:5). In other words, he is saying that every believer is a Peter. Simon Peter never takes an exalted position, as we shall see in his epistles. As he opens his epistle, he calls himself an apostle—he is just one of them. Although whenever the names of the apostles were enumerated, his was always first on the list, and although the Lord chose him to preach the first sermon on the Day of Pentecost, he did not feel that he was exalted above the others.
Peter wrote his epistles after Paul had written his epistles, somewhere between a.d. 64 and 67, after bloody Nero had come to the throne and persecution was already breaking out. According to tradition, Peter himself suffered martyrdom.
“The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son” (1 Pet. 5:13). There are those who think that Babylon is used here in a symbolic manner or in a metaphorical sense and that Peter really meant Rome. However, there is no reason for him to use it in a metaphorical sense. Peter was an apostle who did not write in a symbolic manner such as we find used by John in the Book of Revelation. Peter writes very literally and practically. He gets down to where the rubber meets the road, right down on the asphalt of life. I believe that if he had meant Rome, he would have said Rome.
My own opinion is that Simon Peter never did go to Rome. I think he was in Asia Minor, the great heart of the Roman Empire, but he was not the apostle who opened up that territory. I think he followed Paul. Paul would not have gone to Rome if Peter had already been in Rome preaching the gospel there, because Paul made it very clear that he went into places where the gospel had not been preached before. Since Rome was on Paul’s itinerary, it seems obvious that Paul, not Peter, founded the church at Rome.
Another very valid argument to indicate that Peter was in Babylon rather than Rome is based on the list of places which he addresses: “To the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1 Pet. 1:1). All those places are in Asia Minor (the area which is called Turkey today). In listing them, he moves from east to west. This suggests that the writer was in the east at the time of writing. The natural and ordinary way to list geographical places is beginning from the point where you are. When I am in California and talk about going east, I would say that I am going through Arizona, Texas, and finally New York. It is normal to begin where I am and to name the places in sequence. Since Peter lists the places from east to west, it would seem logical that he was in literal Babylon.
After the Babylonian captivity, only a very small group of Jews returned to their land—actually there were fewer than sixty thousand. There was still a great colony of Jews in Babylon. Additional Jews had fled to Babylon when severe persecution began under Claudius in Rome. We know, for example, that Priscilla and Aquila fled to Corinth from Rome. Many others fled to Babylon. There was persecution both of Christians and of Jews. Since we know that the ministry of Peter was primarily to the Jews it seems most logical that he ministered to Jewish colonies in Asia Minor, and particularly in Babylon. Babylon was still a great city there on the Euphrates River, and many of the Jews had remained there after the end of the Captivity.
In spite of the fact that Papias mentions the death of Peter as occurring in Rome, there is no substantial historical basis for this supposition. I see no reason to discount the fact that Simon Peter was the apostle to those of the nation of Israel who were scattered abroad. I believe Peter went east while the apostle Paul went west.
The great theme of this epistle of Peter is Christian hope in the time of trial. Although Peter deals with great doctrines and handles weighty subjects, he doesn’t write in a cold manner. Peter has been called the apostle of hope while Paul has been called the apostle of faith and John has been called the apostle of love. This epistle puts a great emphasis upon hope, but I believe that the word which conveys the theme of this epistle is suffering. Peter also emphasizes the grace of God, and some expositors feel it is his main emphasis. However, the word suffering or some cognate words that go with it occur in this epistle sixteen times. Hope is always tied with the suffering. Therefore, I think it is fair to say that the theme is the Christian hope in the time of trial.
Peter will have a great deal to say about the suffering of Christ. The suffering of Christ has been dealt with by the writer of the Hebrew epistle and by James in his epistle. Also the prophets certainly mentioned it. However, Peter will handle the subject a little differently.
Peter speaks out of a rich experience. Dr. Robert Leighton, in his book, A Practical Commentary on First Peter, makes a very timely comment that applies to Simon Peter. Let me share this with you because it is worth noting:
… it is a cold and lifeless thing to speak of spiritual things on mere report; but when men can speak of them as their own—as having share and interest in them, and some experience of their sweetness—their discourse of them is enlivened with firm belief and ardent affection; they cannot mention them, but straight their hearts are taken with such gladness as they are forced to vent in praises.
For this reason, Simon Peter, while writing of suffering, emphasizes joy!
This leads me to say something very important regarding young preachers. In this day we have about us some very wonderful young expositors of the Word. I thank God for them. However, as I have listened to two or three of them, I feel very much as Dr. G. Campbell Morgan felt in his day. He and his wife went to hear a young preacher in whom they were particularly interested. He was eloquent, fine-looking, and he delivered a great sermon. Afterward, on the way home, Mrs. Morgan was profuse in her praise and was surprised that Dr. Morgan made no response. Finally she asked, “Don’t you think he is a great preacher?” He answered, “He will be after he suffers.” Well, time went by, and this young man found out by experience what it cost to stand for Christ. He went through persecution; he experienced problems in his church; and one day he stood at an open grave as he buried one of his little children. Dr. Morgan and his wife went to hear him again because they loved this young man. After the service Mrs. Morgan asked, “Well, what do you think of him now?” Dr. Morgan answered, “He is a great preacher.” You see, suffering had made the difference.
This has been my personal experience also. As a young preacher, I spoke a great deal about standing for the Lord and about suffering. I used to go to hospitals and pat people on the hand and pray with them. I would tell them that the Lord would be with them. At that time I was a professional preacher, saying what I did not know to be true from my own experience, although I believed it. But the day came when I went into the hospital myself. Another preacher came in and prayed with me. When he started to go, I said to him, “I’ve done the same thing you have done. I’ve been here, and I have told people that God would be with them. Now you are going to walk out of here, but I am staying, and I will find out if it is a theory or if what I have been telling people is true.” Friend, I found out it is true. Now it is no longer a mere theory. I know it by the fact that the Word of God says it and by the fact that I have experienced it. I don’t argue with people about these things any more because there are certain things I know. I would never argue with you about whether honey is sweet or not. If you don’t think it is sweet, that is your business. I had some this morning for breakfast, and I know it is sweet. That is the knowledge that comes from experience.
Simon Peter is not going to give us his theory of suffering. Simon Peter is going to speak to us out of his own tremendous experience, and it will become very wonderful to us as it becomes your experience and my experience.
OUTLINE
I. Suffering and the Security of Believers, Chapter 1:1–9 Produces Joy
II. Suffering and the Scriptures, Chapter 1:10–25 Produces Holiness
III. Suffering and the Suffering of Christ, Chapters 2–4
A. Produces Separation, Chapter 2
B. Produces Christian Conduct, Chapter 3
1. Conduct in the Home, Chapter 3:1–7
2. Conduct in the Church, Chapter 3:8–17
3. Christ’s Suffering Preached by the Spirit in Noah’s Day, Chapter 3:18–22
C. Produces Obedience to the Will of God, Chapter 4
IV. Suffering and the Second Coming of Christ, Chapter 5
A. Produces Service and Hope, Chapter 5:1–4
B. Produces Humility and Patience, Chapter 5:5–14
CHAPTER 1
Theme: Suffering and security produce joy; suffering and the Scriptures produce holiness
SUFFERING AND THE SECURITY OF BELIEVERS
A great many folk have never had the feeling of assurance in their salvation. The security of the believer is a doctrine which I believed, although it took me a long time to come to the place of assurance in my own salvation. And there are many folk who do not have the assurance of their salvation. Why? Because suffering and the security of the believer go together. And do you know what this produces? It produces joy! Can you imagine that?
Now this first verse is just loaded with meaning.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia [1 Pet. 1:1].
First of all, note his name: Peter, Petros, a stone. He is now the rock-man. The Day of Pentecost is behind him, and he knows what it is to take a stand for Christ. He has been arrested and put in jail. He has been threatened, and he realizes that there is crucifixion on a cross ahead of him. Peter is a man who knows what he is talking about.
My friend, I must confess that I am not impressed by professors in theological seminaries, with little if any experience as pastors, who get up and spin off some little theory to prepare young men for the ministry. They don’t really know the problems of a pastorate because they haven’t had the experience. They don’t know what it is really to suffer for Christ. After hearing them, I feel like turning back to Peter’s first letter and reading it again, because I believe Peter—he knew what he was talking about. I’m sorry, but I don’t trust these young professors. I want to hear from the man who has gone through the experiences.
“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.” Peter is an apostle of Jesus Christ—that is all he claimed to be. Although he always heads my fist of apostles—I love him—he is not to be placed above the other apostles. When Paul went to Jerusalem to confer with the apostles, he talked with Peter, James, and John. He said that they seemed to be pillars of the church, but he did not learn the gospel from them. Paul makes it very clear that he received the gospel directly from Jesus Christ by revelation. Nowhere does Peter claim superiority. He was an apostle—that’s all.
“To the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” He is writing to the strangers, or aliens, who were scattered throughout the Roman Empire. They were Jews, called the Diaspora because they were no longer in the land of Palestine. Due to persecution and other reasons, they had settled throughout the empire. If you will check a map, you will find these places are all in Asia Minor, the area we know as Turkey today. You may recall that Paul on his second missionary journey tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of God would not allow him to go there. It is my conviction that Simon Peter had already preached the gospel there and that the Holy Spirit wanted Paul to go to people who had not heard the gospel. Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles, and Simon Peter was the apostle to Israelites who had turned to Christ.
Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied [1 Pet. 1:2].
The apostle Peter immediately plunges us into deep doctrinal waters. For instance, he presents the doctrine of the Trinity: the foreknowledge of God the Father, sanctification of the Spirit, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. My friend, don’t let anyone tell you that the Bible does not teach the Trinity—the Bible is full of it! We certainly cannot consider Peter to be an ignorant fisherman, by the way, because he is talking about things that most of us do not know much about.
Theologians try to help us understand the tremendous doctrines of election and foreknowledge. For example, here is a statement from Lewis Sperry Chafer’s Systematic Theology:
Having recognized the sovereign right of God over His creation and having assigned to Him a rational purpose in all His plan, the truth contained in the doctrine of election follows in natural sequence as the necessary function of one who is divine (Vol. VII).
We must recognize that our God is a sovereign God and that this little universe is His. He created it. I don’t know why He created it as He did, but since He is absolutely omniscient (knowing everything), and since He is omnipotent (having all power), and since He is sovereign, I conclude that He can do anything He wants to do that is consistent with His character.
He has a right to plan for the future. Apparently He did some planning. We call those plans the decrees that God had in His mind in the very beginning. That is to say, He had a plan that He was going to follow. He decreed to create the universe, and He did it. He never asked you or me about it. In fact, He has never asked me whether I wanted to be in existence. He could have left me out altogether. And He could have left you out, but He didn’t! Thank God, He thought of you and me.
Also there was the decree to permit the fall of man. This, I think, took a great deal of planning on God’s part, knowing that when He created the free moral agent called man, he would fall when given a free choice. Mankind chose to disobey God, but God had made arrangements for it. He had the decree to elect some to salvation, and He had the decree that He would send a Savior into the world. He certainly did that. He made a decree that He would save those who came to Him, the elect. You can call them anything you wish, but the people who turned to Christ for salvation are the elect. You may say, “Well, He didn’t choose everybody.” I don’t find that in Scripture. The Lord Jesus said, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). His invitation to “whosoever will” is, “Come unto me” (see Matt. 11:28). It is a legitimate invitation to everyone, but there must be a response, and the response is your responsibility and my responsibility.
Peter really gets us into deep water when he says, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God.” You see, God is moving according to His plan. There must have been an infinite number of plans before Him, but He chose this one. Why? Because He knew it was the best possible plan, and little man is in no position to challenge His choice. He is the Creator and we are only creatures. You and I didn’t even determine the time we would be born, or the family into which we would come, or our height, or the color of our eyes, or our IQ. Whatever we are today is by the grace of God. He is the one who determined all of those things for us. They are all a part of His great plan.
I don’t know why we find fault with God for having a plan. Perhaps some folk imagine that He is up to some dirty tricks—but He is not. Oh, my friend, God is good and gracious and long-suffering. He wants to save us, and He wants us to have happy lives. God is the one we can trust. How strange it is that some folk object to God’s having a plan when they are perfectly happy to have men follow a plan.
For example, when my wife and I were to leave London, we boarded a plane that would bring us home to Los Angeles. When we were airborne, the captain talked to us on the intercom. I was happy to note that his voice sounded mature and that he spoke with assurance. I was sure he had flown that plane before. He outlined our flight plan, “We are going to fly over Scotland and over northern Ireland, and then we will cross the Atlantic. We will be going over Iceland, but we won’t be able to see it because there are clouds over it. When we get to Greenland, I hope you will be able to see it. We may hit a little choppy weather there, but it’s not bad. The cloud cover that is there now is breaking up. We will cross Hudson Bay and Labrador and will fly across those ice fields there. It looks like a very pleasant flight and a very smooth trip.” You talk about foreknowledge and election! That whole trip was decided for us. And no one ran up to the cabin to protest, “You have no right to plan our trip!” We were delighted that he was following a plan.
My friend, I am sure glad that the God of this universe has a plan and that He knows what He is doing and where He is going and that He is doing the very best for us. I say hallelujah for election which is according to the foreknowledge of God. God is able to carry out His plan exactly because He knows everything. The pilot of the plane had gotten word about weather conditions, and his flight was plotted for him to follow—but it could have been upset. Not so with God’s plan. Our God knows everything. He knows every condition; He knows everything that is foreseeable and unforeseeable. So you and I can trust Him implicitly. When Peter says, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God,” he is telling us what God the Father did.
Now he tells us about the work of the Holy Spirit: “through sanctification of the Spirit.”
Let me remind you that when the word sanctification is identified with Christ, it means that He is our sanctification; we will never be any better, as far as our position is concerned, than we are at this moment because we are complete in Him, and we are accepted in the beloved. We cannot add to that; it is our position in Christ.
However, when the word sanctification is identified with the Holy Spirit, it means something else. When Peter says, “Through sanctification of the Spirit,” he is talking about the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the world who not only converts us—is responsible for our New Birth—but He also begins to work in our lives to bring us up to the place of maturation where we become full, mature Christians. Unfortunately, there are many Christians who have been saved for fifty years or more and yet will be going into heaven as babes in Christ. They haven’t matured at all. It will be embarrassing to go into the presence of God as still a burping baby! The work of the Holy Spirit is to sanctify us down here on this earth. How I wish there were more emphasis on that!
There are abroad in our land, at the time of this writing, at least twenty-five organizations or ministries which have become expert in telling you how to become an adequate Christian, a fulfilled Christian, and how you can be comfortable as a Christian. My friend, I hope you never get to the place where you do not feel your inadequacy and your dependence upon Jesus Christ as your Savior. I am tired of these “adequate” Christians. And some of them I meet convince me that I don’t want to be “adequate,” if that is adequateness! Now, please don’t feel that I am being critical of one particular person or organization. I am simply insisting that the Word of God tells us that sanctification is by the Holy Spirit of God—not by some method of man’s design.
Let me repeat that all of the Trinity is mentioned in this verse: “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father”—He planned it; “through sanctification of the Spirit”—He protects us today, and it is through the “sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”—personal application of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, obedience.
Perhaps you are wondering how you can know if you are elect. Henry Ward Beecher divided folk into two categories: the “whosoever wills?” and the “whosoever won’ts.” You can know which one you are by making this simple test: Have you become obedient to Him? Is Christ really your Lord? If He is, you will love Him. The Lord Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Do you do what you want to do and call that the will of God for your life? Or do you do what He wants you to do? If you are His, you will be obedient to Him.
“And sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” There is often a silence about the blood of Christ, even in fundamental circles. As long as the blood of our Lord coursed through His veins, it had no saving value for us; but when that precious blood was shed, Christ Jesus gave His life. The life of the flesh is in the blood. He shed that blood that you and I might have life.
Remember that Peter is writing to Jews who had been brought up in Judaism. They were the Diaspora, believing Jews living in Asia Minor. They knew the Old Testament, and they understood that the high priest on the Day of Atonement took blood with him when he went into the Holy of Holies, and that he sprinkled the blood seven times on the mercy seat. Now the Lord Jesus Christ has taken His own blood to the throne of God (the throne at which we are judged as guilty sinners), and He sprinkled His blood there. He gave His life and paid the penalty for us. Now that throne of judgment is the throne of grace where you and I can come and receive salvation.
My friend, the gospel has not been preached until the meaning of the blood of Christ has been explained. It may offend you aesthetically—the offense of the cross is that He shed His blood. Of course it is not pretty, but your sin and my sin are not pretty either. Our ugly sin is what made it necessary for Christ to die for us.
This reminds me of a story about a terrible accident which occurred at a railroad crossing. Several people were killed when the train hit a car. There was a court trial, and the watchman who had been at the crossing at the time of the accident was questioned.
“Where were you at the time of the accident?”
“I was at the crossing.”
“Did you have a lantern?”
“Yes.”
“Did you wave that lantern to warn them of the danger?”
“I certainly did.”
The court thought that was enough evidence. When the watchman walked out of the court he was heard to mumble to himself, “I’m sure glad they didn’t ask me about the light in the lantern because the light had gone out.”
My friend, there can be a lot of lanterns waved in the circles of fundamentalism and evangelicalism and conservatism. However, unless there is the message of the blood of Jesus Christ and the sprinkling of the blood which cleanses us from all sin, there is no light in the lantern.
Now we come to one of the key words: “Grace unto you.” Because of the work of the Trinity—God had you in mind, Christ died for you, and the Holy Spirit has come to indwell you to make you a better person—now God can save you by grace.
“Grace unto you, and peace.” Without the grace of God, you will never know the peace of God. I received a letter from a man in a cult which revealed that he didn’t have peace. I can tell you right now that if you do not believe that Christ shed His blood for your sins, you will not have peace in your heart. You don’t even need to tell me that you don’t have peace. Peace and assurance and joy come when you know that your sins have been forgiven.
Simon Peter is not waving a lantern that has no light. He is not talking about something that is purely theoretical. This rugged fisherman knows grace and peace through the blood of Christ because Jesus Himself told him about it. He knows it because he had seen Jesus die; he saw where He had been buried, and he saw the resurrected Christ. The old wishy-washy, mollycoddling, shilly-shally man has now become a rock-man. He could stand at the Day of Pentecost and preach about Christ’s death and resurrection. He could go to jail, be persecuted, write an epistle like this, and finally be crucified for the gospel.
Now, after spending some time considering the second verse of Peter’s epistle, I am sure you will agree with me that Peter was not an ignorant fisherman, by any means. He has been dealing with the tremendous doctrines of election, foreknowledge, foreordination, and predestination. All of these great concepts are on God’s side of the fence, and none of us can come up with a final explanation. We are dealing with an infinite God who knows everything. His foreknowledge means that He knows every plan that is imaginable, and He knows exactly what He is going to do. We call that foreordination. At this point, let me give you another statement, which is a good one, from Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer’s Systematic Theology:
… foreknowledge in God is that which He Himself purposes to bring to pass. In this way, then, the whole order of events from the least detail unto the greatest operates under the determining decree of God so as to take place according to His sovereign purpose. By so much, divine foreknowledge is closely related to foreordination. Likewise, foreknowledge in God should be distinguished from omniscience in that the latter is extended sufficiently to embrace all things past, present, and future, while foreknowledge anticipates only the future events (Vol. VII).
My friend, let me repeat that we are dealing with an infinite God. You and I have a little, finite mind. I am told that if a brain weighs eight ounces, it is pretty heavy. But I don’t believe that an eight-ounce brain can comprehend the infinite God of the universe. Since He is omniscient, knowing everything that is possible to know—everything that is happening and everything that could happen—I am trusting Him and I intend to continue in that direction.
Now in the next verse Peter looks back to the past.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead [1 Pet. 1:3].
The word blessed, which is used here, is a different word from the blessed that is used in the Sermon on the Mount. The word used here is the Greek word from which we derive our word eulogy. It means “to praise.” In the New Testament this word is never used in reference to man. God does not praise man, but man is to praise God, and He is the Father.
In our culture today we hear the fathers praising their sons. It isn’t very often that we find a son praising his father. But we are to praise God the Father.
“The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in a unique way. Remember that the Lord Jesus made this distinction when He spoke to Mary Magdalene on the morning of His resurrection: “… I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17). He is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ because of His position in the Trinity. They are equal. But you and I do not call Him Father, except on the basis that Peter mentions here: He has begotten us. The word begotten has to do with the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.
“Hath begotten us again unto a living hope.” (I have substituted the word living for the Old English word lively.) You and I have a living hope, a hope that rests upon the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And since Christ was raised from the dead by the Spirit of God, this is a further reference to the Holy Spirit.
This is a paean of praise to the Trinity. This is our song because we have been begotten, born again, as we shall see in verse 23, “not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”
Notice that the living hope we have rests upon the blood of Christ. A body without blood is a dead body—it has to be. If it is a living body, it will have blood coursing through it. You and I today have a living hope because of the blood of Christ shed for us. He died that you and I might live—because He paid our penalty. It is “a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Peter emphasizes the resurrection of Christ. The Resurrection was his great theme on the Day of Pentecost and in all of his messages. He said in effect, “All that you have seen here today is because Jesus whom you crucified has come back from the dead.” And when he writes his epistles, he anchors them in the resurrection of Christ.
Paul does the same thing. He tells us that Jesus Christ was delivered for our offenses; He died for our sins. But He was raised for our justification, that we might be in Christ, accepted in the beloved, able to stand before God. He doesn’t simply subtract sin from us; He makes over to us His righteousness. We stand before God in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Peter has described to us what God has done for us in the past. Now he moves into the future.
To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you [1 Pet. 1:4].
“An inheritance incorruptible,” meaning that it is nondestructible. It cannot be damaged in any way—no rust, no moth, no germ, no fire can touch it.
“Undefiled” indicates that it is not stained or defiled by anything. We will not get this inheritance illegally.
“That fadeth not away.” We won’t inherit it and then find it to be worthless, like some stock that once had value and then became completely valueless.
“Reserved in heaven for you.” The word reserved means it is guarded. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are taking care of it for us. We couldn’t have it in a better safety deposit box than that!
I heard of a man who was willed a beautiful Southern home in Louisiana, but the very night the original owner died, the house caught on fire and burned down—and there was no insurance. The wonderful home that he was to inherit went up in smoke.
My friend, as believers, we have an inheritance that is incorruptible. This is a wonderful thing to look forward to!
It will help us to appreciate this verse if we remember that Peter had in mind Jewish Christians who were suffering trial and persecution for their faith. They had been forced to leave their homelands and whatever inheritance would have been theirs. Their ancestors had been delivered out of Egypt, and all through the wilderness wanderings they had the hope of the Promised Land before them. They praised God as the Creator of the world and as their Redeemer from Egypt. However, the believers to whom Peter was writing (and you and I as well) praise God as the Father of the incarnate Son, the Lord Jesus, the author of the new creation and of a spiritual redemption. Also, He gives a living hope, a hope that will never die. He has begotten us and made us His sons through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. And in addition He has reserved for us an inheritance—not on earth but an inheritance in heaven. That inheritance is imperishable, indestructible, and no enemy can take it away from us. Someone has expressed it poetically:
It will always be new; it will never decay.
No night ever comes; it will always be day.
How it gladdens my heart with joy that’s untold
To think of that land where nothing grows old.
Unfortunately, in our day our attention has been taken away from that which is future because so much emphasis is placed on the present.
Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time [1 Pet. 1:5].
“Kept by the power of God” emphasizes the keeping power of God. Kept is probably one of the most wonderful words we have here—“kept by the power of God through faith.”
The story is told of a Scotsman, who was typically economical, leaving instructions that only one word should be engraved upon his tombstone. But that one word, taken from this verse, is one of the greatest I know. It was the single word KEPT. He was “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
The apostle Paul said the same thing: “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). My friend, do you think He can keep you? Oh, I am weary of the emphasis being put on the work of the flesh. We are being told that if we follow some little set of rules, we can become “adequate Christians.” I wonder if the fellows who are giving all these messages have reached some celestial level which the rest of us have not been able to attain. They ask, “Are you sufficient, are you satisfied?” My answer is, “No—I am pressing on the upward way, I am pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. I am not satisfied. I have not found life sufficient.” My friend, let me add a strong statement that may startle you: You cannot live the Christian life! Perhaps you are asking, “Do you really mean that?” Yes, I do. I would challenge you to show me a verse or any Scripture where God has asked you to live the Christian life. He has never done that. I have an old nature, and that old nature will be with me as long as I am on this earth. Sometimes that old nature really shows. I have a bad temper that flares at times. I say things even to my wonderful wife so that I must go later and make up with her. I take her in my arms and tell her I’m sorry for what I said. She forgives me, and it is always wonderful to make up, you know. However I still have an old nature-and you do, too. And neither of us can change our old natures by trying to follow a little set of rules. We can no more change that old nature than we can take a gallon of perfume out to the barnyard, pour it on a pile of manure, and make it as fragrant as a bed of roses. My friend, you have that old nature, and you cannot change it.
The only way in the world that you can live the Christian life is by the power of the Holy Spirit and by the fact that you are kept by the power of God—right on through until the day when you will be delivered to Him in heaven. As we are going to see, it all has to do with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
We come now to the key verse of this epistle—
Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations [1 Pet. 1:6].
The suffering and the security of the believer produce—of all things—joy! They can do that because of the work of the Triune God. God our Father, according to His mercy—oh, He has been so merciful!—has begotten us, given us a new nature and a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And out yonder in the future He has a marvelous inheritance waiting for us.
“Wherein ye greatly rejoice.” Rejoice in what? In something good? No, “in heaviness through manifold trials.” This places in contrast two words that are worlds apart: rejoice and trials.
Peter gives us reasons for enduring trials down here in this life. “Now for a season”—the trials will not be long, compared to eternity. In our day there is too much emphasis on the present life. Psychology and materialism have slipped into the church. We are told that we must develop ourselves into a full-orbed individual. If we are having trouble, something is wrong with our Christianity. Oh, my friend, it doesn’t mean that at all!
Instead of so much introspection, we ought to be looking outward to the great God we have and to the marvelous inheritance which He has ready for us to receive some day. We should stop this attempt to improve our old nature through the power of the flesh. God is the one who is in the business of improving us. He is the one who is trying to bring us to a maturity in our Christian life. God’s way of improving us is through manifold trials.
We have been told this in previous books—in fact, it is almost like a stuck recording. Jesus told us not to be dismayed. He said that in the world we would have troubles. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we learned that God tests us by trials and troubles. James wrote about the testings that come from God. And Paul had a great deal to say about suffering. Now Peter comes along and says the same thing.
I know it is not at all popular to teach that God will prove us and lead us on to maturity through suffering. People would rather be encouraged to think that they are somebody important and that they can do great things on their own. My friend, we are nothing until the Spirit of God begins to move in our hearts and lives. We have nothing to offer to God. He has everything to offer to us.
We need always to remember that our trial are only temporary. Paul says the same thing: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:17–18).
The things at our fingertips which we consider so valuable are not really of value. They are simply passing things when measured in the perspective of eternity. All these things are destructible. They are corruptible, and they can be defiled. The things of this world do fade away. The things we cannot see are the eternal, things. They are of real value.
That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it he tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ [1 Pet. 1:7].
Peter uses here a very apt illustration, and he uses a wonderful word: precious. A dear lady of my acquaintance, a real saint of God up in her seventies, really overworks this word precious. Everything is precious to her. She has told me that I am precious and my radio program is precious. She told me that something I had said was precious. People had given her a gift and that was precious, and she says she had a precious time visiting with her friends, and they had a precious meal together. Well, precious is a woman’s word, but notice who uses it here—Simon Peter, that great, big, rugged fisherman. He speaks of the trial of our faith being precious. And he uses the word precious seven times, as we shall see.
“The trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold.” After gold is mined, it is put into a smelter, a red-hot furnace. The purpose is not to destroy the gold; it is to purify the gold. When the gold is melted, the dross is drawn off to get the pure gold. Later on, Peter will also make an application of this regarding the suffering of our Lord. He says that we have been redeemed, not with gold or silver, but with something infinitely more precious than that—the blood of Christ.
When God tests us today, He puts us into the furnace. He doesn’t do that to destroy us or to hurt or harm us. But He wants pure gold, and that is the way He will get it. Friend, that is what develops Christian character. At the time of testing, the dross is drawn off and the precious gold appears. That is God’s method. That is God’s school.
We don’t hear that teaching very much in our day. Rather, we are being taught to become sufficient within ourselves. Oh, my friend, you and I are not adequate; we are not sufficient, and we never will be. We simply come to God as sinners, and He saves us by His grace through the blood of Christ. Then He wants to live His life through us. He tries to teach us this through our trials. He is drawing us closer to Him.
There are no shortcuts to maturity. All the gimmickry and new methods will lead to a dead-end street. The only thing that will bring us into a true maturation is the trial of our faith which God sends to us.
“At the appearing of Jesus Christ.” I believe that at the appearing of Jesus Christ, we will thank God for our trials—in fact, we may wish we had experienced more of them because, when we are in His presence, we will see the value of them. Just think of the trials the apostles went through! Simon Peter, when he wrote this epistle, knew that crucifixion was ahead of him. He says that the trials are going to bring out the gold when we appear in Christ’s presence. That’s the thing toward which we are to look forward.
Now Simon Peter will say something very precious—
Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory [1 Pet. 1:8].
This verse ought to mean a great deal to us. Remember that Peter had seen the Lord Jesus personally and had traveled with Him for three years. He had failed miserably during that period. Then one morning on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, the Lord prepared breakfast for the men who had been fishing all night, and I guess He was waiting for Peter. I would have expected Him to say, “Peter, I can’t trust you. Why did you deny Me? I’m going to have to put you on the sidelines. I cannot use you.” But no, He didn’t say that. Rather, He said, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” (see John 21:17). That was His question: Do you love Me? The man who had been a braggadocio before was no longer bragging. He finally just cried out, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” And the Lord Jesus said, “I’m going to let you feed My sheep” (see John 21:16–17). And it was Peter who preached the first sermon on the Day of Pentecost. Now Peter says to you and me, “Whom having not seen, ye love.” The Holy Spirit is the one who can make Him real to you and me. My friend, this is the secret of the Christian life. When we love Him, everything else falls into place. If you do not love Him, no course in the world is going to help you. And neither will He commission you to feed His sheep.
“Though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Does this set your heart to beating faster? Are you really in love with Him, or do you have a dead religion that is quite meaningless? Oh, my friend, Christ is so wonderful! Simon Peter loved Him. Paul loved Him, and all of those who have genuinely served Him have loved Him. I hope you love Him today. If you do, it will solve a lot of your problems. It will help the husband-wife relationship. It is wonderful how the love of Christ draws our hearts together. Not only will it help you in your home, it will help you in your church. Loving Christ draws believers together. It will help you in all your relationships if you love Him.
“Ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Loving Christ brings rejoicing to your heart. Are you a rejoicing Christian, my friend? You should be. You are a child of the King, and you have an inheritance coming to you some day. How wonderful it is to be His child!
Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls [1 Pet. 1:9].
Salvation was a subject of prophecy in the Old Testament. Both the prophets and apostles bore witness to the truth of it. What an encouragement that was to the Diaspora, those who were suffering for their faith.
SUFFERING AND THE SCRIPTURES
Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you [1 Pet. 1:10].
All the prophets prophesied diligently concerning it.
Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow [1 Pet. 1:11].
The prophets spoke of “the sufferings of Christ” and the grace of God. We find this in Isaiah 53 and in Psalm 22 as well as in many other Scriptures.
“And the glory that should follow” is found, for example, in Isaiah 11 and Psalm 45. The prophets all spoke of Christ’s suffering and of the sovereignty and of the glory that is to come when Christ comes as King to the earth to establish His kingdom.
“The Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify.” This tells us specifically that the prophets of the Old Testament wrote by the Spirit of Christ. This is one of the many statements contained in the Word of God declaring that the Old Testament was inspired of God. These men wrote by the “Spirit of Christ.”
The prophets wrote some things which they themselves did not grasp. They searched for the meaning diligently, “searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” There are many places in the Old Testament that speak of the suffering of Christ, and there are many other places that speak of the sovereignty of Christ, of the kingdom age. Grace and glory are combined, and it was difficult for them to understand this. For example, Isaiah wrote in the fifty-third chapter of the sufferings of Christ; then in the eleventh chapter he wrote of the Messiah coming in power and glory to the earth to establish His kingdom. This seeming contradiction was very puzzling to the prophets, and they tried to find out how both could be true. As the prophets looked down the corridors of time, they saw these two events as two great mountain peaks, but they could not see the valley of time between them.
You and I are in the unique position of living in that interval of time between the suffering of Christ, which is in the past, and the glory of Christ, which is yet in the future.
It will help you to understand the prophecies of the suffering and sovereignty of Christ if you picture the two events as two great mountain peaks. Here in Pasadena we have a backdrop of the Sierra Madre mountains. As the crow flies, they are about five miles away, but driving the winding road to get there makes them about twenty-five miles away. Mount Wilson is in the foreground and is approximately six thousand feet high. Behind that peak we can see another peak, Mount Waterman, which looks as if it is the same height as Mount Wilson. Actually, Mount Waterman is over eight thousand feet high. However, it looks as if they are the same height and that they are right together. In actual fact, they are not together at all. A tremendous valley separates them—between twenty-five and thirty-five miles across—and I estimate that it is probably fifty miles from one mountain peak to the other. Yet, seeing them from a distance, you would think they were right together.
In just such a way, the prophets looking into the future saw the suffering of Christ and the glory of Christ as two mountain peaks, which appeared to be right together. I am of the opinion that there were sceptics and higher critics in those days who argued, “This is a conflict; the Scriptures are in contradiction. You cannot have it both ways. Either He comes in suffering or He comes to reign.” Of course we know now that both are true. And the valley between is the church age, which already is approaching two thousand years in length.
Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into [1 Pet. 1:12].
Now the apostles are saying, “We are preaching the same thing that the prophets did.” The only difference was that the prophets could not make the distinction between Christ’s suffering and glory while the apostles were in the position of being able to understand the distinction.
“Which things the angels desire to look into.” It is my opinion that the angels, God’s created intelligences, are standing up yonder looking at you and me wondering why we don’t get busy and give out this tremendous message today. They desire to do it themselves. They would love to come and proclaim it to the world. You recall that the angel Gabriel came and made the announcement to Mary and later to Joseph that Jesus was to be born. Also, he came to tell Zacharias that he was going to have a son, named John, who would be the forerunner of the Messiah. I am sure that Gabriel would love to come down again and say to me as I make my radio broadcast, “Move over, McGee, you are not putting enough into it. This thing is lots more wonderful than you are making it!” Although he would like to come down, God won’t let him. He says to Gabriel, “No, I’ve got to use that poor instrument, McGee.” Today he is using human instruments to get out His Word, because we are not living in the day of the ministry of angels. We are living in the day of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. As children of God we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit—“… if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Rom. 8:9). If you are Christ’s, you are indwelt by the Spirit of God.
Now, do you think that an angel could do something for you that the Spirit of God could not do? No. We are living in the day of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the day of grace, when the Spirit of God takes the things of Christ and reveals them unto us. What are we to do in light of this?
Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ [1 Pet. 1:13].
“Gird up the loins of your mind.” This is a figure of speech based on the gathering and fastening up of the long Eastern garments so that they would not interfere with the wearer’s vigorous movements. It was an expression that was understood in Peter’s day, but I would like to bring it down to good old Americana. I think we would say, “Get with it!” Or maybe we would say, “Get turned on!”
“Be sober.” You won’t need drugs; you won’t need alcohol. Let the Word of God turn you on. However, “be sober” means more than this. It means to be sober minded, to adopt a serious attitude in the study of the Word of God.
“And hope to the end.” This is the great epistle of hope. Why (as we have already seen) should the child of God be willing to endure trials? Because we have a hope, and that hope rests upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“The grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” At the time when the Lord Jesus comes to take the church out of the world, He will bring plenty of grace with Him. By His grace, He will take out every believer. And each believer’s works are to be judged at Christ’s judgment seat (Beµma Seat). At that time we will either suffer loss or receive a reward—and that certainly will be by His grace!
The fact that we will be judged someday is another incentive to endure the trials of this world. How we live down here upon this earth is very important. Today believers are confronted with the demand to lead transformed lives which only the Word of God can produce in us. One of the reasons God lets us go through trials and troubles is because He wants to fashion us according to His plan. We are to yield to Him in all our tribulations.
As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance [1 Pet. 1:14].
“As obedient children.” The Scriptures will lead us to obedience. You may recall that James said, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only …” (James 1:22). The Word of God not only brings us hope, but it also leads to our obedience. The Word of God is to be obeyed; we are to yield to its instruction.
While I was ill, several folk sent copies of this poem by Alice Hansche Mortenson, which was a great comfort to me:
I NEEDED THE QUIET
I needed the quiet so He drew me aside,
Into the shadows where we could confide.
Away from the bustle where all the day long
I hurried and worried when active and strong.
I needed the quiet though at first I rebelled
But gently, so gently, my cross He upheld,
And whispered so sweetly of spiritual things
Though weakened in body, my spirit took wings
To heights never dreamed of when active and gay.
He loved me so greatly He drew me away.
I needed the quiet. No prison my bed,
But a beautiful valley of blessings instead—
A place to grow richer in Jesus to hide.
I needed the quiet so He drew me aside.
Why did He draw me aside? So that I might spend time in the Word of God. Oh, how important it is in the lives of believers!
“Not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance”—that is, not conforming your behavior to what it used to be before you knew better. We are to live lives which reveal that we have been transformed from the inside. We are not to walk around with an artificial smile on our face like a floorwalker at Macy’s who acts as if he is delighted to serve you when in reality his corns are killing him and he wishes you would go home and stay home. We are not to be artificial. We are to so yield to God that we will be genuinely transformed.
But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation [1 Pet. 1:15].
Holiness is something that is really misunderstood. To the average person, holiness means to assume a very pious attitude, to become almost abnormal in everyday life. It is thought to be a superficial thing.
My friend, the Lord wants you to be a fully integrated personality. He wants you to enjoy life and have fun—I don’t mean the sinful kind of fun, but real delight and enjoyment in the life He has given to you. Holiness is to the spiritual life what health is to the physical life. You like to see a person who is physically fine, robust, and healthy. Well, holiness is to be healthy and robust spiritually. Oh, how we need folk like this today!
Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy [1 Pet. 1:16].
Is our holiness to be an attribute like God’s holiness? No. Our God is absolutely perfect, and we will never, while we are in this life, reach that state. Oh, I have met several folk who thought they had reached that state, but I could not find anyone who would agree with them that they had reached that exalted level. Then what does it mean to be holy as God is holy?
Our God is a complete, wonderful personality. Although you and I are mere human beings, we can be full grown; we can reach maturation. A beautiful little baby in a crib may win a blue ribbon, but if he is still a little baby in a crib seventeen years later, something is wrong. He should be a healthy young fellow turning out for football practice. As Christians, we should be growing spiritually like that. What can produce this kind of growth? The Word of God.
And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear [1 Pet. 1:17].
“Without respect of persons” means without partiality. God judges every man’s work impartially. God doesn’t have little pets. God is going to judge the work of every Christian fairly. This has nothing to do with your salvation; it has everything to do with the kind of life you are living down here on this earth. The fact that God is going to judge us ought to cause us to become very sober minded and to give a little more attention to the life that we are living. My friend, let’s make sure that we are not superficial. Are you trying to keep a smile on your face and radiate happiness and sunshine everywhere you go? The gospel does not sprinkle rosewater on a bunch of dead weeds. The gospel transforms lives and brings with it a living hope which rests upon the resurrection of Christ. Believers have life from the living Savior who is up yonder at God’s right hand.
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot [1 Pet. 1:18–19].
“Forasmuch as ye know”—and I hope you know that you have been redeemed.
In these verses Peter is speaking of the objective work of God for your salvation, which is redemption. My friend, He had to pay a price for you. You and I stood under the judgment of God, for the Scripture says “… the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezek. 18:4). God has never revoked that decree. God never changes. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The immutability of God is the terror of the wicked—if they give any thought to it at all. We hear it said that we are living in a new age with new thoughts and new values, but God has not changed. There would be no reason for Him to change because He knew the end from the beginning. Neither did He learn anything when He looked at the morning newspaper or heard the television newscaster this morning. It didn’t give Him any information because He knows all things—past, present, and future. And God has not changed His decree that “the soul that sinneth, it shall die.”
“Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold.” Although silver and gold can be purified by being put into a crucible—heated red-hot so the dross can be drawn off—even they will corrupt in time. If you have table service of silver which you use only for guests, you know that whenever you bring it out, it is tarnished and looks like pewter. It is corrupting. Silver and gold are perishable. We are not redeemed with corruptible things.
“From your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers.” Life is vain; that is, it is empty without the redemption of Christ. There is nothing quite so meaningless as human life apart from the redemption of Christ. Everything else in this world serves a purpose. Every animal and every plant on this earth serves a purpose. The sun, the moon, and every star in the sky serves a purpose. But man without God is meaningless. Someone has said that mankind is just a rash on the epidermis of a minor planet! Well, that’s about all man is apart from God. We have not been redeemed by corruptible things—not anything from this empty life. Man has nothing to offer to God for his own redemption. My friend, what do you have that God needs?
God taught me how unimportant I was one summer when He put me flat on my back. I was scheduled to conduct Bible conferences in the Northwest, and I thought they were important. God said to me something like this, “Listen, I got along without you before you got here, and I’m going to get along without you after you leave. You think that speaking at those conferences is important, but I want you to learn what is important. I want you to lie here flat on your back and look up to Me to find out that your relationship with Me is the most important thing there is. I have some things to teach you. Sometimes when you teach My Word, you teach way out ahead of where you are living. I want you to find out that what I say in My Word is true, and a little suffering isn’t going to hurt you at all. It is going to mold you and shape you the way I want you to be.” My friend, I learned that I have nothing that God needs.
What can you or I do today to redeem ourselves? Nothing! Then how can we be redeemed?
“With the precious blood of Christ.” Here again Simon Peter, that rugged fisherman, says that the blood of Christ is precious. As I have said before the blood of Christ is not mentioned in some religious circles. The words are omitted from the hymnals of many liberal churches. Their reasoning is that the blood is crude. Well, I don’t think it is crude, and certainly Simon Peter didn’t think it was crude. He said it was precious.
“With the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Simon Peter, who lived with Jesus Christ for three years, said that He was without blemish and without spot. He was absolutely sinless. I will take Peter’s word for it—certainly he is in a better position to judge than modern authors who depict Jesus as just another sinful man. The modern authors write for money, but Simon Peter wasn’t in the moneymaking business. All he got for his witness of Christ was suffering and finally crucifixion. He said that we were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, “but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” This is an objective statement of our redemption. This is what God did for you and me.
Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you [1 Pet. 1:20].
“Who verily was foreordained”—a better word is foreknown. Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world.
Now let me give you a tremendous statement from The Scofield Reference Bible (p. 1333):
The sovereign choice of God in foreordination, election, and predestination logically originated in the divine decision based on His eternal omniscience of all possible plans of action. The order logically, not chronologically, is omniscience, divine decision (foreordination, election, predestination), and foreknowledge. As God’s decision is eternal, however, so also His foreknowledge is eternal. As foreknowledge extends to all events, it includes all that is embraced in election, foreordination, and predestination. Election is, therefore, according to foreknowledge, and foreknowledge is according to election, meaning that both are in perfect agreement.
When we begin to deal with words like foreordination, election, predestination, foreknowledge, etc., I feel that we, with our finite minds, treat God as if He were a great big computer. He isn’t that at all. He has a heart bigger than the whole universe. When I was in seminary studying theology, it seemed pretty important to know whether or not foreknowledge comes before foreordination; but, frankly, since that time I have not been concerned with which comes first. I realize now that the important thing is that Christ was “foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.” To put it very simply, the cross of Christ was not an ambulance sent to a wreck. Christ was the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world because God knew all the time that Vernon McGee would need a Savior, and He loved him enough to provide that Savior. I don’t need a computer to go over this. I only need a God with a great big heart of love who provided redemption by His grace.
Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God [1 Pet. 1:21].
“That raised him up from the dead”—Simon Peter keeps reminding us of the resurrection of Christ.
“That your faith and hope might be in God.” Previously he put together the words grace and hope; now it is faith and hope. Peter is the great apostle of hope, and hope rests upon the resurrection of Christ and upon the fact that we have a living Savior who will be returning some day.
Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently [1 Pet. 1:22].
“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit.” The Word of God is a miracle cleansing agent. On television today advertisers make great claims for their soaps and other cleansing agents. They tell us how superior their product is over the products of their competitors. All of them are trying to sell a “miracle” product. My friend, the only true miracle cleanser in this world is the Word of God. It is the best bar of soap that you can get. The Word of God will really take spots out, and many of us need to get closer to it.
“Unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.” Your relationship to the Word of God will lead you to a right relationship with other believers.
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever [1 Pet. 1:23].
Peter brings us back to the Word of God again. He is talking now about the subjective work of God in salvation. We have seen that the objective work of God was that Christ died—that’s our redemption. It happened over nineteen hundred years ago, and we can’t add anything to it. However, if you are to become a child of God, you must be born again, born from above. This, you recall, is what the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, as recorded in John 3:3. Nicodemus was a man who was religious to his fingertips, yet the Lord Jesus told him that he must be born anothen, meaning “from above,” by the Spirit of God.
“Not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” You cannot be saved, you cannot be born again apart from the Word of God. This Book is the miracle that is in the world today. Although I believe this, I never cease to marvel at the letters I receive from folk who tell me that they have been born again and their lives have been transformed from listening to my Bible-teaching radio broadcast. It is wonderful, but I don’t understand how it happens; I only know that it is the result of the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever.
We are living in a day when a great deal is said about virility. Men want to be vigorous and virile; women want to be sexy. Much emphasis is put upon that today. I hope you won’t misunderstand when I say to you that if you want something that is virile and vigorous and sexy in a proper sense, turn to the Word of God. It is full of life, and it is life-giving. Put your arms around the Savior by putting your trust in Him, and a new birth will take place. There will be a miraculous birth because the Word of God is virile and vigorous and it can penetrate your heart and make you a child of God. Oh, my friend, how important this is! Yet people are so preoccupied with sex and virility that they miss it. They are running around after emptiness. Sometimes I think that the whole human race is becoming obsessed with it. You would think that this generation had discovered sex! If they would only realize that the thing that really brings a birth within us is the Word of God as it reveals Christ to us. Then something tremendous takes place within us, and we are born again!
For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away [1 Pet. 1:24].
Don’t ever think that there is something of value in us that we can offer to God. All the glory of mankind is like the fragile flower of grass. In other words, mankind is like the grass which I can see from my window. It is nice and green in the summertime, but it is brown and dead in the wintertime.
But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you [1 Pet. 1:25].
My friend, we need the preaching and the teaching of the Word of God above everything else. I do not mean to minimize the place of music, the place of methods, and the place of organization, but there is absolutely no substitute for the Word of God today. “The word of the Lord endureth for ever.”
CHAPTER 2
Theme: The suffering of the saints and the suffering of Christ; suffering produces separation
THE SUFFERING OF THE SAINTS AND THE SUFFERING OF CHRIST
In chapters 2–4 Peter deals with the suffering of God’s children and the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in these three chapters we will see what suffering accomplishes in the lives of believers: Suffering produces separation (ch. 2); suffering produces Christian conduct (ch. 3); and suffering produces obedience to the will of God (ch. 4).
SUFFERING PRODUCES SEPARATION
In speaking of separation, or living for the Lord, there is the danger of adopting one of two extreme viewpoints, both of which I consider very much out of line with Scripture. One of them is thinking that human nature is such that all it needs is merely new direction, it needs to be given a purpose and a little reformation. The folk who take this position believe that since there is nothing wrong with human nature, they need only to awaken the individual to his marvelous energy and intellect and moral nature so that he will be able to live for the Lord. That is one view of what it means to live the Christian life.
The second extreme viewpoint is that when one is born again, he receives something that is supernatural (which he does receive), but then he merely sits on the sidelines while God accomplishes in his life all that needs to be done. Folk in this class become very pious. To me they are like a puffed up frog. They never seem to grow and develop into loving, full-orbed, normal Christians.
Now this second chapter will make it very clear that you and I, through the New Birth (born again of incorruptible seed, the Word of God), have a new nature, and we are to live in that new nature by the power of the Holy Spirit. We have been brought into a loving relationship with the one whom, having not seen, we love. Simon Peter saw Him and loved Him, and although you and I have not seen Him, the Holy Spirit can make Him real to us so that we love Him in that way also.
My friend, when you were first born again, do you remember how sweet and wonderful it was? Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers: “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2). The Corinthian Christians had become very carnal. Their first love, that honeymoon love for Christ, was gone. God spoke of this same thing to His people Israel just before they went into the Babylonian captivity: “… Thus saith the Lord; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown” (Jer. 2:2). The children of Israel demonstrated that love when they first came out of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea. They sang a song of praises to Jehovah: “… I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea” (Exod. 15:1). Yet it wasn’t too long before they became complainers before God. God remembers that.
My friend, today real separation rests upon the fact that you have been born again, you now have a new nature, and you are now in love with Christ. Your love for Him makes you want to please Him.
The great object in the purposes of God is to have folk saved, not only from judgment and the lake of fire, but saved from the present world. He wants them saved, not only for heaven by and by, but for the heart of Christ now. The work of Christ on the cross settled every question that sin has raised between God and our souls. The future is bright with the glory of God, and we have been brought into the value of that work of redemption. We have been born again, and no one—not even Satan—can change that.
However, my friend, how are we doing today in our Christian lives down here on the earth? How is our relationship with our fellowmen and with the Lord Jesus Christ?
Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,
As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby [1 Pet. 2:1–2].
You see, we cannot expect God to do everything for us; He has certain things for us to do for ourselves. First, there are certain things that we are to lay aside. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesian believers, likens it to the taking off of a garment: “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts…. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another” (Eph. 4:22, 25).
Paul uses a different figure to describe this to the Corinthians. “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:7–8). When the Israelite observed the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, he didn’t eat leavened bread; that is, he didn’t go on living the same kind of life he had lived before. He was feeding in a different place on a different kind of bread. And it was a means of growth for him. Likewise, Paul is saying to the Corinthian believers that when they come to Christ, they are to get rid of the old leaven, which is symbolic of malice and wickedness in their lives. You see, we will never become perfect in this life, because we will always have that old nature.
“Laying aside all malice.” What is malice? The best definition I have found is congealed anger. It means to have an unforgiving spirit. My friend, are you carrying bitterness in your heart and a chip on your shoulder? Although you witness about being born again and about loving Jesus, nobody around you will be able to distinguish that if you are carrying malice, congealed anger, in your heart.
“And all guile.” Guile is using cleverness to get even or to try to make a good impression upon someone. Ananias and Sapphira used guile when they tried to represent themselves as being very generous givers to the church. That old nature which you and I have is good at that sort of thing. J. B. Lightfoot calls it “the vicious nature which is bent on doing harm to others.”
“And hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings.” Hypocrisy is, of course, attempting to be what you are not. And evil speaking means slander.
“As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word.” Instead of “sincere” milk, I translate it pure milk or spiritual milk. Just as a hungry baby reaches for the bottle, a believer is to desire the Word of God.
I remember when our little grandson was born. Because his father was over in Turkey at the time, his mother brought him into our home. We had him with us those first few months, and every now and then it was my task to give him his bottle. I want to tell you, that little fellow went into high gear when he saw that bottle of milk. He started moving his hands, his mouth, his feet—he was reaching out for it with every part of his body. At that time I was still the pastor of a congregation, and I thought, I wish I had a congregation that would reach out after the Word of God like that!
My friend, without a hunger for the Word of God you will not grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. You will not develop as a Christian—you will always be in your babyhood. We must remember that a little baby and a full-grown man are both human beings, but they are in different stages of growth and development. The little one needs milk so he can grow up to become a man. Now, how does a Christian grow? He grows by studying the Word of God. There is no growth apart from the Word of God.
I receive letters from many pastors who tell me that they are wet nurses for a lot of little babes. As one pastor said, “I spend my time burping spiritual babies!” Those babies should grow up so they wouldn’t need a pastor to pat them and burp them all the time. And they would grow if they desired the pure milk of the Word.
It is my conviction that the “pure milk of the word” means the total Word of God. We don’t grow spiritually by lifting out a verse for comfort here and there. We need the total Word of God to grow. We need a full, well-balanced diet. Of course, we start out with milk, but the day comes when we want a porterhouse steak, a good baked potato, a green salad, and maybe some black-eyed peas on the side. And you get all the spiritual nutrition you need in the total Word of God.
If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious [1 Pet. 2:3].
“If so be” should be translated “since”—since ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. You see, at the moment of salvation, a child is born with an appetite for the Word of God, just as a newborn infant immediately starts to eat. When my little grandson came home from the hospital at only two or three days old, all we had to do was stick a nipple in his mouth. He knew what to do. I didn’t give him a lecture on how to drink milk; he seemed to know all about it. In the same way, I don’t think we need programs to teach the spiritual babes in Christ how to get into the Word of God. Instead of programs, we need to give them the Word so they can feed on it.
What, then, is real separation? Real separation (we need to note this carefully) is a separation from the works of the flesh. Too many Christians feel that they must be separated from the world. No, we are in the world, and we must live in the world even though we are not of the world.
Let me give you an illustration about the wrong idea concerning separation. I drove an evangelist around Nashville, Tennessee, almost half of one night, trying to find a restaurant that didn’t serve beer. This was his idea of separation from the world. We finally found one, and he got ptomaine poisoning from eating in that place! I wouldn’t have eaten in it. I told him, “If I were you, after this I would go into a restaurant that serves good food and simply disregard the beer.” You don’t need to drink the beer just because you eat the food. Separation from the world does not mean that you cannot go into a restaurant that serves liquor.
Malice, hypocrisy, envy, evil speaking—these are the things from which we should be separated. Only the Spirit of God working within us will produce that kind of separation. And until you and I are willing to give up malice, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speaking, we will never grow to Christian maturity.
To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious [1 Pet. 2:4].
“To whom coming, as unto a living stone.” We don’t come to a little Babe in Bethlehem; we come as little babes to a living stone. The living stone is Christ. After the confession of Simon Peter, the Lord Jesus said, “… upon this rock I will build my church …” (Matt. 16:18). Simon Peter makes it very clear here that the living stone is not himself but that the living stone is Jesus Christ.
Jesus again refers to Himself as a stone in Matthew 21:42, 44: “Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?” This is a quotation from Psalm 118. Now, speaking of Himself He says, “And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.”
Christ Jesus is that foundation stone of the church. He is that stone today. Paul writes, “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11). When you come as a sinner and fall on that stone, you are broken. However, in your brokenness that stone becomes a foundation for you, and that is your salvation. However, if you reject that stone, you are not through with the stone. Daniel, in his vision, saw a “stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet” (see Dan. 2:34). That is the stone of judgment which will come to smite the earth. This stone symbolizes Christ. He also will be the stone of judgment to this earth. What a picture of the Lord Jesus is given to us here!
Here is something else that is wonderful—
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ [1 Pet. 2:5].
“Ye also, as lively stones.” Lively is an old English word for living. “Ye also, as living stones.” How are we living stones? We have been “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (v. 23, italics mine).
“Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house.” You will recall that after Peter’s confession, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” the Lord Jesus said to him, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church” (see Matt. 16:16, 18). The name Peter means “rock,” and the Lord Jesus was saying to him in effect, “You are going to be a little stone, a pebble, but on this foundation stone [Christ] I am going to build My church.” The Lord Jesus is the foundation stone, and we know that Peter understood it that way, because he said, “Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house.” Just as Simon Peter was one of the little stones, you are one of the little stones and I am one of the little stones which are built into this spiritual house. When we are born again, become children of God, we are put into this building of God.
If we turn back to the Epistle to the Ephesians, we will find that Paul also uses this illustration of a building. “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph. 2:19–22). Today God is building a temple, a living temple. Those of us who come to Him as the sinners we are, who fall upon Him, cast ourselves upon Him for mercy, are saved. And He makes us a part of the living temple He is building upon the foundation stone, which is Christ Himself.
“An holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” Another picture which this epistle gives to us is that of a holy priesthood. All believers are living stones. All believers are priests. We are a holy priesthood, and later Peter calls it a royal priesthood. As priests we are to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God in Jesus Christ. Praise to God is such a spiritual sacrifice. Your monetary offering to the Lord is such a spiritual sacrifice. I don’t know why people think that money cannot be spiritual. It all depends on the way money is used. And then, you can offer yourself to God. That is a spiritual sacrifice.
Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not he confounded [1 Pet. 2:6].
This is a quotation from Isaiah 28:6: “Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.” This stone is symbolic of Christ. Scripture makes this fact very clear.
Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto you them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner [1 Pet. 2:7].
“Unto you therefore which believe he is precious.” A better translation would be, “For you therefore which is the preciousness.” For you who believe there is the preciousness of Christ. I think it is so interesting that Simon Peter, the big, rugged fisherman, uses the word precious. We think of it as a word used in the vocabulary of women, but whenever Peter speaks of Christ or of His blood or any part about Him, he uses the word precious.
“But unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed [rejected], the same is made the head of the corner.”
And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed [1 Pet. 2:8].
This is a very important passage of Scripture. You will recall that it is a quotation from Psalm 118:22. There is a tradition that takes us back to the time of the building of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. In 1 Kings 6:7 we read this about the actual construction of the temple: “And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.” The stones, you see, were hewn to exact measurement in the quarry; and when they reached the building site, there was no sound of a hammer—they were just fitted into place.
Well, the tradition is that at the beginning of the project a very large, fine-looking stone came up from the quarry, but the builders couldn’t fit it in any place; so they moved it to one side. Because it was in the way, eventually they just pushed it over the brow of the hill to make room for the other stones that they were receiving and forgot about it. Finally, when all the stones had been fitted into place, they sent down word to the quarry, “Send up the cornerstone.” The building was finished except for the cornerstone. Word came back, “We sent the cornerstone to you at the very beginning.” Then they remembered, “That’s the stone we pushed off the hill!” So with a great deal of effort, they had to haul that stone back to the top of the hill, and they found that it did fit right into place. If this tradition is accurate, it certainly explains the verses before us.
The stone, which the builders rejected, has become the head of the corner. The stone is, of course, a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. When He came into the world He was rejected by His own people—“He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11). Not only then was He rejected, but you and I live today in a Christ-rejecting world. At the time this is being written, we are in the Christmas season. I don’t know about your town, but in my town Christmas is being celebrated, but Jesus Christ is being rejected. About the most hypocritical thing in the world is to reject the one whose birthday you are celebrating! My friend, the Lord Jesus Christ is to you today either a stepping stone or a stumbling stone.
This brings us to a very wonderful passage of Scripture which reveals that a Christian’s life is to be commensurate with his position in Christ. And until we live that life, we are not experiencing normal Christian living.
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light [1 Pet. 2:9].
He is saying several very wonderful things about us here. We are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a people of His own—not a “peculiar people.” God’s people are not supposed to be oddballs or crackpots or ready for the funny farm. Some folk seem to think that is what “peculiar” means. It is more meaningful to use the translation: a people of His own.
1. We are a “chosen generation,” that is, an elect race. Back in the Old Testament God chose, Israel as His people, and in the Scriptures there are two elect groups of people: the nation Israel, called an elect nation, and the church, called an elect nation and an elect people.
Now keep in mind that Peter is writing to his own people, the Diaspora, Jewish Christians who were scattered throughout the Roman Empire and even beyond it. In effect he is saying, “Although right now you certainly do not look like a chosen generation, an elect race, you are. Because you have come to Christ, you are a chosen generation, you are an elect nation, just as the children of Israel were elect. The keys of the kingdom have been given to the church, and we today are to give out the gospel because the church is the chosen instrument. This honor has been conferred upon believers. It is as if God had stamped out for you and me a wonderful medal on which is inscribed: You are an elect race; you are a chosen generation.
Many vain attempts are being made in our day to identify certain people of this earth with the ten “lost” tribes of Israel. They are said to be the gypsies, the Mormons, the Adventists, or the British-Israel group—which is probably the most vocal. Well, if they could prove that England and America were settled by the ten “lost” tribes of Israel, what have they proven? God has set aside the nation Israel temporarily, and today God is doing a new thing. He is calling out an elect race, a chosen generation, from every tongue and nation and people—both Jew and Gentile—and they are brought into a new relationship to God in the church.
Although you and I say that we have come to Christ, He says that He has chosen us. I like that. It reminds me of the story of two little urchins from the slums of New York who got to Macy’s department store and were looking in the window at the merchandise on display. They saw things which they could never have, but they played a game with each other.
One said, “I choose this.”
The other said, “I choose that.”
The boy said, “I choose the ball.”
The girl said, “I choose the doll.”
You and I are just like poverty-stricken little urchins in this world, but when we say, “I choose Jesus,” we find that He has already chosen us. How wonderful that is! The Lord Jesus said of His own apostles, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you …” (John 15:16). It is wonderful to know this. I am not being irreverent when I say that, since He has chosen me, He is responsible for me. The responsibility is His because I belong to Him. How wonderful it is that He has chosen us!
2. We are “a royal priesthood.” Back in the Old Testament God first of all chose the entire nation of Israel to be His priests. (I believe that in the Millennium the whole nation of Israel will be priests here on this earth.) However, they sinned, and so God chose one tribe out of that nation. The priests came from this one tribe. Today there is no priesthood on earth which God recognizes—except one. Today every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is a priest. Israel had a priesthood; today the church is a priesthood.
When I was a pastor, I preached a message entitled, “You Are a Catholic Priest.” The word catholic means “general,” of course. In that sense every believer is a catholic priest, and all have access to God. Since we belong to Christ, we can come into His presence, into the very holy of holies. Simon Peter tells us here that we as believers are members of a royal priesthood. We are children of the King. A little later on in this epistle we will read that the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous and that He hears their prayers. Oh, how wonderful this is!
3. We are “an holy nation.” The nation Israel was never holy in conduct, and the same can be said of the church. Israel’s failure is glaring; the church’s failure is appalling. Yet we are holy in our relationship with Him because Christ is our righteousness. If you have any standing before God, it is not in yourself; it is in Christ. I can’t think of anything more wonderful than that today I stand complete in Him. What a joy it is to be a member of a holy nation, which is a new nation in the world today.
4. We are “a peculiar people”—a people of His own. We are a people for acquisition, a people for God’s own. possession. We belong to Him. Therefore, there is in the world not only a new nation but also a people that belong to Him. I don’t know why some Christians are afraid of this concept. It doesn’t mean that we are to be peculiar in conduct and act strangely but that we belong to Him. We are His very own people. We can compare it to a boy who goes out and gets a job and makes his own money for the first time. His dad has been giving him an allowance, but now the money belongs to him. It is something that he worked for, and it is his very own. Well, Christ’s work, His work of redemption, required the shedding of His blood, as we have seen in this epistle, and now He has a people for His very own.
In the high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus, He says, “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me …” (John 17:6). Also He said, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). How wonderful it is that the Father has given us to Christ!
And God calls His own. He calls you today, my friend. It doesn’t matter who you are or to which race you belong. Jesus Christ is calling to you to be His own. He wants you to join a chosen generation and a royal priesthood. He is not inviting you to wear robes or to recite rituals but to join a priesthood that has access to God. He is asking you to belong to a new nation. He does not mean Germany or England or Japan or even the United States. He asks you to belong to that great company of believers out of every nation. “… happy is that people, whose God is the Lord” (Ps. 144:15). “So we [are] thy people and sheep of thy pasture …” (Ps. 79:13). Through the prophet Isaiah God says, “… for the transgression of my people was he stricken” (Isa. 53:8). And in the New Testament, “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate” (Heb. 13:12). Oh, what a wonderful position we have in Christ!
Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy [1 Pet. 2:10].
“Which in time past were not a people.” We didn’t belong to God but were far from Him.
“Which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy” My friend, there is one gift that you won’t want to miss, and the name written on the box is “mercy.” It is a big box because God is rich in mercy. If you need any today, you can go to Him for it.
Again, remember that Peter is writing specifically to the Diaspora, his people who were scattered abroad. “Which in time past were not a people”—they had rejected Christ as their Messiah and God had rejected them. “But are now the people of God.” God was (and is) doing a new thing in calling out a people and extending His mercy to them.
Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul [1 Pet. 2:11].
The child of God is to publish His praises. In what way? By singing hymns? Well, it is all right to do it that way, but you can better show forth His praises by not manifesting the works of the flesh. Earlier Peter has told us that the works of the flesh are malice, guile, hypocrisies, envies, and slander. We publish His praises by displaying our attitudes which have been shaped by the Word of God.
Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation [1 Pet. 2:12].
“Having your conversation [behavior] honest among the Gentiles.” You see that true Christian separation is not some pious position that is to be assumed. It is not simply refraining from doing worldly things. It is very positive action. It includes honesty and good works. All believers in any kind of business dealing show forth the praises of God by their honesty. That is a witness to the world.
Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;
Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well [1 Pet. 2:13–14].
Mad Nero was just coming to the throne in Rome as the new emperor. The Roman Empire boasted itself that it gave justice to man. However, it was like every other government, including our own. The poor man has never had a fair chance. The rich man has always been able to buy lawyers who were smart enough to evade the law. The poor man is the one who has the problems with the law.
Then what should be the believer’s relationship to the law? He is to obey the law. That is what Peter is saying here—“submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake” Since they were under Roman law, they were to obey it. Although Rome intended that their laws should be just, they were not. Remember that Roman law crucified Christ and persecuted the early Christians; yet Rome boasted loudly about justice. It sounds like modern America where religion—that is, the preaching of the Word of God—is very politely being suppressed. Are we to rebel against the government? No. We are to obey the laws of the land.
For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men [1 Pet. 2:15].
When the Christian submits to government and to those who are in authority over his life, he is again revealing the praises of God through his life. I have never accepted joyfully a traffic ticket, but I pay my fine and try to be more careful to obey the laws. We are to be obedient to the law because we are giving a testimony.
As free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God [1 Pet. 2:16].
The relationship of the believer to other people is a testimony which speaks louder than the message from the pulpit. You see, the believer in Christ has a liberty which the man outside of Christ does not have. Believers have a marvelous liberty in Christ Jesus. I personally believe that I could go places and see things which the average Christian could not. Although I don’t think I would be hurt by them, I avoid them because of my testimony. I don’t want to use my liberty as a cloak of maliciousness; that is, I don’t want my weaker brother to be hurt by what I do. We must remember that although we are free, we are the servants of God.
Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king [1 Pet. 2:17].
“Honour all men.” A Christian should respect other human beings. He doesn’t say to love all men—believe me, some of them are very unlovely!
“Love the brotherhood.” While we respect all men, we are to love the brotherhood, meaning other believers.
“Fear God.” Certainly we as believers are to reveal by our lives that we are God-fearing people.
“Honour the king.” We owe an honor to the office of the man who rules over us. I have never voted for a president whom I really wanted. I have always voted against the other candidate. I have never known a president who I felt was really capable. However, regardless of who is president and regardless of his inability, he should be honored because of his office. I am not impressed by some Scripture-spouting, pious individuals who attack the president of the United States. The office is to be honored.
Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward [1 Pet. 2:18].
“Servants, be subject to your masters.” In our contemporary culture we would say, “Employees, be subject to your bosses.” Many folk tell me how wonderful it is to work for a Christian boss. But what if you are working for a godless fellow?
“Not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward [perverse or unreasonable].” You are to be subject to him also, as long as he is not asking you to do that which is illegitimate or dishonest.
“Be subject” has in it the idea of freedom of choice. It is subjecting yourself, something you do voluntarily—not because you feel that your boss is a great person but because of your testimony for Christ. Christians also reveal the praise of God by their attitudes and actions in labor relationships.
For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.
For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God [1 Pet. 2:19–20].
“For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently?” “Glory” could be translated “fame or praise.” Buffeted means “to be struck with the fists.” This was often the treatment of slaves in Peter’s day. If a slave would steal or lie or become rebellious and refuse to work, his master might take him and give him a real going over with his fists. Peter is saying that if you have been beaten for any such fault, and you take it patiently, you have nothing to brag about. The beating was your own fault. God is not going to commend you for your patience in a case like that.
My friend, it may be possible that you are having problems and difficulties because you played the fool. A businessman said to me recently, “I have played the fool!” He had played the stock market and lost all his capital. He went bankrupt. When I was talking to him, he was suffering for his own foolishness. To recognize his fault and take the subsequent suffering patiently did not commend him to God.
“But if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.” Of course, the natural reaction in all of us is to strike back when we have been unjustly treated. I confess that this is my first reaction, but I am learning to let God take care of it. God says in Romans 12:19, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” and He does a much better job of it than I could. The Lord Jesus Himself said, “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven …” (Matt. 5:11–12). And Peter says, “This is acceptable with God.”
Peter doesn’t get very far without telling us about the Lord Jesus again, and here he reminds us of the sufferings of Christ, which are an example to us as believers.
For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:
Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth [1 Pet. 2:21–22].
When our Lord Jesus Christ was here on earth, He suffered two kinds of suffering: He suffered as a human being down here when He became a man, suffering for righteousness’ sake. Also, He suffered for the sins of the world.
Now, His suffering for the sins of the world is not an example for us—it is our redemption. It is something we believe and accept, but we can by no means imitate it. However, in His life down here He did leave us an example. In Nazareth during His first thirty years He suffered ridicule and misunderstanding, as Psalm 69 makes clear. Then, when He moved out in a public ministry, the gospel records tell us how He suffered for righteousness’ sake. When you and I suffer for our faith, we remember the example He left for us in that connection.
Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously [1 Pet. 2:23].
He let His Father settle the account. Again let me remind you of Romans 12:19: “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the, Lord.” Let’s allow God to handle those accounts for us also. And He will handle them, by the way.
Jesus is suffering for the sins of the world in the next verse—
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed [1 Pet. 2:24].
This is not an example that is set for us. You and I cannot suffer to wash away our own sins, much less suffer for the sins of the world. Peter is talking here about redemption. “That we being dead to sins”—that was our condition.
“By whose stripes ye were healed.” Healed of what? I notice that when so-called faith healers use the words, “by whose stripes ye were healed,” they refer to Isaiah 53:5 rather than to this verse in 1 Peter, because Peter makes it evident that the healing is of sins. I certainly agree that the Lord Jesus came to be the Great Healer—but the Great Healer heals of sins. No human physician can handle that problem. And Peter’s use of these words from Isaiah 53:5 reveals that the prophet Isaiah was not speaking primarily of physical healing but of that which is more important and more profound, healing from sin.
For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls [1 Pet. 2:25].
Humanity, both lost and saved, are called sheep. “Ye were as sheep going astray.” This, too, is a quotation from Isaiah 53: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).
As you can see, the suffering of Christ is actually the theme of the last part of this chapter. Christ suffered to set us an example, and He suffered a vicarious, substitutionary death for our sins.
“But are now returned [the same word is often translated converted] unto the Shepherd and Bishop [overseer] of your souls.”
CHAPTER 3
Theme: Suffering produces Christian conduct in the home—in the church; Christ’s suffering preached by the Spirit in Noah’s day
In chapter 3 Peter teaches that suffering will also produce Christian conduct in the life of the believer. This conduct will be manifested in two different places, in the home and in the church.
CONDUCT IN THE HOME
Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives [1 Pet. 3:1].
“Likewise” means “in the same manner”; thus verse 1 ties right back into chapter 2 which discussed separation. “Conversation” would be better translated as “behavior.” Separation and conduct are blended and molded together here.
In Ephesians 5 we find this same theme of the position of the wife in the home. However, Peter is presenting an altogether different situation from that which Paul discussed in Ephesians. Paul dealt with the relationship between a Christian wife and a Christian husband who were both Spirit-filled believers. That entire section in Ephesians begins with “… be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). When you are filled with the Spirit, what are you to do? Paul says, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord” (Eph. 5:22), and “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Eph. 5:25). He is speaking of a Christian home in which both the husband and wife are Spirit-filled believers, and the relationship is one in which the man loves his wife and is willing to die for her.
Now for the sake of order in any situation, there must be headship, In marriage, that headship has been given to the husband. When the wife is told to submit, however, it is not like the obedience of a child. Many men when they marry think of their wife as being a sort of first child and that she is to obey them like a child is to obey. That is not true at all. As we have suggested before, submission has to do with that which is voluntary. Paul is saying to the wife, “Submit yourself. This man loves you, and you are to submit to him.” The better word, because it means more, is respond. Respond to this man. If he comes to you as your Christian husband and puts his arms around you and says, “I love you more than anything else,” then certainly you should respond, “I love you.”
Down through the years I have counseled a great many young people who have asked me to unite them in marriage. I never majored in trying to marry as many as I could; very frankly, I always did it with fear and trembling. I would like to mention very briefly some things I have told them.
Marriage is made on three different planes. The first is the physical plane, and that is important. It is the thing which the world talks about a great deal, the sexual relationship. It is a wonderful thing to have a wife whom you can put your arms around and love. Between two believers, sex can become the most precious, most beautiful, most wonderful thing there is in this world. It is my conviction that believers are the only ones who can really enjoy the physical relationship to the fullest. There is no question that the physical relationship is a wonderful thing.
When I got married, my wife felt she was not cut out to be a preacher’s wife. She had been brought up in a little town in Texas and had seen how the preacher’s wife was expected to do so much work in the church. I took her over to talk with Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer one day, and I explained her fears to him. Neither of us will ever forget what Dr. Chafer said. He told my wife, “I am out speaking in Bible conferences a great deal. When I come home, I am not looking for an assistant pastor, I’m not looking for an organist, I’m not looking for a soloist, and I’m not looking for the president of the missionary society. I want a woman there to meet me who is my wife and whom I can put my arms around and love.” The physical relationship is an important relationship.
The second plane in a marriage is the mental or psychological relationship, which is also very important. It is nice when the husband and wife enjoy doing the same things. On one of our tours to Bible lands, there was a very wonderful couple who were in their fifties. They would get up early in the morning and take a hike, and again at night they would walk together. They would visit certain places which were not included in the tour. They enjoyed doing things together, and it is wonderful to have that kind of relationship. The thing that makes the comic strip “Maggie and Jiggs” so funny is that Jiggs wants to go to Dinty Moore’s where they have corned beef, cabbage, and beer, and Maggie wants to go to the opera where they have champagne. Their interests and their appetites are altogether different. That, of course, does not make for a healthy relationship. Because so many husbands and wives do not share the same interests, there are many clubs and lodges today where each can get away from the other and do what they want to do. How tragic that is!
The third plane in a marriage is the spiritual relationship, and this applies to a marriage between two believers. When problems and trouble and sorrow and suffering come, a husband and wife should be able to kneel down, come to God in prayer, and meet around the Word of God together. You can break the other two ties, but “… a threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Eccl. 4:12). When you have all three, you have a wonderful marriage. The first two cords can break, but if the third one will hold, the marriage will hold. However, when the third one is broken with the others, the marriage has gone down the tube, my friend. I have to admit it, there is very little hope for a marriage like that.
We have been discussing marriage between two believers. Suppose, however, that the wife is married to a man who is not a Christian. To begin with, she should not have married him, if that was the situation before they married. Any man or woman who marries a non-Christian is in trouble. Scripture forbids marriage between a believer and an unbeliever. In Deuteronomy we read, “Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together” (Deut. 22:10). There are a lot of them yoked together today, and it is a big mistake.
One young lady came to me and said, “Dr. McGee, my fiancé is not a believer, but I am going to win him for the Lord.” I said to her, “Have you won him yet?” “No,” she said, “he won’t even come to church with me yet.” So I told her this: “Your greatest influence with that young man is right now. The day you get married, your influence to win him for the Lord will greatly diminish. You’ll never be able to preach to him again. You are going to be living with him, and he’s going to be watching you very carefully from now on. If you can’t get him to church now, you’re in trouble.” She didn’t like what I said. In fact, she went and got another preacher to perform the ceremony because I would not perform it. I do not marry—and have never knowingly married—a saved and an unsaved person; I believe that is entirely wrong. She got someone else to marry them, but she came back in two years weeping and wanting to talk to me because she had gotten a divorce from him. That marriage was headed in that direction even before it started, my friend.
In this passage here in 1 Peter, we have that unfortunate relationship in which there is a saved wife and an unsaved husband; apparently, the wife became a Christian after they had married. Is she to change after her conversion and become a sort of female preacher in the home in order to lecture her husband and to present the gospel to him? No, she is to continue on in the same position of being in subjection to him. To be in subjection means to submit yourself. This is a voluntary step; it is not a command. The wife is to continue on in this relationship of voluntarily being in subjection, letting her husband—though unsaved—continue to be the head of the house.
Suppose, however, that her husband wants her to go with him to the nightclub and drink cocktails? Is she to do that? I would hope that even these most rabid folk who say that she should obey her husband would agree that she should not do such things. However, there are those who are giving that kind of counsel today.
A lady who attended my church when I was a pastor in downtown Los Angeles had an unsaved husband who wanted her to go to a nightclub, which apparently was a sort of burlesque. Some evangelist had counseled her that she was to obey her husband even in this, and so she went. It offended her sensibilities, and she was under great conviction about it. She actually came to the place where a doctor told her that she would have to enter an institution for psychopathic treatment because she could not go on under that type of pressure. Well, she heard me speaking on the radio, and it was evident that I had a little different idea about it. When she came to talk to me, I told her that I did not believe that Simon Peter intended for her to do these things. I said that after her conversion she was to try to win her husband and to be subject to him. But I went on to ask her what she would do if her husband wanted her to go out and commit a robbery. Would she have to join him in that and drive the car for him? She said she was sure that the evangelist would not want her to go that far.
May I say to you, her submission was to be voluntary. God certainly did not command her to engage in sinful or questionable activities which would spoil her testimony. A Christian wife must live very carefully before an unsaved husband. Her preaching is not going to do a bit of good. “That, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the behavior of the wives.” In other words, she is to preach a wordless sermon by her pure life which she lives before him. And that has nothing in the world to do with submission to him.
While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear [1 Pet. 3:2].
Peter says that your husband will recognize that you have now changed and want to live a pure life for God and that you no longer want to indulge in the things of the world. Therefore, that is the testimony which you can give to him.
Another lady came to me when I was a pastor and said, “Dr. McGee, I bring my husband to church every Sunday.” (She was the kind of woman who could bring her husband; she was a dominant personality.) She continued, “He is not saved, and every Sunday I think he will make a decision for Christ but he doesn’t. On Monday morning I sit at the breakfast table just weeping and telling him how I wish he would accept Christ. When he comes home from work in the evening, again I just sit there at dinner and weep and beg him to accept Christ.” I got to thinking about what she had said. How would you like to have dinner every evening and breakfast every morning with a weeping woman? I wouldn’t care for it myself, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want that either. So I called her up and said, “Suppose that for a year’s moratorium you simply do not talk to your husband about the Lord at all?” She said, “Oh, you mean that I’m not to witness?” I said, “No, I didn’t say that. Peter says that if you cannot win your husband with the Word, then start preaching a wordless sermon. How about your life? What kind of life are you living before him?” I want to tell you, that put her back on her heels because she wasn’t living as she knew she should live. But she agreed to my suggestion because she did want to win him, and she was a wonderful woman in many ways. I was amazed myself when, in six months’ time, her husband made a decision for Christ one Sunday morning. The wordless sermon had won, my friend.
Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel [1 Pet. 3:3].
Obviously, this verse does not prohibit all adorning—if it did, it also would prohibit all apparel!
In the Roman Empire a great emphasis was put upon the way women arranged their hair. If you have seen any pictures of that period, you know that the women loaded their heads down with all kinds of hair, not their own hair but someone else’s. They really built their hair up, and they wore jewelry in it. Today we have very much the same kind of emphasis upon hair and dress. If the unsaved man you are going to marry cannot be won to Christ by your sex appeal before you marry, you will never win him to Christ by sex appeal afterward. A wife can apply a gallon of perfume and wear the thinnest negligee there is, but I tell you, she will not win him for the Lord that way.
I do believe, though, that a Christian woman should dress in style. At the Bible institute where I used to teach, someone had given the girls the notion that they should never use any make-up and need not give any care to the way they dressed. I used to tell those girls that we all ought to look the best we can with what we’ve got to work with, although some of us don’t have much to work with! I said, “Some of you would look a little bit better if you would put on just a little make-up, because you look like you came out of the morgue. That is simply not attractive, and it does not commend you to God.”
Peter’s point here is that you cannot win an unsaved man by sex appeal.
But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price [1 Pet. 3:4].
A woman is to wear an ornament, but it is to be an ornament on the inside, the ornament of a gentle and quiet spirit. In the little Book of Ruth, we read that when Boaz went into the field and saw that beautiful maid of Moab, Ruth, he fell in love with her. But have you noticed something else? Boaz had heard of her character. He had heard that she had a marvelous, wonderful character, and he fell in love with her total person.
We have many very helpful cosmetic products today, and I see nothing wrong in using anything that will make you look better. All of us want to look the best we possibly can. Alexander Pope has well advised:
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
Be in style. Dress up in a way that is becoming, but don’t try to use that as the means of winning someone to the Lord. We need more inward adornment today—that is the thing which is important.
For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands [1 Pet. 3:5].
There are a number of fine examples of such women in the Old Testament. I have already mentioned Ruth who was in the genealogical line that led to Christ. We are also told that Rachel was a beautiful woman, and Jacob fell in love with her. She was the one bright spot in that man’s life, which was a pretty dark life, by the way.
Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement [1 Pet. 3:6].
Sarah was such a beautiful woman that several kings wanted her as a wife, and Abraham had a great problem in that connection. But she called Abraham “lord.” She looked up to Abraham. It is wonderful when a wife can look up to her husband.
Now Peter speaks to the husbands—
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered [1 Pet. 3:7].
Although this seems to imply that both the husband and wife are Christians, I believe that these instructions to husbands would be applicable either way.
A husband is to treat his wife as the weaker vessel, and he is to give her honor because of that. I do not think the current women’s liberation movement is going to last very long. I think a woman wants to be a woman, just as a man wants to be a man. Because she is the weaker vessel, she is to be treated with honor. The man is to give first place to her. She gets into the car first as he holds the door for her. When they enter a room, she goes first. As they walk down the sidewalk, he walks on the outside for her protection. He is to treat her with honor. When a woman loses her place, she doesn’t go up; she goes down. When she takes her place, she can be treated with honor and given her rightful position. I think every husband ought to treat his wife as someone special.
“That your prayers be not hindered.” Peter says that if you are not getting along as husband and wife, it will ruin your family altar, and there is no use praying together. If you are fighting like cats and dogs, well, God just doesn’t hear cats and dogs. But when you are in agreement, you can pray together and your prayers will not be hindered.
Before we leave this particular section of Scripture, I would like to add one further word. Marriage is something which God has given to the entire human family, not only to Christians or to the nation Israel. In the Book of Genesis we are told that God made man, and at that time man was alone. I think the Lord let Adam be alone for a long time to let him know he was missing something. Then Scripture says that God took man and from man He made woman. Using the Hebrew words, Genesis 2:23 reads, “She shall be called Isha, because she was taken out of Ish.” She is called “… an help meet for him” (Gen. 2:18, italics mine); that is, a help that was fit for him. In other words, she was to be the other half of him. He was only half a man, and she was to be the other part of him. With that in mind, you can see that the marriage relationship is not to be one of a man insisting on treating his wife like a little child who has to jump every time he says so. She is there to help him. She is there to be a part of him. She is there to love him. And he is there to love and protect her. That is the ideal relationship in marriage.
CONDUCT IN THE CHURCH
Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous [1 Pet. 3:8].
Believers are to be like-minded, sympathetic, tenderhearted, and courteous, which means they are to be humble-minded, not trying to lord it over one another. This is to be the attitude and action of a believer among other believers.
Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing [1 Pet. 3:9].
This is turning the other cheek. If another believer says something evil about you, something that is not true, are you to strike back? No. Commit him to the Lord—the Lord will take care of him. If we take this position it will break down all the little cliques and stop all the fighting within the church. Remember that we are representing the Lord.
For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile [1 Pet. 3:10].
All of us want to live, but unfortunately there are a lot of believers today who are not enjoying life. They are not living life to its fullest, not getting all they should out of life. When I was a pastor in Nashville, Tennessee, many years ago, a young medical student—who was the president of the young people’s group in the church and not much younger than I was—said one day, “Vernon, I want life to be like an orange to me, an orange out of which I can squeeze every drop. I want to live for God!” “For he that will love life”—if you want to really live, here is a good formula, and here is the key to it. Peter says that we are to refrain from constantly speaking evil of others. And we are to refrain from speaking “guile,” from being deceptive and not telling the truth.
Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it [1 Pet. 3:11].
A child of God is not to sit back and act piously. Let’s live it up, my friend, but let’s not live it up by indulging in gossip and evil. Let’s live it up by turning away from evil and pursuing that which ministers to peace. Let’s live for God today. How important this is!
For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil [1 Pet. 3:12].
This is an amazing passage of Scripture. Peter is quoting here from Psalm 34: “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth” (Ps. 34:15–16). This is a strong statement as it is given here in this psalm. It is something the Word of God has emphasized a great deal. God has guaranteed to hear the prayers of those who are His own. He has not guaranteed to hear the prayers of those who are not His own. The only prayer that a sinner can pray is, “Lord, I admit that I am a sinner, and accept Jesus Christ as my Savior, and ask that You accept me in Him.” That is a prayer that God will hear and that God will answer. Many people today have the idea that an old reprobate can live any kind of life he wants and then come to God in prayer when he is in trouble and expect God to hear and answer him. As the movies and the novels tell it, the old reprobate comes home to find his little girl sick in the hospital, and so he gets down on his knees and calls upon God to raise her up. How sentimental that is! May I say this very plainly: it is nonsense, and it is absolutely unscriptural. Let that old reprobate get right with God, and then God will hear and answer his prayer. It is a false idea today to think that you can call on God under any circumstances whether or not you are His child. My friend, He has not promised to hear the prayers of those who are not His own.
In Ecclesiastes 2:17 we read the statement of a man who has tried everything in life. He has lived like a reprobate, and he says, “Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” How many men and women today who are involved in living for the things of this world suddenly wake up and find that it’s not worth it? Life is monotonous, and life is not worth it. No wonder they put a gun to their heads and blow their brains out. No wonder some of them jump off bridges. No wonder some take an overdose of sleeping pills. My friend, it is not until you come into a right relationship with God that you can live life to its fullest.
Does that mean that a child of God is living on a pretty high plane above the problems of this world? Listen to Peter—
And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? [1 Pet. 3:13].
Does that mean that God gives you an armor so that nobody can touch you at all?
But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled [1 Pet. 3:14].
Suffering for the right should bring joy to the child of God. Some Christians actually make themselves obnoxious in their witness to others, thinking they are taking a stand for the Lord. But if we have simply taken a quiet stand for the right and for God, we ought to rejoice if we suffer for that. I must repeat this again: you are not going to escape suffering in this world if you are a child of God. Someone has said, “Jesus often spoke of Christianity as a banquet but never as a picnic.” How true that is! He never said that we are going to have it easy down here.
I truly wish that I could elucidate this next verse in such a way that it would bless your heart. I will do my best.
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear [1 Pet. 3:15].
This means you ought to know more than a little about the Bible. The tragedy of the hour is that there are so many folk who say they are Christians, but the sceptic is able to tie them up into fourteen different knots like a little kitty caught up in a ball of yarn—they cannot extricate themselves at all. Why? Because of the fact that they do not know the Word of God.
“Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.” Oh, today, do you have a little sanctuary, a little chapel in your own heart? When you are riding along in the car or walking down the street or are in the shop or office or classroom, is there a little chapel in your heart where you can withdraw and sanctify the Lord God in your heart? If there is, folk outside will know that you belong to God, and you will not have to mouth it all the time or make yourself obnoxious by making some pious statement. Oh, if in our lives today we would sanctify the Lord God in our hearts. How we need to do that!
Habakkuk wrote, “But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him” (Hab. 2:20). On Sunday you may go to your church, but the world is passing you by, headed for the beach, headed for the mountains, headed for the desert, headed for places of amusement. The whole world is not keeping silence before Him. Why? Because we as individuals need to sanctify the Lord God in our hearts.
Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ [1 Pet. 3:16].
In other words, make sure that those who speak evil of you are in error. Shortly after I had come to downtown Los Angeles as pastor of a church there, I met Dr. Jim McGinley in Chicago at the Moody Founder’s Week conference, and he asked me, “How do you like being pastor of that great church?” I said, “It’s wonderful, but I find myself in a place where I cannot really defend myself. I don’t intend to get up in the pulpit every Sunday morning to explain all the things that have been said about me. My business is teaching the Word of God. Yet none of the things that have been said are true.” Dr. McGinley said to me, “Just thank the Lord that what they say is not true.” In this verse Peter is saying, “Have a good conscience so that when you hear these rumors about yourself, it will not bother you because you know they are not true.”
For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing, than for evil-doing [1 Pet. 3:17].
If you suffer for Christ’s sake, you can rejoice in that; but if you are suffering because you have played the fool, because you have gotten into trouble and into sin, then that is a different story altogether.
CHRIST’S SUFFERING PREACHED BY THE SPIRIT IN NOAH’S DAY
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit [1 Pet. 3:18].
It is important for us to see that Jesus Christ became a human being, and it was in His humanity that He died on the cross. He died on the cross, and it was the Holy Spirit who raised Him from the dead.
By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison [1 Pet. 3:19].
This has been a most misunderstood passage of Scripture. The key word to this entire passage is in verse 20; it is the little word when—
Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water [1 Pet. 3:20].
When did Christ preach to the spirits in prison? “When once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah.” In Christ’s day, the spirits of those men to whom Noah had preached were in prison, for they had rejected the message of Noah. They had gone into sheol. They were waiting for judgment; they were lost. But Christ did not go down and preach to them after He died on the cross. He preached through Noah “when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah.” For 120 years Noah had preached the Word of God. He saved his family but no one else. It was the Spirit of Christ who spoke through Noah in Noah’s day. In Christ’s day, those who rejected Noah’s message were in prison. The thought is that Christ’s death meant nothing to them just as it means nothing to a great many people today who, as a result, will also come into judgment.
The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ [1 Pet. 3:21].
“The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us.” To what baptism does this refer? It is not water baptism but the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is real baptism, and water baptism is ritual baptism. Now I believe in water baptism, and I believe immersion is the proper mode. However, the important thing here is to see that it is the baptism of the Holy Spirit which puts you into the body of believers.
“Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh”—it is not just by water, for that will not put away the filth of the flesh. “But the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ”—that is, a faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ which brought the work of the Holy Spirit into your life and regenerated you.
Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him [1 Pet. 3:22].
This verse is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I are little sinners down here, but we can come to Him, receive Him, and thus join the great company of the redeemed. We are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ because He is raised from the dead and is today at God’s right hand.
CHAPTER 4
Theme: Suffering produces obedience to the will of God
SUFFERING PRODUCES OBEDIENCE TO THE WILL OF GOD
In this passage of Scripture Peter makes it very clear that when life is easy there is danger of drifting into a state of mind which accepts every blessing in life as if it were owed to us. We come to the place where we do not prize or value life as we should. As a Christian, what value do you put upon life? God permits His children to suffer in order to keep us from sin and to give us a proper value of life. I hear so many young people today say that they did this or that in order to find a new direction for their life. May I say to you, suffering will give a new direction to life. David discovered this and wrote in Psalm 66:10, “For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.” God puts us through the test that it might draw us to Himself and give us a new direction and drive for life. Such is the purpose of suffering.
Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin [1 Pet. 4:1].
I must confess that I have recently been given new insights into this verse. Over the years it is a verse that has disturbed me a great deal, and I have never gone into a great deal of detail in my teaching on it. I have been rather amazed to discover that other commentators have likewise more or less bypassed it rather than dealing with it in detail. I trust that the Spirit of God will give us an understanding that will make this verse helpful to us.
“Forasmuch” refers us back, I believe, to 1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” These two verses go together, and this is again a reminder that in His human body Christ not only endured pain but He was actually put to death in the flesh.
In recent years there was a very popular book, When God Died, as well as a popular theology which said, “God is dead.” Well, God never died, my friend, and He is not dead today—He hasn’t even been sick. Christ died in His human body, which He took yonder at Bethlehem. As the writer to the Hebrews put it, He was “in all points tempted like as we are.” He knew what it was to suffer. He knew what it was to bleed. He knew what it was to shed tears. He knew what it was to be brokenhearted. He was perfectly human, and He died in that human body.
Christ brought an end to His relation to the sins of man when He died on the cross because He bore the penalty for sin in His own body. We are told back in 1 Peter 2:24, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” Three times (1 Pet. 2:24; 3:18; 4:1) Peter says that it was in His flesh and in His body that Christ paid the penalty for man’s sin. That leads me to say this: Christ did not die in sin, nor did He die under sin, but He died to sin. He took my place, He took your place, and He paid the penalty for our sin. From that point on, Christ will not come back to die for sin. He will no longer have any relationship to sin Himself because of the fact that He arose from the dead. When He came back from the dead, He came in a glorified body. He was “quickened by the Spirit,” or “made alive by the Spirit” is the better translation (see 1 Pet. 3:18). He has a life that now lives in a body. He is up yonder in a body that is completely devoted to the service of God, for He is God and He is in the enjoyment of full and free access to God and to all creation.
Now Christ is able to make over this benefit to us. Peter tells us, “Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.” “The same mind” actually means “the same thought.” Some people have said that it means resolution, but that is not quite the idea. This refers to the thought which leads to a resolution. This is what Paul spoke of when he said, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5).
“Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh,” Peter says, and those of us who have suffered in the flesh have “ceased from sin.” The translation of the word ceased is a very unsatisfactory one, and this is what had disturbed me about this verse. The Greek word translated as “ceased” is pauoµ. In the active voice, pauoµ means “to stop or to cease.” It is used like that in 1 Corinthians 13:8, “Whether there be tongues, they shall cease”; that is, tongues are going to stop, and that is something I have emphasized in my teaching. When I was in Athens, Greece, I took a walk from the Hilton Hotel down to Constitution Square. As I would come to a corner, I would see a sign like our “Stop” sign, only there it said, Pauoµ. Pauoµ means “to stop” when it is used in the active voice. An active verb means that the subject does something; a passive verb (or the middle voice in the Greek) means that the subject is acted upon and the subject itself doesn’t do anything. In this verse which we are studying, pauoµ is in the middle voice or the passive. Therefore Dr. Joseph Thayer, in his lexicon of the New Testament, translates this literally as “hath got release.” In other words, if you have suffered in the flesh, you’ve got release from sin.
Just what does Peter mean by this? First of all, I would say that God will use suffering to keep you from sin. I am confident that many of us have experienced that personally. Suffering will keep us from sin, but Peter is saying more than that here. Peter says we have got release from sin. That means that God has made an adequate provision for you and me to live the Christian life. Dr. Griffith Thomas has said that in this verse Peter puts Paul’s Romans 6 into a nutshell of just one verse. Romans 6 is that chapter which speaks of the provision God has made for you and me to live the Christian life.
Peter has made it very clear that we have been born again by the Word of God. The Spirit of God using the Word of God will produce a son of God. And that son of God now has a new nature, a new nature that is not going to live in sin.
The Bible’s illustration of this truth, which I use a great deal, is the story of the Prodigal Son (see Luke 15:11–32). The Prodigal Son got down in the pigpen, but, you see, he wasn’t a pig. He had the nature of his father who lived down the road in that wonderful mansion. Because that boy had the nature of his father, he didn’t like eating out of a trough. He didn’t like eating the swill that the swine ate. He enjoyed sitting down at a table covered with a white linen tablecloth and eating with a knife and fork. He liked having a nice steak or prime rib before him, with all the other delicacies, topped off with ice cream. That boy didn’t care for the pigpen for he had the nature of his father.
Peter says you are now identified with Christ. When you came to the Lord Jesus and were born again, the Spirit of God baptized you, that is, He identified you with Christ. Now let that mind, that thought, be in you which is in Christ. Christ is up yonder at God’s right hand in a body totally devoted to the service of God for you and me. Do you think, my friend, if you have really been born again, if you are really a child of God with a new nature, that you can go on living in sin? Now I am a Calvinist and I emphasize the security of the believer. However, I think that there is such an overemphasis on that point that many of our Arminian friends also need to be heard today. This is one reason I feel as kindly as I do toward the Pentecostals; they are preaching a doctrine that has been largely forgotten, the doctrine of holiness. They emphasize that believers should live a holy life for God today. My friend, you cannot be a child of God and go out and live in the pigpen. Let’s face it—if you do, you are a pig. Pigs live in pigpens and they love it, but sons do not love the pigpen.
Peter says that God has made every provision for you: you are born again, indwelt by the Spirit, baptized by the Spirit, identified with Christ, and you can now live life by the power of the Spirit of God. In Romans 7 Paul shows how the Christian is defeated when he lives in the flesh, but in Romans 8 he tells how God has provided the Holy Spirit that we might live by the power of the Spirit. Again I come back to this word pauoµ. It is not used in the active voice; what we have here is a word that does not mean “cease,” but means “hath got release.” God has made every arrangement for you and me not to live in sin today. It would be impossible for us to live in sin. Oh, the son might go to the pigpen, but you can put this down for sure, he will not stay in the pigpen. One day he has to say, “I will arise and go to my father …” (Luke 15:18).
If you are living in sin today and you are comfortable in it, I would surely question your salvation. Someone may ask, “Can a Christian do this or do that?” He might do it one time, my friend, but if he lives in sin there is something radically wrong. A child of God with a new nature longs to please Christ in all things. This is the reason that I believe the study of the entire Word of God is essential today. I know that I will be accused of playing on an instrument of only one string. Well, since I’m no musician, I have an instrument with only one string on it, and it is this: You need the total Word of God—not just a few little verses to draw out some little legalistic system by which to live the Christian life. You cannot live the Christian life by following rules. You can live the Christian life only by having the mind of Christ, by having the Spirit of God moving in you to please God and to refrain from those things which bring disgrace to Him.
That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God [1 Pet. 4:2].
Paul speaks very strongly in this connection in Romans 8: “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8:5–6). What does Paul mean when he says “to be carnally minded is death”? Do you lose your salvation? No, it means you are dead to any fellowship with God. “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” (1 John 1:6). My friend, you cannot live in sin and have fellowship with God. Sin is what is keeping people away from the Word of God today. I have to confess that Christians are a minority, and in teaching through the entire Bible as I do, I appeal only to the minority of the minority. A great many folk are trying to find a shortcut to living the Christian life, and there is no shortcut. God says that He will use suffering in your life in order to keep you from sin.
“That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.” We no longer take life for granted, for we have suffered, and God will use that suffering to keep us from sin.
As he continues, Peter begins to look ahead. Life is short—
For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries [1 Pet. 4:3].
After we have been converted, we would be very foolish to spend our lives in the things which we did before. In fact, we cannot do that. We are now joined to Christ; we are united to Him, and we cannot run with the world to sinning. We must live today for God. What a tremendous truth this is! Life is short; time is fleeting, and we must recognize that we are going to come before Him for judgment before long.
“When we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries.” Simon Peter spells out the sins here. Homer Rodeheaver was a personal friend of mine, and I loved him in the Lord. Years ago as we were having lunch together, I said to him, “Homer, you were with Billy Sunday for so many years. What do you say was the secret of his ministry?” He replied, “He preached on sin, and he always was specific when he spoke about sin. He spelled it out.” Simon Peter spells it out here.
“Lasciviousness”—that’s living in sexual sin. “Lusts”—that includes a great many things, lusting after the things of the flesh. “Excess of wine” is drunkenness. “Revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries.” “Banquetings” should be translated “carousing.” “Abominable idolatries”—the Scriptures tell us that the love of money is the root of all evil; covetousness is idolatry in our day. These are the things which will take you away from God, and Peter clearly spells them out.
I am afraid that today we have a great many preachers who are pretty indefinite about sin. Some wag wrote: “If you’ve got religion, you don’t know it. If you know it, you haven’t got it. And if you’ve got it, you can’t lose it. And if you lose it, you didn’t have it. And if you never had it, you can’t get it.” Some of the talk I hear today sounds as vague as that. My friend, sin is spelled out here. It is written in bold letters; it’s in neon lights in the Word of God, and there is no way of missing it.
Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you [1 Pet. 4:4].
Either you are going to please God or you’ll please men. And if you are pleasing men, you will not please God. The Lord Jesus said, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). If the world does not hate you, then there is something radically wrong.
When I was sixteen years old, I began to work in a bank. They put me on the teller’s cage when I was seventeen and promised me that the next year I would be made a junior officer. I felt that I was well liked and popular in that bank. Then I went to a young people’s conference where I made my decision for Christ and to study for the ministry. I came back to the bank and resigned, yet they let me have a part-time job—they were good to me in that way. But I found out that I was no longer the popular boy in that place. As a Christian I became very unpopular. In fact, the fellows with whom I had run ridiculed me, and they did a good job of it because they knew what my life had been before. That was a very difficult decision I made at that particular time.
I hope that I am not misunderstood when I tell this little story. In those days I went to dances; in fact, I was chairman of a dance committee. After I made my decision for Christ, I thought I would break off my old ties gradually. I went to the next dance with the idea that I would not dance but I would just stand around in the stag line. As I was standing there, I felt very much out of place. There was a fellow there from the bank above whom I had been promoted. He didn’t care much for me, especially when I announced that I was studying for the ministry—yet he was an officer in a church himself. He came over to me at that dance and said, “This is a h— of a place for a preacher to be!” Do you know, that was the first time he had ever told me the truth. I agreed with him. I found out that you cannot break off gradually. The world is not going to appreciate you very much when as a Christian you try to continue on with them. I walked out of that place, never to walk back in again.
My friend, I do not believe that you can go on in sin if you are a child of God. You have the nature of Christ; you are joined to Him. He suffered down here once; He is suffering no more, but He can help you. He sent the Holy Spirit down to indwell those who are His own. We have been baptized into the body of believers, as Peter has pointed out to us, and now, being filled with the Holy Spirit, we can live for God. We cannot do it in our own strength but in His strength.
Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead [1 Pet. 4:5].
“Ready to judge the quick [the living] and the dead.” The whole world, the living and the dead, are going to be judged by the Lord Jesus someday. Will He judge believers, too? He sure will! Not for salvation, which was assured when they became children of God, but He will not let a believer get by with sin since He is judging the world for sin. Because God does judge Christians in the world—He chastens His children—the unbeliever had better beware. He is warned that he will come up someday for judgment.
For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit [1 Pet. 4:6].
“For this cause!”—that is, because of coming judgment, the gospel was preached. God wants the gospel preached to all men. And if they don’t hear the gospel or respond to the gospel, He makes it very clear that they are already dead in trespasses and sins, and they will be judged as men in the flesh. But if they accept Christ, they can live according to God in the Spirit. The Lord Jesus said in John 5:24, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life”—he was in a state of death. He further amplified this thought at the time of the death of Lazarus: “Jesus said unto her [Martha], I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” (John 11:25–26, italics mine). In other words, you and I were dead in trespasses and sins. Paul meant the same thing when he wrote to the Ephesians, “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). We were spiritually dead. Paul went on to say, “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world…. fulfilling the desires of the flesh…” (Eph. 2:2–3). Peter is saying the same thing here in this verse. The gospel is being preached, and when the gospel is being preached, two things happen. Some accept it, and if they accept it, they are going to live for God and live throughout eternity. Others reject it, and those who reject the gospel are the men who are dead in sins and are dead to God throughout eternity; that is, they have no relation to Him whatsoever.
But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer [1 Pet. 4:7].
“But the end of all things is at hand.” That has been true since the day the Lord Jesus went back to heaven. Paul could say that the coming of Christ was imminent: “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). Peter says, “The end of all things is at hand.” God is going to bring this world to a standstill one of these days while He judges it. He will take His own out of the world, and there will be a lot of things to straighten up in the lives of believers. They will go before the judgment seat of Christ, not regarding salvation but regarding rewards, regarding the life which they have lived for God. This is another reason we should live for God—we are coming up for judgment.
“Be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.” “Sober” should be translated “sober-minded.” Peter uses this expression a great deal. He actually means, “Be ye therefore intelligent.” Be an intelligent Christian. An intelligent Christian is one who knows the Bible; that is, he will know it the best he can. (I often make the confession that I marvel at my ignorance of the Word of God. The more I study it, the more I see how little I really know about the Word of God.) But, my friend, an intelligent, sober-minded Christian is going to know all he can about the Word of God.
The Christian is also to be intelligent in this evil world. The Lord Jesus said to His disciples, “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matt. 10:16). You need to have the wisdom of a serpent today; if you don’t, another snake around the corner is going to bite you, I can assure you of that!
“Watch unto prayer.” In other words, prayer should have in it that anticipation, that expectation of the coming of Christ. Our prayer meetings are dead today because we are not looking for Him. He is the living Christ. We ought to talk to Him now for we are going to talk to Him hereafter. And at the judgment He is going to talk to us—that is the thing I’m not so sure I’m looking forward to!
And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins [1 Pet. 4:8].
“Have fervent love among yourselves: for charity [love] shall cover the multitude of sins.” Peter is talking about our relations as believers today. The writer of the Proverbs said, “Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins” (Prov. 10:12). Hatred in a church will stir up strife. This little clique will be against that little clique, and these folk will be against somebody else, and all that type of thing. But love covers up all that. Maybe you don’t like the way your pastor combs his hair. I knew a pastor in Texas who told me that he had a lock of hair right on top of his head which would always stand up no matter how he combed it. He said that the choir threatened to quit because of it. They sat behind him and could always see that hair come up sometime during his sermon. They actually became angry with him because of that lock of hair. Every time he went for a haircut he had the barber cut it off because he did not want to offend his choir. Imagine that type of thing! If they had had love in their hearts, that lock of hair wouldn’t have bothered them one bit.
Use hospitality one to another without grudging [1 Pet. 4:9].
I think hospitality can also be expressed in ways other than entertaining in your home. The minister who is traveling and speaking in conferences needs to be alone. He and his wife need to have a room in a motel where he can study and pray rather than be in a home where he has to carry on conversation all the time. May I say, if you want to extend hospitality to your visiting speaker, take care of his motel bill. Maybe you could also invite him out for dinner.
“Without grudging.” However we extend our hospitality, it should be done with real warmth.
As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God [1 Pet. 4:10].
“As every man hath received the gift”—“the gift” means a particular spiritual gift, and there are many gifts. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 that there is one body and many members and that the church is a body in which there are many members and many gifts. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what your gift is; I do know that if you are a child of God, you have some gift and you are to be using it in serving one another.
If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen [1 Pet. 4:11].
If a man is not speaking the Word of God, he has no business standing in the pulpit. We have no business saying we are teaching the Bible when we are not really teaching it.
“If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth.” In other words, here is one man who teaches the Bible one way and another who teaches it another way, and you say, “I like this one, and I don’t like the other.” Well, the other man’s method may appeal to someone to whom your man doesn’t appeal. We should let each one minister “as of the ability which God giveth.”
“That God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” Peter says that we are to teach the Word of God in such a way that God may get glory through Jesus Christ.
Peter is now going to talk about a different type of suffering. The people to whom he was writing were now moving into the orbit of the hurricane of persecution which broke out during the reign of Nero. Nero had already begun the persecution of the Christians in Rome, and it was spreading out through the empire. Peter warns his people that they are moving into that orbit of suffering. Many of them would become martyrs. You and I may not become martyrs—I trust we won’t—but we are going to suffer in this world, my friend.
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you [1 Pet. 4:12].
“Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try [test] you.” When suffering comes most of us react as if it were something strange—we feel that nobody else has ever suffered like we have suffered. When I was a pastor in Cleburne, Texas, I went one day to a home on one side of the railroad tracks to visit a family in which there had just been a suicide. I went there to minister the Word to them. They said to me, “Dr. McGee, why in the world did this happen to us? No one has ever been called upon to suffer as we are suffering.” When I left their home I crossed over to the “wrong side of the railroad tracks” to visit another family. They too had just had a suicide in the family. Do you know what they said to me? “Dr. McGee, why should this happen to us? No one has ever been called upon to go through anything like this.” We all tend to think that our suffering is strange, that it is unlike anything that has been suffered before.
My friend, I do not know what your problem is, but I assure you that it is not something strange. Others have gone through the same thing, and you will never be the one who will suffer more than anyone else. When Paul was chosen as an apostle, the Lord said, “… I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Acts 9:16). Paul has gone the limit of suffering; therefore you will not be going the limit, and you should not consider your suffering a strange thing. All of us fall into this fallacy in our thinking. I know that I could not believe it when the doctor told me that I had cancer. I thought you could have cancer, but I never thought I could have cancer. I thought that cancer was something for somebody else but not for me.
“The fiery trial which is to try [test] you” should be “which is testing you”—that is, it was going on right then—“as though some strange thing was happening unto you.” These believers were already being tested by suffering. Suffering is not something which is accidental; it is the normal Christian experience. Peter says, “Don’t think it’s strange, because this is the normal experience of believers.”
“Fiery trial” is literally smelted in a furnace. David spoke of the fact that God’s testing of him was like putting silver into a furnace to purify it. We find this thought throughout all of Scripture. Peter has now mentioned this fiery trial several times. He had personally endured suffering, and he was yet to die a martyr’s death by crucifixion.
This little poem expresses it the best—
Out from the mine and the darkness,
Out from the damp and the mold,
Out from the fiery furnace,
Cometh each grain of gold.
Crushed into atoms and leveled
Down to the humblest dust
With never a heart to pity,
With never a hand to trust.
Molten and hammered and beaten
Seemeth it ne’er to be done.
Oh, for such fiery trial,
What hath the poor gold done?
Oh, ’twere a mercy to leave it
Down in the damp and the mold.
If this is the glory of living,
Then better to be dross than gold.
Under the press and the roller,
Into the jaws of the mint,
Stamped with the emblem of freedom,
With never a flaw or a dint.
Oh, what a joy, the refining,
Out of the damp and the mold.
And stamped with the glorious image,
Oh, beautiful coin of gold!
“In the Crucible” —Author unknown
God has a purpose in our suffering, my friend.
But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy [1 Pet. 4:13].
Why are we to rejoice in trials? Because suffering prepares us for the coming of Christ. Paul wrote in Romans 8:17, “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” I think we need to face up to the fact that there is no shortcut to living the Christian life. There is no easy way. Let me repeat, the Christian life is a banquet—because He has invited us to the table of salvation—but it is not a picnic. We are to suffer for Him and with Him. And we will know the reason for each testing when we stand in His presence someday. I tell you, I would be embarrassed to sit down with Paul in glory and be on the same level with him, because he suffered so much. And today some folk criticize Simon Peter, but we are also going to look up to him when we get to heaven. The Word of God makes it very clear that suffering is a part of the Christian life. Suffering is what develops you. We hear so much talk about how everything is supposed to be smooth and lovely in the Christian marriage and in the Christian home. My friend, I do not agree with that at all—sorrow and suffering will come to the Christian home. I know of nothing that drew my wife and me together like the death of our first little one. And believe me, we wanted that little one. We sat in that hospital room and simply wept and prayed together. That is still a sacred memory in our lives—it did something for us.
If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified [1 Pet. 4:14].
This is strange language, whether it is in the Greek or in the English. “If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you ought to rejoice in it,” Peter says.
“For the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.” Again may I say, suffering is a token that you are a child of God. The greatest proof that you are a child of God is that you can endure suffering. If you are being carried around on a silver platter with a silver spoon in your mouth, you must not be God’s child because that is not the way He does things.
“On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.” You can glorify God whatever comes. It is said that during the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906 there was a dear, wonderful Christian lady who came out and was singing praises to God. Everybody else was crying, and some were praying for the first time in their lives. Someone asked her, “What do you mean by singing praises to God at a time like this?” She replied, “I thank God that I have a God who is strong enough to shake this little earth!” I say “amen” to that. However, there are very few people who could praise God during the time of an earthquake.
But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters [1 Pet. 4:15].
Peter puts murder right down with gossiping and criticizing others; he makes no distinction between them at all. Paul did the same thing. Actually, Paul and Peter and James agree on everything. They are all preaching the same gospel that produces the same kind of a life.
Peter says that we ought not to be suffering for our own sins. God never tests you with sin, my friend; He never tests you with evil, as James makes clear to us in his epistle. Peter says, “Let none of you suffer as a murderer.”
Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf [1 Pet. 4:16].
My heart goes out to the Christian who is in prison today because he is truly suffering punishment. However, if he is suffering because of his own sin, he cannot glorify God for the fact that he is in prison, but he can glorify the Lord and witness for Him in the midst of it.
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? [1 Pet. 4:17].
“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.” Believers are going to appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Paul wrote, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). “We”—Paul is talking about Christians. “That every one may receive the things done in his body”—that is, the things done while you were living down here. “According to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad”—we all must come before Christ’s judgment seat.
Peter continues, “If it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” Christ has paid the penalty for our sins, but suppose that we have lived a life that has not brought glory to Him? My friend, we are to be judged. And if God is going to judge His own, what about the lost world which would not hear or obey the gospel of God?
And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? [1 Pet. 4:18].
In other words, we as believers just barely made it. The righteous are saved only by the death of Christ and their faith in Christ. That is the only way we ever got saved, and we just barely made it, my friend. During a recent period of physical recuperation, my wife and I reminisced about our past lives. We really got acquainted in new ways, and I kidded her, “My, I’m just now coming to know you. I think maybe we ought to get married now that I know you!” But I also said to her, “When I look back at my life, how I started out on the wrong track, the wrong foot, it is nothing but a miracle that God ever saved me. I just marvel at it. I just barely made it.”
John Wesley spoke of himself as “a brand plucked from the burning,” and that is true of most of us. When John Wesley came to America, he was not saved, he was not a Christian. He made this statement, “I came to America to convert Indians, but who is going to convert John Wesley?” His biographer tells us that at the governor’s court in Georgia he met one of the noblemen of Great Britain who had been sent over to administer that area. He was a very wealthy man with a name, and he had married a beautiful, young wife. That young woman and John Wesley began to eye each other, and evidently John Wesley fell in love with her. He asked her to leave and go with him to live among the Indians. And he thought he was a Christian and a missionary! But she sent him back to England, saying, “John, this won’t work. I love you, and I’ll always love you, but God has called you to do something for Him.” She evidently was a Christian, and so she sent him back to England. It is said that three times he started up the gangplank, and three times he started to walk back. But she motioned him to go, and he went back to England. One night walking down Aldersgate, he went upstairs and heard a man speaking on Galatians. Later, he could write in his journal, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt that I did trust Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation, and there was given to me an assurance that He had forgiven me of my sins.”
Now if the righteous scarcely be saved, if they be but brands plucked from the burning, “where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” Peter asks. My friend, if you are not a Christian, and if Vernon McGee just barely made it and made it only by trusting Christ, how do you think you are going to make it? There is not but one hope—there is only one way of salvation. The Lord Jesus said, “I am the way” (see John 14:6).
Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator [1 Pet. 4:19].
Those who have really suffered know what it is to commit themselves to God. Paul spoke of this when he said, “… I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day” (2 Tim. 1:12). What had Paul committed unto Him? Some people believe this refers to the gospel which God committed to Paul. I’ll agree with that, but I think the deeper meaning is that Paul is saying, “I came to Christ and simply committed everything to Him. I made a deposit. What things were gain to me I counted loss, and what was loss became gain to me, in order that I might win Christ.” Paul listed about eight different things that he formerly trusted for his salvation (see Phil. 3:1–6). Then he said, “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Phil. 3:7–8). In effect, he was saying, “I flushed all that down; I trusted that no longer. I only trusted Christ.”
Peter says, “Let them that suffer … commit the keeping of their souls to him.” Have you really trusted Him? You probably have a safety deposit box in which you keep your valuables. When you go to sleep at night, you don’t worry about them at all. My friend, I went to sleep last night, and I didn’t worry about Vernon McGee’s soul. Do you know why? I went to sleep last night in peace because Christ has taken care of all that. I’ve made my deposit with Him, and I trust Him today. Have you made a deposit with Him? Have you committed your soul to Him? May I say, if you have done that, even when trouble comes to you, even when the dark day comes, even when you are called to go down through the valley, you can do it knowing that He will take care of you.
God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through;
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.
God hath not promised we shall not know
Toil and temptation, trouble and woe;
He hath not told us we shall not bear
Many a burden, many a care.
God hath not promised smooth roads and wide,
Swift, easy travel, needing no guide;
Never a mountain, rocky and steep,
Never a river, turbid and deep.
But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the laborer, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.
“God Hath Not Promised”
—Annie Johnson Flint
Have you made your deposit, my friend? Have you committed your soul unto Him?
CHAPTER 5
Theme: Suffering and the second coming of Christ produce service and hope, humility and patience
SUFFERING AND THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
In this final chapter of 1 Peter, suffering and the second coming of Christ are brought together. What is the relation of our suffering to the second coming of Christ? The Christian life began for each of us with the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross where He bore the penalty of our sins. There is also suffering in the life of the child of God today because God uses suffering in our lives to sharpen us and to make us the kind of Christians that He wants and that He can use. I have divided this chapter into two sections: Verses 1–4 teach that suffering produces service and hope; verses 5–14 teach that suffering produces humility and patience.
We have, therefore, the suffering of Christ in the past and the present suffering of the saints, and then we have the second coming of Christ. Every Christian ought to have the second coming of Christ in his plan and his program for the future. We are often told that we need to have a life plan. Is the second coming of Christ—when He comes to take you out of the world and then returns with you to reign on the earth—a part of your program? Or is it some ethereal, ephemeral thing which hangs out there in space like a will-o’-the-wisp that really has no meaning in your life at all? His second coming is not just a doctrine; it is something which enters into our lives. There is nothing which will buoy you up in time of trouble and suffering like the reality of the second coming of Christ. I am going to see Him some day; I am going to come into His presence! What a time of real blessing that will be, and Peter tells us that our present suffering is related to that.
SUFFERING PRODUCES SERVICE AND HOPE
The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed [1 Pet. 5:1].
Peter begins by asserting his position; however, he doesn’t call himself even an apostle here. He is speaking of the fact that he is an elder—“who am also an elder.” That means there were other men who were elders. The Greek word used here, presbuteros, is a word which is sometimes used in speaking of a person being an elder or older person. The Greek word which is translated “bishop” is episkopos, and it speaks of the office of the man, not the person of the man. It is the spiritual office of shepherding; the same word is used for “shepherd.” This is all that Simon Peter ever claimed to be—he calls himself a fellow elder. He never claimed a superior place above his brethren, but as a fellow elder he exhorts them.
“And a witness of the sufferings of Christ.” Peter was in a unique position because he was a witness of the sufferings of Christ.
“And also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed.” In the past Peter saw that glory. In his second epistle, Peter identifies this as taking place on the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter saw Him die yonder on Mount Calvary, and he saw Him transfigured yonder on the Mount of Transfiguration. That mount was probably in the north, and I have always felt that Mount Hermon could have been the place, although the geographical location is not important. What took place there is important, and Peter says that he was a witness of it. However, there is a glory that is coming in the future which will be greater than that—“the glory that shall be revealed.”
Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind [1 Pet. 5:2].
Peter is emphasizing the fact that an elder, occupying the office of a bishop (elders are never spoken of in the singular, there was never to be only one), is to be the shepherd of a flock. Shepherding suggests provision and protection, supervision and discipline, instruction and direction. The ministry of an elder is to be performed in a very positive way, but Peter also gives a negative injunction.
First of all, Peter says that elders are to minister for the right reason, in the right spirit, not because they must do it but because they freely choose to do so. Will you notice what he says: “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly.” Do it willingly. God doesn’t want you to take an office in the church in this pouting spirit: “Well, if you can’t get anybody else to do it, I’ll do it.” My friend, don’t you do it, because that is not the reason to serve Him. There is no value in serving Him if you are doing it under constraint.
“Not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind.” Peter makes it clear that there must not only be the right reason—the right spirit, because they freely choose to serve—but there must also be the right motive for service. It is not to be for material gain but for the sheer delight of doing it. An elder is to find satisfaction in the job itself rather than in what he gets out of it.
A number of years ago my daughter and I were driving the freeway into Los Angeles together since she also had a job with the church that I was then serving as pastor. As usual, we got stuck in the traffic on the freeway. I said to her, “Look around at these people. Do you see anybody who looks happy? There they sit, under tension and pressure, trying to get to a job which they despise. Most people today are doing a job they do not like to do at all. It’s wonderful to be in the Lord’s service where you can do your job because you love to do it and you want to do it.” That has made the ministry of teaching the Word of God a sheer joy to me. Simon Peter says that there must be a right motive in Christian service.
Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock [1 Pet. 5:3].
In other words, an elder should exercise his ministry in the right manner, not driving but leading, not domineering but setting an example. It is a work, therefore, in which he ought to be an example to the flock. I do not think that a preacher should get into the pulpit and browbeat his congregation to do something that he actually is not doing himself. I made it a practice never to ask my congregation to give to any cause to which I didn’t also give. I do not think we have a right to make a demand of other folk that we are not doing ourselves.
And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away [1 Pet. 5:4].
An elder’s ministry should be done with the proper awareness that he serves the Chief Shepherd to whom he is answerable and who will Himself reward his service with rewards which are eternal. Don’t get the impression that we are working for nothing. We are not. Paul made it clear that a Christian is not work for nothing. You are to work for Him and look to Him for a reward some day. That is the way we are to serve Him.
“Ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.” There are many crowns mentioned in Scripture, including the crown of life and the crown of righteousness. What is a crown of glory? I believe that it means we are going to share some day in His glory.
In a study I made many years ago, I found about a dozen different words in the Old Testament which were translated by the word glory. Glory is a word that is often used today. What do you understand by the word glory? How big is glory? What shape is it? What color is it? What is glory? I suspect that the average Christian would have nothing but the foggiest notion about the meaning of glory.
I have found that glory does have shape and size. Listen to the Word of God: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). The size of the universe, as determined by our scientific measurements, is staggering yet is probably only the front yard of God’s great universe. That is glory—the greatness of our God.
What about the color of glory? Look up at this vast universe at night; look up at the sky. And look at the earth. In the fall, especially if you live in New England, take a good look at the leaves on the trees. It is wonderful to be in that part of the country and to see all the color. That’s glory—the glory of God. I know a retired man who lives here in Southern California, and he raises some of the most beautiful roses and zinnias I have ever seen. Oh, are they colorful! One time while I was visiting him in his garden, he reached down and lifted up the head of one of those zinnias, and he said, “In the springtime I simply put a little seed in the ground. Look at what has come up! And then they try to tell me there is no God!” Glory has color, my friend.
May I say to you, God’s glory is something that is quite wonderful, and we are going to share in that some day. He calls it a crown of glory.
Peter calls Him “the chief Shepherd” here. The Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep—that is seen in Psalm 22. The Great Shepherd watches over the sheep—that is seen in Psalm 23. In Psalm 24 He is the Chief Shepherd who is coming again. Some day our Chief Shepherd is going to appear, and He will still have with Him His flock, and we will be members of that flock. How wonderful this is!
SUFFERING PRODUCES HUMILITY AND PATIENCE
Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time [1 Pet. 5:5–6].
“Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder.” This has been reversed in our day—today the elder is supposed to submit to the younger. Young people are the ones who are protesting, and they are the ones who want to discard the establishment. However, the Christian young person needs to realize that the Word of God says, “Ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder.” After all, your father, if you have a good or a godly father, has a lot of sense and maybe more sense than you have.
A friend of mine told me, “I was ashamed of my dad at the time when I went away to college. Although he had made good money, and he was an executive, I was ashamed of him. He had such old-fashioned ideas; he was a real square. When I finished college and got out in the business world, I didn’t see him for a couple of years. When I did see him again, I was absolutely amazed to see how much he’d learned in just six years!” A lot of young people find out, after they themselves have been out in the school of hard knocks for awhile, that their dads have learned a great deal.
“Yea, all of you be subject one to another.” In other words, believers should not insist on having their way over others.
“And be clothed with humility.” Actually, we are to be armed with it; that is the picture that is given here.
“For God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” Peter has talked a great deal about humility and about grace. A proud person will not be able to experience the grace of God. It is only when you and I come in humility that we will be able to know the grace of God.
“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.” In view of the coming of Christ, humility should be the attitude of the child of God. Christ is the one who will establish justice and make things right when He comes. You cannot straighten out this world, although you may think you can.
Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you [1 Pet. 5:7].
“He careth for you” literally means that it matters to Him concerning you. Peter is talking about anxiety. The Lord Jesus said, “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will rest you” (see Matt. 11:28). Bring your burden of sins to Him, and He will save you. Then come to Him later on, and He will meet you and help you with your problems. Cast your care upon Him. Paul told the Philippian believers, “Worry about nothing; pray about everything.” That is, take it to the Lord in prayer, and leave it there—don’t pick it up again.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour [1 Pet. 5:8].
The word sober is from a different Greek word than that used in 1 Peter 4:7. Here the word means “to be watchful.”
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” We are told to resist Satan; the Devil is loose in the world today.
Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world [1 Pet. 5:9].
“Whom resist stedfast in the faith.” The picture here is of an army standing against an enemy. We should stand with other believers. I do not think you can resist the Devil by yourself. You not only need the armor of God, but you will also need other believers to stand with you. That is the reason that whenever I have need, I let all the listeners to my radio broadcast know about it. I want them to stand with me in prayer—we need to do that. “Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.”
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you [1 Pet. 5:10].
“But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus”—that is, “in Christ Jesus.” We will have no glory in ourselves. The church is sort of like the moon which simply reflects the light of the sun. Our glory will be only reflected glory, but we in Christ are going to share in that glory. Actually, the word Jesus is not in the better manuscripts; rather, this is that phrase which we often find in the New Testament—“in Christ.”
“After that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect”—that is, bring you to perfection. “Stablish, strengthen”—the Lord Jesus told Simon Peter to strengthen the brethren (see Luke 22:32). “Settle you”—that means to restore you.
To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen [1 Pet. 5:11].
This is the benediction. And then Peter adds a little P.S.—
By Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose, I have written briefly, exhorting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand [1 Pet. 5:12].
Peter is the author, but Silvanus wrote this for him. If you don’t like the quality of the Greek here, blame Silvanus.
The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son [1 Pet. 5:13].
“The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you.” I think “Babylon” here means Babylon, although some think it is a figurative name for Rome. Simon Peter is too practical to have used a figurative term.
“And so doth Marcus my son.” Marcus is John Mark, the writer of the Gospel of Mark, who was not Peter’s natural son but his son in the faith. Although at one time Paul would not take him along on a missionary journey, Mark made good.
Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen [1 Pet. 5:14].
“Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity.” Someone has said, “A kiss to a young girl is hope, to a married woman is faith, but to an old maid is charity.” In our country and culture, I think we had better just use the handshake as the means of Christian greeting.
This is Peter’s final benediction: “Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Recommended for Further Study)
Barbieri, Louis A. First and Second Peter. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1977. (Fine, inexpensive survey.)
English, E. Schuyler. The Life and Letters of St. Peter. New York, New York: Our Hope, 1941. (Excellent.)
Hiebert, D. Edmond. The Epistle of I Peter. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1983. (Excellent, comprehensive treatment.)
Ironside, H. A. Notes on James and Peter. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, n.d.
Kelly, William. The Epistles of Peter. Addison, Illinois: Bible Truth Publishers, n.d.
Leighton, Robert. A Practical Commentary on First Peter. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 1845.
Lumby, J. Rawson. The Epistles of Peter. (Expositor’s Bible.) Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1943.
Meyer, F. B. Tried by Fire (1 Peter). Fort Washington, Pennsylvania: Christian Literature Crusade, n.d. (Rich, devotional study.)
Robertson, A. T. Epochs in the Life of Simon Peter. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, n.d.
Stibbs, Alan. The First Epistle General of Peter. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1959.
Thomas, W. H. Griffith. The Apostle Peter. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1956. (Excellent.)
Wolston, W. T. P. Simon Peter—His Life and Letters. London, England: James Nisbet and Company, 1896. (Excellent.)
Wuest, Kenneth S. Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament for English Readers. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1942. (1 Peter.)
The Second Epistle of
Peter
INTRODUCTION
Simon Peter is the author of this epistle (see 2 Pet. 1:1). However, the Petrine authorship of this epistle has been challenged more than the authorship of any other book in the New Testament. Dr. W. G. Moorehead wrote years ago, “The Second Epistle of Peter comes to us with less historical support of its genuineness than any other book of the New Testament.” Nevertheless, this challenge caused conservative scholars to give adequate attention to this epistle so that today it is well established that Peter wrote this letter.
In my teaching I spend very little time on issues of introduction, that is, on the authorship and other critical issues that have been raised concerning the different books of the Bible. I would ordinarily just pass over this because, to me, 2 Peter is a part of the Word of God and I think there is an abundance of evidence both internal and external. However, since I would not want to be accused of not even being familiar with the questions that have been raised concerning its authorship, we will face the facts on this issue.
The Second Epistle of Peter was a long time in being accepted by the church into the canon of Scripture. It was accepted at the council that met at Laodicea in a.d. 372 and then again at Carthage in a.d. 397, which was really the first time that the church had taken that kind of stand. Jerome accepted 2 Peter for the Vulgate version of the Scriptures, but it was not included in the Peshitta Syriac version. However, that version is not an acceptable one at all—there are other things about it that I am sure we would all reject—and, therefore, it is perfectly meaningless that 2 Peter was not included in it. Eusebius, one of the early church fathers, placed 2 Peter among the disputed books. Origen accepted it. Clement of Alexandria accepted it, and he wrote a commentary on it. Second Peter is quoted in the Apocalypse of Peter, which, of course, is not accepted as canonical. The Epistle of Jude apparently draws from 2 Peter and demonstrates that Jude was well acquainted with it. There are allusions and quotations from 2 Peter by some of the early church writers, including Aristides, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Ignatius, and Clement of Rome. You will also find that Martin Luther accepted it as genuine. Calvin actually doubted it but did not reject it. Erasmus did reject it.
That gives you some of the history of the background of this epistle, but the reasons that this epistle has been rejected by some cannot be substantiated. There is a great deal of internal evidence, especially certain autobiographical sections (see 2 Pet. 1:13–14; 1:16–18; and 3:1), which are to me absolutely conclusive that Simon Peter wrote this epistle.
Peter’s second epistle was written about a.d. 66, shortly after his first epistle (see 2 Pet. 3:1) and a short while before his martyrdom (see 2 Pet. 1:13–14).
Second Peter is the swan song of Peter, just as 2 Timothy is the swan song of Paul. There are striking similarities between the two books. Both epistles put up a warning sign along the pilgrim pathway the church is traveling to identify the awful apostasy that was on the way at that time and which in our time has now arrived. What was then like a cloud the size of a man’s hand today envelops the sky and produces a storm of hurricane proportions. Peter warns of heresy among teachers; Paul warns of heresy among the laity.
Both Peter and Paul speak in a joyful manner of their approaching deaths (see 2 Pet. 1:13–14; 2 Tim. 4:6–8). Paul said that he knew that the time of his departure had come. He had finished his course. He had been on the racetrack of life, and now he was leaving it. He had fought a good fight, and he had kept the faith. A crown of righteousness was laid up for him. You will find that same triumphant note here in 2 Peter as Peter also faced the prospect of death.
Both apostles anchor the church on the Scriptures, on the Word of God, as the only defense against the coming storm of apostasy. It is no wonder that the enemy has attacked 2 Peter, because this is one of the finest shields that has been given to us to ward off the darts that the Wicked One is shooting at us today.
The similarities between 2 Peter and Paul’s last epistle, 2 Timothy, also explain the sharp contrast between Peter’s first and second letters. The subject of the second epistle has changed from that of the first; and the difference is, therefore, as great as that which exists between Paul’s letters to the Romans and to Timothy.
In 2 Peter we see that apostasy is approaching, the storm is coming. How are we to prepare to meet it? There is only one way, Peter says, and that is through knowledge. Not only through faith in Christ, not only by believing in Him, but also to know Christ. “And this is life eternal,” the Lord Jesus said, “that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). We are to know Him and not only know about Him. I read the other day of an American preacher in Europe who is trying to start what he calls a Christian church without using the names of God and Christ. That is the most ridiculous thing that any man could possibly do. If he wants to start some kind of organization, let him go ahead and do it, but he cannot start anything that is Christian without Christ! To attempt to do that would be just like trying to make a peach pie without peaches or like trying to drive a car without any gasoline in the tank. If you are a Christian, you must know Christ. That means not to know about Him but to know Him—there is a great difference there.
The great subject of this epistle is going to be not only the apostasy but also that which will be our defense—knowledge. Where is this knowledge, and how does it come to us? Peter will say that the only way is through the Word of God, “a more sure word of prophecy,” which he will talk about (2 Pet. 1:19).
You see, my friend, the Christian life is more than just a birth. It is a growth, and it is a development. The key to this entire epistle is the last verse: “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen” (2 Pet. 3:18). Throughout the years of my ministry, I have often made the statement that I am not an obstetrician, I am a pediatrician. An obstetrician brings the little baby into the world. I thank the Lord that hundreds of people have been converted through listening to the Word of God, but actually I began my radio ministry of teaching the Word of God with the intention of helping believers to grow up in the faith. I am not an obstetrician bringing babies to birth, but a pediatrician whose job it is to give believers the milk of the Word and then to try to give them a porterhouse steak now and then. My friend, you will not be able to live for God in these days of apostasy unless you have a knowledge of the Word of God—and that is Peter’s theme.
The theme of this second epistle is explained on the basis of the words which Peter uses here as contrasted to his first epistle. He does use certain words in both epistles. One word is precious which occurs twice in the first chapter. Peter, a great, big, rugged fisherman talked about things that are precious—that’s a woman’s word. The word faith is used again in this epistle and occurs twice in the first chapter. But the word that is especially characteristic of this second epistle is knowledge. It occurs sixteen times with cognate words. The epitome of the epistle is expressed in the injunction given in the final verse. This man Simon Peter went off the air saying, “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.” This is what true Gnosticism is all about. The Gnostic heresy was that they had some little esoteric knowledge that no one else had. They had a form or formula, a rite or ritual, a secret order or password that you had to get on the inside in order to find out. Peter says that real knowledge is to know Jesus Christ.
OUTLINE
I. Addition of Christian Graces Gives Assurance, Chapter 1:1–14 “The full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” is the foundation on which Christian character is built.
II. Authority of the Scriptures Attested by Fulfilled Prophecy, Chapter 1:15–21 Scripture give light for obedience in dark days.
III. Apostasy Brought in by False Teachers, Chapter 2 Church should beware of false teachers and not false prophets.
IV. Attitude Toward Return of the Lord—a Test of Apostates, Chapter 3:1–4
V. Agenda of God for the World, Chapter 3:5–13
A. Past World, 3:5–6
B. Present World, 3:7–12
C. Future World, 3:13
VI. Admonition to Believers, Chapter 3:14–18 Knowledge of God’s program is an incentive to grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
CHAPTER 1
Theme: Addition of Christian graces, gives assurance; authority of the Scriptures attested by fulfilled prophecy
As I mentioned in the Introduction, this marvelous little epistle is the “swan song” of the apostle Peter; that is, it is his final word to believers before his death by crucifixion. He warns them of the apostasy which is coming, particularly of the heresy among teachers, and he seeks to anchor their faith on the Scriptures as the only defense against the coming storm.
In the first fourteen verses of this chapter, we shall see that the full “knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord” is the foundation on which Christian character is built.
ADDITION OF CHRISTIAN GRACES GIVES ASSURANCE
Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ [2 Pet. 1:1].
When we run across that little word precious in this very first verse, we recognize it as Peter’s word—he uses it several times in his first epistle, and he is the only writer of Scripture who uses it in this sense. It is like being able to recognize the handwriting on a letter. It is like seeing Simon Peter’s signature when we see the word precious here.
“Simon Peter” is the way he begins this second letter. In his first epistle he simply used the name Peter. Simon was the name given to him at his birth, but Peter, meaning “rock,” is the name our Lord Jesus gave to him. He uses both names in this epistle. Simon, the man of weakness, and Peter, the man of strength, the wishy-washy man and the rock-man—he has been both. But as he writes this epistle, we may be sure of one thing: he is the rock-man now, the man who is to be crucified for Christ.
“Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle.” The word servant actually means “bond slave.” He doesn’t take an exalted position in the church. He refers to himself as a bond slave—also an apostle (that is his authority), but notice that he does not say the apostle, but an apostle; he was only one of them.
“To them that have obtained like precious faith with us.” What he is saying here is quite wonderful. When he uses the word faith, I think he means the body of truth which we call the gospel. He is saying, “You have received it, and it is up to you what you do with it.”
Those who hold what I call a hyper-Calvinistic viewpoint say that you have to be chosen before you can be saved and that God has to give you the faith to believe. Well, I’ll go along with part of that, but I also insist that the reason some folk don’t come to Christ is made clear for us in the Word of God. Notice 2 Corinthians 3:15–16: “But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.” When it says that “it” shall turn to the Lord, what is “it”? Well, since the antecedent is the word heart, it is saying that when the heart shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. My friend, if you are not a believer today, don’t say it is because you have some mental reservations. The fact is that you have some sinful reservations. When the heart will turn to the Lord, then He will lift the veil. Anytime you are ready God is ready, and He will save you. It is not God’s will that any should perish. Today it is “whosoever will may come” and “… God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16, italics mine). All He asks you to do is believe. He doesn’t even ask you to clean up before you come to Him—but He will clean you up if you really mean business with Him.
They “have obtained like precious faith”—how? “Through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” This is the righteousness which is made over to us when we trust Christ as Savior. You see, He not only subtracts our sin, He also adds to us His own righteousness. We are not like criminals who have been pardoned and turned loose; we have been given a standing before God, and that standing is in Christ—accepted in the beloved!
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord [2 Pet. 1:2].
“Grace and peace be multiplied.” Grace and peace are always in this order. We must first know the grace of God—that God has saved us, not through our merit, our character, or anything in us, but He has saved us because of our faith in Christ. Because He loved us enough to die for us on the cross to pay the penalty of our sins, it is possible for Him to reach down and save us. Therefore, my friend, God saves you by grace. He saves you when you simply trust Christ, with no merit on your part. Once we experience God’s grace, we can experience the peace of God also. This is what Paul is saying in his epistle to the Romans: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1).
Again let me say that we cannot consider Simon Peter an ignorant fisherman. As we see in his first epistle, he deals with more doctrine in a brief letter than any other New Testament writer. He takes up all controversial matters and handles them in a masterful way.
And he is a New Testament writer who uses arithmetic. He says, “Grace and peace be multiplied”—he is talking about multiplication. Paul didn’t go into mathematics. He said that God is rich in grace and that the peace of God passes all understanding, but Simon Peter gets down to where the rubber meets the road. He takes out the multiplication table and says, “I hope grace and peace will be multiplied unto you.” How wonderful this is.
He doesn’t just leave it there. How will “grace and peace be multiplied unto you”? Will it be through some vision you have? Oh, no—“through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord.”
Now we are back to this word knowledge. We will be seeing it again and again in this epistle because of its importance. Paul also emphasizes this. Writing to the Philippians, he said, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings …” (Phil. 3:10)—oh, to know Him! Christianity is a Person. We are not only to believe Him but also to know Him, my friend. He is the living Savior who right at this moment is at God’s right hand.
It was the prophet Daniel who wrote, “… but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits” (Dan. 11:32). My friend, you are not going to do anything for God in the way of service until you know Jesus Christ.
How does this knowledge come to you? Well, Peter won’t leave you in doubt; he won’t let you hang in midair. When he gets through with this epistle, you will know that the knowledge of Jesus Christ comes through a knowledge of the Word of God, the sure Word of God.
To illustrate what Peter is meaning by the knowledge of God, let me use the example of a well-known man who is no longer living. Suppose someone were to ask me, “Do you know the late President Eisenhower?” I would answer, “No, I never knew him.”
“But you certainly heard about him.”
“Yes.”
“And you have seen him.”
“Yes, I even saw him play golf once. I watched him hit the ball one time, but then the Secret Service men glared at me; so I had to get out of the territory. I did see him hit the ball, and the interesting thing is that he didn’t do much better than I do. But I cannot really say that I knew him.”
“If he were living today and were to walk right into your study, do you think you would know him?”
“I think I would recognize him, but I can’t say that I would know him. I never knew how he felt about things. I suppose that Mrs. Eisenhower and his other loved ones knew him, but I never knew him.”
When Peter writes, “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,” he uses the Greek word epignoµsis, meaning “super knowledge.” It is a knowledge which comes by the Holy Spirit’s taking the things of Christ and making them real to us. My friend, I believe that you can know Jesus Christ better than you can know your closest loved one. And you can tell Him things that you would not dare tell your closest loved one. The important thing is that to know Him is life eternal.
To know Him in this way, we first have to be born again, as Peter says, “… not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Pet. 1:23).
I remember hearing the late Dr. Herbert Bieber make the statement that after he was saved, he went to seminary to find out what had happened to him. That’s good, and it reveals that you can trust Him and still not really know His Word.
According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue [2 Pet. 1:3].
“His divine power” has given to us all of the things which you and I need to live life to the full. I don’t know about you, but I have always wanted to live it up. I don’t mean that I have wanted to go out and paint the town red—you run out of paint when you attempt that sort of thing. But “his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.” Don’t say that God has not made an arrangement for you to live for Him. He has made every arrangement for our life in Christ and our godliness of life for Him.
“Through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” Again we see this word knowledge. It is only through the knowledge of Christ that you can really learn to live down here and grow to be a more godly person. The only way in the world that you can become the kind of person with a fully developed personality is through knowing Jesus Christ. The knowledge of Him that “hath called us to glory” means to be like Christ.
“And virtue”—virtue means something more than we commonly think it means. I have spent a great deal of time with some of the words Peter uses because of their importance. The word virtue is not confined to chastity. We use it today when we refer to a woman being virtuous or morally chaste. Actually, virtue as Peter uses it has to do with excellence and courage. It means that you have the courage to excel in life. You don’t have to live a little, mousy Mr. Milquetoast life and be a yes-man to everything that comes along. You can stand on your own two feet, state your position, and be counted for God. We certainly need that kind of “virtue” in this hour in which we are living, and the only way we can get it is through the knowledge of Christ. This is the formula Peter is giving to us here: “through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.”
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust [2 Pet. 1:4].
Now why would Simon Peter call promises “precious”? In the first verse he talks about the precious faith that we have; now he talks about the precious promises that have been given to us. My friend, there have been given to you and me some glorious, wonderful promises here in the New Testament. Peter calls them “exceeding great and precious promises.” For example: “… him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37); and “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28)—the rest of redemption. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; forI am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your soul” (Matt. 11:29)—that’s the rest of commitment of your heart and life to Christ. And another promise: “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Another wonderful promise is that of eternal life: “He that hath the Son hath life …” (1 John 5:12). “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Pet. 1:23). All these wonderful promises come through a knowledge of Jesus Christ and by faith in Him.
“That by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature,” that is, that you might be a child of God! What a tremendous truth this is. This is overwhelming! When you are born again, you are given the nature of God, my friend. Don’t let anybody deceive you into thinking that the Christian life is a little series of dos and don’ts—that if you do this and don’t do that, you are living the Christian life. Oh, my friend, you are a partaker of the divine nature, the nature of God, and you want the things of God.
“Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” This in itself is a tremendous statement. A little later Peter will speak of the make-believers who have escaped the pollutions of the world. What a difference there is between escaping the pollutions of the world and escaping the corruption of the world. The corruption of the world is that which is within us. The pollution of the world is that which is on the outside. At the time I am writing this, a great deal is being said about the antipollution programs. The feeling is that if we clean up the environment, it will produce nicer people. Well, it won’t do a thing for the old nature, my friend.
Religious people go through an antipollution program on Sundays. They participate in a little ritual, a little washing, a little of this and a little of that. My friend, you can be religious to your fingertips and still be as corrupt as anyone can possibly be. Some folk that you see on Sunday don’t look like the same folk when you see them on Monday. Why? Well, they have been through only an antipollution program on Sunday.
If you are going to escape the corruption of the world, you will have to have a new nature. You will need to be a partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
However, although you have the nature of God through being born again, that doesn’t mean that you have lost your old nature. There a continuing conflict in the life of a believer between his new nature and his old nature. The best illustration of this in Scripture is that which our Lord gave us when He told the parable of the prodigal son (see Luke 15:11–32). Notice that the son could go to the far country because he still had an old nature. He could spend his money in riotous living, and he could even get down in the pigpen. But, you see, he was a partaker of the nature of his father, and his father didn’t live in a pigpen. His father lived up there in a wonderful mansion. His father believed in godliness and cleanliness, and there was nourishing food on his table.
Now, that boy wouldn’t have been his son if eventually he hadn’t said, “I will arise and go to my father …” (Luke 15:18). He had to say it. You couldn’t find a pig in the pigpen that would say that. Not one of those pigs went with him to the fathers house. I read an article the other day by a man who raises pigs, and he claimed that they are clean little fellows. Well, he evidently has a breed of pigs which I know nothing about. However, we will see in 2 Peter 2:22 that a pig can get washed and cleaned up. Although he may become a tidy little fellow, even join a church, and become a deacon or a minister in the pulpit, he is still a pig and will eventually return to that pigpen. But the son is a partaker of the nature of his father, and he will eventually return to his father’s house.
My friend, when you and I are children of God, we have the nature of God. Isn’t that wonderful! We can understand God when He speaks through His Word and the Spirit of God makes it real to us.
But Peter doesn’t stop with this, he goes on to say, “And beside this….” I feel like saying to Simon Peter, “What in the world can you add to the promises of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fact of our being partakers of the divine nature?” I think that Simon Peter would answer, “Well, when you get that far, you have only started. There is a great deal beyond salvation.”
Perhaps it will surprise you to know that there is something beyond salvation. You may recall that Paul said to Timothy that the Scriptures “… are able to make thee wise unto salvation …” (2 Tim. 3:15). Since Timothy was already saved, what does Paul mean by that? Well, salvation is in three tenses. Salvation is in the past tense: “I have been saved.” It is also in the present tense: “I am being saved.” And it is in the future tense: “I shall be saved”—“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). I am not like the Lord Jesus now—I have not yet arrived—but I am in the process.
Now Peter is going to talk to us about Christians maturing. After a person is born again, he should not stay in the crib saying, “Da-da-da,” the rest of his life. Nor should he need to be burped every so often. He should get to the place where he begins to grow up.
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity [2 Pet. 1:5–7].
“And beside this, giving all diligence.” The Christian life is a very serious business. However, we have made it sort of an extracurricular activity. The present-day thinking is that it is not something to be taken into the business world or the schoolroom or into social life. Rather, it is something sort of like your Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes which you wear only at certain times. However, Peter said that it is something to which we are to give “all diligence.”
When Peter lists these graces which are to be added to our faith, they are not like a series of beads that you count off. Nor are they like a stack of dominoes which you stand on end in a long line, then when you push the first domino down, all the others fall down in a line. It is not like that at all. Neither is it like placing one brick upon another in building a structure. I know that Peter, in his first epistle, uses the figure of living stones being built up into a “spiritual house,” but remember that all the stones were living stones.
Rather, the Christian life is a growth. This is the way Peter explains it in this epistle which closes with the tremendous statement, “Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18). A familiar illustration is that of a growing tree. You know the old proverb that great oaks from little acorns grow. (Sometimes we turn it around and say, “Great aches from little toecorns grow,” but that is a different matter!) I am sure that you have watched a tree grow. I have a little redwood tree which was given to me by a dear lady who had previously lived in Oregon. It was just a little, bitty fellow in a can when she brought it to me. I didn’t have a place for it at the time; so I just put it down in front of our living room window, intending to move it sometime. Well, the years went by, and that little six-inch tree is now almost as tall as I am and probably too big to move successfully. Likewise, the Christian life is to be a growth and a development.
Out in the woods two things are happening, things which are actually transfigurations. The vegetation that is living is growing, and the vegetation that is dead is decaying. Those are the two processes which are taking place out there. And one of those processes is taking place in your Christian life and mine.
If you are a child of God, you are to grow. And Peter lists the different attributes which are to characterize our growth. At the beginning, my little tree had very delicate needles, but they are different now—they are sturdy looking. And there should be growth and development like that in the Christian life.
Peter begins by saying, “Add to your faith virtue.” The “faith” is saving faith, that which gave you your divine nature, that which gave you forgiveness of sins and made over to you the righteousness of Christ. Now you are to add to that, first of all, “virtue.” Down through the centuries, some English words have changed their meaning, and virtue is one of them. Virtus to the Roman of the first century meant a great deal more than chastity. It characterized the very finest of Roman manhood: strength, valor, courage, and excellence. My friend, these same qualities should also characterize your life and mine. How the world needs believers who have the courage to stand for that which is right and to stand up and be counted for God in this day! Therefore Peter is saying, “Add to your faith courage.”
“Add … to virtue [courage] knowledge.” Here the Greek word for “knowledge” is gnosis, meaning “to know God in His salvation.” It indicates growth. In verse 2 the word knowledge was the Greek word epignoµsis, meaning “super knowledge.” Paul, writing to the Colossian believers, said that he prayed that they might have this epignoµsis, the super knowledge. The Gnostic heresy, which was abroad in that day, claimed to impart super knowledge by their secret rituals. However, “knowledge” for both Peter and Paul meant growth and development in the Christian life, and super knowledge was the goal as the Holy Spirit confirmed the Word of God to the heart.
Let me give you a personal example. When I was in college, I had doubts; in fact, I was very much of a skeptic and rather cynical at that time. Although I believed the Word of God, my faith was being torn to shreds in the liberal college I was attending. In fact, I said to one of the ministers who helped me a great deal that if I could not be convinced that the Bible was the Word of God, I would get out of the ministry. At that time I had faith, but it was a very weak faith. However, I can say dogmatically today that I not only believe the Bible is the Word of God, I know it is the Word of God. The Holy Spirit has confirmed it to me, and, friend, you cannot have a higher confirmation than when the Holy Spirit confirms the Word of God to your heart and life and makes it very real to you.
When young people ask me about a book which will show that the Bible is the Word of God, I have several in my library to suggest, but I haven’t read one of those books in years. When I was their age, all I did read was books on apologetics. Well, I have long since passed that stage. My faith doesn’t need that kind of propping up now. Some folk accuse me of being too dogmatic. No, I’m not too dogmatic; I am just sure and positive, that’s all. If I didn’t believe the Bible to be the Word of God, I wouldn’t be teaching it. As I told that minister when I was in college, I would not go into the ministry unless I could stand in the pulpit with complete confidence in the Book which I was presenting.
Can you imagine a pilot taking two or three hundred people across the country in one of those great planes and saying, “Throw out the logbook and the maps and the charts. I don’t have any confidence in them”? May I say to you, if you are sitting on such a plane, you are in trouble. But, of course, a man who is a commerical pilot believes in his logbook and his maps and charts. There is no need for you to get out of your seat and go to the cockpit and argue with him about them. He knows. He has information which has been confirmed to him—he has flown that route hundreds of times.
My friend, you can be sure of the Word of God, and as you study it and share it with others, the Spirit of God will confirm it to your heart, and you will experience growth in your spiritual life. This is what Peter had in mind when he said to add to your courage knowledge. You need courage to declare the Word of God. You are not apt to give out the knowledge that you have of Christ unless you have the courage to do it.
“Add … to knowledge temperance.” That word temperance in our day refers to only one thing. A better word is self-control. As believers, we are to be self-controlled in every area of our lives.
“Add … to temperance [self-control] patience.” Many folk have the wrong concept of what patience really is. They think it means sitting in a traffic jam on the freeway in the morning without worrying about getting to work. Well, that is not patience. It just gives you an excuse for being late to work. Patience is being able to endure when trials come. Patience is endurance. It is built upon knowledge and courage. Like a growing tree, a Christian should be developing courage, then knowledge, then self-control, and then endurance.
“Add … to patience godliness.” Godliness is another word which has been lost in the shuffle. It means exactly what it says—to be like God. After you have been born into the family of God, you want to be like your Father—Godlike. It doesn’t mean that you will be like God, but it does mean that you have that desire and aim in your life. I think of the words of a song we sing, “Oh, to be like Him….” Well, it should be more than a song; it should be the desire of every individual who is a partaker of the divine nature. I believe there is a time in every boy’s life when his dad is his hero and sometimes his idol. It is a terrible day when that idol falls from its pedestal, but it happens, and often the boy grows bitter. Well, we are children of God, and because of this, we want to be like our Father. And, my friend, He will never disappoint us. He is not only our hero, He is our God, the one we worship and praise. The word godliness has in it that very thought of praise and worship of God. It speaks of a dependence upon God and a life that is devoted to Him.
“Add … to godliness brotherly kindness.” We can make that a stronger expression by translating it “love of the brethren.” We are to love other believers. I receive many letters from those who listen to my Bible teaching on radio in which they say that they love me. And I can respond, “And I love you.” If I met these folk personally, I am sure we would be more restrained, but certainly we should love the brethren. I have the opportunity of meeting with some very wonderful Christians—both laymen and preachers. Sometimes we eat lunch together; sometimes we play golf together; and sometimes we have a service together. It is a joy to have a sweet and loving relationship with the brethren.
“Add … to brotherly kindness charity.” Again, the word charity means something entirely different in modern America from what it meant in 1611 when the King James Version was written. Since “brotherly kindness” is specifically for other believers, it is obvious that “charity” is to be directed to outsiders. I interpret it as meaning that we are to love the sinner as God loves him. God loved him enough to redeem him, but He hates his sin and will judge it unless he does turn to Christ. I take the position that loving a sinner does not mean getting down on his level and participating in his sin. Rather, we are to love him by bringing the gospel to him. My friend, the way we reveal our love to those outside the faith is to care enough to attempt to win them to Christ.
For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ [2 Pet. 1:8].
“If these things be in you.” You see, Peter is not talking about the externalities of religion. He is not speaking of rituals or religion or liturgy. He is speaking of that which is inside the Christian. The reason he said that we have escaped the corruption of the world is because we are partakers of the divine nature. Corruption is inside the human heart. Later on he will say that the unsaved, that is, the apostates, escape the pollutions of the world (by going through a ceremony or acting religious), yet their hearts are not changed.
When he says, “If these things be in you”—what things? The things he has mentioned in the preceding verses: faith and courage and knowledge and self-control and patience and godliness and love of the brethren and love for the outsider. All of these things are to be within us.
“If these things be in you, and abound.” Here he starts multiplying again. Peter is great with mathematics.
“They make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful.” The word barren actually means “idle.” This has to do with what we call the fruit of the Spirit. We cannot produce the fruit of the Spirit by sitting on the sidelines. While it is true that the fruit of the Spirit is the work of the Holy Spirit—that is, we cannot produce it by ourselves—we are to yield ourselves to Him, present our bodies definitely to Him, and draw from the Vine, the Lord Jesus Christ, the fruit of the Spirit. Again, the fruit is: faith, courage, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, love of the brethren, and love for the unsaved. He doesn’t want us to be barren.
“Nor unfruitful” has to do with that which is, I believe, objective. Being barren has to do with that which is subjective, that which is internal. You have had, I am sure, the experience of meeting Christians who sound like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal or an empty barrel. They are barren as far as the fruit of the Spirit is concerned. In contrast to this, we as believers are not to be unfruitful. Our lives are to be characterized by the fruit of the Spirit that Peter has been telling us about. My friend, does your life influence other people? Are you helping to get the Word of God out to folk who need it?
But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins [2 Pet. 1:9].
Now Peter is touching on something which is very important to us; that is, sterility in the lives of many church members in our day. Their lack of enthusiasm will eventuate in their not being sure that they were ever really saved. Paul gives this admonition: “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with charity” (1 Cor. 16:13–14). Then when he concluded his second letter to the Corinthians, he said, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (2 Cor. 13:5). This is a very strong statement. You are to examine yourself to make sure you are in the faith. If you have the idea that you can live a careless life and still be a Christian and know it, you are wrong. It is impossible. You may be a Christian, but you sure won’t know it. Many years ago a young preacher in Cannon Beach, Oregon, said to me one evening, “There are many Christians who believe in the security of the believer, but they do not have the assurance of their salvation.” You see, the security of the believer is objective; the assurance of salvation is subjective. Peter has well stated it: “He that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.” He has forgotten that he has been saved.
Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall [2 Pet. 1:10].
“Give diligence to make your calling and election sure”—he means, of course, more sure. In other words, the security of the believer is objective; it is something that cannot be disturbed. However, your assurance can certainly be disturbed by the life you live. If your life is not lived in sincerity and truth, you are bound to lie on your bed at night and wonder if you really have been born again. While it is true that Christ has done everything necessary to save you and keep you saved, your Christian life to be meaningful is something that you have to work at.
I have been married for a long time, and I never have to lie awake at night and wonder whether or not I am married; but to make my marriage meaningful, I have to work at it, and I have been working at it for a long, long time.
Likewise in your Christian life, “make your calling and election more sure.” That is, let it become subjective in your own heart—to know that you are a child of God.
“For if ye do these things, ye shall never fall.” I have talked with many Christians who have gotten into sin. It is very interesting to me that I have never yet talked to one who had the assurance of his salvation before he got into sin. You see, the person who lacks assurance lacks a solid foundation under him.
For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ [2 Pet. 1:11].
Notice that Peter will put an emphasis not upon the Rapture but upon the coming of Christ to establish His kingdom upon this earth. Why? We find out in verse 14: “Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.” You see, Peter is one apostle who did not look forward to the Rapture. He knew he would never live to see the Rapture because the Lord Jesus had told him that he was to die a martyr’s death. Therefore, he knew that shortly he must put off his tabernacle, that is, his body. This is a wonderful way to speak of death. Since Simon Peter knew that shortly he would move out of his body and into God’s presence, he spoke of the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, knowing that there would be no Rapture ahead for him.
Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth [2 Pet. 1:12].
Knowing that he would not be with them very much longer, he felt called upon to stir up these saints to grow in grace, lest spiritual senility set in. There are Christians today—and I am sure you have met some of them—who are actually spiritually senile. They are tottering around, not seeming to have all of their faculties.
Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance [2 Pet. 1:13].
“I think it meet”—that is, I think it fitting—“as long as I am in this tabernacle.” Again he is speaking of his body as his tabernacle. As long as he had life, he was going to remind them of these important things.
Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me [2 Pet. 1:14].
Here Peter is referring to what Jesus had told him that morning when He had prepared breakfast for them on the shore of the Sea of Galilee after His resurrection. He had said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.” Then John comments, “This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God …” (John 21:18–19).
This passage in 2 Peter has been one of the most important sections in the entire Word of God. I have gone over it rather carefully so that you might know and understand what Peter is saying here.
You can see now why I have been calling this epistle Peter’s swan song. It is, as it were, his deathbed statement. When a man is on his deathbed, he is apt to say something of importance even though he has not said anything of importance up to that time. If he has been a liar all of his life, the chances are that on his deathbed he will tell the truth.
It is interesting that the Word of God attaches some importance to deathbed statements. Let me illustrate this from the Old Testament.
Genesis 49 gives us a scene that is sad and rather dramatic. Jacob called his twelve sons to stand around his deathbed as he makes a prophecy concerning each one of those boys. Those prophecies have been literally fulfilled.
When Moses knew that he would not enter the Promised Land but would die on Mount Nebo in the land of Moab, he gathered the twelve tribes about him and blessed each of them before his death—very much as Jacob had done before him. It was a very important discourse that he gave to them at that time.
When Joshua was old and ready to depart from this life, he also gathered the tribes of Israel together and delivered to them his final charge. Then he challenged them to follow God and gave the testimony of his own life: “… as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15).
When David was about to die, he called Solomon to him. I don’t believe that David would have chosen Solomon for his successor; he would have preferred Absalom, but Absalom had been slain. David said to Solomon, “I go the way of all the earth.” (What a picture that is of death! I don’t know who you are or where you are, but I can tell you the road on which you are traveling. You are going the way of all the earth, and that is to the cemetery. I realize that this doesn’t sound very good, but all of us are on that route.) Then David charged Solomon with the responsibility of building the temple of God, and he exhorted all Israel to help him, for “… Solomon my son, whom alone God hath chosen, is yet young and tender, and the work is great: for the palace is not for man, but for the Lord God” (1 Chron. 29:1).
Then, in the New Testament when the Lord Jesus came into Jerusalem for that last Passover, He made it very clear to His own in His Upper Room Discourse that it was His last time with them while He was here in the flesh—before He would die and rise again in a glorified body. Oh, what tremendous truths He gave to them on that last evening!
The apostle Paul, as we have seen, gave his final epitaph in 2 Timothy. This is his swan song: “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Tim. 4:6–8).
Now Simon Peter says, “Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle.” He knows that he has come to the end of his earthly life. Tradition tells us that he was crucified with his head down, and some folk have interpreted that to mean upside down. I personally don’t think it means that. Rather, I believe the implication is that our Lord held his head up as He looked into the heavens, but Simon Peter felt himself to be unworthy to die in the same manner his Lord had died; so he died with his head down.
When Simon Peter said, “I must put off this my tabernacle,” he was referring, of course, to his body. The word Peter used for “tabernacle” is the Greek skeµnoµma, which means “a tent or a dwelling place.” Both Peter and Paul used that expression when referring to the body. Paul wrote, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:1). A tent is a pretty flimsy sort of thing, and if you don’t believe that your little tent is flimsy, you step out on one of the freeways across this country, and you will find that your little tent will fold and you will silently slip away.
When we die, it is this little body that you and I live in that is put to sleep. The body sleeps in the dust of the earth. When God created Adam, He took his body out of the dirt. Man was created out of the earth. Our bodies contain fifteen or sixteen elements which can be found in the average soil today—that is the composition of the body. The body is put to sleep and returns to the dust of the earth. The Greek word that the Bible uses for “sleep” means “to lie down.” In classical Greek it means “to go to bed.”
A man who believes in “soul sleep” discussed this with me. I told him that “to sleep” means to go to bed and facetiously asked him to tell me which end of the soul he would stick under the cover and which end would go on the pillow. He hasn’t been able to enlighten me yet, of course, because it is the body that sleeps, not the soul. It is the body that is like a tent. It is very feeble, and one of these days we are going to put it aside.
Paul also says, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). That is the way both Peter and Paul speak of death. This little tent we live in is put down into the grave. It goes to sleep, but the soul never dies. And, of course, the soul is never raised from the dead since it never dies. The word resurrection refers to the body. In the Greek it is anastasis, which means “to stand up,” and obviously that refers to the body.
AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES ATTESTED BY FULFILLED PROPHECY
Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance [2 Pet. 1:15].
“After my decease”—the word he uses means “exodus.” He will just be moving out of his house, his tabernacle, down here; he will be putting it off as if it were a garment, and he will be making his exodus. Now the word exodus implies that death doesn’t end it all. When the children of Israel went out of Egypt, the Egyptians said, “We are through with them. This ends it.” But it didn’t end it. Israel continued on in the wilderness and finally entered into the Promised Land, and Egypt doesn’t seem to be through with them even to this good day! And for this man Peter, death was merely an exodus; it wasn’t an end to it all.
“To have these things always in remembrance.” Peter is saying that, in the light of his approaching death, he wants to bring before us certain things to keep in remembrance. And the thing he will really emphasize is the validity of the Word of God.
Now, there is a way of looking at the remainder of Peter’s epistle that may be a little difficult to understand, but there are two forces in the world today. There is centrifugal force and centripetal force. A centrifugal force impels outward from a center. If you tie a ball on a string and swing it around your head, the ball will pull on the string, trying to get away from you. The centripetal force is just the opposite—it pulls toward a center or axis. Peter will deal with these two conflicting forces in relationship to the Word of God. There is a centrifugal force that impels outward from the world in which you and I live today, and there is centripetal force that pulls us into the world and away from the Word of God. My friend, the centrifugal force is the Word of God. It is the only thing that can pull us away from the world system. A letter from an alcoholic who began listening to our Bible teaching program by radio tells how the Word of God pulled him away from the bottle and from a worldly life and pulled him toward God.
Peter has already told us that we are to make our calling and election more sure, and he wants us to know that we have an authority on which we can depend. Somebody is going to raise the question, “How do you know that the Bible is really the Word of God?”
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty [2 Pet. 1:16].
This is something that is very important for us to see.
“We have not followed cunningly devised fables.” The Bible is not a pack of lies. The Bible is not a fairy story. The Bible is not a myth. The Bible is historical and factual. If you are sincere and want to give up your sins, God will make it real to you. If there is a veil over your eyes, it is not because you are mentally blind; it is because you do not want to give up your sins. When you and I are willing to do that, God will make the Bible real to us.
“But were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” Now, I tell you, that is just a little disconcerting. When did Simon Peter see the power and coming of Jesus Christ?
He will make it clear that he is referring to the transfiguration of Jesus Christ.
For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount [2 Pet. 1:17–18].
Obviously, Peter is referring to the Transfiguration. We need to understand the significance of this event. What did Jesus mean in Matthew 16:28? “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” This has led some people to claim that the kingdom was well established at this point. (It is unfortunate that we have a chapter break at this point in Matthew’s account—remember that in the original manuscripts there are no chapters.) The account continues: “And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light” (Matt. 17:1–2).
The transfiguration of Jesus Christ was a miniature picture of the kingdom. Moses and Elijah appeared there with Christ. Moses represents the Law in the Old Testament. Elijah represents the prophets in the Old Testament. What were they discussing? They were discussing Christ’s decease, His exodus, His passing from the room of this world into the presence of the Father. That is what they had written about in the Old Testament, and that is what they were talking about at the Transfiguration. Then there were the three disciples present to observe the Transfiguration. They represent the living saints. Moses and Elijah represent the dead saints of the Old Testament. The church was not yet in existence, but the three disciples who were there would constitute the beginning of that body of believers which is the church. They would be the apostles. So the Transfiguration gives us a miniature picture of the kingdom.
Immediately after the Transfiguration, Jesus Christ and the disciples came down from the mount, and there they found a man with a demonized son. The other disciples could do nothing to help the boy. The observing people were jeering and ridiculing the disciples. That is a picture of the present day. The kingdom is in abeyance. Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God, and all the Old and New Testament saints who have gone before are with Him. While down here on this earth we are living in a demonized world. If you doubt this, all you have to do to be convinced is to read your newspaper or watch your television newscast. The world is in a terrible mess. The church, which ought to have a message of hope and power for the world, is not helping this demonized world. As a result, the church is being ridiculed—and in one sense, rightly so—because the church is not about the Father’s business as it should be.
Now Simon Peter has said that he was with the Lord Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. He was one of the eyewitnesses. Then he says this strange thing:
We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts [2 Pet. 1:19].
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy”—when he uses the word prophecy he doesn’t necessarily mean the prediction of the future, although he includes that. He means the entire Word of God, because he speaks of the Scriptures as having been spoken by God. And the prophets, as he will make it clear in the next verse, were more than amanuenses who took dictation from God; rather, they expressed their own feelings and thoughts. Nevertheless, God was able to transmit His complete will and word through the men who wrote Scripture. This is the thing that makes it a miraculous Book. You see, the Word of God is not only divine; it is human, very human. It is like the Lord Jesus who was both God and man. The Bible is a God-book and a man-book. It deals with human life, right down where you and I live and move and have our being, yet it is God speaking to man in a language that is understandable to him.
A great many people think, “Oh, if only I could have been with Peter. If only I could have seen those things.” Friend, you have something even better. You have the Word of God. It will speak directly to you if you will open your heart and allow it to speak. The Word of God is better than seeing and hearing.
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy”—rather, “the word of prophecy is made more sure.”
“A light that shineth in a dark place.” The Word of God is a light, a lamp, a source of light, like the sun in the sky. It is a centrifugal force. As the sun gives out its light, throwing it out to the universe, so the Word of God sends out a light, a force, and a power. It is the only tangible supernatural thing that we have in this world today. The Word of God is the only physical miracle that we have from God in this hour in which we live.
It will be that until Jesus comes—“until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.” Jesus is called the Bright and Morning Star in Revelation 22:16. Until He comes, His Word is the centrifugal force going throughout the world and drawing men away from the world system and putting them into the arms of God. What a picture we have here!
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation [2 Pet. 1:20].
“Knowing this first.” Simon Peter says that this is the first thing we are to know. The word knowing is a knowledge that comes, not only from the Word of God, not only from facts that can be ascertained—if you have an honest heart, you can find out whether the facts in the Bible are accurate or not—but these are things which you can know by the Holy Spirit’s making them real to you. As I have said before, I have long since passed the stage when I wanted the Bible proved to me. When I was in college, I did want the Bible proved to me; and if I found that archaeology had dug up a spadeful of dirt somewhere that proved a fact in the Bible, I would clap my hands like a little child and shout, “Wonderful!” I don’t do that anymore. I don’t need a spadeful of turned-up dirt to prove the Bible to me. The Spirit of God Himself has made the Word of God real to my heart. I know there is a transforming power in God’s Word. I get letters from all over the world which testify to that fact. There is power in the Word of God. This is something that we can know, and the facts, confirmed by the Holy Spirit, make it real to us.
“No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” What Peter is saying here is that no portion of the Scripture is to be interpreted apart from other references to the same subject. That is the reason I put up such an objection to this idea of pulling out one little verse of Scripture and building a doctrine on that one verse. If you cannot get the whole body of Scripture to confirm your doctrine, then you had better get a new doctrine, my friend.
I think a good illustration is the difference between riding in a good, solid, four-wheeled wagon and on a unicycle. If you have ever seen a person ride on that one wheel of a unicycle, you have noted that he does a lot of twisting and turning and maneuvering around to stay balanced on that one wheel. In the circus I once saw a man riding way up high on a unicycle, and all of a sudden it went out from under him, and he fell backwards. Believe me, he had a bad fall. And I thought, Oh, how many Christians are like that today. They base what they believe on a single verse. While it is wonderful to have one marvelous verse of Scripture, if it tells a great truth, there will be at least two or three verses and usually a whole chapter on it somewhere in the Bible. Simon Peter is telling us that no passage of Scripture should be interpreted by itself. We need to confirm it with other Scriptures.
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost [2 Pet. 1:21].
“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man.” Obviously he is referring to Old Testament prophecy. It didn’t come by the will of man. That is, Isaiah, for example, did not sit down saying, “I think I’ll write a book because I need some money. I’ll send it to the publisher, and he will send me an advance check, and then I’ll get royalties for it.” That is the reason some men write in our day, but that is not the way Isaiah did it. Listen to Peter: “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man.” The prophecy of Isaiah was not something that Isaiah thought up.
“But holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” “Holy men” does not mean that the writers were some super-duper saints. It means holy in the sense of being set apart for this particular office. If you are a holy Christian, it means that you are set apart for Jesus Christ. Holy means “to be set apart.”
“As they were moved by the Holy Ghost [Spirit]” is a delightful figure of speech. The Greek actually portrays the idea of a sailing vessel. The wind gets into those great sails, bellies them out, and moves the ship along. That is the way the Holy Spirit moved these men.
Here in California we have a yacht regatta each year. The yachts line up and start for Honolulu, Hawaii, to sail in around Diamond Head. (A man must be rich enough to own such a sailing yacht and to have the time to enter such a regatta.) Some time ago a doctor performed an operation on me one day, and the next day he was off sailing to Honolulu! When he got back, I was asking him about it. He told me that they have an extra sail which they put out when they get a good wind and that moves the boat right along. Well, this is exactly what Peter is saying in this verse of Scripture. These men who were set apart for the writing of the Scriptures were moved along by the Spirit of God.
Now let me remind you that this is Peter’s swan song, and, like Paul in his swan song, he emphasizes the importance of the Word of God for the days of apostasy. Paul said, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God …” (2 Tim. 3:16), and Peter is saying that the writers of Scripture were moved along by the Holy Spirit. The thought is the same. It is wonderful to see how God could take each man and use him, without changing his style or interfering with his personality, to write His Word so that His message comes across. While Paul the apostle wrote eloquent Greek, Peter the apostle—since he was a fisherman and Greek was his second language—wrote Greek that was not quite as good. Yet God used both of these men to write exactly what He wanted to say—so much so that, if God spoke out of heaven today, He would have to repeat Himself, because He already has said all that He has to say to mankind. God has gotten His Word to us through men of different personalities and different skills. For this reason I call it a man-book and a God-book.
The written Word, like the Lord Jesus, the living Word, is both human and divine. The Lord Jesus could weep at a grave, but He could also raise the dead. He could sit down at a well because He was tired and thirsty, but He could also give the water of life to a poor sinner. He could go to sleep in a boat, but He could also still the storm. He was a man, but He was God also. And the Bible is both human and divine.
Simon Peter is telling us that we have “a more sure word of prophecy.” He puts a sure rock under our feet. The Scriptures are something that we can have confidence in. No wonder the Word of God has been attacked more than anything else. If the enemy can get rid of the foundation, he knows that the building will come crashing down.
It is sheer nonsense for a preacher to stand at a pulpit and preach a sermon showing that he does not believe that the Bible is the Word of God. That, to my judgment, is as silly as the poor fellow in the insane asylum whom a visitor saw using a pickax on the foundation at the corner of the dormitory in an attempt to destroy the foundation. The visitor, wanting to be sympathetic, asked the man with the pick, “What are you doing?”
“I’m digging away the foundation. Can’t you see?”
“Yes, but don’t you live in this building?”
“Of course I do, but I live upstairs.”
For a preacher to discredit the Word of God is equally as insane. My friend, the Scriptures as we have them are a solid foundation on which to rest our faith.
The last time I was in Greece, I went again to the Acropolis in Athens and examined the Parthenon. I have examined it several times to make sure I am accurate in this statement: there are not two parallel lines in the place, nor is there a straight line. If you go to one end and look down, you will see that it comes up to a hump in the middle and then goes back down. The Greeks had learned that the human eye never sees anything straight which is straight. This, I believe, is the reason God says that we are to walk by faith and not by sight. We can’t trust our own eyes nor our own ears, but we can rest upon the Word of God.
One of the greatest proofs that the Bible is indeed the Word is fulfilled prophecy. Over one-third of the Scripture was prophetic at the time it was first written. It is not to be treated as speculation or superstition because of the fact that a great deal of it has already been literally fulfilled. As someone has well said, “Prophecy is the mold into which history is poured.” Fulfilled prophecy is, to me, one of the great proofs of the accuracy of Scripture. Peter has said, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy.” Since one-fourth of prophecy has been fulfilled, this means that one-fourth of one-third of the Bible is fulfilled prophecy. Man cannot guess that accurately! There were three hundred thirty prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the first coming of Christ, and all of them were literally fulfilled. No human being can guess like that.
Let me give you an example. Suppose that right now I should make a prophecy that it is going to rain tomorrow. I’d have a 50 percent chance of being right, because it either will or it won’t. But suppose I add to that the prediction that it would start raining tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. That would be another uncertain element. I am no mathematician, but it seems to me that this would reduce my chance of being right by another 50 percent. Now suppose that I not only say it is going to start raining at nine o’clock but also that it will stop raining at two o’clock. According to my figuring, that would bring down my chance of being correct to 12 1/2 percent. And it would be a lot less than that if you figure it according to a twenty-four hour day. But suppose I add three hundred uncertain elements. I would not have a ghost of a chance of being accurate. Yet the Word of God hit it, my friend. It is accurate. The Bible has moved into the area of absolute impossibility, and that to me is absolute proof that it is the Word of God.
CHAPTER 2
Theme: Apostasy brought in by false teachers
APOSTASY BROUGHT IN BY FALSE TEACHERS
We have seen in the previous chapter the centrifugal force of the light of Jesus Christ that draws men away from the world and toward God. Now let’s talk about the centripetal force; that is, the force that impels folk toward the world. It is a gravitational force, the pull of the world away from the Word of God.
The days that Peter is talking about in this chapter have now come upon us in our day.
But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction [2 Pet. 2:1].
“But there were false prophets also among the people.” Peter is writing to Jewish Christians, and “the people” he is talking about is Israel. There were false prophets among the people of Israel, Peter says, “even as there shall be false teachers among you,” that is, among believers, the church. There were false prophets in the Old Testament, but there are false teachers today. My friend, we do not need to beware of false prophets at all—that is not our problem. Any man who attempts to prophesy today will soon be proven a liar—there is no question about that.
During World War II, there was here in Pasadena, California, a man who predicted that the end of the world would come (if I remember correctly) on September 15, 1943. When that day came, newspaper reporters filled his yard and waited. Eventually he had to come out and say that he had misfigured it. He said that instead it would be September 15, 1944. The ministers in Pasadena who were meeting together in a prayer fellowship at that time were concerned about this man’s prophecies and wanted to get a statement into the newspaper. I said to them, “Forget it. As far as I am concerned, on September 15, 1944, the man will be proven a liar.” You know, the world didn’t come to an end the next year either. What happened was that the newspaper reporters laughed at and ridiculed that man. Of course, it hurts the cause of Christ when anyone does that sort of thing. The man disappeared from this area, and I do not know where he is today.
We do not need to pay any attention to false prophets, but let me say this to you: You do need to check false teachers. You need to check all teachers, including the one whose book you are reading right now. I urge you to check what I say by the Word of God. Don’t believe it because Vernon McGee says it. One man told me, “I teach a Sunday school class, and if anyone questions what I say, I tell them, ‘Well, McGee says that.’” That is the wrong approach, my friend. The Word of God is what you are to rest upon.
I am amazed today how easily people are deceived by all kinds of teaching. People will fall for anything, and if you do not believe that, you ought to see the elaborate operations and headquarters of some of the cults which are located here in Southern California. You would be amazed, for it reveals that there are a great many people who have not heeded Peter’s warning that false teachers are abroad. Instead, they listen to them and give them financial backing.
Some wag has put it like this:
Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand
Make the mighty oceans
And the beauteous land.
So the daily pressures,
Subtle though they be,
Serve to shape the oddballs
We call you and me.
“Little Drops of Water”
—Author unknown
We oddballs down here can really be taken in. Peter says, “Beware of false teachers.”
In chapter 1 we saw that there were prophets of God in the Old Testament, and they prophesied 100 percent accurately. Peter now says, “But there were false prophets also among the people.” There were not only true prophets but also false prophets among the people of Israel. One example of this is the time that Ahab and Jehoshaphat went out against the Syrians (see 1 Kings 22). They called in a bunch of the false prophets of Baal who urged Ahab and Jehoshaphat to go to battle. Jehoshaphat saw immediately that they were not getting a word from God, and he said, “Don’t you have a true prophet of God here?” Ahab said, “Yes, but I keep him in prison because he never says anything good about me.” Today a great many people don’t like a preacher unless he says something nice about them all the time. Ahab was like that. This prophet of God, Micaiah, told him the truth, and Ahab didn’t like that. But they brought Micaiah in, and he told Ahab, “If you go to battle, you will be slain.” Ahab turned to Jehoshaphat and said, “See, he never says anything good about me!” It’s too bad that Ahab didn’t listen to him, because he was slain just as Micaiah said he would be. Micaiah was a true prophet of God, but there were also several hundred false prophets at that time.
“Even as there shall be false teachers among you.” Dr. Marvin R. Vincent, in his very fine Word Studies in the New Testament, says that this Greek word for “false teachers,” pseudo-didaskalos, occurs only here in the New Testament. As we have said before, false teachers are the danger for the church today, and believe me, they are dangerous. What is a false teacher? A false teacher is one who knows the truth but deliberately lies for some purpose. It is either for some selfish reason, or he wants to please people, or he does it for money. There are many teachers like that today. They preach and say what people want them to say, although they know what the truth is—that is a false teacher.
There are other men who teach error ignorantly. Some of the great reformers of the past and some of the great post-apostolic church fathers believed and taught some things which we do not hold to today. We believe they were entirely in error on certain things. Those men were not false teachers. They believed they were teaching the truth, and that does not put them in the category of a false teacher. A false teacher knows what he is doing, and he does it deliberately.
“Even as there shall be”—Peter puts this period of apostasy out yonder in the future because it would be beyond his death. Jude also discusses this same subject of apostasy. The very fact that 2 Peter and Jude are so much alike has caused some of the critics to say that one copied from the other. Let me state it a little differently: When God wants to emphasize something, He says it twice. That is the reason that the Lord Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you.” One “verily” is enough for Him, but when He says it twice, you had better sit up and listen. Therefore, this is something that God considers rather important. However, when Jude wrote, he said that there were already false teachers in the church. They came in quite early, by the way, and they have been in the church ever since.
I think we have in this first verse a good definition of false teachers: “Who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” “Damnable heresies” actually means destructive heresies. That which identifies these false teachers is that they deny Christ’s work of redemption for them. They will appear in the church as members of the church; they will claim to be Christians, and they will work secretly under cover of hypocrisy.
Years ago I preached in a church which was a very fine, fundamental church where the people loved the Word of God. They called a pastor to that church whom they had questioned concerning whether he believed the Scriptures and whether he believed in their plenary, verbal inspiration. He had answered affirmatively to every question they asked. About two years later, I was in that city and found that the members of the church had scattered and were attending other churches. They told me that this man had absolutely misrepresented himself—that’s what the kinder people said. Some said, “He lied to us.” That’s exactly what he had done. He had come into that church and actually been a hypocrite. He said one thing when he actually believed another.
Now false teachers have some true doctrine. There is not a cult that I know of which does not have some truth in it. That is the one thing that makes them very dangerous, ten thousand times more dangerous than if they were 100 percent in error. These teachers generally believe some things that are true. Our Lord said, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matt. 7:15). Paul warned the church at Ephesus, “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock” (Acts 20:29). These wolves in sheep’s clothing will absolutely destroy the flock and scatter them.
Our Lord made this clear when He gave us a picture of the condition of the kingdom after His rejection, crucifixion, and resurrection. He would not establish His kingdom on earth at that time, but He said that the kingdom of heaven would be like a sower sowing seed, like a mustard tree, and like leaven. Leaven has gotten into the bread today. The bread is the Word of God, and there is a lot of false teaching that goes out under the guise of being the Word of God.
And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of [2 Pet. 2:2].
“And many shall follow their pernicious ways.” False followers will go after false teachers. I do not believe that God’s elect can be permanently deceived. I believe that God permits a lot of the cults and “isms” in order to draw away from the true church that which is false, because those who are phony will go after that sort of thing. This is exactly what Paul said would take place: “For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you” (1 Cor. 11:19). In other words, the genuine child of God will not go in that direction. The Lord Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and they will not follow a false shepherd” (see John 10:27). When you see people take out after one of these false teachers, they are either ignorantly deceived or they are deliberately deceived because that is what they believe and what they wanted to hear all the time.
And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not [2 Pet. 2:3].
“Feigned words”—the Greek word for “feigned” is plastos. Dr. Joseph H. Thayer, in his lexicon of the New Testament, says that plastos means “moulded, formed, as from clay, wax, stone.” Plastos—does that sound like another word you’ve heard? We have a new word, a word that wasn’t even in existence in Peter’s day, yet in a way it was. Plastic—that’s the word Peter uses here. I love that, because today you can buy a plastic pitcher, you can buy a plastic bucket, you can buy plastic dishes, you can buy plastic toys. You can buy almost anything in plastic because plastic can be molded into every possible shape.
May I say this, and I do want to say it kindly. There are also plastic preachers who can be molded and shaped by the people that they serve. They say what their congregations want to hear. They use plastic words. This is the reason that neo-orthodoxy, when it first appeared, deceived so many people. When I came to Pasadena many years ago to pastor a church here, another pastor came about the same time. He was an outstanding liberal who is pretty much known all over the world today. A member of his church attended my Bible class, and she said, “Oh, he is sound in the faith because he uses the same language that you do.” I said, “Fine, but does he mean what I mean by it?” She was sure that he did. On Easter Sunday she called me and said, “Dr. McGee, you have been wrong in criticizing this man. He spoke of the resurrection of Jesus today.” I asked her, “But did you go up afterward and ask him whether he believed that Jesus was raised bodily from the tomb?” She replied, “I’m sure that that is what he meant.” I told her, “I’m, sure that he didn’t, but you ask him.” The next day she called me, weeping, and said, “You know, he just ridiculed the idea of the bodily resurrection!” So I explained to her, “These fellows use our vocabulary, but they don’t have our dictionary.” In other words, they may say something, but the important thing is what they mean by what they say.
Peter tells us that false teachers will speak with feigned words, plastic words, words that are just molded words. They will fit their words to the people to whom they are speaking. They speak one thing to one crowd and then talk differently to another crowd. I know a man who can bring a fundamental message if he is in a fundamental group, but when he gets with a liberal group, he is just about as liberal as they are. He is a plastic preacher—you can pour him into any mold, and he will accommodate himself to it.
What is the motivation for these false teachers? I tell you, Simon Peter puts it right out in the open here: “And through covetousness.” They do it because they are covetous. Covetousness is actually a form of idolatry. Sometimes it may be that they are covetous for a position, for a name, for popularity. Many of them are covetous of money.
I am not talking through my hat, my friend. I could give you example after example of the fact that there are many false teachers abroad today, but I will give you just one. I read a report in a very fine Christian publication which tells about a service held by a well-known evangelist. They reported that the preacher introduced the evangelist, saying, “He is a man after my heart because he loves money just like I love it.” As the evangelist spoke, he was forceful, he was dynamic, and he put on quite a show. For forty-five minutes he did not read one Scripture verse, not even his text. He partially quoted only three or four verses. He used the personal pronoun I 175 times. He referred to Jesus Christ only eleven times. There was laughter every two minutes during his message—he was quite a comedian. When the invitation was given, some twenty young people responded to the urgings of the evangelist and went forward. For what? They had not heard the gospel! This is something that is so prevalent in our country today. The average church member doesn’t know the gospel when he hears it and does not recognize when he doesn’t hear it. This is the tragedy of the hour in which we live. There are many false teachers abroad today.
I urge you to check on all Bible teachers and radio preachers that you listen to. Check on me. Am I teaching the Word of God? Examine the Word of God and see whether I am or not. And check yourself. Every child of God should examine himself to see whether or not he is in the faith.
“And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you.” In other words, these false teachers are doing it for money. I personally resent all forms of promotion today. When I return from a trip and sort through my accumulated mail, I will sometimes pitch letters into my wastebasket without even opening them. The name of the organization is on the envelope, so I know who they come from. I’ve been getting their letters for years, although I’ve never contributed to those organizations. I don’t know why they keep sending out all that propaganda, but I do know this: they want to make merchandise of me. It is my conviction that an organization ought to appeal only to folk who are interested in their certain work. There are many fine mission organizations, and there are many fine Christian radio programs, but there are some that are nothing in the world but promotion. One of the marks of a false teacher is that he is a promoter. He is not interested in giving you the Word of God; he is not attempting to help you. He is attempting to get something from you, to make merchandise of you. You are sort of a food trading stamp for him or a luxury car for him.
“Whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” This is something that has disturbed a great many folk, including some in the Bible. For example, the psalmist was disturbed that the wicked were getting by with their sin—or so he thought. But then he said, “I went into the temple of the Lord.” What did he learn in the temple? All he learned in the temple was that God is in charge and He will take care of the wicked (see Ps. 73).
The apostle Paul was mistreated again and again, and he resented it. He would not let the authorities at Philippi release him from jail and urge him to leave town secretly. He was a Roman citizen, and he forced them to do it the right way. But Paul told us not to take vengeance. We are to turn our case over to God. The minute that we try to get revenge we are taking God’s place, because “… Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Rom. 12:19). And if you try to get revenge, you depart from your walk of faith. However, walking by faith does not mean that you are a Mr. Milquetoast whom everyone can push around and treat any way they please. Rather, it means that you can say, “All right, brother, you have mistreated me, you have done this to me, but I’m going to turn you over to the Lord.” Paul wrote, “Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works” (2 Tim. 4:14). “The Lord will take care of him. I’ve turned him over to the Lord,” Paul said concerning another brother who had mistreated him.
Peter assures us that God will also take care of these false teachers someday. When I heard of the death of a certain liberal not long ago, a man said to me, “Well, he’s better off today than he was when he was in this life.” Frankly, I’m not so sure about that because he must give account to God for his life. I would not want to have to go into the presence of God someday and have the Lord say to me, “Look, McGee, you came to a passage of Scripture that time, and you soft-pedaled it because you were afraid of criticism. You didn’t teach it like it is written.” God would hold me accountable for that. I will have to turn in a report to Him for my Bible-teaching ministry. May I say to you, you are going to have to turn in an account to God also.
It may look like God is slumbering; it may look like God is taking a nap. He may not seem to be doing very much about these false teachers, but He is, my friend. Habakkuk wondered whether God would do anything about the enemies of Israel, but he found out that in reality God was moving much too fast for him—He was not slumbering at all.
Now Peter will give us three examples of apostates in the past. His first example is of the angels who sinned (v. 4), and it is an example of how the Devil works. His second example is that of the world of Noah’s day (v. 5), and it is the example of the world. The third example (v. 6) is the turning of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, and that is the example of the flesh. We have here the world, the flesh, and the Devil, but Peter puts the Devil first-the Devil, the world, and the flesh. These are the three enemies that you and I need to be aware of John, the apostle of love, says, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world …” (1 John 2:15, italics mine). “The world” does not mean the beautiful flowers, the mountains, the trees, and the sea. It means the world system down here that is against God—that is what we are not to love.
Peter will talk first about the Devil and about the fact that God in the past has judged angels. The subject of angels and demons is highly debatable and very popular today. In fact, there is too much attention being given to it. Many books are being written about Satan and about demons and all that sort of thing. I suppose they have their place, but my feeling is that the positive side needs to be emphasized more. I have a message that I give, “Who is Antichrist?” and I always conclude that message by saying that I don’t know much about Antichrist and I don’t want to know much about him. The One I want to know is the Lord Jesus Christ. I cannot find anywhere where Paul or any other of the writers in Scripture say, “That I might know the Antichrist….” But Paul does say, “That I may know him [the Lord Jesus], and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings…” (Phil. 3:10). It is life eternal to know God, the Father, and the Son, the Lord Jesus, whom He has sent (see John 17:3). Scripture does not instruct us to know Antichrist or to know all about Satan. It is true that we are not to be ignorant of his devices. We need to beware of him, but we can pay too much attention to him.
For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment [2 Pet. 2:4].
“For if God spared not the angels that sinned.” Many commentators feel that this refers to the events of Genesis 6. I do not agree, because I do not believe that the “sons of God” mentioned there were angels. Genesis talks about the genealogy of man. It concerns that family which was leading to the coming of Christ, which would bring Him into the world. That line intermarried with the world, with the line of Cain, and brought about a generation who were so sinful that God finally brought the Flood upon them. That is what Genesis 6 is all about, and I do not think this verse here in 2 Peter has any reference to that at all.
Then what does this verse have reference to? I will have to do just a little bit of speculating, yet Scripture does give us some hazy glimpses of this. We find that Jude refers to these things also; the Book of Revelation gives us some inkling of it; and several of the prophets open this area to us just a little.
Man was sort of a Johnny-come-lately on this earth—we haven’t been here too long. Before man was here on earth, apparently there was another creation. God had a program going long before man appeared on the scene, and there were many created intelligences. From among those angels, who were God’s creation and who were His messengers, some rebelled against Him and apparently followed Satan. We are told in Revelation 12:7, “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels.” Back in the past there was a rebellion against God led by the creature we know today as Satan or the Devil. He has many names—he is the great deceiver; he is a liar from the beginning. This creature rebelled against God, and there followed with him a great company of angels.
Peter tells us that some of the angels who rebelled are already in chains, they are already incarcerated, but some of them have not yet been brought into that place of being inoperative. They are very active in the world today, and I believe they are the demons that we read about in the Word of God. I think we are seeing today a reappearance of the supernatural. I have considered giving a message on this subject of demons because so much that is false is being taught today. There is a reality in the supernatural world, and because a so-called miracle takes place does not mean that God did it. After all, Satan has a certain degree of power.
Therefore, this verse is a reference to that which took place before man was put on this earth, when there was a rebellion against God led by Satan.
“Cast them down to hell.” The word for “hell” here is an unusual word which does not occur in very many places in Scripture. The Greek word is tartarus. The Greeks spoke of the lost being in tartarus. It is not hell as we think of it. Hell has not really been opened up to do business yet and will not be opened up until much later. The Devil is not in hell; he is abroad in God’s creation. He goes into the presence of God, according to the Book of Job; and he is like a roaring lion, going up and down this earth, seeking whom he may devour, Peter told us in his first epistle. Although Satan is not in hell, certain of his angels have already been incarcerated.
“And delivered them into chains of darkness.” The Greek word for “chains” is seira. Many believe it should be seiroµos, for that is the word used in many of the better texts. Seiroµs means “pits or caverns.” The two words are very similar. Apparently these angels are in pits of darkness. People think of hell as being a place of fire, but I think it is a place of darkness. Darkness and fire just don’t go together, because a fire makes light. Can you imagine being in darkness for eternity?
“To be reserved unto judgment.” They have not yet been judged. The indictment has been made against them. God has declared them guilty, and they are waiting for the judgment to come.
And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly [2 Pet. 2:5].
“And spared not the old world.” In chapter 3 Peter will talk about three worlds—the world that was, the world that is, and the world that is to come. God “spared not the old world,” that is, the world before Noah.
“But saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness.” There were seven others with Noah. Noah, his three sons, their wives, and Noah’s wife are the eight persons who came through the Flood.
“Bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.” The people were religious; they simply left the living and true God out of their religion. They were living as if God didn’t exist at all. They were living in the flesh. It is a false idea today that you and I, in the flesh, have some good in us. Paul says, “I have discovered that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing” (see Rom. 7:18).
I read a report by Dr. Turnbull in his book, Mountain People. He made a study of a people called the Ik who have been discovered in Africa and who are absolutely living lower than animals. Dr. Turnbull reports that the children are cast off by the mother at the age of three and must provide for themselves or die. They find berries and bark and insects, and they scavenge around for what is left by wild animals. The stronger ones literally take food from the mouths of the elderly. The author said that it would be an insult to animals to call these people’s behavior bestiality. Dr. Turnbull (who is a humanist and not a Christian) said that the Ik teach us that our much-vaunted human values are not inherent in humanity at all, but are associated only with a particular form of survival called society, and that all, even society itself, are luxuries that can be dispensed with. In other words, man apart from God is nothing in the world but an animal, and it is an insult to an animal to say that. You see, it is God who gives values; it is God who gives moral standards, and none of them are inherent in us.
Noah lived in a day when there was rebellion against God, a day when the world had become lawless. Genesis tells us, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Violence was abroad in the earth in that day. God moved in with the judgment of the Flood and brought an end to that pre-Noachic world. It was a world that had become, with the exception of one man and his family, a totally godless world. God did well in bringing judgment at that particular time. You can well see that it would not have been long until the entire world would have been in such a condition that God would have had to judge it and there would have been salvation for no one after that. In His judgment God had in mind the future that was coming, and His judgment reveals His care and respect for the human life He had created.
Immediately after the Flood, in order to curtail lawlessness and crime, God gave to man this edict: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man” (Gen. 9:6). It is nonsense today to argue against capital punishment by saying that the Bible says, “Thou shalt not murder.” “Thou shalt not murder” has reference to an individual who harbors hatred in his heart and, expressing his own fleshly feelings in anger or hatred, he slays another human being. My friend, that’s murder. But God has given to governments the authority to execute any man who takes another man’s life. Why? Listen to me for just a moment: You do not show respect for human life by letting off a murderer who has destroyed another human being. You show respect and value for human life when you take the life of a murderer who fails to respect another human being but despises him by killing him for some selfish or sinful reason.
Today the pendulum of the clock of public opinion is over on the side of the criminal. The sympathy goes to him: “Oh, he’s a human being. We don’t want to take his life.” But he took someone else’s life! We have had many softhearted and softheaded judges in this land, and we are far from God and His Word. Lawlessness has become so bad that the people of California have voted to reinstate capital punishment. Yet it is almost impossible to enforce it because of the godless leaders we have today. They know not God. They know not God’s plan and program. Instead of being put in prison, the criminals are running the streets today, and the honest citizens are in prison in their own homes. I was in a home recently in the East where there were half a dozen locks on one door because that lovely home had been broken into. Criminals and thieves are abroad today. Dignity and respect for human life are shown when they are locked up, my friend.
Our nation has more than three strikes against it. Not only are we a nation of alcoholics, but also of murderers and thieves. The situation is alarming. Why have we come to this point? When I was in college, they didn’t teach morals because they said that was not the purpose of education. “After all,” they said, “if you just educate little Willy, he will come out all right.” Little Willy is sort of a cross between a piece of Dresden china and a hothouse orchid. You don’t want to apply the board of education to the seat of knowledge for fear you might ruin his little “umph” and he won’t be able to express himself like the little flower that he is! Well, little Willy is expressing himself today: he is a thief, he’s a murderer, he’s a homosexual. My friend, may I say to you, the Lord Jesus said that out of the human heart proceed the ugliest, nastiest things that are imaginable. We need discipline. The unsaved world must have discipline from a government. If it does not, that nation will be destroyed. God laid down this principle for governments following His judgment upon the world of Noah’s day.
And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly [2 Pet. 2:6].
You can read the record of this in Genesis, chapter 19. It was the flesh that God judged at Sodom and Gomorrah. The inhabitants were given over to sodomy. Homosexuality was approved of in Sodom, and it is approved of in the United States.
The flesh is an ugly thing. You and I have that old nature, and it is a nature which expresses itself in that which is ugly, that which is wicked, that which is nasty. You cannot make me believe that by making homosexuality lawful somehow or other you have added dignity to it. God has said that when men go down that low, He gives them up. You can take it or leave it, but that’s what the Word of God says (see Rom. 1:18–32). The very fact that we have been lenient and have smiled on this type of thing has caused it to increase and grow within our land.
And delivered just Lot, vexed with the Filthy conversation of the wicked:
(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) [2 Pet. 2:7–8].
“And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.” This word vexed doesn’t seem to me to convey what Peter is really saying. Many people say that Peter does not use good Greek, and yet I have had to look up the meaning of more words that Peter uses than even the apostle Paul uses. The Greek word he uses here is kataponeoµ, which means, according to Trench, “to tire down with toil, to exhaust with labor.” It means “to afflict, to oppress with evil,” actually, “to torment.” One of the methods that communism has used and which apparently is used now in many places is to break down an individual by constantly putting him under a bright light, constantly plaguing him with questions, by pulling out his fingernails, and by doing all manner of torture to him. This word has that idea in it. Lot vexed his soul in the city of Sodom. He was never happy there. He was tormented on the inside. It was torture for him to live in Sodom.
I never got that impression of Lot while reading the Book of Genesis, by the way. I’m glad for Peter’s comment—otherwise I would be apt to say that Lot was not saved. By reading the story back in Genesis of when Lot went down to the city of Sodom, got into politics there, and lost most of his family, I would come to the conclusion that he was not saved. Even when you read what happened with the two single daughters who escaped with him, you might wish that they too had stayed back in Sodom. The point Peter is making is that God got Lot out of that city; He knows “how to deliver the godly.”
We are told in verse 6 that all of this is given to us as an example. An example of what? I think that you and I are going to get two big surprises when we get to heaven. The number one surprise will be that there are not going to be some people in heaven who we were sure were going to make it. They really weren’t genuine, although we thought they were. The second and bigger shock will be this: There are going to be some people in heaven who we never even suspected were real born-again children of God. They didn’t have very much of a testimony down here. Lot is an example of this—I don’t think this man had any testimony for God at all. When the angels came and said that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah would be destroyed, Lot went around to his sons-in-law and said, “I’ve got word from God that He is going to destroy this city. He’s going to judge it. Let’s leave!” The record says, “But he seemed as one that mocked.” I suppose that they said, “We don’t believe you, old man. The kind of life you’ve been living down here doesn’t reveal to us that you have had very much faith and confidence in God.” If I had only Genesis to read, I would have come to the conclusion that Lot didn’t make it to heaven, that he was not a saved man. But Peter says, “He delivered just Lot”—and that does not mean only Lot, because his two daughters went with him, and his wife, although she didn’t get too far away. Lot was called “just” because he was justified in God’s sight.
“And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation [manner of life] of the wicked.” He didn’t go for the way they lived; he hated it. He was a just man, which means that he was justified before God because he trusted God as Abraham did, although he didn’t lead a life like Abraham, one that was a testimony to the world. Lot stands on the page of Scripture as a saint of God who was justified because of his faith, but his life denied everything he believed and he never had a moment’s peace down here.
“For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing.” Just think of the filth that that man had to listen to! Very candidly, I do not believe that a child of God can continually engage in filthy conversation. Filthy conversation will lead to filthy action.
God said to this man, “Lot, you will have to get out of the city. I cannot destroy it with you in it.” You see, in the meantime there was a man named Abraham who was not criticizing Lot but was praying for him. That is a good lesson for many of us. There is a preacher, a friend of mine, who criticizes everything and everybody. One day he was criticizing an outstanding Bible teacher whom I respect and know that God has mightily used. I said to my friend, looking him right straight in the eye, “Have you ever prayed for him?” He turned red and said he hadn’t. I said, “Instead of criticizing him, why don’t you pray for him? If you think he is wrong, pray for him.”
Abraham prayed for the city of Sodom. He wanted his nephew Lot to be spared. Abraham asked God to spare the city for the sake of fifty righteous people. He finally got it down to ten righteous people, and then he stopped praying because he was afraid that Lot was not really a child of God. But Lot was, and God got him out. God said, “I cannot destroy the city until you get out.”
Mrs. Lot left with him, but she looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. That may sound strange. Why should she be turned into a pillar of salt just because she looked back? My friend, it’s what turning and looking back means. Why did she look back? It is obvious that, although she walked out of Sodom, she had left her heart back there. She was intertwined in everything that took place in that town—she belonged to the country club, the Shakespeare club, and every other kind of club. Perhaps the bridge club was having a meeting that afternoon and she really wanted to go. I think she plagued Lot, saying, “Why do we have to leave like this?” Another reason she turned and looked back was because she didn’t believe God would destroy the city. Well, He did destroy the city, and He turned her into a pillar of salt.
The greatest lesson for us in these verses is that God’s rescue of Lot from Sodom prefigures the rapture of the church. May I say to you, the rapture of the church will take place before the Great Tribulation Period, before the judgment comes, because God will not let any of His saints go through it. Even those who are like Lot, the weakest saints, will be taken out. Lot made it, and if you have trusted Christ as your Savior, you can be sure that you will be going out too. This is a marvelous example of the fact that the church will not go through the Great Tribulation Period. They have been justified by faith in Christ, and this man Lot was justified also.
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished [2 Pet. 2:9].
To those who believe that the church is going through the Great Tribulation Period, I would like to say that God knows how to deliver His own. You may not know how, but God knows how. He also knows how “to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.” God knows the difference between the godly and the unjust—I don’t. The wheat and tares are growing together today, and He said, “Let them alone. Let them both grow together.” I’m not worried about the tares today, although I must confess that I wish there weren’t so many of them. But wheat and tares are growing—the Word of God is getting out in this glorious day in which we live. One of these days He will make the separation, when He takes His own out of the world and when the lost will be brought before the Great White Throne for judgment.
But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities [2 Pet. 2:10].
“But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness.” This is a strong statement that Peter makes here. It actually means in the defilements—the defilements of uncleanness. This is a picture of those who are really lower than animals. They are those who delight in that which is vulgar, vile, and vicious. They relish that type of thing.
“And despise government.” Many commentators say that this refers to government here on earth. I have reason to believe, since this word occurs so few times in the Word of God, that it really means “dominion.” The same word kurioteµs is translated “dominion” in verse 8 of Jude and “lordship” in the first chapter of Ephesians. In Ephesians it has to do with spiritual governments. In other words, they despise that which is spiritual, that which God has ordained above us: the angels and the way God is running His universe. They are the ones who ask God to damn everything under the sun. They are not pleased with anything.
Not only that, Peter says, “Presumptuous are they.” That means they are daring. They are daredevils. They don’t mind blaspheming. It makes them feel expansive and big to use such language.
“Self-willed”—that is, they are going to do their own thing.
“They are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.” The word for “dignities” is actually glories. They speak evil of that which is sacred, that which is holy. Isn’t it interesting that men take God’s name in vain? They don’t take the city’s name in vain or their boss’s name in vain or the name of some person they hate. But they take God’s name in vain. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignities, of glories, of this order that God has established in His universe.
Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord [2 Pet. 2:11].
The false teachers are lifted up with pride, and they do something that angels don’t dare to do. In the little Epistle of Jude, we find that Jude gives a specific instance of this when Michael the archangel was disputing with Satan about the body of Moses. You see, the Devil didn’t want Moses to appear later in the Promised Land (at the transfiguration of Jesus), and so there was some dispute. God buried the body of Moses. And Jude tells us that Michael would not bring a railing accusation against the Devil, but he simply said, “… The Lord rebuke thee” (Jude 9). This is a spirit that we need to manifest today, a spirit of humility, in the sense that we turn all of this over to God. It is pride that causes us to speak as we do. When I hear someone, sometimes even a Christian, talking about the Devil, ridiculing him and calling him names, I have to say that Michael the archangel wouldn’t do that, and if Michael, exalted as he is, wouldn’t do it, a little man down here on earth needs to be very careful.
But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption [2 Pet. 2:12].
“But these, as natural brute beasts.” These apostates are like wild animals. We hear a great deal today about man descending from an animal, but both the Old and New Testaments make it very clear that man is capable of living lower than the animals. He’s not descended from anything. He’s right down with them, if you please, and lives like an animal. Peter will give an illustration of this a little later on in this chapter.
They are natural wild animals, “made to be taken and destroyed” just like an animal is taken. They’ve descended to that low plane and have reached the place where they are hopeless and helpless.
They “speak evil of the things that they understand not.” This that Peter says of false teachers can also be applied to many others. Something that has amazed me ever since I became a Christian is how smart some men who are not Christians can be and yet they do not at all understand the Word of God. There have been many brilliant men in the past who had no knowledge of what the Word of God is about. Let me give you an example.
William Wilberforce, a member of the British Parliament, was an alcoholic and lived a very fast life until he was converted. He wanted his friend, Edmund Burke, to hear one of the great preachers of Scotland, and when they were up in Scotland, he took Burke to hear this preacher. Afterward, he was interested to get Burke’s reaction to the sermon. His reaction was very simple, and it revealed something. Burke said, “That man is a brilliant orator, but what was he talking about?” Edmund Burke, one of the great English statesman, when he heard a gospel message, said, “I don’t even know what he is talking about!”
Also I was very much interested to read recently something about a great denomination in this country, a church that down through the years has preached justification by faith. They made a survey and found that 40 percent of their members believe they are saved by their own works. How tragic it is to see that people do not understand the gospel! Many who have been hearing it year in and year out do not understand it at all.
“And shall utterly perish in their own corruption.” Earlier Peter talked about the fact that the child of God has escaped the corruption of the world—but these have not escaped the corruption. Some of them have escaped the pollutions of the world. In other words, there are many lost sinners who say, “I wouldn’t do the things that this low-down individual is doing”—and he wouldn’t. He has escaped the pollutions, but he has not escaped the corruptions. On the outside he is religious; he goes through forms; he does certain works, but his heart is not right with God at all. He has a corrupt heart, and he has done nothing whatsoever about that.
And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you [2 Pet. 2:13].
In verses 13–14 we see in the description of apostates the utter corruption of the human heart. When a man thinks wrong, he is going to act wrong—you just cannot escape that fact. There are a great many people who say, “This is my life. I can live it as I please.” It is well known that we have men today in government who are definitely immoral. They have affairs with women who are not their wives. We know that most of them drink, and many of them drink to excess. They say, “This is my business. My private life is my business.” My friend, their private lives are not their business if they are representing this government and representing my country. If they want to lead that kind of life, they ought to get out of government, because they are hurting their country and they are hurting us. We want men in government who are sober, men who are honest, men who are moral men. This is what is desperately needed today.
Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children [2 Pet. 2:14].
My, this is harsh language that Peter uses in speaking of false teachers! They are guilty of all of these immoral excesses, and don’t kid yourself that God does not intend to judge them someday.
Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness [2 Pet. 2:15].
Balaam is mentioned three times in the closing books of the New Testament. In 2 Peter it is the way of Balaam. In Jude it is the error of Balaam. And it is the doctrine of Balaam in the Book of Revelation. Each one is different. What is “the way of Balaam”? Peter says he is “the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.” Balaam knew that he should not go and prophesy against Israel, but he loved the price that was being offered to him. Therefore, “the way of Balaam” is the covetousness of one who does religious work for personal profit.
But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet [2 Pet. 2:16].
Peter says that Balaam was mad to go and that the jackass he was riding spoke to him. Some wag has said that in the old days it was a miracle when a jackass spoke and now in our day it is a miracle when one of them keeps quiet! This jackass spoke to Balaam and rebuked him because of his covetousness.
My friend, I believe that you can judge the religious racketeer by his standard of living. A friend of mine heard me make the statement that people should check up on radio broadcasters and see what kind of homes they live in and what cars they drive. He thought I was wrong to have made a statement like that, but he decided to check up on one man. He found that man living in a very costly home with two Cadillacs parked in front and an expensive swimming pool behind it. My friend had also heard about certain other excesses in that man’s life, and so he decided that he was supporting the wrong broadcaster. “The way of Balaam”—covetousness. This is one of the ways a false religious teacher can be identified, and God will judge him for it.
These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever [2 Pet. 2:17].
As a boy I lived in West Texas. We left there in the third year of a three-year drought. I can remember when we would go into the fields and chop cotton—believe me, in those days cotton didn’t grow well in that country even if there was rain. But sometimes late in the afternoon big thunderheads, big clouds, would gather overhead, and there would be lightning. We’d think, My, we are going to have rain—but we didn’t have rain. How dry it was! Many people are following false teachers who are like that. They are “wells without water.” They are like clouds, beautiful clouds. Oh, how tremendous it is to see and hear these folks. They are very impressive, but there is no water in the well, and there is no rain in the clouds. People are thirsting today for the Word of God, and yet it is not being given to them.
For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error [2 Pet. 2:18].
“For when they speak great swelling words of vanity.” These false teachers use beautiful, flowery language. They soar to the heights oratorically, speaking in basso profundo voice.
“They allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness.” It is a religion that appeals to the eye, a religion that appeals to the ear, a religion that appeals even to the nose. One preacher said to me, “I always have my church sprayed on Sunday morning.” He wants it to smell good. Don’t misunderstand me—I think the place ought to look nice; the music ought to be good music, and I don’t mind a fragrant smell, but those things are not to be depended upon. They are the lusts, the desires, of the flesh. But Peter is accusing the false teachers of more than this. “Through much wantonness” refers to lewdness, sexual excesses.
This man Simon Peter is really being sarcastic now—
While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage [2 Pet. 2:19].
“While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption.” Some habit has these false teachers enslaved, and yet they are promising liberty to others!
“For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.” This is the picture that we have before us: they promise liberty, but they don’t really know what it is themselves.
For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning [2 Pet. 2:20].
These apostates have a head knowledge of Christ. They know the truth but have no love of the truth. They reject what they once professed and become enslaved in some sort of corruption.
And, my friend, I hear many folk say, “Oh, I am very religious. I belong to a certain church. We don’t believe the Bible is really the Word of God, but we talk a lot about love and brotherhood. We have a beautiful church and a lovely service that makes us feel good.” Such people have escaped the pollutions of the world. They are horrified when they read of crime and violence in the newspaper. You see, they have escaped the pollutions of the world but not the corruptions.
“Through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” It is not that they haven’t heard the gospel. They have heard the gospel. One man told me, “I listen to your Bible broadcast nearly every day.” But he had to admit that he didn’t believe anything; he even doubted that there was a God. That man knows the gospel. When someone asked me, “Why don’t you present the gospel to him sometime when you’re playing golf?” I told him, “He’s heard me present the gospel over a hundred times. There is no need of saying any more.” Peter says, “They are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.”
In this chapter Peter has dealt very definitely with the apostasy that was coming into the church through false teachers who were creeping in and teaching false doctrines, teaching that which is contrary to the Word of God. Peter says that they pervert the truth of God, and they do it for their own advantage. These false teachers exalt themselves instead of exalting Christ. They do not use the Word of God except for a few little proof texts that more or less clothe their teaching with a pious halo. They use big words which are counterfeit words. They try to impress people that they are very intellectual, and they are interested in making money. They claim that they can change people. I know that I will get into trouble by saying this, but I think you ought to examine very carefully anyone who claims to have a supernatural power to heal or to perform miracles. Another thing that sometimes identifies a false teacher is that he is living secretly in lust and sin. You and I cannot fight these false teachers; I’m not attempting to fight them; I’m just trying to expose them. But one day God is going to expose them, and He is going to judge them.
For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them [2 Pet. 2:21].
Now Peter concludes all this by saying that it actually would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to then turn from the gospel.
I have done something in my ministry which has not been original with me at all. I heard the late Dr. A. C. Gaebelein say this, and it was so effective and so true that I have used it on many occasions. I will sometimes conclude a message by saying, “Friends, if you came in here today unsaved and you walk out of here unsaved, I am the worst enemy that you have ever had, because you have heard the gospel and you can never go into the presence of God and tell Him that you have never heard the gospel. You have heard it, and it will be worse for you when God pronounces judgment than for any heathen in the darkest part of the earth today.”
But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire [2 Pet. 2:22].
Peter speaks of these false teachers, using the term dog. To the Jewish mind there was nothing lower than a dog, by the way. “The dog is turned to his own vomit again.” Peter draws from Proverbs 26:11 to show that they will return to their true, natural, unchanged condition.
“And the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” It is Simon Peter who gives us the parable of the prodigal pig. You may never have heard the parable of the prodigal pig, but here it is. It is, of course, based on the parable of the prodigal son, which is one of the greatest parables the Lord Jesus ever gave (see Luke 15:11–32).
There are those who say that you cannot preach the gospel from the parable of the prodigal son. However, the first time that I ever went forward in a meeting was under a brush arbor in southern Oklahoma in a little place called Springer. It’s not much of a place today, I’m told, and it certainly wasn’t in that day. I went forward and knelt down, and all I can remember of that night is that the preacher preached on the prodigal son. I can remember the figures of speech that he used. He took the prodigal son through all the nightclubs and places of sin. That night all the saints sinned vicariously through the preacher’s message. Believe me, it was a very effective message. I’m confident that others got saved that night, but nobody took the time to explain to me about the gospel. I didn’t really understand it, and my life afterward revealed that I wasn’t saved, but my heart was certainly open for it.
Actually, the story of the prodigal son is not how a sinner becomes a son but how a son becomes a sinner. The account, as recorded in Luke 15, is a familiar story. You remember that there was a father who had two boys. One of the boys, the younger one, wanted to take off for the far country. Dr. Streeter calls this the sin of propinquity. That is a big word, but it simply means that the things near at hand are not so attractive but that the faraway places have an allurement, an enchantment. I think the chief allurement of sin is its mystery. The old bromide that grass is greener on the other side of the fence is the story of this boy.
So the boy ran away and soon was living it up. When he had plenty of money, the fair-weather friends were with him, but they soon faded away. He ended up having to go out and get a job working for a man who raised pigs. When the Lord Jesus mentioned that, both the publicans and Pharisees winced, because a Jewish boy could have sunk no lower than that. He hit bottom. In effect, he was on drugs, involved in sexual immorality, and all that type of thing. This boy was down in the pigpen.
Again, let’s understand what the parable is primarily teaching. It is not showing how a sinner gets saved, but it reveals the heart of the Father who will not only save a sinner but will take back a son who sins. Someone asked the late Dr. Harry Rimmer, “Suppose the boy had died in the pigpen? What then?” Dr. Rimmer said, “Well, if he had died in the pigpen, there is one thing for sure, he would not have been a dead pig. He was a son.” He was a son when he left home; he was a son when he got to the far country; he was a son while he was living in sin; and he was a son in the pigpen. And because he was a son, he made a statement one day, a statement that no pig could ever have made. He said, “My father lives up yonder in that great big home. He has servants who are better off than I am. I am his son, but I’m living down here with the pigs. I will arise, and I will go to my father.” No pig could say that, unless he was going in the opposite direction, heading back toward the pigpen.
Now what is the father going to do with his boy when he returns home? According to the Mosaic Law, that boy was to have been stoned to death (see Deut. 21:18–21)—but he wasn’t stoned to death. The son went back and made his confession, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you!” But his father wouldn’t let him finish. You would expect the father to have said to one of his servants, “Go down and cut off some hickory limbs and bring them back to me. I’m going to whip this boy within an inch of his life. He has disgraced my name; he’s spent my substance; he’s wasted his time. He has been in sin, and I’m going to teach him.” But that’s not what happened at all. The boy, you see, had gotten his whipping in the far country. All prodigals get their whipping when they are away from home. When they come back to the heavenly Father, there is always a banquet, a robe, and a ring. And “they began to be merry.” The fun was up at the father’s house and never in the pigpen.
The interesting thing now is that Peter says, “And the sow that was washed [returned] to her wallowing in the mire.” Now we can add something to the parable of the prodigal son. One of those little pigs in the pigpen said to the prodigal son, “You say you want to leave this lovely pigpen with all of this nice mud and goo, and you want to go up to your father’s house? That sounds good; in fact, you’ve sold me. I think maybe I’d like to go up there with you and try it myself.”
So the prodigal son told him, “If you go up there, things are sure going to be different! You are going to have to clean up.”
When they got to the father’s house, the father put his arms around the boy and said, “Bring forth the robe.” Actually, he could smell those clothes his son had been wearing in the pigpen, and what he really meant was, “Give him a good bath and then put a new robe on him. He can’t smell like that or live like that in my house.”
The little pig went with the prodigal son, and he had to get all cleaned up too. They washed this little pig up nicely and tied a pink ribbon around his neck. They brushed his teeth with Pepsodent, and the little pig went squealing through the house. But it was only a couple of days until the little pig came to the prodigal son with a downcast look and said, “Prodigal Son, I don’t like it here.”
And the son said, “Why, I am having the best time I’ve ever had in my life since I came home, and you say you don’t like it here! What’s wrong?”
The little pig replied, “I don’t like this idea of having white sheets on the bed. If we could just get to a place where there is plenty of good, sloppy mud, I could sleep better there.”
“We just don’t do that here in the father’s house,” said the prodigal son. “You just can’t live in a pigpen here”
“Another thing I don’t like is sitting at a table, using a knife and fork, and having a white tablecloth, and eating out of a plate. Why couldn’t we have a trough down on the floor and put everything in there? We could all jump in and have the biggest time of our lives.”
“We don’t do that here!” said the son.
And the little pig said, “Well, I think I’ll arise and go to my father.” His old man wasn’t in that house, and so he started back to his home. He had been all cleaned up, but he went back to the pigpen and found his old man right down in the middle of the biggest loblolly you’ve ever seen—mud all around him, dirty, filthy, and smelly. That little old pig began to squeal and made a leap for it. He jumped in right beside his father, saying, “Old man, I sure am glad to get back home!” You know why? Because he was a pig.
I had the privilege of being pastor in a downtown Los Angeles church beginning in 1949. Those were the years when subdivisions were beginning to be built in Southern California. That’s the period when the population doubled again and again. People came from everywhere, and we saw a tremendous ingathering in the church I pastored during that period. I have always thanked the Lord that He gave me the privilege of being in that unique position at just the right time.
Although it was a great time because so many folk turned to the Lord, there was always the problem of how to tell the pigs from the sons—that is, professing Christians from real born-again believers. It was difficult and confusing, but I learned something. I found that at one end of the road was the Father’s house, at the other end of the road was a pigpen, and there were always prodigal sons who were going back to the Father’s house.
I talked to a preacher’s son one time when he came in to see me. He was a handsome young man who had come out to Hollywood to make it big, but he was one of those who didn’t have the charisma and didn’t quite make it. He got in with the wrong crowd and began to drink. He saw that he was going down and down. He was a prodigal son—he wasn’t a pig. He hated the life he had been living. When he came to see me, he said “My dad is a wonderful man. I’ve let him down so, and I just don’t know how he would receive me. I don’t know whether I can go home or not.”
I said, “Let me call him, and if he doesn’t want to talk to you, we’ll just hang up,” and the boy agreed. So I called this man who is a very fine minister, and after we had exchanged a few pleasantries about the weather and such, I knew that he was wondering why I was calling him. I said, “I have somebody here in my study who would like to talk to you.”
He knew who it was. He knew that his boy wasn’t a pig but a son. That father broke down and said, “Is it my boy?”
I said, “Yes.”
“Let me talk to him.” The boy began to weep, and I’m sure the father was weeping too.
I just walked out of my study to let them talk. I came back in after the young man had hung up, and he said to me, “I’m going home.”
However, the transition is always confusing because sometimes the prodigal sons are on the other side of the road going down to the pigpen. To add to the confusion, sometimes a pig will get out of the pigpen and go up to the Father’s house. But he is a pig—he won’t like it there. He may get all washed and cleaned up and become very religious. Sometimes he may even be made a deacon in the church. You just can’t tell because he’s all cleaned up on the outside; but inside he has the heart of a pig, and a pig loves the mire.
One time a lady came to me and said, “I used to know this man back East when he was a superintendent of a Sunday school and a deacon in the church. He’s here on the West Coast now. He’s drinking, he’s divorced his wife, and he’s running around. Is he saved or not?” I told her I didn’t know, and she said, “You mean that you are a preacher, and you don’t know whether that man is saved or not?”
I said, “No, I really don’t know. I couldn’t tell you, because all I can see is the outside. But I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We are in this great metropolitan area where there is a road with a pigpen at one end of it and the Father’s house at the other end. I’ve learned that, if you wait long enough, all the pigs will go down to the pigpen and all the prodigal sons will go home to the Father’s house. Just wait and see. If that man continues to live in the pigpen, we can know that he is a pig—because Peter says that the pig that was washed has now returned to her wallowing in the mire.”
This is the mark of the apostate, and it is a frightful picture. I know of no more frightful picture in the Word of God other than chapter 18 of the Book of Revelation.
I will conclude with a poem written by a friend who heard me preach on this subject of the prodigal pig.
A Pig is a Pig
“Come home with me,” said the prodigal son.
“We’ll sing and dance and have lots of fun.
“We’ll wine and dine with women and song.
You’ll forget you’re a pig before very long.”
So the pig slipped out while the momma was asleep,
Shook off the mud from the mire so deep.
Around his neck was a bow so big,
He’s gonna show the world, a pig’s not a pig!
With his snout in the air he trotted along,
With the prodigal son who was singin’ a song.
It must be great to be a rich man’s son,
He would surely find out ’fore the day was done!
It didn’t take him long to realize his mistake—
He’d been scrubbed and rubbed till his muscles ached!
He squealed when they put a gold ring in his nose
And winced with pain when they trimmed his toes.
He sat at the table on a stool so high,
A bib around his neck and a fork to try,
While the prodigal son, in his lovely robe,
Kept feeding his face, so glad to be home!
When the meat came around, the pig gave a moan—
It looked too much like a kind of his own.
He jumped from his chair with a grunt and a groan,
Darted through the door and headed for home.
His four little feet made the dust ride high
For he didn’t stop till he reached that sty!
It’s what’s on the inside that counts, my friend,
For a pig is a pig to the very end!
—Evelyn C. Sanders
CHAPTER 3
Theme: Attitude toward return of the Lord, a test of apostates; agenda of God for the world—past world, present world, future world; admonition to believers
There are three major divisions in this chapter: (1) The attitude toward the return to the Lord as a test of apostates; (2) the agenda of God for the world; and (3) the admonition to believers.
This is another remarkable chapter which Peter has written.
ATTITUDE TOWARD RETURN OF THE LORD—A TEST OF APOSTATES
This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance [2 Pet. 3:1].
Simon Peter makes it clear that he is the writer of both epistles.
“I stir up your pure minds”—“pure” is not the best translation. A better translation would be “sincere.” I don’t think that the saints back in Peter’s day had minds which were any more pure than our minds are today—and I haven’t found anyone yet who I thought had a pure mind. If you feel that you have a pure mind, I just haven’t met you yet.
There is a certain cult which began in Chicago and majored in contemplation. Instead of having a big temple, as many of the cults do, this cult prepared little booths where a person may go and contemplate and think beautiful thoughts. These booths have beautiful pictures in them; the furnishings are rather plush, and everything is there for comfort to make the person feel good. Everything about the surroundings is lovely. The person is to sit in that booth and think pure thoughts.
I read about that when I was in Chicago many years ago and thought I would try it out. I didn’t want to go to the cult’s booths; so I sat in my hotel room. There were pictures on the wall—they weren’t masterpieces, to be sure, but the room was attractive. I sat there and said to myself, “Now I am going to think some beautiful thoughts.” Do you want to know something? I could think of the meanest, dirtiest things I have ever thought of in my whole life!
My friend, our minds are not pure minds, and the word Peter uses means “sincere” rather than pure. He is addressing genuine believers.
He is saying, “I want to stir up your sincere minds by way of remembrance.” This is not something new he is going to talk to them about; he just wants to stir up their memories.
A man said to me, “I have a good memory. My problem is that my forgettery is even better.” Well, many of us have that same problem, and Simon Peter could tell you about it from his own experience. On that night when he denied our Lord while he was warming his hands by the enemy’s fire, he forgot all about the fact that the Lord Jesus had said that he would deny Him. The record tells us, “And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice” (Luke 22:61). Peter had forgotten all about it, you see. He had the same frailties that we have, and so he wants to stir up their (and our) sincere minds by way of remembrance.
Now what is it that he wants them to remember?
That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour [2 Pet. 3:2].
“The holy prophets” are the Old Testament writers. “And of the commandment of us the apostles.” Notice that Simon Peter doesn’t put himself in a position of being above the other apostles; he is just one of the boys. Before he finishes this epistle, he will refer to something Paul had written, which means he includes Paul as an apostle also. He is saying that the things he is going to remind them of had been written about by the other apostles and also had been the subject of the Old Testament prophets.
Now notice the subject—
Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts [2 Pet. 3:3].
“Knowing this first”—this was something they were to know first of all.
“There shall come in the last days”—these are the days in which you and I live, and they will continue on into the Great Tribulation Period after the church is gone from the earth.
“Scoffers” will be the apostates whom he described so vividly back in chapter 2. These scoffers evidently will be members of churches, and many of them pastors, who will be “walking after their own lusts,” their own desires, not attempting to follow the Word of God. You see, it is this type of person who attacks the truths of the Bible. If a man is willing to forsake his sins and is willing to receive Christ, God will make His Word real to him. Paul, writing in 2 Corinthians 3, said that a veil is over their minds; but if their hearts will turn to God, the veil will be removed. Their problem is not intellectual; their problem is heart trouble. And so they put forward a false argument:
And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation [2 Pet. 3:4].
“Where is the promise of his coming?” In other words, they will say something like this, “Some of you premillennial folk have been saying for years that the Lord Jesus is going to come back and take the church out of the world, and then after a seven-year period of tribulation, He will come to the earth to establish His kingdom. Well, where is He? Why hasn’t He come?” They are going to scoff at it. The second coming of Christ will be denied—not only by the atheist or Communist standing out yonder on a soap box, but it will also be denied by those who stand in the pulpit and profess to be believers.
Now what did the Old Testament prophets write about? They wrote about the coming of Christ to the earth to establish His kingdom. What did the New Testament apostles write about? They wrote about Christ’s coming to take the church out of the world and then, after the Great Tribulation, about His coming to the earth to establish His kingdom. Notice that the Old Testament prophets did not write about the church—not one of them did. They wrote only about His coming to earth to establish His kingdom.
It was the Lord Jesus Himself who first revealed that He would be coming for His own. He said, as recorded in John, “… I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself …” (John 14:2–3). The place He was going to prepare was not down here. It was not on the other side of the Mount of Olives—if you doubt that, go look at it; it is a desolate place. Our Lord went back to heaven, and that is where He is preparing a place for us. And He promised to come back for us. In 1 Thessalonians 4:17, we are told that we will meet Him in the air.
Let me repeat: The prophecy in the Old Testament of Christ’s coming was to establish His kingdom upon the earth; the prophecy in the New Testament of His coming was first to take His church out of the world and then to come to establish His kingdom upon the earth.
“For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” This is the “proof” which the scoffers will offer, and, by the way, it is the most prevalent argument given in our day. “The fathers” would refer all the way back to father Adam.
The scoffers adopt the doctrine of laissez faire or let’s continue with the status quo. Nothing unusual has happened in the past. Things have just progressed along. Man has evolved, and things have come along gently and nicely in the past. Peter is going to say, “That’s where you are absolutely wrong. If you think nothing has happened in the past, let me tell you about it!”
AGENDA OF GOD FOR THE WORLD
Now Peter is going to talk about three worlds in one. That is not something strange to us. Older folks will remember using two-in-one shoe polish. Then there was a sewing machine company that put out three-in-one oil. Well, you and I live in a three-in-one world.
We have been hearing a great deal about one world, and certainly the world is moving toward the day when a world dictator will take over. I don’t think there is any question about that in the minds of thoughtful men. Great thinkers of this century have taken the position that we have come to a crisis and to the end of man on the earth.
PAST WORLD
Peter presents a three-in-one world. Let’s first look at world number one, the world that was.
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished [2 Pet. 3:5–6].
“For this they willingly are ignorant of.” My, this puts a great many scientists and Ph.D.’s in a pretty bad light!
“The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.” That is, the world of people and of animals disappeared. This could refer to the world before Adam was put here, or it could refer to the Flood in Noah’s day. I have vacillated between these two viewpoints, but I lean toward the latter now.
Regarding the first viewpoint, let me say that many of us believe that there is a hiatus between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 and that a great catastrophe took place at that time. Today this view is largely rejected by the majority of Christians who are scientists. However, scientists change their theories over the years, and I am not prepared to go along with them yet.
There was a judgment in the pre-Adamic world, before man was put here. We have a suggestion of what took place in Isaiah 14:12–14: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” Satan’s desire was never to be unlike God. He wanted to take God’s place. And there are a great many human beings who want to be little gods down here. Any man who is working on his own salvation, whose theory is that he is good enough for heaven, ignores the fact that he is dealing with the holy God. He does not seem to realize that man is a sinner, that man is lost, and that God has provided a way of redemption for him. The Lord Jesus said, “… no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Remember that it was the God-man who said that! Now, if you think you can go to the Father on your own, what you are saying is this: “Move over, God. I’m coming up to sit beside you because I am a god also.” That, you see, was Satan’s desire, and it occasioned a judgment which evidently took out of heaven a great company of angels who had joined forces with Satan, Lucifer, son of the morning.
The other possibility is that Peter is speaking about the water judgment that took place in Noah’s day. I have asked several outstanding Bible teachers what judgment they thought Peter had in mind, and there was some disagreement although most of them thought it referred to the Flood of Noah’s day. Surely that seems to be the suggestion here.
The antediluvian civilization was destroyed with a flood, and there is abundant evidence for this. The great shaft which was put down at the site of ancient Ur of the Chaldees shows that there were several civilizations destroyed. In the excavation, the archaeologists came to a great deal of sand and silt with quite a bit of sediment which was deposited there by a flood. Then beneath all this, they found the remains of a very high civilization. Personally, I believe that Peter refers directly to the Flood of Noah’s day, and surely this earth bears abundant evidence of such a flood.
Now, whether Peter was referring to the pre-Adamic judgment or to the judgment in Noah’s day is a matter of conjecture. It makes no difference at all which view you hold as to when the world was “overflowed with water, [and] perished.” The important thing is that it did occur at some point in the past. There is abundant evidence that some great cataclysm did take place and that all things have not continued as they were from the beginning of the creation.
PRESENT WORLD
Now Peter presents world number two, the world that is. You and I live in world number two.
But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men [2 Pet. 3:7].
This says that this earth has been stored up for fire. This is a very interesting expression, by the way, and it not only means stored up for fire but also stored up with fire (that could easily be the translation of it). The suggestion is that there are resident forces present in the world which could destroy it. It is not that God is going to rain fire down from heaven but that this earth carries its own judgment. How well we know this today! You and I are living on a powder keg-or, more literally, on an atom bomb. There will never be another flood to destroy the world. That judgment is past; water destroyed the world that was. Now the world that is is reserved for another judgment, the judgment of fire. In other words, this present order of things in this world is temporary. It is moving toward another judgment, and Peter will give us more details in verse 10.
“Kept in store” is the same Greek word that the Lord Jesus used when He told of the man who was laying up treasure. Well, God had been laying up this secret of how He made this universe, and it seems that man has broken into God’s secret treasure house. It seems that man has opened a veritable Pandora’s box, and today thoughtful men are frightened.
Dr. Urey from the University of Chicago, who worked on the atomic bomb, began an article several years ago in Collier’s magazine by saying, “I am a frightened man, and I want to frighten you.”
Winston Churchill said, “Time is short.”
Mr. Luce, the owner of Life, Time, and Fortune magazines, addressed a group of missionaries who were the first to return to their fields after World War Il. Speaking in San Francisco, he made the statement that when he was a boy, the son of a Presbyterian missionary in China, he and his father often discussed the premillennial coming of Christ, and he thought that all missionaries who believed in that teaching were inclined to be fanatical. And then Mr. Luce said, “I wonder if there wasn’t something to that position after all.”
Dr. Charles Beard, the American historian, says, “All over the world the thinkers and searchers who scan the horizon of the future are attempting to assess the values of civilization and speculating about its destiny.”
Dr. William Yogt, in the Road to Civilization, said, “The handwriting on the wall of five continents now tells us that the Day of Judgment is at hand.”
Dr. Raymond B. Fosdick, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, said, “To many ears comes the sound of the tramp of doom. Time is short.”
H. G. Wells declared before he died, “This world is at the end of its tether. The end of everything we call life is close at hand.”
General Douglas MacArthur said, “We have had our last chance.”
Former President Dwight Eisenhower said, “Without a moral regeneration throughout the world there is no hope for us as we are going to disappear one day in the dust of an Atomic Explosion.”
And Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, ex-president of Columbia University, said, “The end cannot be far distant.”
If men from all walks of life are speaking in this manner, certainly you and I, who have believed the Bible and who have had through all these years such a clear statement concerning the judgment that is coming upon this world and the way in which it is to be destroyed, should be alert. Do not misunderstand me, I am not saying that the atomic bomb will be God’s method for the destruction of this world. I am merely saying that man at last has found out that this passage in 2 Peter makes good sense. This is a way that is not only logical but is scientific by which God can destroy this universe.
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day [2 Pet. 3:8].
Now it is obvious that the destruction of the earth and heavens will take place during the Day of the Lord, which is an extended period of time including the seven years of tribulation and the one thousand years of the millennial kingdom. When the Lord Jesus returns to the earth at the end of the Great Tribulation Period and establishes His kingdom here, He is going to renovate this earth—but that will not be a permanent renovation. Not until after the Tribulation and after the Millennium will the dissolution of the earth and the heavens (of which Peter speaks) occur. So you see, my friend, even if the Rapture should take place tomorrow, it still would be a thousand and seven years before this destruction.
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance [2 Pet. 3:9].
God is longsuffering; He is patient; He is not rushing things. After all, He has eternity behind Him and eternity ahead of Him. He doesn’t need to worry about time! To Him a thousand years is as one day and one day is as a thousand years. But the point is that the final judgment, the dissolution of the earth and the heavens, is coming. In the meantime, He is giving men everywhere a further opportunity to repent and turn to Himself. This is the reason you and I need to get the Word of God out. It is the only thing that can change hearts and lives. It is by the Word of God that folk are born again—as Peter said in his first epistle, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Pet. 1:23).
“Not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” It is not God’s will that you should perish. One of the reasons that you have been reading this book is simply because God does not want you to come into judgment; He wants you to pass from death unto life. And you can do that—you can turn to Him and receive the wonderful salvation that He has for you.
Do you know that you cannot keep God from loving you? You can reject His love, but you cannot keep Him from loving you. Neither can you keep it from raining, but you can raise an umbrella to keep the rain from falling on you. Also, you can raise the umbrella of indifference or the umbrella of sin or the umbrella of rebellion so that you won’t experience God’s love, but you cannot keep Him from loving you.
A story comes out of Greek mythology which illustrates my point: A young man had a very wonderful mother, but he fell in love with a very ungodly girl. The ungodly girl hated the boy’s mother and could not bear to be in her presence. It was not because the mother rebuked her, but her very character and her very presence were a rebuke to this girl. Nevertheless, this boy was desperately in love with her, for she was beautiful. And finally he pleaded with her to marry him, and she said, “Only on one condition: you must cut out your mother’s heart and bring it to me.” Well, this boy was so madly in love and so desperate that he descended to the low plane of committing this diabolical deed. He killed his mother, cut out her heart and was taking it to the girl when, on the way, he stumbled and fell. The heart spoke out, “My son, did you hurt yourseIf?”
My friend, you can slap God in the face; you can turn your back on Him; you can blaspheme Him, but you cannot keep Him from wanting to save you. You cannot keep Him from loving you, for He provided a Savior, His own Son, to die in your place. The Lord Jesus will save you if you will receive the salvation He offers. My friend, things are not going to continue as they are now. Oh, I know the monotony of life today, the ennui of it all. Well, it is coming to an end, and judgment will come. You and I are living in a world which is moving toward judgment.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up [2 Pet. 3:10].
“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.” There is some argument as to whether this takes place at the coming of Christ to establish His kingdom or at the end of the millennial kingdom. I am convinced that the Day of the Lord is an extended period of time which opens with the Tribulation, followed by the thousand-year reign of Christ, the brief rebellion led by Satan, and the judgment of the Great White Throne. Then, as we find in the Book of Revelation, the new heavens and the new earth come into view.
“As a thief in the night,” the same expression which Paul uses in 1 Thessalonians 5:2, indicates that it will begin unexpectedly.
“In the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise.” The Greek word used here for “noise” is rhoizeµdon. It is the word used for the swish of an arrow, the rush of wings, the splash of water, the hiss of a serpent. Have you ever listened to an atom bomb go off? Do you remember a number of years ago when they were experimenting with the bombs and we could see and hear them on television? This is the very word and the only word I know that could describe such a noise.
“And the elements shall melt with fervent heat.” You see, matter is not eternal as was once believed; you can get rid of matter—that is, it can be converted into energy. Peter speaks here of “the elements,” the little building blocks of the universe, the stoicheia as it is in the Greek. Stoicheion is a better word than our word atom which comes from a Greek word meaning something you cannot cut, because we have found that an atom can be cut and it can be taken apart.
“Melt” employs one of the simplest Greek words, the verb luoµ, which simply means “to untie or to unloose.” By untying the atom, man has been able to produce a little bomb that can do tremendous wonders. Today men are trying to release that energy because you and I live in a world that is running out of resources. When God stocked this earth, He put plenty of oil in it, and He put plenty of groceries here. It was like a great supermarket. Men came and prostituted this earth. They have polluted the earth and are beginning to use up all that God had put in the pantry and all that He had put in the filling station. But there is a tremendous potential of energy in the little atom, and I tell you, when God destroys this earth someday, it is going to be a tremendous thing. I think that it will be just like a great atomic explosion, and the earth will go into nothing. I have always felt that the Lord will probably turn the little atoms wrong side out and use the other side of them for a while. When He does that, man will never be able to untie them again.
“The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” This will certainly include the tremendous amount of water that is on the earth—it will be burned up. We know today that water is made up of two elements, hydrogen and oxygen, and both of them are gases that are inflammable and can be very explosive. Firemen tell us that there are certain kinds of fire which, when water is put on them, are only helped along by it. Firefighters have to use certain kinds of chemicals to put out such fires. “The works that are therein shall be burned up.”
Peter is saying that God will judge in the future just as He has in the past. At the beginning of this chapter, Peter says that the scoffers will say, “All things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (v. 4). The scoffer’s great fallacy is in not knowing the past, yet it is the evolutionist who makes so much of the fact that there was a great catastrophe in the past. The great mountains out here in the West, the High Sierras, were thrown up at that time by some great convulsion of nature. That happened sometime in the past, and it was a judgment of God, if you please.
The Day of the Lord will include judgment also. The “day of the Lord” is a familiar term in Scripture. The prophets used it, the Lord Jesus used it, and many of the New Testament writers used it. It is a technical term. The Day of the Lord begins in darkness, as the Old Testament prophets said—it begins with tribulation. It ends with this great atomic explosion, this great judgment of the earth by its being dissolved by fire. Between these two great events is the period of the seven years of tribulation, the coming of Christ to the earth to establish His kingdom, the millennial kingdom, the brief release of Satan and the rebellion of those who rally to him, Satan’s final confinement, and the Great White Throne judgment of the lost. Then after the judgment of the earth, which Peter is describing, the new heaven and the new earth come into view.
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness [2 Pet. 3:11].
Now Peter says that, in view of the fact of what has happened and what God is going to do in the future, you and I ought not to be standing on the sidelines, twiddling our thumbs, and indulging in criticism. Christians find it so easy to criticize others, but specifically, what are you doing today to get out the Word of God? That is the important question in this hour for every Christian, every church, every pastor. Every person sitting in the pew needs to say to himself: “I am not here to sit in judgment on the preacher; I’m not here to judge other Christians; I am here to get out the Word of God, to do something positive. The question is: What am I doing to that end?”
Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? [2 Pet. 3.12].
“Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God.” Peter is writing to the Diaspora, the Jews scattered abroad, and he says that the day of God is coming.
“Wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved.” After the dissolution of the present heavens, the day of God, which is eternity, as we see in Revelation 21:1, will come.
“Wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” This is one of the most remarkable statements you could possibly have coming from a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee. I don’t imagine that Peter figured out how the water, that sea where he fished, would burn. He didn’t know how all this could be dissolved and melted. But the elements, that which we call atoms, the building blocks of the universe, are to be absolutely melted. However, this time Peter uses a different Greek word for “melt” than he used in verse 10. It is teµkomai, a word that means actually “wasting away, the wasting away of nature.” This could possibly suggest the effects of radioactivity when an atomic bomb goes off.
FUTURE WORLD
Now Peter comes to that which is ahead—the world that shall be. Just because the earth will be dissolved does not mean that God is through with the earth. As the earth was judged in the past, it will be judged in the future, but the earth will go on.
Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness [2 Pet. 3:13].
Righteousness does not dwell in this earth today. It is not at home in this earth. It’s not at home in Washington, D.C. It’s not at home in any of the capitals of the world. It’s not at home in your hometown, and it’s not at home where you live today. But righteousness will dwell in the new earth and in the new heavens.
In Hamlet Shakespeare described his day by saying, “The time is out of joint.” He was right—the times are out of joint. Some other poets have waxed rather eloquent, have soared to the heights and, I think, have misrepresented things. For instance, Browning, in “Pippa Passes,” wrote:
The lark’s on the wing;
The snails on the thorn:
God’s in his heaven—
All right with the world!
The lark is on the wing, the snail is on the thorn (in fact, he’s in my backyard), God is in His heaven, but things are not right in the world today. I’m glad there is another world, a new heaven and a new earth, that is coming on. It is going to be wonderful. I have always enjoyed trading in my old car and getting a new model. God has a new model of the earth coming on, and I’ll be glad when it arrives. It will be a wonderful earth because it will be characterized by righteousness, and it will be an earth in which righteousness will actually dwell.
ADMONITION TO BELIEVERS
Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may he found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless [2 Pet. 3:14].
“Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things”—that is, since we know that the earth and all its works will be burned up, we realize how important a life of godliness is here and now. We are to live a holy life down here, a life separated unto God. Friend, after all, what is really worthwhile in this earth today? What are your goals? Are you a productive Christian moving toward a worthwhile goal? Somebody says, “I want to raise my family.” That’s worthwhile. Somebody else says, “I want to make a good living for my family and to educate my children.” That’s worthwhile. Although these things are worthwhile, what is really the object of your life? Is it to live for God? If you live for God, all of these secondary issues, I believe, will take care of themselves.
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you [2 Pet. 3:15].
“The longsuffering of our Lord is salvation.” That is, His patience in delaying His return in judgment is providing an opportunity for men to be saved. Our patient waiting, is a mental adjustment to the present world situation. We do not need to be alarmed today. God is in His heaven. Things are not right in the world, but He is going to make them right someday. This is the message of the New Testament, and Peter reminds us that Paul also wrote of this.
As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction [2 Pet. 3:16].
Peter says that what Paul wrote was Scripture. And he says that Paul wrote of truth in depth. He certainly did that, and in my opinion Peter did that pretty well himself here in this epistle.
Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness [2 Pet. 3:17].
There is something that we are to know, my friend. Oh, don’t be a lazy Christian not learning the Word of God. There is no little gimmick, there is no little course you can take in a week, there is no little program that you can go through that will change and revolutionize your life—there is no easy way. We are to seriously study the entire Word of God, not just a few little verses of Scripture that we throw about and kick around like a football. Peter says, “Ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.” My friend, if you have a comprehensive knowledge of Scripture and apply it to your own life, you will be a steadfast Christian.
As we saw at the beginning of this epistle, Peter’s characteristic word is knowledge. The epitome of his entire epistle is expressed in the injunction of this final verse:
But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen [2 Pet. 3:18].
“Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” True knowledge is not some esoteric information concerning a form or formula, a rite or ritual; nor is it some secret order or password, as the Gnostics claimed. It is to know Jesus Christ as He is revealed to man in the Word of God. This is the secret of life and of Christian living (see John 17:3).
Notice how Peter uses the name—“our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” How precious the Lord Jesus had become to this rough, old fisherman! As J. Niebor has well said, “He obeyed Him as Lord, he loved Him as Saviour, he adored Him as the greatest human, Jesus, he worshipped Him as the mighty anointed Son of God, Christ.”
Peter concludes his swan song with this paean of praise: “To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.”
Oh, my friend, that you and I might know Jesus Christ! Someone has put it like this:
We mutter and sputter;
We fume and we spurt;
We mumble and grumble;
Our feelings get hurt.
We can’t understand things;
Our vision grows dim,
When all that we need
Is a moment with Him.
—Mary Helen Anderson
Only as we spend time with Him, as He is revealed in His Word, can we grow in our knowledge of Him.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Recommended for Further Study)
Barbieri, Louis A. First and Second Peter. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1977. (A fine, inexpensive survey.)
Criswell, W. A. Expository Sermons on the Epistles of Peter. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976.
English, E. Schuyler. The Life and Letters of St. Peter. New York, New York: Our Hope, 1941. (Excellent.)
Ironside, H. A. Notes on James and Peter. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, n.d.
Kelly, William. The Epistles of Peter. Addison, Illinois: Bible Truth Publishers, n.d.
Robertson, A. T. Epochs in the Life of Simon Peter. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1933.
Thomas, W. H. Griffith. The Apostle Peter. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1956. (Excellent.)
Wolston, W. T. P. Simon Peter—His Life and Letters. 1896 Reprint. Addison, Illinois: Bible Truth Publishers, n.d. (Excellent.)
Wuest, Kenneth S. In These Last Days. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1954. (Deals with the epistles of 2 Peter, John, and Jude.)
The First Epistle of
John
INTRODUCTION
Some expositors consider the epistles of John to be the final books written in the Bible. Certainly John’s epistles are the last which he wrote.
The three epistles are called letters; yet the first epistle is not in the form or style of a letter. It has no salutation at its beginning nor greeting at its conclusion. Its style is more that of a sermon. It bears all the marks of a message from a devoted pastor who had a love and concern for a definite group of believers.
John served as pastor of the church in Ephesus, which was founded by Paul. It has been the belief of the church down through the years that John wrote his gospel first, his epistles second, and finally the Revelation just before his death. However, in recent years some of us have come to the position that John wrote his epistles last. Therefore, he wrote his first epistle after his imprisonment on the Island of Patmos. This places the date about a.d. 100. John died in Ephesus and was buried there. The Basilica of St. John was built over the grave of John by Justinian in the fifth century.
To understand the First Epistle of John we must know something about the city of Ephesus at the beginning of the second century. It was very much like your city or hometown today. There were four important factors which prevailed in Ephesus and throughout the Roman world:
1. There was an easy familiarity with Christianity. Many of the believers were children and grandchildren of the first Christians. The new and bright sheen of the Christian faith had become tarnished. The newness had worn off. The thrill and glory of the first days had faded. My, how exciting it had been to be a believer on that day when Paul had come to town and challenged Diana of the Ephesians! The whole town had been in an uproar. In Acts 19 we read of the effect Paul’s teaching had upon the synagogue at Ephesus and also the impact of his daily sessions in the school of Tyrannus for two years. How fervent their love and zeal for Christ had been in those days. But many years later, when the Lord Jesus sent a letter to the Ephesian believers through John while he was in exile on the Island of Patmos, He said, “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love” (Rev. 2:4). It was as Jesus had long before warned, “… because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24:12). The Ephesians’ devotion and dedication to Christ was at a low ebb.
2. The high standards of Christianity made the Christians different, and the children and grandchildren of the first Christians did not want to be different. The believers were called saints—from the Greek word hagios. The primary intent of the word is “set aside for the sole use of God—that which belongs to God.” The pots and pans in the temple were said to be holy because they were for the use of God. The temple was hagios; the Sabbath was hagios. Now the Christians were to be hagios—different, set aside for the use of God.
But the Ephesians had become assembly-line Christians, programmed by the computer of compromise. They had become plastic Christians. They were cast in a different mold from the disciples to whom Jesus had said, “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19). And also in His high priestly prayer to His Father are these words: “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:14). There was a breakdown of the Judeo-Christian ethics and a disregard of Bible standards.
3. Persecution was not the enemy of Christianity. The danger to the Ephesian church was not persecution from the outside but seduction from the inside. The Lord Jesus Himself had warned of this: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matt. 24:24). And the apostle Paul had said to the Ephesian elders: “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:29–30).
Christianity was not in danger of being destroyed; it was in danger of being changed. The attempt was being made to improve it, give it intellectual respectability, and let it speak in the terms of the popular philosophy.
4. Gnosticism was the real enemy of Christianity, and, my friend, it still is. Gnosticism was the basic philosophy of the Roman Empire.
Gnosticism took many forms. However, one primary principle ran through this philosophy: matter or material was essentially evil; only the spirit was good. All the material world was considered evil. Therefore Gnosticism despised the body. They held that in the body was a spirit, like a seed in the dirty soil. The same principle is in modern liberalism which maintains that there is a spark of good in everyone and that each person is to develop that spark of good. The Gnostics sought to cause the “seed,” the spirit within them, to grow and tried to get rid of the evil in the body.
There were two extreme methods of accomplishing this goal as practiced by the Stoics and the Epicureans. The apostle Paul’s encounter with these two sects is recorded in Acts 17:18: “Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection.”
The Stoics were disciples of Zeno, and their name came from the Painted Portico at Athens where Zeno lectured. They were pantheists who held that the wise man should be free from passion, unmoved by joy or grief, and submissive to natural law. They observed rigid rules and self-discipline.
The Epicureans took their name from Epicurus who taught in Athens. They accepted the Greek gods on Mount Olympus. They considered pleasure rather than truth the pursuit of life. Originally they sought to satisfy intellectual, not sensual, gratification; but later they taught their followers to satisfy the body’s desires so it wouldn’t bother them any more.
There were all shades and differences between the two extremes of Stoicism and Epicureanism, but all of them denied the messiahship of Jesus. I believe John had them in mind when he wrote: “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22). They denied the Incarnation, reasoning that God could not have taken a human body because all flesh is evil. Therefore John distinctly declared, “And the Word was made [born] flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). And in his epistle he wrote: “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:2–3).
Docetic Gnosticism, considering the Incarnation impossible since God could not unite Himself with anything evil such as a body, taught that Jesus only seemed to have a body, but actually He did not. For example, when He walked He left no footprints.
Cerinthus was more subtle in his teaching. He declared that there was both a human Jesus and a divine Christ, that divinity came upon Him at His baptism and left Him at the cross. In fact, the Gospel of Peter, which is a spurious book, translates the words of Jesus on the cross like this: “My power, my power, why hast thou forsaken me?”
The early church fathers fought this heresy and maintained that “He became what we are to make us what He is.” It is my firm opinion that John wrote his first epistle to answer the errors of Gnosticism. Actually there is a fivefold purpose expressed in 1 John: (1) 1:3, “That ye also may have fellowship with us [other believers]: and … with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ;” (2) 1:4, “That your joy may be full” (3) 2:1, “That ye sin not” (4) 5:13, “That ye may know that ye have eternal life” and (5) 5:13, “That ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”
First John has been called the sanctum sanctorum of the New Testament. It takes the child of God across the threshold into the fellowship of the Father’s home. It is the family epistle. Pauls epistles and all the other epistles are church epistles, but this is a family epistle and should be treated that way. The church is a body of believers in the position where we are blessed “… with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ” (Eph. 1:3, Translation mine). We are given that position when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believing on the Lord Jesus brings us into the family of God. In the family we have a relationship which can be broken but is restored when “we confess our sins.” Then “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
First John is the book which I used when I began my ministry in a new church. (I didn’t at the first church I served because I was a seminary student and didn’t know enough to begin in the right place.) But in the four churches I served during my forty years of pastoring, I began the midweek service with a study in 1 John. I am convinced that this epistle is more important for believers in the church than the church epistles. When we moved into this wonderful book, I saw the midweek service attendance increase. We saw a phenomenal increase in attendance in the last two churches I served. During the time we studied this little epistle the attendance doubled, doubled again, and then doubled again, so that we had as many people in attendance at the midweek service as we had in the Sunday evening service. Sometimes the midweek service would surpass the Sunday night service. My friend, it is very important to understand this little book.
OUTLINE
In 1 John there are three definitions of God: God is light, God is love, and God is life, which I have used to form the three major divisions of this epistle.
I. God Is Light (1:5), Chapters 1:1–2:2
A. Prologue, Chapter 1:1–2
B. How the Little Children May Have Fellowship with God, Chapters 1:3–2:2
1. By Walking in Light, Chapter 1:3–7
2. By Confessing Sin, Chapter 1:8–10
3. By the Advocacy of Christ, Chapter 2:1–2
II. God Is Love (4:8), Chapters 2:3–4:21
A. How the Dear Children May Have Fellowship with Each Other, Chapter 2:3–14 (By Walking in Love)
B. The Dear Children Must Not Love the World, Chapter 2:15–28
C. How the Dear Children May Know Each Other and Live Together, Chapters 2:29–4:21
1. The Father’s Love for His Children, Chapters 2:29–3:3
2. The Two Natures of the Believer in Action, Chapter 3:4–24
3. Warning Against False Teachers, Chapter 4:1–6
4. God is Love: Little Children Will Love Each Other, Chapter 4:7–21
III. God Is Life (5:12), Chapter 5
A. Victory Over the World, Chapter 5:1–5
B. Assurance of Salvation, Chapter 5:6–21
CHAPTER 1
Theme: God is light; how the little children may have fellowship with God
Under the broad heading, God is Light, we see first the prologue of this epistle, then we shall see how the “little children,” as John calls believers, may have fellowship with God.
As I mentioned in the Introduction, John has written to meet the first heresy which entered the church, Gnosticism. The Gnostics boasted of a superknowledge. They accepted the deity of Jesus but denied His humanity. Notice how John will give the true gnosticism—that is, the true knowledge of God.
GOD IS LIGHT: PROLOGUE
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life [1 John 1:1].
“That which was from the beginning.” What beginning is John talking about? In the Scriptures are three beginnings, two of which we are very familiar with. The first is found in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” That is an undated beginning. We do not know when God created the heaven and the earth. I have read book after book, volume after volume, on the questions raised by the first chapter of Genesis. If I stacked up all those books, I am confident that they would reach the ceiling of my study. And after reading all of them, I am convinced that not one scientist or one theologian has the foggiest notion when Genesis 1:1 really happened.
I am told that today there are some Christian scientists who are taking what they call the “new earth view.” They are claiming that the earth on which we live is not as old as the science of the past claimed it to be.
When I started school it was estimated that the earth was three to seven hundred thousand years old. Then science began to speak in terms of millions of years. By the time I finished school it was estimated that the earth was about 2 1/2 million years old, and then, I understand, they reached the billion mark.
Now some scientists are moving away from the older dating of the earth and are setting a more recent date. Well, Genesis 1:1 would fit into either theory, a new earth or an old earth, since it is not dated. All that the first verse in Genesis declares is that God created the heaven and the earth. Until you are ready to accept that fact, you are not prepared to read very much further in the Word of God, because the remainder of the Bible rests upon that first verse. Did God create this universe or is it a happenstance? It is ridiculous to think that the universe just happened. As Edwin Conklin put it, “The probability of life originating by accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary originating from an explosion in a print shop.” My friend, there is intelligence behind this universe in which you and I live. As to the date of the beginning, we do not know; but if you need a few billion years to fit into your scheme of interpretation, it is here because we are dealing with the God of eternity. God has eternity behind Him. Although I don’t know what He was doing before He created the heaven and the earth, I know He was doing something. Then God created the heaven and the earth, and He did it for a purpose. He is working out a plan in His universe today which is bigger than any human mind can comprehend. When God recorded His act of creation, He wasn’t trying to give us a study in geology. However, He put a lot of rocks around for you to look at if you are interested in trying to figure out a date.
There is a second beginning which we find in the Word of God. It is the first verse in John’s gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He adds, “The same was in the beginning with God.” Then he comes to the act of creation: “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1–3). My friend, go back as far as you can think, beyond creation, back billions and trillions of years, and out of eternity comes the Lord Jesus Christ. Way back there He is already past tense; He is the Ancient of Days. Notice that John has written, “In the beginning was [not is] the Word.” In other words, this is a beginning that doesn’t even have a beginning because He had no beginning. “In the beginning was the Word” means that you can go back in the past as far as you want to, put down your peg anywhere, and Christ comes out of eternity to meet you. That is big stuff; it is bigger than my little mind can comprehend. I am unable to grasp the immensity of it until I come to John 1:14: “And the Word was made [born] flesh….” That takes me back to Bethlehem where He was born, and I begin to catch on at that time.
The third beginning is the one we began with in 1 John 1:1—“That which was from the beginning,”which refers to the time Christ came into this world at Bethlehem. When He was about thirty years old, John became acquainted with Him. John and his brother James met Him in Jerusalem. Later they were with their father, mending nets, when Jesus came by and called them to follow Him. They left their father (probably a well-to-do fisherman) with the hired men and followed Jesus. Now John says, I want to tell you about Him, and he asserts the reality of the total personality of Jesus: (1) “We have heard” (through the ear-gate); (2) “we have seen” (through the eye-gate); (3) “we have looked upon” (lit., gazed intently upon); and (4) “our hands have handled.”
John, of course, is speaking of the incarnation of Jesus and of his own association with Him when He was here upon this earth.
“Which we have heard.” John is not prattling about his opinions and his speculations. He is talking about the fact that he heard the Lord Jesus, heard His voice, and when he listened to Him, he listened to God.
“Which we have seen with our eyes.” Not only had the apostles heard Him speak, but they also had seen Him with their own eyes. In our day we cannot see Him with our physical eyes, but we can see Him with the eye of faith. Peter told us, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Pet. 1:8). And the Lord Jesus said to Thomas, who would not believe He had been resurrected until he could see and handle Him, “… Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29). We today are walking by, faith, and the Lord Jesus Christ can be made as real to us as He was to Thomas. As the hymn writer expressed it—
But warm, sweet, tender, even yet
A present help is He;
And faith has still its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.
“We May Not Climb”
—John G. Whittier
“Which we have looked upon.” The word looked is from the Greek word theaomai from which we get our English word theatre, meaning “to gaze intently upon.” The theatre is a place where you sit and look, not just with a passing glance but with a gaze—a steady gaze for a couple of hours. John is saying that for three years they gazed upon Jesus. It was John who wrote, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14). During the wilderness march, the people who had been bitten by the serpents were to look for healing to that brass serpent which had been lifted up on a pole. John is applying that to the Lord Jesus and saying that now we are to look to Him in faith for salvation. After we have done that, we are to gaze upon Him—and we will do that in this epistle. To look, saves; to gaze, sanctifies. John wrote in his gospel, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Many of us need to do more than simply look to Him for salvation. We need to spend time gazing upon Him with the eye of faith.
“Our hands have handled.” John says that they did, more than merely gaze upon Him from a distance; they handled Him. John himself reclined upon His bosom in the Upper Room. Speaking to His own after His resurrection, He said, “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet” (Luke 24:39–40),
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan takes the position that when the Lord Jesus held out His hands to Thomas and to the other disciples, they were so overwhelmed that they did not handle Him. Instead, they bowed down in reverence to Him. That would be the normal thing to do, but John makes it clear that they handled the Lord. This is one place where I disagree with Dr. Morgan, (and I disagree with him in a few other places, too,) but I dare not disagree with a man of his caliber unless there is a reason for it. But when John says that they handled Him, I think he means they felt His hands and fingered the nailprints which convinced them that He was indeed man, the Word made flesh, God manifest in the flesh.
After the death of Paul, about a.d. 67, a heresy arose in the church called Gnosticism. Gnosticism is the opposite of agnosticism. Agnosticism holds that the reality of God is unknown and probably unknowable. There are many agnostics in our colleges and universities, as you know. Charles Spurgeon used to say that agnostic is but the Greek word for the Latin ignoramus. So one might say, “I don’t believe the Bible, because I am an ignoramus!” The agnostic says, “I do not know.” The Gnostic says, “I do know.” The Gnostics were a group which came into the church claiming to have a superior knowledge which simple Christians did not have. They considered themselves super-duper saints, knowing more than anyone else knew.
The Gnostics came up with quite a few novel ideas, which I have dealt with in more detail in the Introduction. One of their heretical teachings was that Jesus was merely a man when He was born. He was just like any other human being at the time of His birth, but at His baptism, the Christ came upon Him, and when He was hanging on the cross, the Christ left Him. John refutes this teaching in no uncertain terms when he said in his gospel record, “The Word was born flesh.” And here in his first epistle, he emphatically declares that after Jesus came back from the dead, He was still a human being. In essence John says, “We handled Him—He was still flesh and bones.” You see, John is not talking about a theory. He is talking about Someone he heard, he saw, and he handled.
(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) [1 John 1:2].
“For the life was manifested.” That is, the life was brought out into the open where men could see it. John is talking about the Word of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ, as we shall see in the next verse.
On one occasion after I had given a message, a man whom I would call a smart aleck came to me with this question: “You talked about eternal life. What is eternal life? I would like to know what eternal life is.” So I gave him this verse: “The life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.” Then I said to him, “The eternal life that John is talking about is none other than Jesus Christ. If you want a definition, eternal life is a Person, and that Person is Christ. It is so simple that even you can grasp it. You either have Christ, or you don’t have Christ. You either trust Christ, or you don’t trust Christ. If you do trust Christ, you have eternal life. If you don’t trust Christ, you don’t have eternal life. Now, since that’s eternal life, do you have eternal life?” He turned and walked away without answering, which was an evidence that he did not have eternal life, and he did not want to pursue the matter any further.
HOW TO HAVE FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD
Now John is going to say something which is quite wonderful. He is going to tell us that we can have fellowship with God! One of the most glorious prospects before us today is that you and I can have fellowship with God.
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ [1 John 1:3].
“That which we have seen and heard”—this is the third time he has said this, and it should be penetrating our consciousnesses by now.
Why, John, are you repeating this? “That ye also may have fellowship with us.” He is saying that believers can have fellowship one with another.
“And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” How are we going to have fellowship with God? It does present a dilemma. God is holy. Man is unholy. How can this gulf be bridged? How can you bring God and man together, or as Amos put it, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3). How are we ever going to have fellowship? To get over this seemingly impossible hurdle, John is going to present three methods. Two of them are man-made methods and won’t work. The other one is God’s method, and it is the only one that will work.
Before we get into that, let me say a word about the word fellowship. Fellowship is the Greek word koinoµnia, and it means “having in common or sharing with.” Christian fellowship means sharing the things of Christ. And to do this, we must know the Lord Jesus—not only know about Him, but know Him as our personal Savior.
In our day we have lost the true meaning of the word fellowship. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Several years ago I used to go to Huntington Beach in Southern California and speak to a Rotary Club. A wonderful doctor who was the program chairman told me that they could probably take me once a year; so he invited me for either Christmas or Easter and told me to give them both barrels. (I tried to give them both barrels, and since he is no longer program chairman, they haven’t invited me back!) One of the things I noticed in the place where the Rotary Club met was a large banner over the elevated speaker’s table with the words, “Fun, Food, Fellowship.” Well, the food was nothing to brag about—embalmed chicken and peas as big as bullets. The fun was corny jokes. The fellowship consisted of one man patting another on the back and saying, “Hi, Bill, how’s business?” or, “How’s the wife?” Then they sang a little song together. That was their idea of fellowship.
Well, the Christian idea of fellowship is not much different. When you hear an announcement of a church banquet, it is almost certain that you will be urged to come for food and fellowship. What do they mean by fellowship? They mean meeting around the table and talking to each other about everything under the sun except the one thing that would give them true fellowship, the person of Christ.
Now let me give you an illustration of one place where the word fellowship is used correctly. I had the privilege of being at Oxford University as a tourist and seeing the Great Quad, the Wren Tower, and the different schools that comprise Oxford University. I visited one school which specialized in Shakespeare. Now suppose you wanted to know all about Shakespeare because you wanted to teach that particular subject. You would go to Oxford University and attend the particular school specializing in that subject. When you ate, you would sit down at the board, and there you would meet the other men who were studying Shakespeare, and you would meet the professors who did the teaching. You would hear them all talking about Shakespeare in a way you never had heard before. For instance, in the play Romeo and Juliet most of us think that Juliet was the only girl Romeo courted. It is shocking to find that when he said,
“One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun,”
that fickle fellow Romeo was talking about another girl! You would hear many things that would alert you to the fact that you had a lot to learn about Shakespeare. So you would begin to study and pull books off the shelf in the library and go to the lectures. After you had been at the school for two or three years, they would make you a fellow. Then when you would go in and sit at the board with the other students and professors, you would join right in with them as they talked about the sonnets of Shakespeare. You would have fellowship with them, sharing the things of Shakespeare.
Now fellowship for the believer means that we meet and share the things of Christ. We talk together about the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word. That is the kind of fellowship that John is speaking of when he says, “That ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”
WALK IN LIGHT
And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full [1 John 1:4].
Now this is the second reason he mentions for writing his epistle: “That your joy may be full.”.How wonderful to have joy—not just a little joy but a whole lot of joy because we are experiencing fellowship. Koinoµnia sometimes refers to the act of fellowship—the communion service in a church is an act of fellowship; giving is an act of fellowship, and praying is an act of fellowship. But in this chapter John is talking about the experience of fellowship, such as Paul had in mind when he wrote, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings …” (Phil. 3:10).
My friend, the ultimate aim in preaching is that, through conviction and repentance, men and women might come to salvation and that it might bring great joy to their hearts, like the Ethiopian eunuch who came to know Christ with the help of Philip. He didn’t continue his trip bragging about what a great preacher Philip was; he went on his way rejoicing. Why? Because he had come to know Christ. The purpose of John’s epistle is that you and I might share together these wonderful things of Christ, that the Spirit of God might make the Lord Jesus and the Father real to us in such a way that our fellowship might be sweet.
Now we return to the problem which I mentioned earlier. John has said that he has written these things so that we can have fellowship and so that our joy might be full, and our joy would naturally be full if we could have fellowship with God. However, there is a hurdle to get over. John faces up to a real dilemma which every child of God recognizes. The very possibility of man having fellowship with God is one of the most glorious prospects that comes to us, but immediately our hopes are dashed when we face up to this dilemma:
This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all [1 John 1:5].
“God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” means that God is holy, and we know that man is unholy. How can the gulf be bridged between a wonderful Savior and Vernon McGee? What a difference there is! The canyon between us is steep and deep. How can God and man be brought together? The cry of Job was for a “daysman” who might lay his hand upon Job and upon God and bring them together (see Job 9:33). Through Isaiah God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways …” (Isa. 55:8). How is a sinful man going to walk with God?
John tells us that God is light. This is, in fact, a definition of God. I have divided this epistle into three parts and each part is a definition of God: (1) God is light; (2) God is love; and (3) God is life. But how in the world are we going to have fellowship with God? It looks as if we are going to have to do one of two things. We either have to bring God down to our level, or we will have to take man up to God’s level. Neither one of these things can be done, and yet men have tried it. John shows the impossibility of the first one and then gives us a great definition of God: God is light.
Modern science, I am told, is not quite sure what light is. Is it energy or is it matter? What is light? Oh, the source of light is one thing, but when you turn on the light in your room, the darkness lurking in the corner becomes light. What has happened? What was it that went over there in the corner and drove out the darkness? Or did it drive out the darkness? Because when the source of light up in the ceiling goes off, darkness returns to the corner. What is light?
Well, when John says that God is light, he is revealing many facets about the person of God. Although it doesn’t cover the whole spectrum of the attributes of God, it says a great deal about Him.
First of all, light speaks of the glory, the radiance, the beauty, and the wonders of God. Have you seen the eastern sky when the sun comes up like a blaze of glory? A friend and I once camped on the edge of Monument Valley in Arizona. It was a beautiful spot. We spent the night in sleeping bags. When I awoke the next morning, my friend was standing there, watching as the dawn was breaking. I asked him what he was doing up so early, and he made this statement: “I am watching God create a new day.”.Oh, what a thrill it was to be there and watch God create a new day! All of a sudden the sun peeped over the horizon, then it came marching over in a blaze of glory. I must confess that it became pretty hot later in the day, but what a sunrise it was! God is light. Oh, the beauty and radiance and glory of God!
Another characteristic of light is that it is self-revealing. Light can be seen, but it diffuses itself. It illuminates the darkness. It is revealing. It lets me see my hands—I’ve been handling books, and I see that one of my hands has dirt on it, and I’m going to have to take it out and wash it. If it hadn’t been for the light, I would not have seen the soil. Light reveals flaws and impurity. Whittier put it like this:
Our thoughts lie open to Thy sight;
And naked to Thy glance;
Our secret sins are in the light
Of Thy pure countenance.
And Dr. Chafer used to say it this way: “Secret sin down here is open scandal in heaven” Our sins are right there before Him, because God is light.
Also light speaks of the white purity of God and the stainless holiness of God. God moves without making a shadow because He is light. He is pure. The light of the sun is actually the catharsis of the earth. It not only gives light, it is also a great cleanser. Many of you ladies put a garment out in the sun to clean it or to get an odor out of it. The sun is a great cleansing agent. Light speaks of the purity of God.
Light also guides men. It points out the path. Light on the horizon leads men on to take courage. It gives them courage to keep moving on. God is light. Let me go to the other extreme. Darkness is actually more than a negation of light. It is not just the opposite of light. It is actually hostile to light. The light and holiness of God are in direct conflict with the evil darkness and chaos of the world.
Now we are presented with this dilemma. I am a little creature down here on earth filled with sin. If you want to know the truth, I am totally depraved. Without the grace of God for salvation, I would be nothing in the world but a creature in rebellion against God, with no good within me at all. God has made it very clear that He finds no good within man. Paul says, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing …” (Rom. 7:18). Paul also says, “… There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10). Not only have they no innate goodness, but they are in rebellion against God.
Paul goes on to tell us about the rebellion that is in the human heart. He says, “… the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7). We are living in a world today that is in rebellion against almighty God. God is holy. I am a sinner. I am saved by grace, yes, but how am I going to have fellowship with Him? How am I going to walk with Him? Men have attempted to do this in three different ways which are presented here, and two of those ways are wrong.
REDUCE GOD TO MAN’S LEVEL?
The first method is to bring God down to the level of man.
If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth [1 John 1:6].
“If we say that we have fellowship with him”—there are a lot of folk claiming to have fellowship with Him when they do not in reality at all.
“We lie, and do not the truth.” Do you understand what John says in this verse? He is rather blunt, don’t you think so? He says that we lie. It is not a nice thing to call another man a liar. John says that if you say that you have fellowship with God and you walk in darkness—that is, in sin—you are lying. I didn’t say that. I am too polite to say that, but John said it. We always think of John as being that little ladylike apostle who carried a handkerchief in his sleeve. I don’t know how the rumor got started that John was that kind of a man, unless it began during the Middle Ages when an artist painted him with curls! I suppose the artist got the idea of curls from the fact that John is called the apostle of love. But our Lord never called him that—He called him a son of thunder! If John and that artist meet on the corner of Glory Avenue and Hallelujah Boulevard in heaven, I tell you, that artist is going to know what thunder and lightning both are, because I think John is going to level with him, “What is the big idea of giving the world the impression that I was a sissy-type individual?” John was a great, big two-fisted, rugged fisherman, and he is the one who says, “If you say you are having fellowship with God and you walk in darkness, you lie, because God is light; God is holy.”
We hear so much about sin among Christians today. One of the headlines in a newspaper here in Southern California told of some members of a cult committing adultery. (I don’t know if that report was accurate or not, but I don’t think the paper would have risked a lawsuit by printing it if it had no basis of truth.) Yet this cult brags about keeping the Mosaic Law and having reached a wonderful level of life. Of course, one of the Ten Commandments is “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exod. 20:14), but they would attempt to explain that away in some manner. My friend, if you are going to walk with God, you are going to walk in light. And if there is sin in your life, you are not walking with Him. You cannot bring Him down to your level.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin [1 John 1:7].
“If we walk in the light,” that is, if we walk in the light of the Word of God. Dr. Harry Ironside tells of his own confusion of mind relative to this verse. Noticing that the cleansing of the blood depends upon our walking in the light, he read it as though it said, “If we walk according to the light, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” He thought it meant that if he was very punctilious about obeying every command of God, God would cleanse him. Then he noticed that it does not say if we walk according to light, but if we walk in the light. The important thing is where we walk, not how we walk. Have we come into the presence of God and allowed the Word of God to shine upon our sinful hearts? You see, it is possible to walk in darkness, thinking you are all right.
Let me illustrate this. I went squirrel hunting several years ago when I was holding meetings in my first pastorate in Middle Tennessee in a place called Woodbury. After the morning service a doctor came to me and asked me if I would like to go squirrel hunting, and I told him there was nothing I would rather do. After lunch he brought me a shotgun, and we drove out to his farm and parked in the barnyard. We walked along by the creek there and had some good hunting. Finally we came to a fork in the creek, and he said to me, “I’ll take the right fork, and you take the left fork. It will lead you around the hill and back to the barnyard. We will meet there.” In the meantime it looked like it was going to rain. It had drizzled once or twice and stopped. When I started out by myself, it started drizzling again. I kept going, and I made the turn around the hill. I noticed quite a few caves in the hill, and when it started to really rain, I knew I was going to get wet; so I crawled into one of those caves. I went into the largest one I could find and sat in that dark cave for about thirty minutes. I began to get cold and decided I needed a fire; so I gathered together a bunch of leaves scattered on the floor of the cave and put a match to them. I soon had a small fire going, and when I looked around the cave, I found out that I wasn’t alone. I have never been a place in which there were so many spiders and lizards as there were in that cave! Over in one corner was a little snake all coiled up, just looking at me. My friend, I got out of there in a hurry, working on the assumption that possession is nine-tenths of the law, and since those creatures had the cave ahead of me, it belonged to them. I proceeded down to the barn and really got soaking wet, but I wasn’t going to stay in that cave!
Now let me make an application. I had been sitting in comfort for about thirty minutes while I was in darkness, but when the light of the fire revealed what was in the cave, I could no longer be comfortable there. My friend, across this land today are multitudes of folk who are sitting in churches every Sunday morning but are not hearing the Word of God. As a result, they are sitting there in darkness, hearing some dissertation on economics or politics or the “good life” or an exhortation on doing the best they can. And they are comfortable. Of course, they are comfortable! But if they would get into the light of the Word of God, they would see that they are sinners and that they cannot bring God down to their level. John has said that if a person says he is having fellowship with God but is living in sin, he is lying.
During my many years as a pastor I have encountered a great deal of this. I think of a layman who was a good speaker and went about giving his testimony to different groups. Then it was discovered that he was living in adultery—for several years he had been keeping a woman on the side. When it was discovered, my, the damage it did to the cause of Christ. And that man still insists that he is having fellowship with God! I recognize that we are living in a day when moral standards are changing drastically and folk rationalize their sinning and try to explain it away, but they cannot bring God down to their level. If you are living in sin, God will not have fellowship with you. If you think otherwise, you are fooling yourself or using a psychological ploy to put up a good front. And many of our psychological hang-ups today center around this very point. As someone commented, after hearing me speak on this subject, “What you mean, Dr. McGee, is that there are hypocrites in the church.” And when you come right down to the nitty-gritty, that’s what we are talking about. Hypocrites. They profess one thing, “I’m having fellowship with God,” and all the while they are walking in darkness. John says that they are lying.
Now, suppose you are a child of God, and you are living in sin—but you see it now in the light of the Word of God. Have you lost your salvation? When the light in my study revealed that spot of dirt on my hand, I went and washed it off. And John says, “And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” That word cleanseth is in the present tense—Christ’s blood just keeps on cleansing us from all sin. You haven’t lost your salvation, but you have lost your fellowship, and you cannot regain your fellowship with God until you are cleansed.
You see, John is talking about family truth. At the time I am writing this, there is abroad a great emphasis on what is known as body truth. Some folk have stumbled onto it for the first time and have gone off the deep end in their overemphasis of it. Body truth is great and it is an important part of New Testament teaching, but family truth is also important. If you are in the family of God and have sin in your life, God is not going to treat you like the sinner outside of Christ. He is going to treat you like a disobedient child. He will take you to the woodshed for punishment. Remember that He took David to the woodshed, and certainly Ananias and Sapphira didn’t get off easily. My friend, our attempt to bring God down to our level simply will not work. However, that is one method which is often used in an attempt to bridge the gap between a holy God and sinful man.
CONFESS SIN
Another method which is often used is an attempt to bring man up to God’s level. They say that man has reached sinless perfection and that he is living on that very high plateau. Well, John deals with that approach. Listen to him—
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us [1 John 1:8].
This is even worse than being a liar. When you get to the place where you say you have no sin in your life, there is no truth in you at all. This doesn’t mean you are simply a liar; it means you don’t even have the truth. You are deceiving yourself. You don’t deceive anyone else. You deceive only yourself.
I ran into this problem very early in my training for the ministry. When I went to college as a freshman, my first roommate was a young man who was also studying for the ministry. He was a sweet boy in many ways. The only trouble with him was that he was perfect. When I found the room which had been assigned to me, my roommate was not at home, but when he came in, he introduced himself and informed me that he had not committed a sin in so many years—I have forgotten if he said one, two, or three years. It shocked me to meet a fellow who didn’t sin. I had hoped he would be my buddy, but he wasn’t a buddy. You see, in every room where I have lived, things go wrong once in awhile. And there I was living in a room in which there were only two of us and one of us couldn’t do anything wrong. So when something went wrong, guess who was to blame? Now I admit that usually it was my fault—but not always. Although he was a nice fellow, he hadn’t reached the level of perfection which he claimed; he wasn’t perfect. After the first semester, a freshman was permitted to move wherever he wished, so I told him, “I’m moving out.” He was greatly distressed and said, “Oh, no! Where are you going?” I told him, “I have met a fellow down the hall who is just as mean as I am, and I’m going to move in with him.” So I did move out, and I understand he didn’t get a roommate after that. My new roommate and I got along wonderfully well. In fact, I still visit him down in the state of Florida. We are old men now and we still have wonderful times together. Neither of us is perfect although we have mellowed a bit down through the years.
My friend, if you feel that you have reached the state of perfection, I really feel sorry for your spouse because it is hard to live with someone who thinks he is perfect. John says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” We cannot bring ourselves up to God’s level. It is impossible to reach perfection in this life.
Let me give you another instance of this because I think it is important. When I first came to Pasadena, I knew a man who served for a while as chaplain at the jail. He was a wonderful, enthusiastic Christian. I certainly had no criticism of him. But one day he met me on the street and said, “Brother Vernon, I got sanctified last night.” I said, “You did! What really happened to you?” He told me that he had reached the place where he could no longer sin.
Well, I didn’t see him for a while after that, but one of the officers of the church I served at the time lived next door to him. The son of the man who had reached perfection came to visit and parked his trailer in the back yard with part of it on the property of the man who was an officer in my church. He said nothing for a while, but the time came when he had to build a shed on that spot. The neighbor knew he was intending to do this, but he made no mention of it. Finally, when it looked as if the son was going to stay and he felt that he could wait no longer to build, he went to his neighbor and asked him to move the trailer. Well, the fellow lost his temper and really told him what kind of a neighbor he thought he was. The man who was the officer in my church casually mentioned the incident to me one day; so I couldn’t wait to meet that fellow and finally I looked him up. I said to him, “Didn’t you tell me that you got sanctified?”
“Yes.”
“And when you got sanctified, you reached the plane of sinless perfection?”
“Yes, I think I have reached it.”
“Well, your neighbor is a member of my church and he tells me that you really lost your temper the other day and told him off in a very unkind, un-Christianlike manner.”
He began to hem and haw. “I guess I did lose my temper. But that is not sin.”
“Oh, if it’s not sin, what is it?”
“I just made a mistake. I recognize that I shouldn’t have done it—so that’s not a sin.”
“Well, I want you to shake hands with me now, because I’ve reached that plane, too. I don’t sin; I just make mistakes—and I make a lot of them. But, brother, the Word of God will make it very clear to you that losing your temper and bawling out your neighbor as you did is sin.”
My friend, whom do you think you deceive when you say that you have no sin? You deceive yourself, and you are the only person whom you do deceive. You don’t deceive God. You don’t deceive your neighbors. You don’t deceive your friends. But you sure do deceive yourself. And John says that the truth is not in a man like that because he can’t see that he is a sinner and that he has not reached the place of perfection. Yet a great many folk are trying that route in their effort to bridge the gap between themselves and a holy God.
Since you cannot bring God down to your level and you cannot bring yourself up to His level, what are you going to do? John gives us the alternative here—
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness [1 John 1:9].
“If we confess our sins.” Here is another one of our “ifs.” We have seen several of them: “If we say that we have fellowship” (v. 6); “If we walk in the light” (v. 7); and “If we say that we have no sin” (v. 8). Now here is the right method for bringing together a sinful man and a holy God: confession of sins.
What does it mean to confess our sins? The word confess is from the Greek verb homologeoµ, meaning “to say the same thing.” Logeoµ means “to say” and homo means “the same.” You are to say the same thing that God says. When God in His Word says that the thing you did is sin, you are to get over on God’s side and look at it. And you are to say, “You are right, Lord, I say the same thing that You say. It is sin.” That is what it means to confess your sins. That, my friend, is one of the greatest needs in the church. This is God’s way for a Christian to deal with sin in his own life.
The other day I talked to a man who got into deep trouble. He divorced his wife—he found out that she had been unfaithful. He lost his home and lost his job. He was a very discouraged man. He said to me, “I want to serve God, and I have failed. I am a total failure.” I very frankly said to him, “Don’t cry on my shoulder. Go and tell God about it. He wants you to come to Him. Tell Him you have failed. Tell Him you have been wrong. Tell Him that you want to say the same thing about your sin that He says about it. Seek His help. He is your Father. You are in the family. You have lost your fellowship with Him, but you can have your fellowship restored. If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive you your sins.”
After we confess our sins, what does God do? He cleanses us. In the parable, the Prodigal Son came home from the far country smelling like a pigpen. You don’t think the father would have put a new robe on that ragged, dirty boy, smelling like that, do you? No, he gave him a good bath. The Roman world majored in cleanliness, and I am confident that the boy was bathed before that new robe was put on him. The next week he didn’t say, “Dad, I think I will be going to the far country and end up in the pigpen again.” Not that boy.
When you have confessed your sin, it means that you have turned from that sin. It means that you have said the same thing which God has said. Sin is a terrible thing. God hates it and now you hate it. But confession restores you to your Father.
John concludes this by saying—
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us [1 John 1:10].
Now don’t make God a liar. Why don’t you go to the Lord, my friend, and just open your heart and talk to him as you talk to no one else. Tell Him your problems. Tell Him your sins. Tell Him your weakness. Confess it all to Him. And say to your Father that you want to have fellowship with Him and you want to serve Him. My, He has made a marvelous, wonderful way back to Himself!
CHAPTER 2
Theme: The advocacy of Christ; how the dear children may have fellowship with each other; the “dear children” must not love the world
This chapter is a continuation of the thought begun in the previous chapter regarding the manner in which “little children” may have fellowship with God. We have seen that we can have fellowship with God by walking in the light, that is, in God’s presence. The second thing we must do in order to maintain that fellowship is to confess our sins to Him. When we walk in the light, we know that the blood of Jesus Christ keeps on cleansing us from all sin, but we also know that there is imperfection in our lives and that we must go to Him in confession.
In chapter 2 we come to the matter of the advocacy of Christ. We will now see the conclusion of that which began with 1 John 1:5, where John said, “This then is the message.” What is the message? It is the message of the gospel of the grace of God that takes the hell-doomed sinner and by simple faith in Christ brings him into the family of God where he becomes an heir and joint-heir with Jesus Christ. It is the relationship with the Father that is all important.
FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD BY THE ADVOCACY OF CHRIST
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous [1 John 2:1].
“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.” John is writing these things to us because God does not want His children to sin. Although God has made ample and adequate provision for us not to sin, our entrance into His provision is imperfect—because of our imperfection. Notice that this verse does not say that we cannot sin, but John is writing to us that we may not sin. God wants us to walk in a manner that is well pleasing to Him; that is, He wants us to walk in obedience to His Word.
Let me remind you that 1 John is a family epistle; it emphasizes the relationship of the family of God. I mention this again because there is so much emphasis in the contemporary church on “body” truth; that is, that all believers are part of a body. “Body” truth is the message of Ephesians, and it is wonderful, but now we need to move out a little farther into “family” truth. We need to recognize that we are in God’s family and that our relationship is all important. We need to have fellowship with our heavenly Father.
“My little children” is an interesting expression. It comes from the Greek word teknia and probably should be translated “my little born ones” or “my little born-again ones.” I like the Scottish term best, “my little bairns.”
“These things write I unto you, that ye sin not.” None of us has reached that exalted plane, although there are those who claim sinless perfection. I am reminded of an occasion when a speaker was emphasizing the fact that nobody is perfect. Finally he became very dramatic and oratorical and asked, “Is there anybody here who has ever seen a perfect man?” No one responded until one little fellow in the back of the auditorium, sort of a Mr. Milquetoast, put up his hand.
The speaker asked, “Have you seen a perfect man?”
The little fellow stood to his feet and said; “Well, I have never seen him, but I have heard about him.”
“Who is he?”
“He is my wife’s first husband.”
Well, I imagine he had heard about him a great deal! But the truth is that none of us has reached that exalted position of perfection.
Several years ago a speaker was telling a story about a family that was going to take a trip for a couple of days. They did not want to take their little girl along, so they left her with neighbors, who had four boys. When they returned, the little girl said to her daddy, “There are four boys in that house where I have been staying. They have family worship there every night. Each night their father prays for his four little boys.”
Her father replied, “That certainly is good to hear.”
“Daddy, he prays that God will make them good boys, and he prays that they won’t do anything wrong.”
Her father said, “Well, that’s very fine.”
The little girl was silent for a moment, and then she added, “But, Daddy, He hasn’t done it yet”
If we are honest with ourselves, we too will have to say that God hasn’t made us perfect yet either. We have not reached that exalted plane of sinless perfection. John says, “My little born ones, my little bairns, I write these things unto you that you may not be sinning.” God doesn’t want you to live in sin. We are going to find later that John is going to say, “Whosoever is born of God sinneth not” (1 John 5:18). This means that whosoever is born of God does not practice sin; that is, live in sin. The prodigal son got up out of the pigpen and went home to his father. He did not stay in the pigpen. Why not? Because he was a son and not a pig. Also we need to realize, as it is stated in Ecclesiastes 7:20, “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not”
Today you and I may be able to say, “I don’t think I have done anything real bad.” But how about doing good? James says, “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). There are sins of commission and sins of omission. You and I are to walk in the light. When we walk in the light, we will see just how far we have fallen short of what God wants. Every sincere child of God wants to have fellowship with Him, and yet he knows within himself that he has fallen far short of the kind of life he should have. There is sin in his life, and sin, be it ever so small, breaks communion with the Father.
It is said of Spurgeon that when he was crossing a street one day, he suddenly stopped. It looked like he was praying, and he was. One of his deacons waited for him on the other side of the street and said to him, “You could have been run down by a carriage [this was before the day of the automobile]. What were you doing? It looked like you were praying.”
Spurgeon replied, “I was praying.”
The deacon then asked, “Was it so important?”
“Indeed it was. A cloud came between me and my Savior, and I wanted to remove it even before I got across the street.”
Many Christians are living lives in which they are constantly disobeying God, yet they wonder why they aren’t having fellowship with Him. They need to recognize that sin causes a break in fellowship.
They need to know that they have not lost their salvation, because in the next breath John adds, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Notice that John says, “We have an advocate with the Father”—John doesn’t call Him by the impersonal name God because He is still our Father even though we have sinned. Therefore we need to recognize that our salvation rests upon what Christ has done for us, and that is a finished work. Someone has expressed it like this:
Upon a life I did not live,
Upon a death I did not die,
Another’s life, Another’s death,
I stake my whole eternity.
It is finished, yes, indeed;
Finished, every jot!
Sinner, this is all you need!
Tell me, is it not?
—Author unknown
We cannot add anything to a finished work. What Christ has done is all we need for salvation.
However, if you and I are going to have fellowship with Him, we need to recognize something else.
“And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father.” Who is He? He is “Jesus Christ the righteous.” The word advocate is from the Greek parakleµtos, the same word which is translated “comforter” in John’s gospel. The Holy Spirit is our Comforter down here, and Christ is our Comforter up there.
Advocate—a paraclete, a helper—is a legal term. It means “one who will come to your side to help in every time of need.” We have a wonderful heavenly Father, and we don’t lose our salvation when we sin, but there is somebody up there who wants us to lose it, and that is Satan. Satan is the accuser of the brethren. In Revelation 12:10 we are told that he accuses us before our God day and night. Satan is there at the throne of God accusing you and accusing me. Remember how he accused Job. In effect, he said to God, “If you will let me get to him, I’ll show You that he will curse you.” When that happens in our case, the Lord Jesus is able to step in as our Advocate. He died for us! Yet the accuser is there, and some folk are very disturbed by that. But the Advocate is far greater than the accuser. Someone has expressed this in beautiful poetic language:
I hear the accuser roar
Of ills that I have done;
I know them well, and thousands more,
Jehovah findeth none.
Though the restless foe accuses—
Sins recounting like a flood,
Ev’ry charge our God refuses;
Christ has answered with His blood.
—Author unknown
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world [1 John 2:2].
“And he is the propitiation for our sins.” The word propitiation, as it is used here in John’s epistle, is a different word from that used in the Epistle to the Romans. In Romans the meaning is “mercy seat”—Christ is the propitiation, the mercy seat, the meeting place between God and man. However, here in 1 John propitiation means “an atonement or an expiation.” It means that sins have been paid for by the suffering of Another. Christ is my Advocate, interceding for me, and He Himself is the propitiation.
Notice that John does not say that if anyone repents, he has an Advocate nor if anyone confesses his sins, he has an Advocate. Neither does he say that if anyone goes through a ceremony to get rid of his sins, he has an Advocate. What he does say is that if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father. Before we even repent of that cruel or brutal word we said, the very moment we had that evil thought, and the moment we did that wrong act, Jesus Christ was there at the throne of God to represent us as Satan was there accusing us.
Then, because of the faithful advocacy of Christ, the Holy Spirit brings conviction to us, and we confess our sin to the Father. As we said before, to confess means that we get on God’s side and we see our sin from His viewpoint and confess that it is sin.
The sincere child of God wants to please the Father, and he walks along with that in mind. The psalmist expressed it this way: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23–24).
Dr. Harry Ironside has illustrated the confession that God requires with an incident in his own home. He had trouble one evening with one of his boys, so he sent the boy upstairs and told him not to come down to supper until he confessed the thing he had done wrong. The boy would not admit anything at all. Finally the boy called for Dr. Ironside to come upstairs and asked if he could go down to supper. His father said, “It depends upon you.” The boy said, “If you think I have done something wrong, I am sorry.” His father said, “That won’t do.” Later the boy called him upstairs again, and this time he changed his story a little. He said, “Well, since you and mother both think I have done something wrong, I guess I have. I want to come down to supper.” Once again his father told him that that wasn’t good enough. Dr. Ironside went downstairs, and later on he heard the boy almost weeping. He said, “Dad, please forgive me. I know I have done wrong. Please forgive me.” Then the lad came downstairs, and the family had a wonderful supper together because fellowship had been restored.
My friend, if you are a child of God, you are in the family of God, and He wants to have fellowship with you. I don’t care about these little rules you are following. You think that some way you are going to be able to live the Christian life by following rules. My friend, God doesn’t want you to be a programmed computer. He is not trying to do that to you. You are a human being with your own free will, but you are a member of His family, and He wants to have fellowship with you. We can talk to Him like we can talk to no one else.
Up to this point, John’s subject has been that God is light and how God’s dear children may have fellowship with Him. Now in this second section, the subject is that God is love and how God’s dear children may have fellowship with each other. Before, he was talking about walking in light; now he will be talking about walking in love. Love is the very heart of this epistle. The word occurs thirty-three times, and there is a great emphasis upon it.
HOW TO HAVE FELLOWSHIP WITH EACH OTHER
And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments [1 John 2:3].
First of all, let me point out that this verse has nothing to do with the security of the believer. John is talking about assurance. As God’s children, we are in a family. But how can we have the assurance that we are in God’s family? He is telling us that assurance comes by keeping His commandments.
“If we keep his commandments” does not refer to the Ten Commandments. John is not dealing with any legal aspects; he is dealing with family matters. The Ten Commandments were given to a nation, and on these commandments every civilized nation has based its laws. The Ten Commandments are for the unsaved. Now God has something for His own family, and they are commandments for His children. For example, in Galatians 6:2 the family is told, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” In 1 Thessalonians 4:2 Paul tells the family of Christ, “For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.” Some of those commandments are mentioned in the last chapter of 1 Thessalonians. I have counted twenty-two commandments in that chapter, and here are a few of them. “Rejoice evermore”—God wants you to be a joyful Christian. “Pray without ceasing” refers to an attitude of prayer. That is, when you get off your knees, you still are to walk in a prayerful attitude. “Quench not the Spirit”—don’t say no to Him. These are some of the commandments which the Lord Jesus has given to believers, and if we are to have fellowship with the Father and enjoy it by having assurance in our own hearts, we must keep His commandments. We do not feel that we are free to do as we please. The Christian doesn’t do as he pleases; he does as Christ pleases.
“And hereby we do know that we know him.” Remember that throughout this epistle John is answering the Gnostics who claimed to have a superior knowledge that no one else had—and generally it was heresy. The apostle John is saying that the important thing is to know Jesus Christ. And how can we have the assurance that we know Him? My friend, although a great many folk believe in the security of the believer, they don’t have the assurance of salvation, and the reason is obvious. We cannot know that we are children of God if we are disobedient to Him. Obedience to Christ is essential and is the very basis of assurance. You cannot have that assurance (oh, you can bluff your way through, but you cannot have that deep, down-in-your-heart assurance) unless you keep His commandments.
He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him [1 John 2:4].
I would call this very plain talk! In the previous verse John has said that we know that we know Him—this is the positive side. We know by experience in contrast to the esoteric knowledge of the Gnostics. Now he presents the negative side: disobedience to Christ is a proof that we do not know Him. This is plain and direct language. Disobedience to Christ on the part of a professing Christian is tantamount to being a liar. In other words, his life is a lie.
There are a great many people who say they are children of God, but are they?. It is one thing to say you are a child of God, and it is another thing to be a possessor of eternal life, to have a new nature that cries out to the Father for fellowship and wants to obey Him. You cannot make me believe that all of these church members who have no love for the Word of God and are disobedient to Christ are really His children. I do not believe they have had the experience of regeneration. John is making it very clear that we know that we know Him because we keep His commandments.
Let me repeat that John is not talking about the Ten Commandments that were given to the nation Israel in the Old Testament. John is talking about the commandments that Christ gave to the church. If a child of God does not have a love for these commandments, he is in the very gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity, as the Scripture says (see Acts 8:23).
The Lord Jesus, when He was here in the flesh, said of the Father, “… I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29). I can’t say that, but I can say that I want to please Him, and I have dedicated my life to that end. Although I sometimes stumble and fall, I want to please Him. While it is true that “he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life …” (John 3:36), it corroborates his faith when in his heart he knows that he wants to do God’s will. The natural man never did want to do God’s will. Oh, boy, this is a strong statement which John makes! “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” And John will tell us that the Holy Spirit is the one who prompted him to say it. The truth is not in a man who claims to be a child of God but does not keep His commandments.
But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him [1 John 2:5].
I want to make a distinction that I find very few expositors make. Even The Scofield Reference Bible does not make this distinction. I feel there is a difference between the Word of God and the commandments of God. Somebody is going to call my attention to the fact that the commandments are the Word of God. Well, commandments are the Word of God, but the Word of God is not all commandments. It is more than that. I hope you see the distinction. There are commandments in the Word of God, but the Word of God is not only, commandments. The Word is the expression of the will of God, either by commandment or otherwise. In the Word of God you have His complete revelation to us about His will for our lives.
In John 14:15 the Lord made this statement: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” In John 14:23 He said, “… If a man love me, he will keep my words….” What is the distinction here? Let me illustrate this. Suppose the home of a young boy is in the country. His father is a farmer. One day, when the boy is on his way to school, his father says, “Son, I’ll milk the cow when I come in from the field each day, but when you get home from school, I want you to chop wood, put it on the back porch, and tell your mama so she can make a fire in the cook stove and in the fireplace.” When the boy comes home, he obeys his father’s commandment that he chop wood. He spends about an hour and a half chopping wood after school, and he stacks it on the back porch. Then one morning at the breakfast table, the father says, “I don’t feel well today. I feel so bad that I don’t think I can go out and work in the field today.” But he goes out anyway. Now when the boy comes home from school, although his only commandment is to chop wood, he knows that his father is sick and doesn’t feel like milking the cow, so he not only chops the wood but he milks the cow also. He chops the wood because he was commanded to do so, but he milks the cow because he loves his father.
In just this way a child of God not only wants to obey the commandments of God but he also wants to obey the Word of God. He wants to please his Father in everything that he does. I get the impression from many folk that they want to live as much like the unsaved as possible and still be Christians. I would never give an answer to a young person who asked me if a Christian could do this or that and still be a Christian—because they were asking the wrong questions. The right question to ask is this: “What can I do to please my heavenly Father?” You see, a genuine child of God wants to please Him; he does not try to live right on the margin of the Christian life.
There are many Christians in our day who feel that they need to be broad-minded. They are against whiskey, but they use beer and they use wine, which gives them the feeling of being broad-minded. And, of course, they feel that I am very narrow-minded. Well, it is not a question of a thing being right or wrong—I hope you are above that plane, my Christian friend—the question is: does it please my heavenly Father? I want to do the thing that will please Him, bring joy to His heart and fellowship and joy to my own life. All of this, you see, is on the basis of love: “If you love me, keep my commandments,” and “If a man love me, he will keep my words.” If you love Him, you will do more than keep His commandments; you will do something extra for Him.
I feel that a great many folk have in their thinking only the sins of commission and forget about the sins of omission. James said, “… to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). There are many things I know I should do, but I neglect to do them. These are sins of omission. The Bible makes no distinction between the gravity of sins of commission and sins of omission. They are equally bad.
My friend, verse 5 is very important. Let me repeat it: “But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected [that is, realized in practice]: hereby [by this] know we that we are in him.” When the love of God is perfected in you, it means that you have passed the commandments and you just want to please God.
I suggest that you take an inventory of yourself. What is your attitude toward sin? Does it trouble you? Does it break your fellowship with the Father? Does it cause you to cry out in the night, “Oh, God, I’m wrong, and I want to confess the wrong I have done. I want fellowship with You.” On that basis God will restore fellowship with us, and the assurance of salvation comes to our hearts.
He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked [1 John 2:6].
We cannot do or be all that the Lord Jesus Christ did or was, but if we set our hearts on doing our Father’s will, which was the thing that the Lord Jesus put uppermost in His life, then we are walking as (in the same manner as) He walked.
I hear the word commitment a great deal these days. When an invitation is given after a message, the question is asked, “Do you want to commit your life to Christ?” What do they mean by that? Well, let me tell you what John means by full commitment. It is to love Christ. And if you love Christ, you are going to keep His Word—you can’t help it. You want to please the person you love. You don’t want to offend; you want to please. This is the reason I send a dozen American Beauty roses to my wife occasionally. You see, the question is not “Are you committed to Christ?” The question is, “Do you love Christ?”
Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning [1 John 2:7].
“An old commandment which ye had from the beginning.” From what beginning? Well, the “beginning” in 1 John is the incarnation of Christ. It began in Bethlehem, then worked itself out in a carpenter shop and three years of public ministry. The “commandment which ye had from the beginning” was what the Lord Jesus gave to His apostles when He was with them on earth—which He repeated many times. For example, in John 13:34–35 we read, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” And in John 15:10, 12, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love…. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.”
John is saying, “This old commandment is what I am giving to you. It is what the Lord Jesus said when He taught here upon this earth.” Then John continues—
Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth [1 John 2:8].
Now why is it a new commandment for believers who are regenerated and indwelt by the Holy Spirit? Because it was given on the other side of the cross, before the coming of the Holy Spirit. On this side it is new.
Believers are to do the will of God; and the will of God, first of all, is to love Him. This identifies a believer. A believer is one who delights to do the will of God. Because “the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth,” the believer ought to be able to say that he is getting to know the Lord God better and that he is understanding His will more perfectly. Schiller, the great German poet, said, “I see everything clearer and clearer.” And that should be the experience of every child of God. Every day we should be growing, and it is impossible to grow apart from a study of the Word of God. The written Word reveals the living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is the Bread of Life and the Water of Life. We will famish if we don’t feed upon Him.
Let me repeat that the great problem in the world today is that the majority of believers are trying to follow a few little rules and regulations; they are programmed like a computer. They feel that they are living the Christian life if they do all those little things. Oh, my friend, you are not a computer; you are a human being. If you are a child of God, you have a new nature—although you still have your old nature in which “… dwelleth no good thing …” (Rom. 7:18). But your new nature wants to do God’s will; it wants to please Him.
“The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth” would be better translated, “the darkness is passing.” As you look around you today, you will see that the darkness has not passed yet. Ignorance of the Word of God is still much in evidence. The “true light,” who is the Lord Jesus Christ, is breaking upon this world. He still is the most controversial person who has ever lived on the earth.
He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now [1 John 2:9].
It is impossible for you as a child of God to walk in the light and hate your brother. If you do hate another Christian, it means there is something radically wrong with your confession of faith. This doesn’t mean that there are not some people whose manners and habits will be objectionable to you. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be some believers who have certain habits that you don’t approve of—that is understandable. But to hate them reveals that you are in darkness. Hatred of a fellow believer is evidence that a person is not in the light. This is something we need to keep in mind. There is the natural darkness in which all men are born. Paul talks about it in Ephesians 4:18, where he says, “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” That is the condition of mankind by nature. But our condemnation is not because of what we are by nature. “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). This is important. Don’t let it slip by you. We are not responsible because we are sinners by nature; we are responsible if we reject the Savior. We are not responsible because we were born in darkness and because our understanding is darkened; we are responsible if we reject the light that comes to us through the Word of God.
If you walk in the light, it will chase away all darkness. Instead of turning from its searching rays, let it search your heart. If a man keeps on rejecting this light, there will come a day when God will withdraw the light altogether. Or that man will become sunburned. Esau was that kind of man. He was red. He was sunburned. He was not only sunburned physically, he was also sunburned spiritually. What is sunburn? It means the skin will absorb all the rays of the light except one particular ray, and that is what burns. The soul that will not accept the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, the Light of the World, will become sunburned, just as Esau was.
John gives us a test to see if we are in darkness. This is the test—
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness bath blinded his eyes [1 John 2:10–11].
When the Lord Jesus was here on earth, He said, “… I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). My friend, we need to apply John’s test to our own lives. Have you really trusted Christ? Is He your light? Is He the one who is so guiding you that you are not hating your brother?
Here is a bit of poetry which sets this truth before us—
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“I am this dark world’s light.
Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise,
And all thy days be bright.”
I looked to Jesus, and I found
In Him my star, my sun,
And in that light of life I’ll walk,
Till traveling days are done.
“I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say”
—Horatius Bonar
Now, of course, there are other believers whose habits you dislike. You may have a distaste for some of their expressions. You may even have a personality that clashes with that of another brother. But that doesn’t mean you hate him.
When I was attending seminary, I roomed with a fellow who had some of the meanest habits I have ever seen in a Christian. He would start singing at night after I went to bed and was asleep. He wouldn’t sing all day long, but at eleven o’clock at night, he was ready to tune up. He had a lot of mean habits like that. So one day I told him, “You know, you are the greatest proof to me that I am a child of God.” He asked, “What do you mean?” I replied, “You are the most nauseating, the most sickening Christian that I have ever met, but I do want you to know something—I love you.” He looked right at me and said, “I want you to know that you are the most abominable Christian I have ever met, and I also want you to know you are the hardest person in the world to love, but I love you.” Years later that fellow got into some trouble. I made a trip to see him, to see if there was anything I could do to help him. When I met him, I found that he wasn’t any more lovable than he had been when I roomed with him. He was even more objectionable, and I think he found me the same, but I didn’t hate him. That man was a child of God, and God marvelously used him in the ministry. In many ways he was a great fellow. I don’t know why it is that when a Christian finds he doesn’t like somebody, he thinks the only alternative is to hate him. You don’t have to hate him at all; you are to love him as a child of God.
My friend, John has given here a tremendous statement: “He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.” If you want to know for sure that you are a child of God, apply this test to your own life. If you are hating your brother, you are dwelling in darkness. If you are loving your brother, you are dwelling in light.
The Christian life is like a triangle. Let me diagram it for you (see below). God is at the top of the triangle, and the light of God comes down into your heart and life. Your love for God goes up, for you love Him because He first loved you. If you are walking in the light down here, it means you are going to love your brother also. You cannot say you love God and hate your brother. That is absolutely impossible, and John will make this very clear later on.
At this point it seems to me that we have a departure from the theme which John has been following. He begins to talk about the three different degrees of believers.
I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake [1 John 2:12].
These whom he calls “little children,” the Greek teknia, little born ones, I think refer to all believers, regardless of their age or their maturity as believers. The basis on which all Christians rest is the forgiveness of sins because of the shed blood of Christ. “Your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.”
Some Christians stay in that position of little children and never move out of that area.
Now John moves to another group—
I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father [1 John 2:13].
“Fathers” are the saints who have known the Lord Jesus for many years and have grown and matured. Personally, I think that David wrote Psalm 23 when he was an old man. He could never have written that psalm as a young shepherd, because it is a psalm which had grown out of life’s vicissitudes. David had faced all sorts of problems and dangers, and he had lived in fellowship with God. He was a matured child of God and would certainly fall under John’s classification of “fathers.” I have called Psalm 23 the psalm of an old king. I believe David wrote it as he was seated upon his throne, looking back over his life. He remembers that shepherd boy who would take the flocks out to pasture on the hills of Bethlehem, how he would protect them from the bears and lions. Then he remembers when he was made king and became the shepherd of a people. As he looks back over his checkered career, he recalls his wonderful friendship with Jonathan, his flight from King Saul, then his reign in Hebron, and finally when God made him king over all twelve tribes. Then he remembers his awful sin and God’s gracious forgiveness when he confessed it to Him. He recalls the trouble in his home (because God had taken him to the woodshed), especially the rebellion of Absalom, the son whom he most loved. He recalls his flight from Jerusalem and being holed up again and then receiving the news of Absalom’s death, which had been a heartbreak to him. With these things in mind, the old king says, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Ps. 23:1). As a mature child of God, he recounts how God led him in green pastures and beside still waters and restored his soul. It is folk like David whom John is addressing as “fathers.”
“I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one.” The “young men” are not as mature as the fathers, that is, they haven’t had the experience the fathers have had, but they have learned the secret of overcoming the enemy by the blood of Christ. They have learned how to live for God. Don’t tell me that a young person cannot live for God in this day.
“I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.” The “little children” in this case is the Greek paidia, immature little folk. They are the ones who know they are the children of God, but that is about all they know—and some of them feel that is all they want to know. Oh, how many children of God fall into this classification! In some churches you feel as if you are in a spiritual nursery! Although the folk are physically fullgrown, some of them with gray hair, they are still spiritually immature. They never did grow up.
Now John has something more to add; so he goes over each of these degrees of believers again.
I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one [1 John 2:14].
“I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning.” John doesn’t add anything to that because you can’t go beyond that. As Paul expressed it, knowing “… him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Phil. 3:10) is what makes one a father in Christ.
My friend, how do you get to know somebody? By living with him day by day. I have discovered that my wife knows me. She has been living with me for over forty years so she knows me very well. And the summer I was forced to stay home because of illness, she and I sat on our back patio and really got acquainted with each other. We talked about many things from the time we met down to the present. Although I was sick during that time, it was the greatest summer I have ever spent. I know her better now, and she knows me better.
Now how are we going to know the Lord Jesus Christ? My friend, the only way you can know Him is in the Word of God. That is where He is revealed. Many folk feel that if they go to a Bible study once a week, they will become super-duper saints. But the Word of God is like food. I’ve conducted Bible studies once a week over the years, and I certainly approve of them, but imagine going in and eating a good meal and then saying, “I’ll be back for another meal in a week.” Well, if you don’t get any food in the meantime, you will be in bad shape. This is the reason I have maintained a daily Bible-teaching program by radio. The Word of God is the Bread of Life. If we are to know Christ, we must live with Him in His Word as we go through the joys and sorrows of this life.
Now John addresses the second group—“I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.” In the previous verse John said that the young men were strong and they were able to overcome the wicked one. But now he gives the secret: “the word of God abideth in you.” My friend, how can you and I overcome the wicked one? With the Word of God. In Ephesians 6 the Christian’s armor is listed, piece by piece, and the weapon of offense is the “… sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17). If you are going to be able to defend yourself against the Devil, you will have to have a good knowledge of the Word of God. The reason so many believers are succumbing to the sins of the world is that they are not studying the Word of God. You eat three times a day—you need physical food to be strong—and, believe me, you need spiritual food to be strong also.
DEAR CHILDREN MUST NOT LOVE THE WORLD
This is a section which a great many would separate from what has gone before, but I feel that it is very much a part of what John has been talking about. John has been telling us how we as God’s children can know that we are His children. He has said that the way we can know is by the fact that we love Him and keep His commandments. Later on, John is going to say that His commandments are not grievous. We are not talking about the Ten Commandments here but about the commandments which the Lord Jesus gave, for we have been brought into the Holy of Holies in a very personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Someone has made this division which I like: The Epistle to the Romans deals with how we come out of the house of bondage; Ephesians is how we enter the banqueting house; Hebrews is how we approach the throne of grace, but 1 John is how we approach the divine presence.
The way in which we can have assurance and be a proof not only to our neighbor but also to ourselves that we are genuine children of God is by our obedience to Him and our desire to please Him in all we do. I feel that there are some folk today who more or less grit their teeth and say, “Yes, I’ll obey Him.” But their motive is not love, and love should be the motive for obedience to Him. The Lord Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).
My friend, when you obey the commandments of Christ because you love Him, a great many of the family problems will be solved and a great deal of the uncertainty in your own heart will disappear. If someone is offering a little course to follow in living the Christian life, people come running. A great many folk like to lean on something—even if it is a poor, broken reed which won’t hold them up.
Christianity is based on a love relationship. Salvation is a love affair. John is going to tell us more about this later when he says, “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him [1 John 2:15].
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” What “world” is John talking about? He does not mean the world of creation, that is, the system and order found in the physical creation. In spring the flowers bloom and the trees put out leaves. In the fall the leaves begin to turn all kinds of beautiful colors, like yellow and gold and red. Then the leaves fall off, and winter soon comes. This is not the world we are warned against loving. This is the world God created for our enjoyment.
It is just as the poet says in “The Vision of Sir Launfal”—
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten.
—James Russell Lowell
I learned that poem when I was in grammar school, and it has always stayed with me. My birthday is in June, and in June I always think of how wonderful nature is.
The hymn writer has put it like this—
Heav’n above is softer blue,
Earth around is sweeter green!
Something lives in every hue
Christless eyes have never seen.
Birds with gladder songs o’erflow,
Flow’rs with deeper beauties shine,
Since I know, as now I know,
I am His, and He is mine.
“I Am His, and He Is Mine”
—Wade Robinson
Isn’t that lovely? John is not talking about the physical earth where beautiful roses and tall trees grow. The wonderful mountains and the falls and the running streams are not what we are to hate. Rather, they are something we can admire and relish and enjoy.
Nor is the world about which John speaks the world of humanity or mankind. We are told that “God so loved the world.” What world? The world of people, of human beings. “… God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son …” (John 3:16).
Then what world does John mean? The Greek word for “world” here is kosmos. It means the world system, the organized system headed by Satan which leaves God out and is actually in opposition to Him. The thing which we need to hate today is this thing in the world which is organized against God.
Believe me, there is a world system in operation today, and it is satanic. John mentions this in his gospel where the Lord Jesus says, “Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30). “The prince of this world”—the prince of the world system, which is included in the civilization that you and I are in today. The world system belongs to Satan. He offered the kingdoms of this world to the Lord Jesus, and I don’t think he left out the United States when he made the offer—it all belongs to him, and we are not to love this world. We read in John 16:11, “Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.” Again, the Lord Jesus is referring to the satanic system that is in this world today. In Ephesians 1:4, when Paul speaks of “…the foundation of the world…”, he is talking about the material creation, but when we come to Ephesians 2:2, he says, “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world….” What is “the course of this world”? This is a world that is filled with greed, with selfish ambition, with fleshly pleasures, with deceit, and lying and danger. That is the world we live in, and John says that we are not to love the world. We are living in a godless world that is in rebellion against God. Our contemporary culture and civilization is anti-God, and the child of God ought not to love it. We are in the world, but we are not of the world. Many of us must move in the business world, many of us must move even in the social realm, but we do not have to be a part of it.
We need to recognize that we are going to be obedient to one world or the other. You are either going to obey the world system and live in it and enjoy it, or you are going to obey God. Listen to Paul in Galatians 6:14: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” In effect Paul is saying, “There stands between me and this satanic world system, a cross. Both are bidding for me and, as a child of God, I am obedient unto Him, and I glory in the cross of Christ.” You can be sure that the world today is not glorying in the cross of, Christ!
Peter also speaks of this: “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world …” (2 Pet. 2:20, italics mine). He spoke earlier of the corruption of the world. We live in a world that is corrupted and polluted. We are hearing so much today about air pollution and water pollution, but what about the minds which are being polluted by all the pornography and vile language? What about the spirit of man that is being dulled by all these things?
“If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” You may run with the Devil’s crowd all week long and then run with the Lord’s crowd on Sunday, but it is obvious that the love of the Father is not in you.
In Romans 7 Paul describes his own struggle as a Christian. He says in effect, “I have discovered that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. I have found that there is no power in the new nature. What I would not do, I’m doing. What the new nature wants to do, the old nature balks at—the old nature backslides and will not do that thing.” So there is a real conflict which goes on in the heart of the Christian as long as he is in the world with that old nature. For the old nature is geared to this world in which we live; it’s meshed into the program of the world.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world [1 John 2:16].
John lists these three things that are in the world. These are not only the temptations which face us, they are also the temptations which Satan brought to Eve (see Gen. 3:6) and to the Lord Jesus Christ (see Matt. 4:1–11).
1. “The lust of the flesh.” Eve saw that the tree was good for food—if you were hungry, it was a good place to eat. Scripture condemns gluttony and the many other sins of the flesh. So many things appeal to the flesh. There is an overemphasis on sex today both in the church and out of the church—it is all of the flesh. Satan brought this same temptation to the Lord Jesus: “And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread” (Matt. 4:2–3). The Lord Jesus could have done that. The difference between the Lord Jesus Christ and myself is that if I could turn stones into bread, I suspect that I would be doing it, but He didn’t. He was being tested in that same area in which you and I are being tested—the desires of the flesh. We are being tested, and there is no sin in being tested. The sin is in yielding to the temptation. This same principle applies to sex or to any other realm of the desires of the flesh.
2. “The lust of the eyes.” Eve saw that the tree was pleasant to the eyes. Remember also that Satan showed the Lord Jesus Christ all the kingdoms of this world. Let me tell you, they are very attractive, and they are in the hands of Satan. There is a godless philosophy which is trying to get control of the world today. There will come a day when Antichrist will arise—he is coming to rule this world for Satan. This is an attractive world that we live in, with all of its display, all of its pageantry, all of its human glory.
3. “The pride of life.” Eve saw that the tree was to be desired to make one wise. Many people like to pride themselves on their family. They pride themselves on the fact that they come from a very old family and upon the fact that they belong to a certain race. There are a number of races which are very proud of that. That was the appeal which Hitler made to the German people, and it is an appeal to any race. That is a pride of life. It is that which makes us feel superior to someone else. It is found even in religion today. I meet saints who feel they are super-duper saints. As one man said to me, “I heartily approve of your Bible study program on radio.” In fact, he has given financially to our program to help keep it going. He said, “I know a lot of people who listen to it, and they need it,” but he very frankly told me, “I don’t listen to it.” He felt that he didn’t need it, that he had arrived, that he was a very mature saint. Of course, it proves that he is a very immature saint when he even talks like that. Satan took the Lord Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and said, “Cast yourself down. A great many people will witness it, and You will demonstrate to them Your superiority.” It was probably at a feast time when many would have seen Him, but the Lord Jesus never performed a miracle in order to demonstrate His superiority.
These are the three appeals that the world makes to you and me today. But when we make our tummy our goal in life, when we attempt to make beauty our goal, or even when we attempt to make that which is religious our goal, it leads to the most distorted view of life that is possible. These things are of the world, and they become deadly. We are told that we are not to love these things because God does not love them—He intends to destroy this world system someday. What is our enemy? The world, the flesh, and the Devil. This is the same temptation which Satan brought to Eve and to the Lord Jesus. He has not changed his tactics. He brings this same temptation to you and to me, and we fall for it.
Now John gives us the reason we are not to love this world—
And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever [1 John 2:17].
I have always enjoyed going to England and visiting such places as the Tower of London, Tewkesbury Castle, Warwick Castle, Hampton Court, Windsor Castle, and Canterbury. Many of us have ancestors who came from over there, but those folk were a bloody, cruel, vain, and worldly people. Just recall the way Henry VIII took Hampton Court away from Cardinal Wolsey who was the one who had built it. Poor old Cardinal Wolsey before he died said something like this, “If I had only served my God like I served my king, I wouldn’t be here today.”
My, how Henry VIII could eat! And when he got tired of a wife—he had several—he just sent her to the Tower to be beheaded. Go and look at all of that today—“the world passeth away.” What a story of bloodshed is told at the Tower of London, of the pride of life and of the lust of the flesh. The lust of the eyes also—how beautiful Windsor and Hampton Court are! Even the arrangement of the flowers was made by Sir Christopher Wren, the wonderful architect who also built St. Paul’s Cathedral. There is a glory that belongs to all of that, but it has already passed away. England is just a third-rate power in the world today and maybe not even a third-rate power. All of that has passed away and the lust of it. Where is the lust of Henry VIII today? It is in one of those tombs over there. Just think of all the glory which is buried in Westminster—all of that has passed away.
When I look back to when I was a young man, I wish that somehow I could reach back there and reclaim some of those days and some of the strength which I had then. I wish I could use for God what I squandered when I was young. “The world is passing away.”
“But he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” Why don’t you work at something which is permanent, something which has stability, something which is going to last for eternity?
Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time [1 John 2:18].
The word translated “little children” here is slightly different from the word that is translated in the same way back in verse 12. There it is a term of affection and implies all who are born into God’s family, God’s little born ones, little bairns as the Scottish term is. These little children here indicate the first degree of spiritual experience which we have seen in verses 12–14: the fathers at the top, then the young men, and then the little babies. Here John is talking to the little babies again. The little babies haven’t grown up yet. They are passing through this world, and the chances are that they have been tripped up by one of these three things which John has just mentioned.
“It is the last time.” We are living in the last day here upon the earth. It has been the last time for a long time. This is the age when God is calling out a people for His name. You can say at any time during this period, “Now is the acceptable time. Today if you will hear His voice.” Why the urgency about salvation? Because, my friend, you might not be here tomorrow. Tomorrow I might no longer be heard preaching on the radio. It just might be that we will not be around, so it is important that I give out the Word, and it is important that you hear the Word.
“As ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” Many antichrists had already appeared in John’s day, but there is coming the Antichrist. What do we mean by antichrist? I think that this word has been misunderstood and, as a result, the person who is coming has been misunderstood. Antichrist is made up of two words: the title Christ and the preposition anti. It is important to see that anti has two meanings. It can mean “against.” If I am anti-something, that means I am against that thing. Anti can also mean “instead of, an imitation of.” Therefore, it can be a substitute. It can be either a very good substitute or just a subterfuge for something.
The question arises, therefore: Is the Antichrist to be a false Christ or is he an enemy of Christ? Where does Scripture place the emphasis? There are several references to Antichrist in 1 John, but the only things we can derive from this verse is that there is going to be the Antichrist and that there were already many antichrists in John’s day. What was the thing which identified an antichrist? He was one who denied the deity of Christ. That is the primary definition of an antichrist which we are given in 1 John, as we shall see when we come to verse 22. This is the emphasis in 1 John, but you will recall that the Lord Jesus said, “… many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matt. 24:5). That is antichrist—instead of Christ, claiming to be Christ.
I personally believe that there are going to be two persons at the end of the age who will fulfill both of these types—being against Christ and claiming to be Christ. Scripture presents it that way in Revelation 13. There we have presented a “wild beast” who comes out of the sea, and Satan is the one who calls him forth. That is the political ruler, and he is definitely against Christ. There is a second beast who comes out of the land. He appears to be a lamb, but he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He pretends to be Christ who is “… the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He will be a religious ruler. The political ruler will come out of the gentile world, the former Roman Empire. The religious ruler will come out of the nation Israel—they would not accept him as their Messiah unless he did. So that you have actually two persons who will together fulfill this term antichrist. They are coming at the end of the age, and both of them can be called Antichrist—one against Christ and the other instead of Christ.
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 [1 John 2:19].
This is very solemn. John says that some who had made a profession of being Christians in that day had all the outward trappings of being Christians. They bore the Christian name, and they identified themselves with some local assembly, some church. They were baptized, immersed, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They took the bread and the cup at the communion service. But John says that the way you can tell whether or not one is really a child of God is that eventually a man will show his true colors and will leave the assembly of God if he is not a child of God. He will withdraw from the Christians, the body of believers, and he will go right back into the world.
We see in 2 Peter what I call “the parable of the prodigal pig.” Peter speaks in that epistle of “… the sow that was washed …” (2 Pet. 2:22). Not only did a son get down in the pigpen, but also a little pig got washed. A little girl pig went up to the Father’s house, became very religious, got all cleaned up with a pink bow around her neck and her teeth washed with Pepsodent, but she found she didn’t like the Father’s house because she was a pig. So one day she said, “I’m going to arise and go to my father, my old man.” Her old man was down in a big loblolly of mud. The little pig went home, and when she saw her old man, she squealed, made a leap, and landed in the mud right by the side of him. Why? Because she was a pig. “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” That’s a harsh, cruel statement, but it happens to be a true statement. There are many who make professions of being Christians, but they are not really Christians.
Remember that the Lord said of Judas, “But, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table” (Luke 22:21). Right there, at the first communion service, there was a traitor, Judas Iscariot, and he was one who was identified with the group of faithful disciples. We read in John 6:70, “Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a demon?” Judas was never anything else although he looked like an apostle, he acted like an apostle, and he had power, I believe, to perform miracles. He went out with the others, and they were not able to identify him as being a phony, but he was.
John makes a very solemn and serious statement here, and he makes this statement to us today. The Lord Jesus said to a very religious man, Nicodemus, that he must be born again. He said to him that night, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). John says here, “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” They looked as if they were true children of God, but they actually were not, and the real test, of course, was the Word of God. This ought to cause every Christian, including this poor preacher who writes this, to ask himself the question: Have I really faced up to my sins in the light of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ? Have I come to God in repentance, owning my guilt and acknowledging my iniquity? Have I cast myself upon Him and Him only for my salvation? Have I evidence in my life of being a regenerate soul of God? Do I love the Word of God? Do I want the Word of God? Is it bread to me? Is it meat to me? Is it drink to me? Do I love the brethren? And do I love the Lord Jesus Christ? These are the things which we need to consider, my friends, and the Word of God enjoins us in this particular connection.
After presenting justification by faith in no uncertain terms, Paul goes on to make it clear in Galatians 6:15, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.” You cannot even boast of the grace of God and say, “Oh, I don’t trust in church membership. I don’t trust in baptism.” Well, whether or not you believe they are necessary for your salvation, the essential question is: Have you really been born again? Or, perhaps you are one who is trusting in these things. Again the important question is: Are you a new creation in Christ Jesus?
Paul spoke to the Corinthians, some of whom had reason to believe they might not be children of God: “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (2 Cor. 13:5). My friend, it is very important that you really know that you are a child of God. Paul also wrote earlier to the believers in Corinth, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong” (1 Cor. 16:13). Friend, how are you doing with the Christian life? Are you really a child of God today? Is there evidence in your life that you are a child of God? I’m not talking about whether you have committed a sin or not, but what did you do after you committed the sin? Did you continue on in sin? The prodigal son got into a pigpen, but he did not continue there—that was not his permanent address. If you had mailed him a letter after he had been there a few weeks or months, unless the pigs had forwarded it, he wouldn’t have gotten your letter. That was no longer his address; he had gone home. The child of God, after he has sinned, is going to go to God with hot tears coursing down his cheeks and crying out to Him in confession. If he doesn’t do that, he’s not God’s child.
God’s child must hate sin. This light view of sin which we have today is simply something that is not quite scriptural. I am afraid that there are many church members who are just taking it for granted that they are children of God because they are as active as termites in the church—and they have just about the same effect as termites.
Let me pass this little story on to you. I have heard it told several different ways, and I don’t know which way is accurate. Years ago in London, living down in the slums, there was a woman of the underworld, a prostitute. She had a little son, and she became terribly sick. She was frightened because she knew she was dying, and she sent her little son to get a minister, as she put it, “to get me in.” She told the little fellow, “You go get a minister to get me in.”
The little fellow went out looking for a church. He had to go a long way before he found a very imposing looking church. He went around to the rectory, and the minister came to the door when he rang the bell. The minister looked at this little urchin and said, “What do you want?” The little boy replied, “My old lady is dying. She wants you to come and get her in.” At first the minister thought the boy meant that his mother was out drunk somewhere, so he said, “Get a policeman. It’s raining tonight, and I don’t want to go out. Get a policeman to get her home.” The little fellow said, “She’s already home. She’s not drunk. She is home in bed, and she is dying. She wants somebody to get her in, and she wants me to get a minister. Would you come?” That liberal minister was stunned for a moment. He knew that he should go, that he couldn’t turn down a request like that, so he got his coat and umbrella, and he went with the little fellow. They walked and walked and came finally to a very poor section of London and found the creaky stairs which led to an upstairs bedroom.
All the way over, the minister had thought, What will I say to her? I can’t say to her what I have always preached to my people. He had always told his congregation that they were people of culture and refinement, that they were to keep that up and continue to be very cultured and refined. He thought, What in the world can I say to her? I can’t even tell her to reform. She ought to be reformed, but it is too late now. What can I tell her? Then he remembered that as a boy his mother had always quoted John 3:16, and in desperation he turned to that verse when he sat down beside this woman. It actually wasn’t too familiar to him, but he read it to her: “… God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The dear woman wanted to go over the verse with him. She said, “Do you mean that in spite of the type of person I am, all I have to do is just trust in Jesus?” He said, “Well, that is what it says here. It says that God gave His Son to die on a cross. It says, ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up’ (see John 3:14). That is, what I read here, and so that is what you are to do.” This dear woman, before she died, right there accepted Christ as her Savior. The preacher himself told the story afterwards, and he said, “That night I not only got her in, but I got myself in.” My friend, are you sure that you are in? Are you sure that you have trusted Him and that He is your Savior?
Some people will write me and say, “You have no right to ask questions like that because we have been members of the church for thirty years.” Well, I think you ought to examine yourselves and see whether you are in the faith or not. It is wonderful to make an inventory and find out where you are. There was a time in the Thru the Bible radio ministry when we didn’t know where we were financially because our accountant became too ill to help us. When we got an accountant, we found that, although we had thought we were sailing along on nice, blue seas, we really weren’t. Thank the Lord, we found it out in time—but it was only because we examined our condition. A great many church members need to examine themselves. Are you really in the faith? Do you really trust Christ? Someone will say, “You are robbing me of my assurance of salvation.” My friend, I believe in the security of believers, but I also believe in the insecurity of make-believers. We need to examine ourselves to see what kind of believer we really are.
At the beginning of this chapter, John made it very clear that we can know that we are God’s children and that we can have fellowship with Him. In spite of the fact that we are His feeble, frail, faltering, falling little children, we can still have fellowship with Him because the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, just keeps on cleansing us from all sin. We have an Advocate up there with the Father, and He’s for us—He is on our side.
Then beginning at verse 3 we saw that God is love. This is the very heart of this epistle. Love is mentioned about thirty-three times. John said that the dear children may have fellowship with each other by walking in love. In other words, the little children must recognize that they are called to live a different kind of life. They now have been given a new nature. They now can live for God. Obedience is the test of life. We can know whether we really have life or not if we keep His commandments—and not only His commandments but His Word. Obeying His Word means we are willing to go even farther than anything he had commanded.
The difference between law and grace is brought out by what John has said. The law said: If a man do, he shall live. But grace says the opposite: If a man live, he will do. That is, a man must have a life from God before he can live for God. He cannot by the old nature live for God. This is the radical difference between law and grace. The law says, “Do,” but grace says, “Believe.” It is a different approach to the same goal. The only problem is that law never did work for man because it is impossible for the old nature to please God. We all have come short of the glory of God. John showed that the real test is: Do I delight in the will of God? Do I love His commandments? If you are a child of God, you have a new nature, and now you want to please Him. It has been expressed like this in a little jingle:
My old companions, fare you well.
I cannot go with you to hell.
I mean with Jesus Christ to dwell.
I will go with Him, and tell.
—Author unknown
That may be a very poor piece of poetry, but it certainly expresses it as it really is. You cannot be having fellowship with God and other believers if you are living in sin.
Proverbs 28:13 says, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” Though we know that the blood of Christ does indeed cover us from all sin, we cannot walk and live in sin and at the same time have fellowship with God and with other believers. If you and I have a life which commends the gospel, it is another assurance that is given to us. I personally do not think you can have real assurance down deep in your heart unless you are obedient unto God. I believe that you can know beyond the peradventure of a doubt that you are a child of God. Such assurance is not presumptuous, it is not audacious, it is not being arrogant, it is not effrontery, it is not a gratuitous assumption, it is not overconfidence, it is not self-deception, it is not wild boasting, it is not self-assertion. In fact, it is true humility. Knowing that you are saved and the eternal security of the believer are not the same; they are not synonymous, although they are related. The Lord Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:27–28). If you are His sheep, you will hear His voice. You are not boasting when you say that you know you are saved. You are saying that you have a wonderful Shepherd. You are not saying that you are wonderful but that your Shepherd is wonderful. What a tremendous truth this is!
But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things [1 John 2:20].
What John means here by “unction” is anointing. We have an anointing, and that is the anointing of the Holy Spirit. We are going to see this later in verse 27 where John says, “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you.”
“But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” The Holy Spirit indwells every real believer and is able to reveal to him all things. “… Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit …” (1 Cor. 2:9–10) so that we have someone dwelling in us who can reveal to us these things which are in the Word of God. We have an anointing, and every person can have the assurance of his salvation. If you really want to do business with God, if you really want to get right down to the nitty-gritty with Him, come to Him, ask for light, ask for guidance, and ask for His assurance.
“And ye know all things.” John means that all the things that you should know as a child of God are potentially yours to know. This does not mean that you have suddenly been given a Ph.D. degree in spiritual things. It does mean that by the Holy Spirit you can study the Word of God, and then through the experiences which God sends to you, you have the possibility of growing in these matters.
Many a child of God grows in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. I have been amazed at the number of lay people whom I have met in my ministry who have done so. The first time I discovered this was when I was a student in my first year in seminary during the Depression, way back in the late 1920s. I was asked to go to a little Baptist church in the cotton mill section of Sherman, Texas. I went up there and preached four times that Sunday. I never will forget that! Because the cotton mill hadn’t been operating for over a year, they gave me thirty cents for an honorarium! A friend of mine, a fellow student, went with me, and on the way home he asked, “Why are you so quiet?” I told him, “The offering I got was thirty cents!” He said, “Well, this is a real event for you. This is probably the only time that you will ever be paid exactly what you are worth.” Thirty cents—but, gracious, that had to be spread over the four sermons which I had given!
We had dinner, that is, the noon meal, that day in a home where there was an elderly woman whom everybody called “Grandma.” (There were about twenty people there, but I don’t think she was a grandmother to everybody!) She told me that she had come in a covered wagon in the early days and that she had loaded the rifle for her husband as he had shot at attacking Indians. She had been a real pioneer. But she had never learned to read nor write, and she wasn’t able to go to church. The people asked me, “Would you read something to Grandma?” Being a first-year seminary student, I thought I would give her the benefit of my vast knowledge of Scripture (which, by the way, wasn’t so vast). I thought I would take something easy and familiar so I began to read John 14. As I went along, I wanted to explain it to Grandma—after all, she couldn’t read nor write, and I thought I should help her. I made a comment or two as she sat there, and I thought she looked a little bored. After a few minutes she said, “Young man, had you ever noticed this?” Frankly, she made comments to bring out some things in that passage which I had never heard before. In fact, there was no professor in school who had ever mentioned what she mentioned about that passage of Scripture. Before we got through the chapter, she was telling me and I was listening.
This friend of mine who had come with me was sitting over in the corner, and I knew he was really going to get me for this. On the way home that night, he made another comment. He said, “My, you sure were helpful to Grandma today!” I said, “Where in the world do you suppose that woman learned so much about John 14?” He replied, “Did it ever occur to you that maybe the Holy Spirit is her Teacher? Maybe you and I have been listening to the wrong teachers!” John is saying here that we need to let the Holy Spirit be our Teacher. “Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” That’s potential—it is up to you whether you are going to learn or not.
I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth [1 John 2:21].
“I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth”—they had the gospel; they had the truth. John is not writing something new to these folk. He is writing to them for what I think is a twofold purpose. One is to encourage them, and the other is to warn them because there was false teaching going out in that day.
“But because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.” John is saying that they had the truth, but now lies were coming in. Gnosticism was coming in, and there were many antichrists who were appearing.
Who is an antichrist? We have already said just a few words about this, but now John will say a little bit more—
Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son [1 John 2:22].
The language is much stronger here; it is, “Who is the liar?” In other words, all lies are summed up in the one who is the prince of liars, the Devil. There is coming a man who is Satan’s man, and he is the liar. And a liar is one who does not tell the truth.
“Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” John gives us now the definition of antichrist. This will be the embodiment of the Antichrist, but there are many antichrists. There were some in John’s day; there have been some down to our day, and there are many today. Who are they? They are easy to recognize—they are those who deny the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, those who deny that Jesus the man is the Christ, the Messiah, the one who is God, the one whose name is Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the one who is pictured in the Old Testament. To deny that is being antichrist.
We have many systems in the world today which deny Him. They are against Christ, and they also imitate Him and try to take His place. In the early church it was Gnosticism. Irenaeus made this statement, “They [that is, the Gnostics] say that Jesus was the son of Joseph and born after the manner of other men.” That is the way Irenaeus identified the Gnostics in his day.
Liberalism and all of the cults and “isms” today have also denied His deity. Very candidly, I do not mind saying that the rock opera, “Jesus Christ Superstar,” is antichrist. It does not by any means present the Jesus of the Bible who is the Savior of the world. Many years ago Dr. William E. Hocking, who was professor of philosophy at Harvard University, wrote Living Religions and a World Faith. He made this statement, “God is in His world, but Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed are in their little private closets, and we shall thank them, but never return to them.” You can see that that is simply a direct, rank denial of the deity of Christ. The one “that denieth the Father and the Son”—that will be the sure mark of the Antichrist, and there are many antichrists even today, of course.
John has identified antichrist for us as the one who denies the Father and the Son. Now he will make it clear in verse 23 that you cannot deny the Son without denying the Father. You see, the deity of Christ is essential to your salvation because if He is not God, the man who died on the cross over nineteen hundred years ago cannot be your Savior—in fact, He could not even be His own Savior. None of us as human beings can die for the other. It was necessary for God to become a man in order that you and I might have redemption. Therefore, John says—
Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: [but] he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also [1 John 2:23].
When you say that you believe in God and deny the deity of Christ, you really do not 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 since the Son is God, He alone is the one who could make a satisfactory sacrifice to God for our sins. Had he been anyone else other than God, He Himself would have been a sinner.
In the great Riverside Church in New York City when Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick was the pastor, the cover page of a bulletin at that time said, “Whoever you are that worship here, in whatever household of faith you were born, whatever creed you profess, if you come to this sanctuary to seek the God in whom you believe or to rededicate yourself to the God in whom you do believe, you are welcome.” It goes on to say a lot about peace and the Fatherhood of God, but I’m nauseated reading that far so I will not quote any more of it. It sounds sweet and flowery; it appeals to the natural man, but John’s whole point is that we need to beware of this, for this is antichrist. We need to emphasize this very important verse.
Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father [1 John 2:24].
“Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning.” “The beginning” in 1 John goes back to the incarnation of Christ. That “which ye have heard from the beginning,” that which you heard concerning His incarnation, that which you heard concerning His life, that which you heard concerning His death and resurrection—in other words, that which they had heard from the beginning when the apostles began to preach the gospel.
“If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.” I know a man who heard our Bible-teaching radio program more than twenty years ago in San Diego. I’m not going to tell you about his life before then, but when he heard the broadcast, right there and then he accepted Christ as his Savior. God put him at the head of the Christian Servicemen’s Center in San Diego, and it is one of the finest in the world. Down through the years, he has been responsible for leading literally thousands of sailor boys and soldier boys to the Lord. I thank God for the testimony of this man’s life because John says that if you abide in Him, that is the evidence that you are a child of God.
It is essential, therefore, to have a living faith which rests in the One who came to this earth more than nineteen hundred years ago. In his gospel John wrote, “… the Word was made [became] flesh, and dwelt among us …” (John 1:14). How tremendous that is! “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). He has “declared”—exeµgeomai, exegeted God. He has led God out to where we can know about Him because God became a man. That is the only way you and I could know about Him. We can now know about God. The important thing in this whole section of Scripture is communion with the Father and with the Son. The emphasis here is not so much upon having life in Christ through faith in Him, but the emphasis is upon having communion and enjoying that fellowship with Him which is so essential.
And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life [1 John 2:25].
The only kind of life that God offers is eternal life. If you lose it tomorrow or next week or next year, it isn’t eternal life that you have. It is some other kind of life, but not eternal life.
These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you [1 John 2:26].
Seduce means “to lead astray, to lead from the truth.” I think that seduce is a good word here because it applies in exactly the same way in both the physical and spiritual realms. In other words, you lead a person to commit spiritual adultery when you lead him away from the truth.
Even in John’s day there were those coming along who were beginning to deny the Father and the Son, beginning to deny that the Lord Jesus Christ was who He claimed to be. They were seducing some of those who were professing Christians. John says that the thing which you must hold onto is that God has promised you eternal life if you put your faith in Christ, and you do not need to add anything to that.
John was telling the people of his day that they did not need what the Gnostics were teaching. The Gnostics pretended to have super-duper knowledge, that they knew a little bit more than anyone else. I am afraid that in our own day there is a real danger when a great many people are going to so many Bible classes. There is the danger of their becoming super-duper saints. A lady said something to me the other day which I didn’t appreciate very much because I know her husband so well and he is a wonderful Christian. She’s been going to Bible classes, and they have been fine classes. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not criticizing the Bible classes. However, she was adopting a very superior attitude toward her husband, that she knew more than he knew, and that she was really the one who could teach him. Very frankly, I don’t think she could. He is a very intelligent man, and although he is not able to be in as many Bible classes as she is, what he does hear has an effect upon his life. So there is a real danger of present-day Gnosticism, of professing to have a superknowledge and maybe even a super-experience, of becoming a super-duper saint where there is just no one else at your level.
Such a position is a dangerous one to come to because if you come into a knowledge of Christ and you begin to grow in grace and knowledge of Him, you will have the same experience that John the Baptist had, which he expressed this way, “He [Christ] must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).
I’m going to make a confession to you, and I hope you won’t let it out but will just keep it in the family. In one sense it is a little disturbing to me that my study of the Word of God does not reveal how much I know, but rather it reveals how much I don’t know and how woefully ignorant I am. I am studying the Bible now as I never have in my entire life, but when I graduated from seminary, I practically knew it all; there was very little that I thought I needed to learn after that. There were certain things I thought I knew at that time, but very frankly, I’m coming now to find that I didn’t know them at all. I thought I did, but I didn’t know them at all. There is a vast field of knowledge today for the child of God. It behooves us to make this matter of coming to know Christ through His Word a serious business and to give it top priority in our lives. That is the thing that is all important, and all that John is really saying is, “I don’t want you to become a super-duper saint. I want you to rest upon the promise of God.”
Now John is going to say to them, “You know Him as your Savior—hold on to that—but now you also want to have communion with Him and the Father, and to have fellowship with Him and the Father and with other believers.”
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 [1 John 2:27].
“Anointing” is the Greek word charisma. We speak of a certain speaker or preacher as having charisma. If he doesn’t have charisma, he doesn’t get very far today, you’ll have to admit that. When I went to my classical dictionary, I must say I was shocked and disappointed. This word means “to smear on”; it means to take an ointment and smear it on. It is like when you take a medicated petrolatum and put it on your chest at night—you are anointing yourself, you are smearing it on. That is literally what charisma means. I checked with Dr. R.C. Trench and Dr. Marvin Vincent, two outstanding Greek scholars, and they also have come up with the same meaning. Charisma means “to smear on.”
But what does this mean for us today as believers? Back in the Old Testament, by the command of God, the Israelite priests were anointed with oil. That anointing indicated in a physical way that they were specially endued by the Holy Spirit to perform a certain function. That is what the anointing here means for us today. “But the anointing which ye have received of him”—that is, you and I have received an anointing of God. When you are saved, one of the things which the Spirit of God does for you is that He anoints you. He anoints you to understand divine truth which you could not understand before.
“But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you.” The important thing to note here is that John is not saying that 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 who are gifted—some who are teachers, some who are evangelists, and some who are shepherds to minister to and counsel folk. Paul said that God has given these men to the church to build up the body of believers. I think it is important that we all sit under good teachers.
As I think back over my life, I thank God for the godly men who have crossed my pathway. They are the ones who are responsible for my being in the ministry. I have the pictures of four men hanging on the wall of my office at the headquarters of our radio ministry. The combined influence of these four men is the reason that I entered the ministry. These men affected my life. You may not know these men, but I am going to give you their names. The first man is a man by the name of Joe Boyd who was a layman in Nashville, Tennessee. When no one else seemed interested in a young fellow who wanted to study for the ministry, Joe Boyd got interested. He is actually the man who did the footwork of making it possible for me to get a job so that I could go to college and for me to get a loan so that I could go to college and seminary. He followed my ministry, and I was his pastor for three years. He was a wonderful man, and I thank God for him. Next to his picture is the picture of the pastor whom I followed in that church in Nashville, Dr. A.S. Allen. He is one of those unsung preachers whom you never hear about today, but he is one of the greatest preachers I ever listened to. Next to his picture is that of Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, the founder and first president of Dallas Theological Seminary. My, when I heard him preach, that’s what turned me on. I thought, This is the thing that I want to do. Next to Dr. Chafer is the picture of probably the brainiest man whom I have ever met, Dr. Albert Dudley. He is a man who had great influence upon the turn which I took in the ministry to become an expository preacher rather than a preacherette giving little sermonettes to Christianettes. I thank God for him and for all these men.
Therefore, John is not saying that teachers are not essential, but he is saying something that is important for God’s children today. “But the anointing which ye have received of him”—this has been referred to before when he spoke of “the unction of the Holy One,” the anointing of the Holy Spirit. One of the Holy Spirit’s ministries is to teach us. He is able to guide us into all truth. The Lord Jesus, the great Teacher, said, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit will teach us all things, that is, all that you and I are able to contain.
“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.” There has been given to you an anointing whereby you are enabled to understand all truth because “… the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Paul also wrote earlier, “… Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit …” (1 Cor. 2:9–10). This is the anointing of the Holy Spirit for a believer.
This is one reason we encourage folk to get into the Word of God and to study it. I received a letter from a dear lady who makes a tape recording of our radio program and then listens to it again and again. She also reads repeatedly the passage of Scripture being taught. All of a sudden her eyes are opened, and she sees the Lord Jesus in a new way. What has happened? She has had an anointing. I believe in that kind of anointing, but I don’t believe in a lot of the silly stuff that is going on today which is purely emotional and which doesn’t enlighten you to understand and love the Word of God and to love the Lord Jesus. It does not matter how much whoopee you put into your religion, you can just whoop it up and have all kinds of emotion, but all that is of no value. It is enlightenment that we need today.
The whole point is that 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, as Peter says, “… be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1 Pet. 3:15). We ought to be able to do that. But there is also a grave danger in this which I want to very carefully point out. I know people who have been going to Bible classes and have been studying the Bible for years, but they never get anywhere. They are the ones who bring Bible teaching into disrepute. I see people at Bible conferences in the summertime—I’ve seen them there every summer for thirty years—and they are today right where they were thirty years ago. They are like “… silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:6–7). They don’t seem quite to arrive, but they always have their Bibles and are always writing a few little notes down. At a summer conference where I was speaking sometime ago, a woman came to me with the same question that I am confident she had asked me twenty-five years ago at another summer conference! She had a notebook, and she was still taking it down—“ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
In other words, we ought to get to the place where the Spirit of God is our Teacher. As you study the Word of God, do you ask the Spirit of God to teach you and to lead you? If you don’t understand something the first time, get down on your knees and say, “Lord, I miss the point. I don’t understand this. Make it real to me. I want this to be real to me.” This is important, and this is what John is saying here. “The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you.” There are certain things which the Spirit of God can make very real to you.
“But as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie.” The Lord Jesus said, “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matt. 24:24). But it will not be possible to deceive the elect. The Antichrist will not deceive the elect who are left on the earth when he comes. And today no antichrist will deceive them. I knew a couple who had recently been saved, and they got into a liberal church. I met them when I was a pastor in downtown Los Angeles. They told me, “We worked our way down Wilshire Boulevard, going from church to church until we got to your church. We knew we were not hearing the truth of God at the churches we visited, but we couldn’t put our finger on it. We knew the teaching was wrong, but we didn’t know how it was wrong”—they were just new converts. God’s little children are going to follow the pattern the Lord Jesus spoke of when He said, “My sheep hear my voice …” (John 10:27). God’s children are not going to follow a false shepherd. They hear His voice, and the Spirit of God can be their Teacher. This should be a great comfort to us. We need to test every teacher we hear—it would be well if you tested me. Ask the Holy Spirit, “Is this that McGee is teaching the truth of God? Make it real to my heart, too. I want to know for myself whether it is true or not.”
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 [1 John 2:28].
“And now, little children”—dear little bairns, little born ones, meaning all God’s children, irrespective of maturity.
“Abide in him.” This is not really the imperative here but the indicative. In other words, John is saying, “You are abiding in Him.” I want to repeat that John is speaking here of fellowship. To abide in the Lord Jesus is to live in fellowship with Him. To abide in Him means to have communion with Him.
“That, when he shall appear.” This is actually, “If he appear,” but the if is not one of doubt. The if hasn’t anything in the world to do with a doubt of the fact of His coming, but it has to do with the uncertainty as to the circumstances. Although we may have an anointing, we do not know when Jesus is coming That is one thing which He has reserved for Himself to know.
Why has He not revealed to us the time of His coming? “That, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.” A Christian ought to live in the light of the imminent coming of Christ. If you tell me today that He is not coming for another ten years (I may not live that long!), then I do not need to worry about today, and I can be a little careless in my living. But if He might come today, if He came right at this moment, He would catch me preparing this Bible study and that would be fine. I hope He will come at a time like that, but I don’t know when He will come. There are times when I get behind a driver who won’t let me around to pass him, and I tell him what I think of him. If the Lord were to come at that moment, I might be ashamed at His appearing. So you and I need to be living all the time in the light of His imminent return.
“When he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.” A great many people are talking about the coming of Christ, and they get very excited about it; but it certainly is going to be embarrassing for them because they will not have any confidence and they are going to be ashamed before Him at His coming. Why? Because of their lives. The Lord Jesus says, “And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be” (Rev. 22:12). Many people will look around for their reward, and they will find that they haven’t got any. Paul wrote, “If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire” ( 1 Cor. 3:15). It is very important to have a life that commends the gospel.
John is saying here the same thing that Peter said: False doctrine and false living go together; true doctrine and true living go together. Every now and then you hear of a cult leader who is in trouble because he is guilty either of adultery, or of taking money which doesn’t belong to him, or of beating some person out of money. Why? False doctrine leads to false living. True doctrine leads to true living. There is nothing that will affect your life as much as the knowledge that you are going to stand in the presence of Christ and give an account of your works. Every believer will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Paul writes, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). The issue of salvation has already been settled because we are His children and in His presence. It is not a question of whether you are saved or lost; it is a question of whether or not you are going to get any reward or recognition. There will be some folk who will not get any recognition. Paul writes further, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men …” (2 Cor. 5:11). The Rapture is not going to be such a thrilling event for a great many believers because of the lives they lived down here.
If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him [1 John 2:29].
This is the final proof, this is the litmus paper which is put into the solution to tell whether it is acid or base. It surely will tell every time. The Word of God is the real test. In effect John is saying that God’s children look like the Father—they take after their Father. If they don’t take after the Father, they must not be the Father’s children. It is just as simple as that, my friend.
CHAPTER 3
Theme: How the dear children may know each other and live together; the Father’s love for his children; the two natures of the believer in action
HOW THE DEAR CHILDREN MAY KNOW EACH OTHER AND LIVE TOGETHER
The last verse of chapter 2 belongs here with the first three verses of chapter 3. First John 2:29 reads: “If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.” It is one thing to testify that we know Christ and are in Him; it is quite another to have a life that reveals that He is our righteousness. It is wonderful to know positionally that we are in Christ and that we are accepted in the Beloved, but it is altogether different to have a life down here that is commensurate with that. John is telling us that the way we recognize other believers is by their lives and not by their lips. Righteousness is a family characteristic of the Father and His children. God’s children take after their Father—they have His characteristics.
THE FATHER’S LOVE FOR HIS CHILDREN
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not [1 John 3:1].
This is a very wonderful statement that John makes here. Let me give you my very literal translation of this verse: “Behold ye, of what sort of love the Father hath bestowed upon (given to) us, that we should be named children of God, and we are: and because of this the world does not know (begin to understand) us, because it did not know (begin to understand) Him.”
John is saying that we do not expect to be the sons of God, we are the sons of God. A better translation includes the words “and we are.” The child of God can say emphatically, “I am a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ.” We don’t hope to be, we don’t expect to be, but the thrilling fact is that every believer can exult and rejoice and constantly thank Him that he is God’s child. We are boasters not in ourselves, but we are boasting of the wonderful Shepherd that we have. John makes it perfectly clear that if you are a born again child of God, you are going to exhibit a life that conforms to the Father. A child of God need not be in the false position of saying as an old hymn says:
’Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought,
Do I love my Lord or no?
Am I His, or am I not?
—Author unknown
John says, “Now we are the children of God”md; right now we are the children of God.
“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” The kind of love that John is talking about is a strange kind of love, an unusual kind of love, a kind of love to which we are not accustomed. God loves us. What manner of love the Father has for us! The love of God—that is, His love for us—is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. John will go on to show that God has demonstrated His love by giving His Son to die for us. How many of us have someone who would die for us? How many folk would you be willing to die for? God loves you, and He has proven His love—He gave His Son to die for you.
The greatest motivating force in the world is God’s love. Love is the greatest drive in the human family. A man falls in love with a woman, a woman falls in love with a man, and some make such tremendous sacrifices for each other. When human love is genuine love, it is a beautiful thing, it is a noble thing, it is a wonderful thing, and it is a tremendous drive. But God’s love for His children far exceeds anything we can experience on the human plane.
The true child of God is going to prove his spiritual birth by being obedient to God’s Word. God’s wonderful love for us should motivate us. It is that which is going to cause us to want to live for God. Behold, what an unusual kind, what a different kind of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God.
John has emphasized that we are God’s children, right now. This brings me to say that our salvation is in three tenses: I have been saved; I am being saved; and I shall be saved.
1. I have been saved. The Lord Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). The moment you trust Christ you receive everlasting life, and you will never be any more saved than you are the moment you trust Him. You are born again, born into the family of God. John is addressing “little children”—these are God’s children. He says, “What manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us.” Why? Because we are His children. He has bestowed His love upon His children, and they respond to that love by obedience unto Him and by living a life that is well pleasing to Him.
2. I am being saved. Paul said, “… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:2–3). Peter said, “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ …” (2 Pet. 3:8). John is talking to us along the same lines here. If we are the children of God, we are going to be obedient unto Him, we are going to grow, we are going to develop, and we are going to go on in the Christian faith. Therefore, we can say that we are being saved.
3. I will be saved. When the Lord Jesus comes again for His own, we will experience the final stage of our salvation. Sin no longer will have power over us, and we will be with the Lord forever.
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is [1 John 3:2].
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God”—not tomorrow, but right now—that is the wonderful part of it. The world won’t understand us, that’s for sure, because it didn’t understand Him. It takes a spiritual insight, and that comes through the anointing which we have talked about that He has given to us. The Spirit of God is the one who can make this real to us, and only the Spirit of God can do that, my friend. Until He confirms it to your heart, of course, you must say, “I don’t know whether I am saved.” But the Spirit of God can confirm this to your heart.
John says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” But someone says to me, “McGee, I’m a little discouraged with you. I think you ought to be a little farther along.” I would agree with you on that. I wish I were a better man, and I wish I knew more about the Word of God. Yes, I’d be willing to go along with that—I ought to be farther along than I am. But don’t you be discouraged with me, and then I won’t be discouraged with you because of the fact that “it doth not yet appear what we shall be.”
“But we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him.” This is a wonderful prospect! He sees in you and in me what He will make out of us. I’m thankful that God is not through with me. If I thought He was through with me now, I would be very much discouraged, but He is yet to perform a work.
The story is told that when a great big piece of marble was brought in to him, Michelangelo walked around it, looking at it, and then said, “My, isn’t it beautiful!” One of his helpers who was standing there said, “Well, all I see is a great big piece of marble—that’s all.” Michelangelo exclaimed, “Oh, I forgot. You don’t see what I see. I see a statue of David there.” The helper looked again and replied, “Well, I don’t see it.” Michelangelo said, “That is because it is now in my own mind, but I am going to translate it into this piece of marble.” And that is what he did. God says, “It doth not yet appear what you shall be.” He sees what He is going to make out of us someday. We are discouraged when we look at each other as we are now, but God sees us as we shall be when He shall appear and we shall be like Him. What a glorious prospect this is for us!
“We shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” We are going to see the glorified Christ. We are not going to be equal to Him, but we are going to be like Him in our own way. This does not mean that all of us are going to be little robots or simply little duplicates—it is not that at all. We will be like Him but with our own personalities, our own individualities, our own selves. He will never destroy the person of Vernon McGee. He’ll not destroy the person that you are, but He is going to bring you up to the full measure, the stature where you will be like Him—not identical to Him, but like Him.
It is going to be wonderful in heaven that we will love everybody—I’m excited about that. But the most wonderful thing about heaven to me is that everybody is going to love me! That’s going to be quite a change, and I’m looking forward to it. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” This is another great incentive to Christian living. I do not think there is anything else quite like it.
And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure [1 John 3:3].
If you believe that Jesus is coming and that someday you are going to be like Him, that will cause you to live a pure life down here. I know of nothing that is such a great incentive for holy living. We are not wonderful now, but we shall be wonderful someday.
There is nothing that should encourage holy living like the study of Bible prophecy. Today we see a lot of careless, slipshod living, but also a great emphasis on prophecy. I hear people say, “Oh, I’m waiting for the Lord to come!” Brother, my question is not whether you are looking for the Lord to come, but how are you living down here? How you live down here determines whether or not you are really looking for the Lord to come.
We are going to accomplish our goal someday. The New Jerusalem where we will live is going to be a place where He will wipe away all tears. There’ll be no sorrow, there’ll be no suffering. All of that is wonderful, but the most wonderful thing that strikes me in Revelation 21 is that He says, “… Behold, I make all things new …” (Rev. 21:5, italics mine). That is what I like. I do not know about you, I can speak only for myself, but I very frankly make this confession: I have never really been the man that I’ve wanted to be. I am at the age now where I guess a man begins to dream a little. And as I look back over my life, I realize I’ve never been the man that I have wanted to be, and I’ve never been the preacher I have wanted to be. I’ve never really preached the sermon that I wanted to preach. People have been kind to me and have said nice things, and I appreciate that, but I know in my own heart that I wish I could do better.
I’ve never been the husband that I’ve wanted to be. Previously I mentioned an illness I had several years ago which necessitated a three-month rest. My wife and I sat out on our patio and did a great deal of reminiscing. As I reviewed my life, I thought, My, I wish I had been a better husband than I was. I should have been. And I’ve never been the father that I wanted to be. Some people think I’m a little too much for my grandsons. Well, I’m trying to make up for them what I left out for my own child.
I’ve never really attained my goal. I thank God for the way He has led me. He’s been good to me in my life, and I rejoice in the fact that He’s given to me a Bible-teaching radio ministry. I never thought He’d do that, but He has. I have not attained my goal, but He says, “Behold, I make all things new.” He is saying, “Vernon McGee”—and He is saying this to you, too—“We are going to be able to start all over again. You are really going to live an eternal life, and you are going to attain your goal.” Won’t that be wonderful to grow in grace and the knowledge of Him, not only in this life, but for all eternity? What a prospect lies before us!
John is telling us here of the wonderful love the Father has for His children. I have been saved, I am being saved, and I am going to be saved. It’s going to be wonderful someday. So you don’t be discouraged with me, and I won’t be discouraged with you.
THE TWO NATURES OF THE BELIEVER IN ACTION
Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law [1 John 3:4].
Again let me give you my very literal translation of this verse: “Everyone that doeth sin, doeth also lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.” I have before me two very fine Greek commentaries, and they make it clear that the word translated “committeth” sin is literally “doeth” sin, meaning one who lives continually and habitually in sin. You know folk like that. I used to live that way, and the fellows working around me in the bank lived that way. Frankly, working in the bank was secondary. Our interest was in women, in liquor, and in having a good time. That was what we thought life was all about in those days, and that was what we called living. We lived in it continually, and we talked about it continually. That is what John means here: “Whosoever committeth sin”—whoever goes on committing sin, whoever simply lives in sin.
“Transgresseth also the law.” God has made certain laws. God did say, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exod. 20:14), and He means that today also. All of this free, new way of looking at things is not a new way at all. It is as old as the hills. The fact of the matter is that it goes back to the jungle, it goes back to paganism.
“For sin is the transgression of the law.” God has put up the Law so that we can know that we are sinners, so that we can know what He requires. That is the purpose of the Law. The Law was never given to save, it was given to reveal to man that he is a sinner.
Sin is basically and fundamentally that which is contrary to the will of God. In other words, a sinner is one who is insubordinate to the will of God. A little girl was asked in Sunday school to give her definition of what sin is. She said, “I think it is anything that you like to do.” You know, she wasn’t far from the truth, because this old nature that you and I have is absolutely contrary to the will of God. Paul emphasizes that in Romans 8:5, “For they that are after the flesh [the old nature] do mind [obey] the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.” How are you living? In the flesh or in the Spirit?
Paul goes on to say, “For to be carnally minded is death….” Death is separation from God, and that is the thing which John is talking about. You cannot have fellowship with Him and be a carnal Christian. It is impossible to do that. I am afraid that there is too much talk today about, “Oh, how I love God, how I am serving Him, and How wonderful He is.” How pious some folk are! But, my friend, they are not in fellowship with Him because “… to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God [that is, disobedient to God]: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:6–7).
Paul makes it clear that before the Law was given there was sin, but it wasn’t transgression. The statement here in John, “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law,” does not give a complete definition and is not really a good translation. That is why in my translation I have put it like this: “Everyone that doeth sin, doeth also lawlessness.” Paul wrote earlier in Romans, “… for where no law is, there is no transgression” (Rom. 4:15); but there is sin because he says, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12). That is, we sinned in Adam—his sin was ours. “For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law” (Rom. 5:13). Man was still a sinner and was insubordinate to God; nevertheless, it was not transgression of the Law—because the Law hadn’t been given yet.
We read further in Romans: “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come” (Rom. 5:14). They sinned—why? Because they were sinners. In Isaiah 53:6 we have a true picture of every unsaved man: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Everyone has turned to his own way. Those three words tell our story: his own way. What’s your problem? What’s my problem? We want to have our way. The little baby in the crib is squealing at the top of his voice—what’s the matter with the little fellow? He wants his own way! We are born with that nature, a nature which is in rebellion against God.
This is the way the hymn “I Was a Wandering Sheep” by Horatius Bonar puts it:
I was a wandering sheep,
I did not love the fold,
I did not love my Shepherd’s voice,
I would not be controlled:
I was a wayward child,
I did not love my home,
I did not love my Father’s voice,
I loved afar to roam.
But the child of God has now come to God, and he has been born again.
And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin [1 John 3:5].
Only the Lord Jesus can take away sin. He came for that purpose.
Two things are important for us to see here. In John’s gospel he wrote, “… Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He bore the penalty of sin. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Christ died for the sin of the world. Now here in John’s epistle he shows that Christ takes away the practice of sin in the life of the believer. Christ is the “propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). What is the difference? Well, He died a redemptive death to pay the penalty of our sin, but He also died that He might deliver us from the power of sin right here and now.
“And in him is no sin.” The literal translation of this is: “in Him sin is not.” He died a redemptive death—He was our sin offering. He was without sin; He was without spot or blemish as was the Levitical sin offering. Therefore He is able to remove the guilt of sin and to provide the power to deliver us from the habit of sinning. He has given to us a new nature that we might live for Him today.
Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him [1 John 3:6].
“Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not”—that is, that new nature of yours will not sin; it never sins. Dr. H. A. Ironside puts it this way: “ [Christ], this absolutely sinless One, who in grace became sin for us that we might be reconciled to God, dwells by the Spirit in the believer, and our new nature is really His very life imparted to us.” If you are God’s child, that new nature will not go along with the old nature and commit sin. The believer who abides in Christ does not practice sin—he doesn’t live in it. The sinner lives in it all the time, but the child of God has a new nature, and he cannot live a sinful life. This is pictured for us in the story of the Prodigal Son (see Luke 5:11–24). Only pigs live in pigpens; sons do not. Somebody will say, “But the son got into the pigpen.” He surely did, my friend, but he got out of the pigpen, too—let’s remember that. The child of God can get into it, but he will get out. Why? Because he is a son of the Father, and he takes after his Father. His Father is righteous, and the son wants to live that kind of life.
God provides the power to deliver from the habit of sinning, and that is all that John is saying here—“Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not.” Now if you go off to the pigpen, that’s the old nature, and if you stay in that pigpen, you never were God’s child. If you can be happy in sin, my friend, then you are not God’s child because God’s children have the nature of their Father. Sometime ago I received a letter from a young man which may help to illustrate my point here:
I come to you with a very critical problem and hope that you will help me for I am desperate and have nothing left to try or anybody to turn to …. I know that am a new born again Christian, although many times I had doubts. But know that have been saved. Brother, I don’t know what you are going to think when you find that I am a homosexual. Perhaps you’d think that I am living in false assurance of eternal life, but, believe me, this is not the case. I know I’m saved, but I lost the joy of my salvation for awhile. And I try to live a Christian life, and I never was so miserable ….
This young man’s letter is actually encouraging because he says that he is a homosexual but that he is miserable in it. He has no joy; he has no peace. Of course, he doesn’t. I will not question whether or not he is a child of God, but I do want to say something to him and to the many others who are just like him: My friend, God can give you deliverance from it. You need to claim that from Him. Ask Him to bring you to the place of peace and joy in your life. If you are God’s child, you will never be content in a sinful state. The people are wrong who maintain that homosexuality is merely another life-style. God calls it sin, and God says there is a deliverance. Now there may bean abnormality involved. I am confident that consulting a Christian psychologist would help, but make sure you go to a true Christian psychologist. The other crowd would probably push you farther into your problem, and you would never be delivered out of it. God can and will deliver you because you are His child. That is what the Word of God says here, and if you believe it, God can deliver you.
Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous [1 John 3:7].
“Little children”—John is talking to those who are God’s children; he is not talking to the world.
“Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.” This is the thing which reveals the child of God. To abide in Him does not mean just positionally. It is true that you have a position in Christ that can never be disturbed, but there is also a practical consideration down here. If you abide in Him in fellowship and service, sin must be given up.
I talked to a young man in Phoenix, Arizona, one time who said to me, “Dr. McGee, I’ve been listening to you on the radio. think you can help me. I’m an alcoholic. I accepted Christ several years ago, and can go for along time without drinking, but then I will again find myself drunk. I hate myself.” This fine looking young fellow who was an executive began to weep as he talked. He said, “I know eventually it will affect my job if I keep this thing up. I don’t want to drink, because I am a child of God. And don’t tell me I’m not because I have accepted Christ. I’ve driven fifty miles to get here this morning so that I might ask you this question: Is there deliverance for me?” I told him there was. If he has the nature of his Father, there is one thing that is sure—God will not let him be content and happy in his sin. That was an unhappy young man, the most unhappy young man I had seen in a long time. I told him, “Every time you fall down, brother, go back to your heavenly Father and tell Him what you did. Tell Him that you don’t want to disgrace Him again. The day will come when He will deliver you.” That has been the story of other men, and it is the story of any sinner who professes Christ and finds himself bound down by a habit. God can and will deliver him.
I happen to be a fellow who knows something about that of which I am speaking here. When I was young, God in a very marvelous way intervened in my life. My mother’s side of my family were German, and I want to tell you, they were heavy drinkers—the whole outfit. My father was not an alcoholic, but he was also a heavy drinker. I grew up in that atmosphere, and I started out that way. I thank God for a deliverance from it when I was still just a boy. My friend, I know He can deliver you, and He will deliver you from your sin. This epistle deals with living, right where we are. You cannot simply take some little course and get the deliverance. You are going to have to call upon God for it and have real contact with Him.
He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil [1 John 3:8].
“He that committeth sin is of the devil.” We need to recognize that the Devil is the source of all sin. He is the one who is responsible for sin being brought into the world. He is the one who led our first parents into sin. And the reason that you and I have a sinful nature today is because of the Devil. “He that committeth sin is of the devil.” Remember that the Lord Jesus said to the religious rulers of His day, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do …” (John 8:44). The interesting thing is that we will take after our father. If your father is the Devil, then you are going to act like him. If your father is our heavenly Father, then you have His nature, and you are going to act like Him.
“For the devil sinneth from the beginning”—that is, he started out sinning, and he has been at it ever since. He is in rebellion against God.
“For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” Only Jesus Christ can deliver you, my friend. Go to Him. Don’t come to me because I cannot help, and no one else can either. But He can, He is the Great Physician, and I urge you to go to Him with your problem.
The Lord Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world. John the Baptist said, “… Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He took away the penalty of sin. Since you’ve trusted Christ, your sins are behind you, and you are saved in Him. Your sins will never again be brought up as far as your salvation is concerned because you have trusted Him. But John tells us here that the Lord Jesus not only takes away our sin, but He also was manifested to take away our sins—plural. He was without sin—He had no sin nature. “For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners …” (Heb. 7:26). But He was a human being, and He died as our sin offering, paying the penalty for our sin. But John also says back in verse 5 of this chapter that He was “manifested to take away our sins.” The word our is not in the better manuscripts; it is literally “manifested to take away sins”—that is, to take away the sins of all believers. In other words, He died to make it possible for you and me to live the Christian life.
This brings us right to the subject of this section from verse 4 to verse 24: every believer has two natures. This is what Paul talks about at length in Romans 7. He says there, “For the good that I would [the desire of this new nature that I have] I do not [that is, the old nature which has been in control so long takes over]: but the evil which I would not, that I do” (Rom. 7:19). The new nature desires to do good, but the old nature drags its feet. The old nature will not serve God; it is in rebellion against God. Paul writes further, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7–8). You cannot please God until you are born again. “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you”—there is no idea of a condition here, but rather Paul is saying, since “that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Rom. 8:9). Let me be very clear that we are talking about born-again believers. We are not talking about professing Christians; we are not talking about church members; we are not talking about those that have simply been baptized without ever having been saved; we are not talking about those that go through a ritual or belong to some system. We are talking about those that have been born again. The Lord Jesus was manifested “that he might destroy the works of the devil,” to make it possible for you and me to live for God.
Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God [1 John 3:9].
“Whosoever is born of God”—this is the new birth we have been talking about. This is what the Lord Jesus spoke of when He said to a religious ruler, “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again” (John 3:7).
“Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin” A child of God is given a new nature, and that new nature does not and will not commit sin. The reason that the prodigal son could not stay in the pigpen is that he was not a pig. He was a son of the Father, and he longed for the Father’s house. If you are a child of God, you will want to be in the Father’s house, and you will long for it.
“Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin”—unfortunately, this gives a wrong impression here. The idea is not just one act of sin; the idea is that he does not live in sin. John has said earlier in chapter 2, “If any man [any Christian man] sin, we have an advocate with the Father”—the believer will sin. However, John makes it very clear that it is God’s will that we live without sin: “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not” (1 John 2:1). Sin is anything contrary to the will of God, but when sin comes into our lives, John says that we have an advocate with the Father, and “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Again, John is talking to believers, and he is saying that believers will sin. Therefore, when John says, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin,” he is saying that that new nature will not continue to live in a pigpen—never, under any circumstances will it do that.
“For his seed remaineth in him.” If you are a child of God, you have a divine nature.
“And he cannot sin.” Why? Because he “is born of God.” John is talking about something that is real and genuine. He is not talking about some little profession which you made when you went down to the front of a church and shed a few tears. The question is: Have you been born of God? I believe in the security of the believers, but I also believe in the insecurity of make-believers. It is well for us to take an inventory and to look at our lives. We must examine ourselves and see whether we are in the faith or not. Are you really a child of God? Do you long after the things of God? That is the important thing.
Someone might say of this young man who is a homosexual, “He cannot be a child of God.” I say that he can be; but if he is a child of God, he is going to give up that sin. A prodigal son ought not to be in a pigpen, and he will not live there. He is going to get out. The day will come when he will say, “I will arise and go to my Father.” And his Father is not anywhere near that pigpen—He is as far from it as He possibly can be.
Whosoever is born of God does not practice sin. He does not go on in sin. When we received a new nature, we did not lose our old nature—that is the problem. No wonder Paul cried out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). Only the Spirit of God can deliver you, my friend. If you recognize that you are helpless and hopeless, if some sin binds you down, spoils your life, robs you of your joy, and you are miserable, then may I say to you that He can and He will deliver you—if you want to be delivered. If you want to get rid of that sin, if you really want to serve Him, if you mean business with Him, He means business with you. “For his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”
In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother [1 John 3:10].
“In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.” I think we need a little more manifesting today because many of the children of God look like they belong to someone else, or at least they look as if they are orphans. There are two families in the world. The teaching of the universal Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man I consider to be a damnable heresy. The Bible doesn’t teach that God looks upon all people as His children. The Lord Jesus said to the religious rulers, “Ye are of your father the devil …” (John 8:44). Someone has said that the reason a Christian ought not to marry a non-Christian is that if you marry in the family of the Devil, you are going to have trouble with your father-in-law! How true that is. There are the children of God and the children of the Devil—there are two families in the world.
John is going to show that there are two things which manifest the child of God. Now God knows our hearts and knows whether or not we have really been born again and are His children. But our neighbor next door doesn’t know that. The only way for him to know is for the life of God to be manifested in us. It is not necessarily manifested by lip and language, but it is manifested by our living.
I want to use a very homely illustration which I trust will demonstrate the fact that the believer has two natures. I live on a ranch here in California. Now before I go any further, I must tell you about a lady who asked her neighbor, “Did you know that Dr. McGee owns a ranch in California? I’m amazed that a poor preacher can own a ranch!” The neighbor laughed and said, “Why didn’t you listen to him carefully? He told you how big his ranch is.” So I will tell you that my “ranch” is 72 feet wide and 123 feet deep. In the middle of that ranch is my home. But I do have a lot of fruit trees. I have three orange trees, a tangerine tree, a lemon tree, and a plum tree. I have an apricot tree, a fig tree, and quite a few guava bushes. So that is quite a ranch! I love fruit, and I enjoy getting out in my ranch and looking around. Very seldom, when I am at home, does a day pass without my going all the way around my yard, looking at every tree.
Also, I have four avocado trees which had grown wild out here in this dry land, but grafted into them are several very fine varieties of avocados. You can see where the bud is—it is just about as high as my head on one particular tree.
Below that graft, every now and then a branch will come out from the wild or the old nature of that old avocado, and I have to trim it off. Sometimes I am busy in our conference ministry, and I don’t get to tend to things like that. The limb will then come out below the bud, and it will bloom and bear fruit. But it’s the poorest fruit you can imagine—it’s just no good at all. Above the bud, oh, it bears luscious fruit. My problem is to keep those limbs cut off below the bud so that it will not bear fruit down there. I want it to bear fruit up above where it has a new nature. This avocado tree can bear either kind of fruit—it’s just up to me which I want.
My friend, I’m just like that avocado tree. I have two natures. I can be mean and live on a pretty low plane. I have a nature that is that way. All of us have that old nature. We never get rid of it in this life, and we all come short of the glory of God. But above that, in my new nature, is where I can bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, etc. I feel good today, and I have the joy of the Lord in my heart, but tomorrow you may find me down in the dumps. Now I ought not to be there, but that is something that happens, and when it does, I’m living in the old nature.
In Galatians Paul tells the believers to learn to walk in the Spirit. You cannot do it yourself In Romans 7 Paul discovered two things. there is no good in the old nature, and there is no power in the new nature. You must have help. It does not matter who you are, you cannot live the Christian life yourself It is only by the Spirit of God working in you that you can produce that good fruit, and He wants us to produce fruit.
The Lord Jesus said, “I am the true [genuine] vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (John 15:1–2). He wants us to produce fruit, but He also tells us that He will prune us. When I prune that avocado tree up above the graft, it bears better fruit. God prunes us to get good fruit. Sometimes down there in that old nature, we will also bear fruit. That is called the works of the flesh, and they are not very attractive, they are not anything to brag about.
“In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.” You can tell them apart by their fruit. “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt. 7:20), the Lord Jesus said. As the late Dr. James McGinley used to say, “I’m not to judge you, but I am a fruit inspector.” We ought to be able to find a little fruit on our fellow believers, and in 1 John 3:10 John gives us two clear marks of identification of a true child of God.
“Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God.” It does not matter who he is or what profession he makes, if a person is not trying to live for God, he is not a child of God. It does not matter how active you are—you may be a deacon in the church, you may be as busy as a termite—but John says that the important mark of identification is: “whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God.” That is a strong statement, but John said it, and the Spirit of God said it through him.
“Neither he that loveth not his brother.” Here is the second mark of identification. Do you love other Christians? If you are a child of God, you are going to love other Christians.
The word love is going to occur again and again in this epistle. We need to get our understanding of it straight right here at the beginning. There are actually three Greek words that are translated by our one English word love. The first Greek word is eros, and it is never used in the New Testament. It refers to erotic love, having to do with sex. The Greeks talked a great deal about sex, and they had the god Eros and the goddess Aphrodite, the worship of whom involved sex. Again may I say, the word eros is never used in the New Testament. The second word, phileoµ, means “friendship.” It means a love of the brethren; it is a brother sort of love. The third word, the highest word, is agapaoµ. That is God’s love: “For God so loved the world …” (John 3:16, italics mine). Agapaoµ is the word John uses here as he tells us that we are to love our brother. We hear a great deal of talk today about love, love, love, and many times it is articulated in the context of sex; but in the Bible, love has no relationship to that whatsoever.
“Neither he that loveth not his brother” means that we are to have a concern for our Christian brother; we are to be helpful to him. It does not mean that you necessarily care for his ways, his conversation, or the things that interest him. It does not mean you have to run up and put your arms around him. It means that you are to be concerned for him. You cannot harbor hatred in your heart against another believer. We will see in the next chapter that this love is not something that is sloppy and slippery by any means. It does not mean that you are to help, that is, to be taken in by every Tom, Dick, and Harry who comes along. We are warned to be very careful indeed and to keep our eyes open, but we are to have a love in our hearts for our brethren in the Lord. This love is to be a concerned love, a love that acts, a love that does something beneficial.
For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another [1 John 3:11].
John often speaks in this epistle about “the beginning.” The beginning he is talking about is the incarnation of Christ.
“For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” John is merely reaffirming here what the Lord Jesus had taught: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35). This love is to be the mark of Christ’s disciples. John says, “What I am telling you is not new. You have heard this from the beginning. The Lord Jesus taught it to us, and all the apostles have taught this. We have heard from the beginning that we should love one another.” Love of other believers is something that is woefully lacking today in many places.
Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous [1 John 3:12].
“Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother.” Cain and Abel were blood brothers and were very much alike in many ways. But Cain killed his brother. Why? “Wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” What was Cain’s problem? His problem was jealousy or envy—that was Cain’s sin.
Jealousy is perhaps not the best word to describe Cain’s problem. Jealousy has in it the note of suspicion; for example, a man may be jealous of his wife, meaning that he probably, loves her but suspects that she may not be faithful to him. Therefore, I think the better word to use here would be envy. Envy and jealousy are given in the dictionary as synonyms, but there is a distinction between them without there really being a difference.
Envy is the thing which characterized Cain. He was envious of his brother, and it led to murder. Envy is that which is in the human heart. As someone has said, “The most destructive force in the world is jealousy and envy.”
Let me give you a definition of envy: “discontent or uneasiness at the sight of another’s excellence or good fortune, accompanied with some degree of hatred and a desire to possess equal advantages.” That exactly describes Cain. A definition of envious would be: “actuated or directed by or proceeding from envy; jealously pained by the excellence or good fortune of another.” This kind of distinction should be noted: a woman is not envious or jealous of a man’s courage, and it is also true that a man is not jealous of a woman’s beauty; rather, we are envious of that which we would desire to have.
Envy and jealousy among believers in the church hurt the cause of Christ today probably more than anything else. It is that old secret sin that many believers cover up. How many soloists are jealous of another soloist? How many preachers are jealous of another preacher? A great deal of backbiting that goes on in the church has its root in one thing: jealousy. Boy, that is a mean one! And jealousy is the reason that Cain killed Abel—God had accepted his brother’s works and not his own.
Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you [1 John 3:13].
John says, “Don’t act as if some strange or weird thing has happened to you if the world doesn’t accept you, because the world is not going to accept you.” John makes it very clear all the way through this epistle that he is merely passing along the teachings which the Lord Jesus Christ Himself gave. In John 15:18–19 the Lord Jesus said, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
This has always been a problem for many of us in the ministry. I have never really appreciated it when anyone would say, “When you were a pastor in such-and-such a place, you were a popular minister.” I’m not sure that I care for that because there is a certain crowd I would deeply regret to be popular with. If I ever was popular with them, I should not have been, and I don’t want to be popular with them because the Lord Jesus is not popular with that crowd. I watched a minister on television the other night as he had a marvelous opportunity to witness for Christ. But instead he played up to that unbelieving crowd, and he said some nice, flowery, complimentary things, and he was applauded for it. I wondered if there was not sorrow in heaven because he was in a crowd where Jesus was not popular but he was popular with them.
The child of God needs to recognize that the world will hate him. There is an offense of the Cross, but we should guard against magnifying the offense by making ourselves objectionable and obnoxious. Many Christians do that, and they are rejected, not because they are Christians, but because they are simply obnoxious—they would be obnoxious whether they were Christians or not. Let’s make sure that Christ’s rejection and our rejection are for the same reason.
We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death [1 John 3:14].
“We know that we have passed from death unto life.” You can know whether you are a child of God or not. The idea that we cannot know is a big mistake because the Word of God says that we can know that we have passed from death unto life. How do we know it? “Because we love the brethren.” Do you have a love in your heart for the brethren?
One of the greatest experiences that I have had in my ministry is to travel throughout this country, speaking at conferences in many places and meeting many wonderful believers. We have had several rather interesting experiences as we have gone on our way. I recall one time when I was in a city in the East, and I felt very much alone. My wife was not with me at the time, and I felt very, very lonesome. I had gone into a restaurant and had just given my order to the waitress when a man sitting at the next table got up and came over to me. He said, “Dr. McGee, I didn’t expect to see you here!” I said, “Well, to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” He said, “I have never met you before. To tell the truth, I’ve never seen you before, but I listen to you on the radio. May I sit down?” So he sat down, and he and I had one of the most wonderful times of fellowship. How did we have it? Well, he was a child of God, and I am a child of God. He hadn’t even known that I was to be speaking in that area, but he came with his wife to the meetings after I told him about them. We went out after the service for refreshments, and I probably ought to say that he picked up the tab—which to me was a proof that he was a real brother! It is quite wonderful to be in the ministry today and to meet wonderful Christians all around the country.
Another time I was on a golf course in Florida, and there was a couple ahead of us who were slowing us down. I even yelled at them one time because of it. Finally, when we came right up to where they were playing, the man looked at me and said, “Dr. McGee, I didn’t know you were here playing golf. In fact, I didn’t even know you were in this part of the country. Were you the fellow who was trying to hurry us along?” When I admitted that I was, he said, “I’ll be very frank with you. I’ve been to the doctor, and I’m not too well yet so I must play slowly.” So I had to apologize to the man for my being very rude and abrupt and trying to get him to hurry. Then we just had a wonderful time of fellowship. Our twosome joined his twosome, and we played along together. We got so involved talking that the foursome behind us yelled at us for not moving along! Again, that was someone I had never seen before, and yet I found him to be my brother, and we enjoyed fellowship together. This is what John is talking about. Do you love the brethren? When you can meet around the person of Christ, when you can talk about Christ with other folk, you have a brother or sister, my friend.
“He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” There are those who do not seem to have any concern for the children of God, but you and I are to have a concern. I always look forward to our Bible conference tours because a lot of the folk will be people whom I have never met before. Yet we will have about two weeks of the most wonderful fellowship that you have ever heard of. Why? Because we love the brethren, and that’s a proof of our salvation, friend. There is no greater proof than that as far as your heart is concerned.
Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him [1 John 3:15].
“Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.” I didn’t say that; John said that, and again he is quoting the Lord Jesus. In Matthew 5:21–22 we read, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” May I say to you, these are strong words. The Lord Jesus said that if you have hatred in your heart toward your brother, it means that you are a murderer. Envy and jealousy lead to hatred, and hatred is murder. How many murderers are there around today? By this standard that God has put before us, there are more murderers out of jail than there are in jail.
I am sure you realize that this passage does not teach that an actual murderer cannot be saved. Christ paid the penalty for all sins—even taking the life of another. However, when a man is saved, he will no longer live in hatred.
May I remind you that John’s emphasis in this section is the two natures of the believer. When you become a child of God, you do not get rid of your old nature. Rather, you have two natures—an old nature and a new nature. We have seen that the new nature is the only nature that can please God. Man in his natural state is unable to please God; the carnal mind is enmity against God. Therefore, as believers, there are times when we feel like praying, and there are times when we do not feel like praying. There is a hymn (“Come Thou Fount” by Robert Robinson) that says:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love.
Someone read that and said that it didn’t express his feelings; so he changed the wording. You will find one version in some songbooks, the other version in other songbooks. The other wording is:
Prone to worship, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to serve the God I love.
Which is true of a believer? Is he prone to wander, or is he prone to worship? I would say that both are true. I have a nature that I’ve discovered is prone to wander. I have another nature that’s prone to worship. God says, “If you are My child, then you will manifest My nature. You will manifest that new nature which I have given to you.”
Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren [1 John 3:16].
“Hereby perceive we the love of God.” You will note that in your Bible of God is in italics which means that those words are not in the better manuscripts or not in the manuscripts at all. They were added for clarification, but I don’t think they are necessary. It literally says, “Hereby perceive we the love.” This is to be our example—the way God loves. How does God love? “Because he laid down his life for us.” This is the standard that is put before us.
“And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Now I don’t know about you, but I have not come up to that level in my life. Do you know many people who would put their lives on the line for you? And how many of us would be willing to put our lives on the line for someone else? Today we do not see this spirit manifested as it should be. And yet I was greatly touched when I was ill with cancer the first time because several people wrote to me and said that they would be willing to take my cancerous disease to themselves. They wanted me to be able to finish making the tape recordings for our five-year “Thru the Bible” radio program. I had never known anyone who would be willing to go that far. I recognized, of course, that those folk couldn’t do that for me. When one has a disease, that is a case where every man bears his own burden. Although they couldn’t take my disease, their willingness to do so was the thing that made such a tremendous impression upon my heart and life.
This is the real proof that God loves us: He gave His Son to die for us. That is the standard—He is our example—and John says therefore that we should be willing to lay down our lives for the brethren. Until you and I have come up to that high level, we are not exhibiting the love that we should have for the brethren.
Now how does this love in action work itself out?—
But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? [1 John 3:17].
John is saying that love is not a sentiment; it is that which expresses itself in action. James also had a great deal to say about this in his epistle. There he wrote, “If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?” (James 2:15–16). When a brother in need comes to some folk, they simply say, “I’ll pray for you, brother.” But the important thing is whether or not our love is manifested in what we are doing. One of the most tragic things in the world will be when many believers come into the presence of Christ, having had this world’s goods down here and not having used them for the cause of Christ.
In a family situation you may talk about loving, but love is not made in the parlor or in the bedroom; love is made in the kitchen. A man may leave his home at five o’clock in the morning and explain it by saying, “I’m going to work. I have a wife and two children to feed.” You might say to him, “I wouldn’t worry about them. You are not going to make a fool of yourself by going out and killing yourself working for them, are you?” He will tell you, “I sure am. I love them, and they are mine.” If you went up into the kitchen of his home, you would likely find his wife up early in the morning, having burned her fingers taking the biscuits out of the hot oven. The poor girl is tired and weary in the evening when he gets home, and yet she continues to work and to care for the children. You say to her, “I wouldn’t be bothered if I were you,” but she says, “This man is my husband, and I love him.”
Real love gets into action. We see it in a home where there is love between a man and a woman, but what about love among believers? It ought to get into action; it ought to start doing something one for another. Until it does, my friend, it is the worst kind of hypocrisy. You express your love of the brethren by what you do for them, not by what you say. Our tongue is very good at running way ahead of our feet, but true Christianity, the real article, is a matter of the heart and not of the head or the tongue. John tells us very definitely here that if we are children of God, we will manifest this love.
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth [1 John 3:18].
Self-sacrificing love is required of us as believers. It may not be necessary to give our lives, but certainly it is necessary to give of our substance. Christianity is a love relationship.
And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him [1 John 3:19].
If our lives manifest these things that John has talked about, we will have an assurance when we come before God in prayer. John has made it very clear that it is possible to be ashamed at the appearing of Christ. A great many folk talk about the coming of Christ, but they don’t seem to be doing anything. When you and I come into His presence, it is going to be a very awesome experience because He is going to demand some fruit. What have you been doing? He said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). One of His commandments is to get the Word of God out, to take it to the ends of the earth. Are you involved in that in any way? Are you involved in anything that reveals that you are a child of God?
When I was a boy living out in the country, how wonderfully love was expressed among those people. Whenever anybody got sick, the neighbors would come in and help. I know that there are all kinds of new methods of doing things, but frankly, I’d sure like to get back to that day when the neighbors did come in to help and to take an interest. Today we expect some bureau of the government to take care of an individual and to take him to the hospital which we think is the best place for him. A great many Christians are not getting involved in the very thing that the Lord is interested in, but, my friend, we are going to have to give an account before Him someday.
“My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.” If you are a child of God and are using your substance—whether you are rich or poor—to get the Word of God out, God gives you an assurance in your heart that you are in His will and that you are doing the thing He wants done. Then you have an assurance when you go before Him in prayer, and you will have an assurance when you stand before Him someday. Paul had this assurance when he said, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness …” (2 Tim. 4:8)—Paul knew that; he had that assurance.
For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things [1 John 3:20].
The child of God can have an assurance, but suppose we are not doing what we should be doing? Does that mean that we have lost our salvation or that we did not have it to begin with? John says, “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” We don’t lose our salvation. If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, greater than our lack of assurance. He is going to hear our prayer. Isn’t He a wonderful God? When we fail Him, He won’t fail us. You may not have any assurance when you go before Him. A great many Christians come to Him really empty-handed: “I have done nothing for You, Lord. I have done nothing at all, and yet I am coming to You in prayer.” God is greater than your heart; He will hear your prayer. He is going to deal with you. He will hear and answer according to His will. “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” You can depend on Him. Even if you don’t have assurance, friend, just keep going to Him.
That young man who was struggling with alcoholism said to me, “I’ve prayed about this,” and I said, “Pray some more.” He said, “Well, I just don’t feel like I have any assurance at all. I’ve failed Him so.” I told him, “God knows your heart. The way you’re talking to me, I believe you’re sincere, and I believe you mean business. I know that God is going to give you deliverance from this. Of course you don’t have any assurance because you’ve failed Him. But He is greater than your heart, and He knows you, and He knows you are sincere. He is going to deal with you—you can depend on it.”
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God [1 John 3:21].
If our heart does not condemn us, it gives us a confidence, an assurance in prayer. There was a certain minister who meant a great deal to me when I was a young preacher. I always loved to hear him pray because he prayed with assurance. He did not pray to God willy-nilly, shilly-shally, mollycoddle—he went to God with great assurance. I always wanted to be on that man’s prayer list. I had a feeling that whenever he began to pray, whatever the Lord was doing, He would say, “Wait a minute. I’m going to listen to My child down there. He’s praying, and he knows what he is talking about.” I wanted to be on that man’s prayer list. I even prayed that he would put me on his prayer list, but I didn’t ask him to because I felt that it wouldn’t be as effective as if he volunteered it. He knew I was a pastor of a church and had a great opportunity, and one day he said to me, “Vernon, I’m praying for you.” Oh boy, that was a great day! May I say to you, it is wonderful to have assurance when we pray. “If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.”
And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight [1 John 3:22].
Love in action gives assurance in prayer. When your life is pleasing to God, you can expect Him to hear and answer your prayer. That is something that is desperately needed today. Remember the early church when persecution first broke out and the apostles were warned to stop preaching the name of Jesus. They went back and reported this to the other Christians, and the group went to God in prayer. They didn’t pray that the persecution would stop—they didn’t pray anything like that. They began their prayer by saying, “Lord, thou art God” (see Acts 4:24). This is the thing which seems to be absent in so many churches today. Folk are not sure that our heavenly Father is God, that He does run this universe, and that He is in charge. John says, “Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.”
And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment [1 John 3:23].
In other words, John says, “Don’t say you believe on Him and then not love one another.” With one breath you praise the Lord and say you trust the Lord Jesus, but then you say how much you dislike So-and-so. John is not talking about a love in which you just go up and put your arms around someone; he’s not talking about a love that you just talk about. His love is not in your lip or your language but in your life. It will be expressed in genuine concern for the individual. You will not be gossiping about him. You will not be hurting him in any way. But you will be concerned about him. This is so desperately needed today. This is the Christian life in a nutshell: “That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment”.
And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us [1 John 3:24].
The Holy Spirit verifies these things to our hearts if we have not grieved Him. We grieve the Holy Spirit when we do not do His will. Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). If we do not do that, we grieve the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is given to every believer, as Paul makes clear in Romans 8:9, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if [lit., since] so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” The mark that you are a child of God is that you are indwelt by the Spirit of God, and it is the Holy Spirit who will verify these things and make them real to your heart.
CHAPTER 4
Theme: Warning against false teachers; God is love—little children will love each other
WARNING AGAINST FALSE TEACHERS
We have come to a very difficult section of Scripture here in the fourth chapter of 1 John. One of the reasons is that we are dealing with the spirit world which none of us knows too much about. The second reason is that we are in the Devil’s territory. As a pastor I found that whenever I would preach about the Devil, he always managed to cause some interruption in the church service. Generally, he would pinch some baby, or someone would cause some kind of disturbance in the service. It is amazing how he works.
This is a very important passage, but there is a danger of going off the deep end here and becoming rather fanatical. I believe that there is an abnormal preoccupation with the occult on the part of many Christians today which is a most dangerous thing, but we do need to know what the Bible teaches about it.
In the first six verses of this chapter, John gives a warning against false teachers, false prophets. He gives us this warning, having just established the fact that we have been given the Spirit of God and that we have been given an anointing to understand the things of God.
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world [1 John 4:1].
We are dealing here with the spirit world, and the Bible has a great deal to say about it. For instance, we read in Psalm 104:4, “Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire.” That is quoted in Hebrews 1:7, “And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.” Down a little farther in the first chapter of Hebrews, we read, “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” (Heb. 1:14). I have never seen an angel, and I have never had a visit from one of them. I personally do not feel that they have a ministry to the church today. My belief is that since we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, no improvement can be made on that arrangement. I would much rather have the uncreated Holy Spirit than a created angel following me around and ministering to me. I think that we need to put the emphasis upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and in our lives.
Not only are there good angels who serve God, but there are also fallen angels. They too are called spirits in the Scriptures. The Gospels speak a great deal of the fact that in Christ’s day there were “unclean spirits.” That is what is known as demonism; we call them demons because the Scriptures use that term.
As believers we are warned to put on the whole armor of God because we are in a gigantic battle which is beyond the flesh, a battle that is a spiritual battle. Paul writes in Ephesians 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” As this verse suggests, the Devil has his demons pretty well organized. In his army of demons he has the generals at the top, the lieutenant colonels, and then on down to the sergeants, the corporals, and the plain, ordinary infantrymen or soldiers. I think that God has His angels organized in pretty much the same way.
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try [prove] the spirits whether they are of God.” A few years ago that sounded rather spooky, but we have moved from the time when the supernatural was ridiculed, especially among the intelligentsia, to a day when Satan has become an obvious reality and is now worshiped openly. Much of this is taking place on or near our college campuses. I know of a couple of satanic churches here in Los Angeles, and there may be many more. What a few years ago was considered to be way out in left field today exists out in the open. The report came from Florida that a young boy of only seventeen years of age was murdered, and they found that it was done to appease Satan. The satanic priestess down there, just a young woman of twenty-two, had said that this boy should be killed!
Quite a few things which have happened in our day are really spooky. We had, for instance, the appearance of the book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The author, Richard Bach, said that a voice dictated the book to him and that it was not his own style of writing. I understand that many churches recommended the reading of this book and that several good men were taken in by it. It is the story about a theological concept of a young sea gull which has human attributes. He soared off toward unlimited perfection and found that each of us is just an idea of the Great Gull. This book teaches that birth and sin and sickness and death are not realities but only illusions, that what the biblical writers call sins really are virtues, and that freedom is freedom to do what one pleases. All of that is not new but is actually out of the very pit of hell itself—it is satanic.
We are seeing a manifestation of demonism today, and it is all around us. It is strange that this has happened in this materialistic age that once would have nothing in the world to do with the supernatural. When I was in college any concept of the supernatural was frowned upon and looked down upon. It did not make any difference what IQ you had or what grades you made in school, if you believed in the supernatural, you were considerably less than intelligent and you were radically wrong—and they didn’t hesitate to tell you so. Today that has all changed. Many young people have gone off the deep end into this because they never have had any Bible training at all.
John has been speaking here to God’s children. He has told us how we are to love each other and to help each other, but we must be careful. Paul wrote to the Philippians whom he loved a great deal, “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment” (Phil. 1:9). It is a wonderful thing to love, but you and I are in a big, mean, wicked world, and this world we live in will take us in; it will deceive us. We need to be careful. This lovey-dovey idea the liberals have—love slopping over on every side—is not what the Word of God teaches. Paul prayed that the Philippian’s love might abound in knowledge and judgment. Don’t be taken in by everyone who comes along and says that he is a Christian, because many of them are not.
When I was first a pastor in downtown Los Angeles, I had to discover through experience that all of the bums—and that’s the best word I know for them—will take advantage of you. One Sunday morning after the service, those who had come forward in response to the invitation were being dealt with, when one of them said that he wanted only me to talk to him. I was quite flattered when the personal worker came and said, “This man wants you to talk with him.” So I went over to him and gave him the plan of salvation. He seemed very interested. In fact, when I would read a verse, he would then take the Bible and read it for himself. (He knew what he should do!) Then he said that he wanted to accept Christ; so we got down on our knees; he shed tears and professed to receive Christ. When we got up, I made the mistake of asking him how he was getting along. He said, “I hate to say this, but my suitcase is down yonder in a hotel.” It was one of the cheap hotels in the downtown area. “They won’t let me have my suitcase because I can’t pay my bill. I’m greatly embarrassed by it.” He told me that his bill was seven dollars. Well, what are you going to do for a man who has apparently just accepted the Lord and has lost his suitcase? I gave him seven dollars. I went out and got into our car where my wife was waiting for me. I became very expansive as I told her what I had done and how wonderful it was.
Time went by, and about six weeks later I saw the man’s picture in the newspaper. He had been arrested. He said, “I’ve been living in Los Angeles for six months, and I’ve lived off the preachers. They are the biggest saps in the world.” Well, I happened to have been one of them! I called up a good friend of mine, the late Dr. Bob Shuler, who was then pastor of Trinity Methodist Church. I asked him, “Did he come to see you?” He said, “Yes.” “Well, did he get to you?” I asked, and he said that he hadn’t. When I told Dr. Shuler that he had gotten to me, he said, “Well, Vernon, I have been in downtown Los Angeles longer than you have, and I’ve had a little more experience. Don’t let them take you in. Remember that the Bible says to try the spirits to see whether they are of God or not. A lot of these men are phonies.” Yes, the bum was a phony, and he had taken me for seven dollars, but I had learned my lesson. Paul prayed that the Philippians might not only grow in their love, but in judgment and knowledge. You need to use love wisely. You need to be very careful.
John says here, “Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits.” When I hear of some person who seems to have supernatural power, to heal, or to impart a gift, I don’t get excited. Someone asks me, “Why don’t you go hear So-and-so?” Well, I don’t want to waste my time. I am told to test, to prove the spirits. There is a lot of hocus-pocus going on today which I can assure you has nothing supernatural in it at all. It is just camouflaged Christianity.
“Because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” The “false prophets” are false teachers. Paul used the word that way in 1 Corinthians 14:3, “But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort.” Prophesy here means “to teach, to exhort, to instruct.”
There are many teachers abroad today of whom we need to beware. Right now prophecy is becoming an interesting subject and rightly so. But again, the thing which needs to be said was said very well by Sir Robert Anderson: “Beware of the wild utterances of prophecymongers.” There are many today who are saying more than the Scriptures say so that we need to be very careful. Just because a man comes along saying, “Lord, Lord,” does not mean that we should love him. That may be the man who is more dangerous than a rattlesnake because he may be teaching a false doctrine. He may not really be teaching the Word of God, although he carries a big Bible under his arm.
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God [1 John 4:2].
“Hereby know ye the Spirit of God.” How are we to distinguish? John tells us the way: “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.” This is where it all begins—in Bethlehem. Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, and it begins there with His incarnation. Calvary and the Garden Tomb are meaningless unless He is who He claimed to be, unless He is the Godman. The way that you can determine the false teachers is that they will deny the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. That does not mean that they do not talk nicely about Him. They talk about what a remarkable youth He was and that He was a superior child who was born into the world. They say that He was a religious genius and that He was intoxicated with God. They say that He probably had a greater knowledge of God than any other man. He was a “superstar,” you know. They can say a lot of nice things about Him, but ask them if He was God manifested in the flesh.
John speaks of “the Word” in his gospel. Who was the Word? He was God, and He created all things, and He became flesh. Where? Yonder at Bethlehem, at the Incarnation. Jesus came there. When you deny the Incarnation, the deity of Christ, then you deny His work upon the cross because it all rests upon who He is. The false teachers attempt to tear Him down by complimenting Him. That is the way the Lord Jesus is being treated today in many circles. But He is who He claimed to be—God of very God.
John is meeting head-on the early heresy of Gnosticism, one of the branches of which said that Christ came upon Jesus at His baptism and left Him at Calvary. That is not what the Word of God teaches. The Word of God says that that Babe in Bethlehem was more than a remarkable baby, that His death upon the cross was not an ordinary death, and that when He rose from the dead, He rose bodily from the dead. He “… was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). Isaiah wrote, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given …” (Isa. 9:6). The child is born, but the Son is given. The Son came out of eternity, the Ancient of Days, but the child, His humanity, was conceived in the virgin’s womb. He came forth yonder in Bethlehem where a few shepherds and wise men came to worship Him. He was more than just a precocious child. He was the precious Prince of Peace who made peace by the blood of His cross and some day shall bring peace to this war-weary world that we are living in. The important thing for us to note is that this is the mark of whether a man is a false prophet or not—“Hereby know ye the Spirit of God.” Let’s find out what a person believes about Jesus Christ. That’s important, very important.
And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world [1 John 4:3].
This is the third time John has mentioned Antichrist. John is the only writer who mentions him and he does so only in his epistles. In the second chapter of this epistle, John says, “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time” (1 John 2:18). And then again we read, “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).
As we saw in chapter 2, anti can mean two different things. It can mean either “against” or “instead of,” that is, an imitation. We have that idea presented in Scripture. The Lord Jesus said, “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matt. 24:5)—in other words, they imitate Him. Antichrist is used, therefore, in the sense of pretending to be Christ. The other meaning is to be against Christ.
Revelation 13 presents to us the two beasts of the end time. The first beast is the great political ruler who is coming—Antichrist to rule the world, a world dictator. Then there is a religious ruler who is coming, and he is called the false prophet. He will cause the world to worship the first beast. He will come like a lamb, but underneath he is a wolf—he will imitate Christ. I believe that there will be two men and that it will take both of them to fulfill all that is said in Scripture about Antichrist. There will be a great political ruler at the end of time, and there will be a great religious ruler at the end of time.
All our contemporary civilization is building up to the coming of Antichrist. There is coming a great religious ruler, and all the religions of the world will amalgamate under his leadership. The movement is in that direction even today. We also have that same kind of movement politically. There is a moving today toward one ruler for this world. He will bring peace into the world temporarily, but it is going to be the most frightful time the world has ever seen.
In chapter 2 John says, “Even now are there many antichrists” (1 John 2:18), and there are quite a few of them about in our day, but they are not the Antichrist. They are false teachers who are moving the world closer and closer to that day, preparing the world for the one finally to appear.
In these first six verses of chapter 4, we have what some have called a parenthesis. Maybe they are not quite that, but this is certainly a red light that John puts up here, a caution sign, a stop-look-and-listen sign. He says that love must be exercised with judgment and knowledge. We are to love believers, but we need to be sure that the so-called believers are not false teachers. We are to prove the spirits, for there are false prophets around who are teaching false things. In John’s own day there were the Docetic and Cerinthian Gnostics who denied the humanity of Christ, and in so doing, they also denied the deity of Christ; they made Him out to be a very strange and weird individual.
For some reason, God’s people have always been credulous and gullible. There are many believers who fall victim to what Dr. A. T. Robertson called “the latest fads and spiritualistic humbuggery.” There is a lot of that going around in our day. Therefore, John spends the time to give us this warning to beware that false teachers will deny the incarnation of Christ. Don’t tell me that the Virgin Birth is not important. Some people ask, “Can you be a Christian and deny the Virgin Birth?” You cannot—that is impossible because the mark of a false teacher is at that very point. When you destroy the Virgin Birth, you destroy His death upon the cross for the sins of the world and His bodily resurrection—in other words, you wreck the Christian faith. This is the reason that the Virgin Birth is the place where there has been so much denial in our day, and that denial, of course, is that which reveals a false teacher immediately.
John is saying that God’s children ought not to be deceived by false teachers. The objective way to identify them is that they deny the incarnation of Christ. Now John gives us the internal, the subjective evidence in verse 4—
Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world [1 John 4:4].
There is no reason for you to be taken in by satanic teaching or the denial of the deity of Christ. A man said to me once, “I used to be in a certain church, and I was a high officer in the church. Then I got saved, and my eyes were opened. I knew then I was in the wrong place because they were denying the deity of Christ. So I got out.” Why did he get out? Well, he was indwelt by the Spirit of God who had revealed the truth to him. “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world”—so that there is no excuse for you to be taken in today by a false teacher, a false prophet, or a false teaching. The thing to do is to go to God and ask that the Holy Spirit lead you and teach you. If you are in fellowship with Him, the Spirit of God is going to make the issue clear to you.
I knew a dear lady right here in Southern California who told me that when she first began to listen to my radio broadcasts, she was very critical of them. She was in a cult, and she felt that what I said contradicted what she was being taught—it sure did! But she began to test it by the Word of God. She was really a born-again Christian but had gotten caught up in this cult. Her eyes were opened because the Spirit of God was there to teach her. “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” You can overcome all the false teaching you hear because of the indwelling Spirit of God.
Every Christian is indwelt by the Spirit of God. Listen to what Paul has to say: “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Rom. 8:9, italics mine). Back in the fifth chapter of Romans, Paul tells us of one of the present results of being justified by faith: “… the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Rom. 5:5). Again, we read in 1 Corinthians 6:19, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” Was Paul talking to some super-duper saints, some who had really arrived, some very spiritually-minded saints who were living on a high plane? No. He was writing to the Corinthians, and he called them carnal and babes in Christ. The Corinthian Christians were just about everything they should not have been, and yet they were indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Every child of God is indwelt by the Spirit of God.
This is the reason that you do not need an angel to appear to you tonight to tell you what you need to know. Rather, you need to have the Holy Spirit teach you, and the Holy Spirit teaches through His Word. You cannot stay away from the Bible, be ignorant of it, ignore it, and yet expect to have the Spirit of God lead you and guide you. I try to get people into the Word of God because I have seen that the Spirit of God opens people’s hearts, and He protects them from this world in which we live. We are living in a big, bad world, and we need to be warned concerning the false teaching that is around us.
John tells us that we can test the teachings of men. This test is just like putting litmus paper into a solution to tell whether it is an acid or a base. This is a test which will work: Does the teaching deny the incarnation of Christ? That is the spirit of antichrist, my friend. You do not want to follow that. It is contrary to Christ, although it may imitate Him. Generally, these false teachers are very attractive persons. Many of them have charisma, and they make a fleshly appeal to folk. But they can be tested by the Word of God for the Holy Spirit is there to be our teacher and guide.
They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them [1 John 4:5].
False teachers do get a following. The occult and the cults are growing much faster today than is Christianity. They have the advantage of appealing to the flesh which we do not. I think it is tragic to have Christians using fleshly means to draw in a crowd. We need to be very careful of the methods which we use. If they are fleshly methods, God cannot bless them at all. We need to be sure that the Word of God is being given out. I do not care whether several thousand people come to your church—that is not the important thing. I am interested in the message. Is the Word of God being given out? Is it given out in the power of the Spirit so that the Spirit of God can take it and use it? The message should not be a great deal of pious promotion for some sentimental appeal that causes you to give. The question is: Is the Word of God going out from your church? Are folk coming to know Christ? You would not want to invest money in a company simply because they have a nice, beautiful building and the president is a very handsome fellow with a warm personality and charisma. If you are going to invest in that company, you will want to know whether it is making money or not. Is it getting results? Is something happening there? God intends us to use a little consecrated common sense when we are dealing in the area of religion.
“They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.” When John used Cain and Abel as an illustration in chapter 3, he said that Cain was not righteous and was not God’s child. He did not say that Cain wasn’t religious. Cain did bring an offering; in fact, I have a notion his offering was much more attractive than Abel’s offering. Cain’s was beautiful; it was the fruit of the field, but Abel’s was bloody and would have been sickening, nauseating to some people. However, Abel’s offering is the one which God accepted because it recognized the sin of man and his need of a Savior. Cain did not recognize that at all. The flesh depends on itself; it does not depend upon God.
John has made very clear to us that the important thing is that Jesus Christ is who he claimed to be, and that is the thing that we need to be very clear on in order to determine whether a teaching is true or not.
We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error [1 John 4:6].
I used to tell the people of my church that I use the Bible as a Geiger counter. A Geiger counter tells you whether or not there is uranium there in the rocks and in the soil. So I just run the Geiger counter over the congregation, and the Bible is what I use—it’s my Geiger counter. I want to tell you, God’s children will always respond to it. That was my confidence as a pastor, and that is my confidence as I write this book: God’s people are going to hear. And, my friend, I do not expect the other crowd to hear. If they don’t want to hear it, all they have to do is close this book. The Christian ministry does not depend upon them for support; God’s people are to support God’s work. After all, the ark of the covenant was carried on the shoulders of the priests of Israel. The ark speaks of Christ, and if we are to take Him to the world, we must carry Him on our shoulders. The supreme encouragement of the ministry is to know that God’s children will hear you. The elect cannot permanently be deceived. Christ said it is not possible to deceive the elect.
John was sure of who the Lord Jesus was. He could say, “And the Word was made [became] flesh, and dwelt [pitched His tent] among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Then John gave us the purpose of his gospel: “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:30–31). John had indubitable, indestructible, inevitable evidence that Jesus was who He claimed to be. John knew that, and that is something we need to be a little more sure of today.
GOD IS LOVE: LITTLE CHILDREN WILL LOVE EACH OTHER
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God [1 John 4:7].
“Beloved, let us love one another.” Why? “For love is of God.” Let’s be very careful here as to what John is talking about. He has just given a warning against false teachers who are not to be loved—let’s be clear on that. I don’t pray for them. I do not give any pious platitude, saying, “Oh, I’ll pray for them.” I’m not praying for them. They are the children of the Devil. I’m praying for God’s people, and I’m praying for the lost sinner who will turn to Christ if I can just get the Word to him. Having given a warning against these false teachers, John returns now to the theme of this section: believers are to love one another.
Again, may I say that the word for love here is not eros; John is not talking about sex. All through this section, the word for love is agape love. It is not sentimental, it is not sexual, and it is not social love. It is supernatural love. It is that which the Holy Spirit can put in our hearts, and only the Spirit of God can make it real to us. It is the love of God, and only the Spirit of God can enable us to extend this love to others.
This is not the kind of love you have for friends whom you delight in being with. I am afraid this verse has been misused by many. When I was a student in college, I used this verse in courting a girl: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God.” But the kind of love I was talking about was not the kind John was talking about, I can assure you of that! I surely did misinterpret this, and I must confess that I did not have a very lofty purpose at that particular time. “Beloved, let us love one another”—that is, love other believers.
“Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” This is approaching it from the human viewpoint. When you meet a person who says he is a believer, and you find that he loves you and loves other brethren, you can know that he is a born-again child of God. I think people write things in letters to me that they probably would not say to me in person. Many people write, “Dr. McGee, I love you,” and then they go on to tell me why. One family, for instance, wrote, “You brought our two children to the Lord.” Their love for me is an evidence that they are real born-again children of God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love [1 John 4:8].
“He that loveth not knoweth not God.” This is another test of whether or not you are a child of God. I’m not asking you if you love your papa and your mama. I’m not asking you whether you love your wife or your husband or your children or your kissin’ cousins—I’m not asking you that. But I am asking you this: Do you love other believers?
Maybe someone will say, “Well, I can love some of them.” That is helpful—you are moving in the right direction. There are some believers who are very unlovely, but I think that we can love them in the sense that we can have a concern for them. I do not think it is essential to put our arms around them. The way you can show your love is by your concern for others which is going to result in helping them.
John gives us now another definition of God: “God is love.” We have three great definitions of God in this wonderful little book: (1) “God is light” (1 John 1:5), and that was the theme from chapters 1:1 to 2:2; (2) “God is love” (1 John 4:8–16), the very heart of this epistle is the theme from chapters 2:3 to 4:21; and (3) “God is life” is the theme of chapter 5. These are the three great definitions of God which John gives to us, and they constitute the major divisions of this very marvelous epistle.
John says here and again in verse 16, “God is love.” Dr. Harry Ironside has a very remarkable story relative to this which I am going to pass on to you because I think it demonstrates in a wonderful way the truth that only Christianity reveals the God of love. In The Epistles of John Dr. H. A. Ironside writes:
Years ago a lady who prided herself on belonging to the intelligentsia said to me, “I have no use for the Bible, for Christian superstition, and religious dogma. It is enough for me to know that God is love.” “Well,” I said, “do you know it?” “Why, of course I do,” she said; “we all know that, and that is religion enough for me. I do not need the dogmas of the Bible.” “How did you find out that God is love?” I asked. “Why,” she said, “everybody knows that.” “Do they know it yonder in India?” I asked. “That poor mother in her distress throwing her little babe into the holy Ganges to be eaten by filthy and repulsive crocodiles as a sacrifice for her sins—does she know that God is love?” “Oh, well, she is ignorant and superstitious,” she replied. “Those poor wretched negroes in the jungles of Africa, bowing down to gods of wood and stone, and in constant fear of their fetishes, the poor heathen in other countries, do they know that God is love?” “Perhaps not,” she said, “but in a civilized land we all know it.” “But how is it that we know it? Who told us so? Where did we find it out?” “I do not understand what you mean,” she said, “for I’ve always known it.” “Let me tell you this,” I answered; “no one in the world ever knew it until it was revealed from heaven and recorded in the Word of God. It is here and nowhere else. It is not found in all the literature of the ancients.”
In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him [1 John 4:9].
How does God love you? Well, you won’t find that love in nature, but you will find a bloody tooth and a sharp claw—that is what nature reveals to us. You will find the love of God at Calvary. There is where you find the love of God manifested. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” God has proven His love. He laid down His life for us, and that is the proof of His love. Paul wrote, “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die” (Rom. 5:7). I don’t know whether or not you could get anyone to lay down his life for you; I think I’d have a little problem finding someone myself. But God has proven His love by giving His Son to die for you! He gave Him to die for you, not after you won a Sunday school attendance bar for not missing a Sunday in five years, but God loved you when you were yet a sinner. “For when we were yet without strength [while we were lost, while we were absolutely unlovely], in due time Christ died for the ungodly (Rom. 5:6). God loved us! “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). The explanation of this love is found in Him and not in us—because we are not lovely, and some of us do not ever seem to become very lovely.
“God sent his only begotten Son into the world.” Here is another verse to which those who would like to rob us of the deity of Christ turn. When Jesus Christ is called “the only begotten Son,” it means that He has a unique relationship with the Father. He was not created. God called the created angels His sons, and He says that those who trust Christ are sons of God, but yet He says that the Lord Jesus is “the only begotten Son.” It is interesting that the same thing is said of Isaac: “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son” (Heb. 11:17, italics mine). At that time Abraham already had his son Ishmael, and later on he had other sons. Ishmael was Abraham’s son, just as much his son as Isaac was. In fact, Ishmael probably looked as much like Abraham as Isaac ever did. But Isaac is called “his only begotten.” Why? Because he was unique, his birth was miraculous, and he stood in a unique relationship which was not shared by Abraham’s other sons. The position of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Godhead is that of the eternal Son of the eternal Father. We cannot have an eternal Father without an eternal Son. God is not a father in the sense that a human being is a father. “God is a Spirit” (see John 4:24), the Lord Jesus said. The “only begotten Son” is the Father’s unique son. Others are sons by creation, as Adam and the angels, or by new birth, as believers are, but Jesus Christ alone is the unique Son.
“That we might live through him.” How are we going to live through Him? We are going to live through Him because He died. His death gives us life.
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins [1 John 4:10].
John has used the word propitiation previously: “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). This word is quite remarkable. I recognize that there are two different Greek words translated as “propitiation” in the New Testament; actually, it is the same word, but two different forms of it. Dr. A.T. Robertson, whom I consider to be the greatest Greek scholar of them all, writes that here the word propitiation is a predicate accusative in apposition with huion, that is, the Son.
Propitiation means “mercy seat”; it is the same as the Old Testament word atonement, meaning “to cover.” Let me make this as clear as I possibly can. In the tabernacle in the Holy of Holies there was the ark of the covenant. On top of that ark there was a highly ornamented lid crowned with two cherubim of solid gold, facing each other and looking down upon the lid of the box. The ark was a very beautiful thing, for it was all made of acacia wood, and covered inside and outside with gold. The lid was called the mercy seat. It was here that the nation of Israel met God in the person of the high priest. Once a year and only once a year, the high priest came into the Holy of Holies, bringing blood to be sprinkled on the mercy seat. That is what made it a mercy seat because they could meet God only in that way. God loved them, but He didn’t simply slop over with love and say, “You can come to Me any way you want.” This was the way they were to come to God: On that great Day of Atonement, the high priest went in and sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat. That meant that the nation was accepted by God for another year, and then they would need to go through it again the next year.
Now here in the verse before us, the Lord Jesus Christ is called “the propitiation for our sins” which means that He is the mercy seat for our sins. Jesus is Himself the mercy seat because He died down here for us—“Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). He has made expiation for our sins so that you and I can come with boldness to God’s throne of grace. That throne is now a throne of grace because there is mercy there for us. That is what Christ did, and that is the way God demonstrated His love for us.
Twice in this chapter John gives us the definition, “God is love”—in verse 8 and again in verse 16. This is a very wonderful thing, but I would have you notice something about it. You cannot say God is mercy. You cannot say God is grace. You cannot even say God is justice. You can say God is holy because that is what “God is light” means. But you can also say God is love. However, I must add that God does not save us by love. He loves us, and we don’t want to lose sight of that, but God just cannot open the back door of heaven and slip us in under cover of darkness because He loves us. And God cannot let down the bars of heaven and bring us in the front door. God cannot do that, and God will not do that because He is a holy and righteous God.
We have seen so many shenanigans go on in the execution of justice in this nation of ours, and as a result, the judges and others who are in authority have wanted to get rid of capital punishment. Why? Because they know that if a man has money or influence, his life will not be taken. It is the poor fellow who cannot escape his due punishment. The tragic thing today is that we believe that justice can be bought. My friend, even though God loves you, He does not save you by love, and He cannot save you by love. God had to do something about the fact of sin because He is holy and righteous, and what He does is right. So God gave His Son to die on the cross for you and me, to pay the penalty for our sin so that a holy God can now reach down and save us. It is only on that basis that a holy God can save us. Christ is the mercy seat, and that is where God reveals His love. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
“Herein is love, not that we loved God”—we didn’t love Him first. God didn’t give His Son for us because we were attractive, or because we were good, or because we promised to do something. God loved us “while we were yet sinners.” We need to recognize that you and I today are sinners and that “… God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). God did it at that time, and God loved us at that time. He has made a way for us, if we will accept it. Jesus said, “… I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). You either come His way, or you don’t come, my friend. It is nonsense to think that because God is love, everything will work out all right and everyone will ultimately go to heaven. It is going to work out all right because the lost are going to a lost eternity, and the saved are going to a saved eternity—that’s the reason things are going to work out all right. Are they going to work out all right for you? They will, if you come God’s way—this is tremendously important.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another [1 John 4:11].
God has demonstrated His love for us; therefore, you and I ought to love on that plane. John says, “Beloved, if God so loved us.” This carries our minds back to verse 10: “Herein is love … that he loved us, and sent his Son.” He loved us enough to give His Son as a propitiation for our sins.
If we love those who love us, or if there is a selfish motive in our loving them, there is no value in that. The Lord Jesus said, “For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?” (Matt. 5:46).
“We ought also to love one another.” I like that—when John says ought, he means it. He is not talking about the cheap sentiment which a great many people entertain today. Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). If you really love Him, keep His commandments. “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12). How about it, my friend? Do you mean to tell me that you can hate Christians down here and still love God? I want to say to you very frankly that if you cannot demonstrate in your life that you have love for other believers, there is a serious question whether you are a child of God or not. There is a lot of nonsense going on today. We are not talking about backslapping, calling somebody “brother,” or behaving so nicely in the church. But do you have a concern for believers? Do you have a concern to get out His Word? Do you have a concern to serve Him?
The Lord Jesus could say even on the cross, “… Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do …” (Luke 23:34). The first martyr of the church, Stephen, said the same thing. Can you forgive like that today? Are you able to forgive those who have hurt you and harmed you and yet profess to be children of God? And if they cannot return your love, there is some question whether they are children of God or not. This is the real test, the acid test, and it hurts—does it not? We do not hear this type of teaching in these little seminars which talk about how to live the Christian life and how to get along with your spouse. John gives us the bedrock of it all: Do you love God? And do you love other believers?
No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us [1 John 4:12].
“No man hath seen God at any time.” Some folk challenge this statement by pointing out scriptural illustration of those who have seen God. Of course, there was Adam, and then Moses who talked with God face to face and was hidden in the cleft of the rock as He went by. And Isaiah says, “In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple” (Isa. 6:1). We find that Ezekiel had visions of God, and the Lord appeared to Daniel and to others. And yet John said in his gospel, “No man hath seen God at any time.” But John does not conclude his statement with that; he goes on to say, “… the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18)—that is, He has exegeted Him. When God appeared to men in the Old Testament, they did not see God, for God is a Spirit and that is the way we worship Him. Those men saw what is known as a theophany. That is, God manifested Himself in some form to these men, but He did not reveal Himself in all of His fullness. So that John says in his epistle, even after the Lord Jesus had gone back to heaven, “No man hath seen God at any time.” The Lord Jesus said to Philip, “… he that hath seen me hath seen the Father …” (John 14:9). But how did they see Him? He was veiled in human flesh, so much so that multitudes who saw Him did not recognize Him. He grew to manhood yonder in Nazareth, veiled in human flesh—they did not know that He was the Son of God. No man has seen God in all of His fullness. That is still true today.
The point that John is making here is that no man has seen God at any time, but God today can manifest Himself through believers loving each other. Since the world in general is not seeing Jesus as He is presented in the Word of God, the only way it will know of God’s love is through the lives of believers who represent Him. None of us knew about God’s love until God showed it to us on the cross when Christ died, and He makes it real to us by the Holy Spirit. “And … the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Rom. 5:5). And “… God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners [while we were dead in trespasses, while we were ungodly], Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). It is still true that there is none that seeketh after God, so God has come down seeking man. He came down nineteen hundred years ago, manifesting Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ, and all I know about God is what I know in the person of Christ. I do not know how God feels about certain things; I do not know what He thinks about certain things. But when I follow the Lord Jesus and listen to Him, I know what God is thinking, I can feel the heartbeat of God. I know how He feels at a funeral, for the Scriptures tells us that “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). I know how He feels about little children because He took them up in His arms and blessed them. I know these things because the Lord came and manifested God.
How is this wicked world in which you and I live to know God? Unfortunately, too many believers are trying to please the world instead of trying to preach to the world. We are concerned about what the world thinks of us, but the important thing is: What do they think of Jesus? What do they think of us as we represent Him? Someone has put it like this: “At the age of twenty, we do not care what the world thinks of us. At thirty we worry about what the world is thinking of us. At forty we discover that it wasn’t thinking of us at all!” That is about true. We today are to witness to the world. How are we going to witness? By giving out the Word? Yes, that is all important. But the world is hungry for love; they do not know what love is. Their definition of love would be a three-letter word spelled s-e-x. That is the love the world knows about, but they don’t know anything about the love of God. They do not know how wonderful He is, but He can be manifested in us.
“And his love is perfected in us.” His love is developed in us. It is a growth in us. The world is not seeing enough of this love, and yet it has seen it in the lives of a great many believers.
Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit [1 John 4:13].
You see, it is only by the Holy Spirit within us. This is not a human love. You and I cannot work it up. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Gal. 5:22–23). Love heads the list. Many believe that love is the fruit and that the others stem from love. If you read 1 Corinthians 13, you will come to the conclusion that joy comes out of love and peace comes out of love. In The Epistles of John Dr. Ironside records this incident concerning Chiang Kai-shek at the time he was ruling mainland China.
We all noticed a short time ago the account of the professed conversion of the President of China. We hope there has been a real work in his soul, but time will tell. I was reading how he came to his Christian wife who was saved long before he made a profession, and said, “I can’t understand these Christians; why, they have been treated most abominably here, they have been robbed, beaten, many of them killed, they have been persecuted fearfully, and yet I never find one of them retaliating, and any time they can do anything for China, for our people, they are ready to do it; I do not understand them.” “Well,” said his wife, “that, you see, is the very essence of Christianity. They do that because they are Christians.”
There is a need for a great many more pagans to be able to see this love in the lives of believers. This is a teaching that is surely neglected today. How often do you hear this taught in the church, on radio, or in these little seminars which are held? Is this the teaching which is given as being basic and all important?
When the love of God is in a home you don’t need to worry about the wife’s place and whether she is to obey her husband or whether the husband is to be the head of the house, and all of that argument. Paul writes, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Eph. 5:25). If he loves her, if she is a woman for whom he would lay down his life, if the wife can say that she loves him with all her heart and would do anything for him, then I don’t think you need a lot of little rules to go by. There is a monument which I have seen, a statue of a pioneer woman, a fine looking young woman with a sunbonnet on. She has about five children around her holding on to those long skirts which they wore back in those days. She’s holding a gun, and out ahead of her is her husband. She is loading one gun, while he shoots another. He is out there protecting her. Do you know, friend, I don’t think that woman needed any lectures on sex. If she had five children, I think she could have given you some lectures on it! And I don’t think she needed to have a lecture on how to keep her husband. She had no trouble keeping him. They loved each other, and they were bound together. How wonderful love is! If the child of God could only manifest the love of God to others round about him!
“Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.” Back in verse 4 John says, “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” You are indwelt by the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God can produce this love in your heart. You cannot produce it; I cannot produce it. I cannot love like this. My natural bent is that when somebody hits me, I hit back. But if we are filled by the Spirit of God who indwells us, we are going to manifest this kind of love to the world.
And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world [1 John 4:14].
This is the gospel witness. This is the message which we have to give. This is the purpose of our love. Again I must come back and repeat: Christian love is not sloppy or sentimental; it is not sexual; it is not social. It is not something that you have at the church banquet. It is something which reveals itself when we take Christ to a lost world of sinners. That is the way we manifest our love.
This kind of love is hard to understand. I have been with missionaries in many places—in Israel, in Africa, in Lebanon, in Turkey. I have been with them in France and in Italy, and I have been with them in Mexico, in Venezuela, and in the Caribbean. The thing which I have noted about these missionaries is that they love people, and a lot of the people they love are very hard to love. But they have a love for them, and it is wonderful to see it. What are they doing? They are taking the gospel out to these people, and that is the thing that God has commanded them to do. When they first got there, maybe they didn’t love the people. But after you have ministered to people, my friend, you will love them, or you just couldn’t be God’s child.
Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God [1 John 4:15].
This is where you begin with Him—don’t tell me that the Virgin Birth is not important. This is the gospel: “… how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3–4). My friend, if He is not who He said He was, His death and resurrection are absolutely meaningless; in fact, He was not raised from the dead if He is not who He said He was. But the evidence is all on the side that He did arise from the dead, and the proof of it is that He was virgin born; He was who He claimed to be.
“Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” This is the reason that the Lord Jesus could say, “Whatever God does, I do.” He made this tremendous claim: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). How is that possible? He had just said in John 5:19, “… The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” He is going to raise the dead, and He is going to judge all of the dead. Therefore, He can say to you today that because of who He is, if you will hear His voice and if you will believe on Him, you will be saved.
And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him [1 John 4:16].
These are inextricably intertwined and interwoven together. You simply cannot say that you love God and that you are a child of God when you hate the brethren down here.
This is the second time in this chapter that we have had the definition, “God is love.” An easy way to remember where in chapter 4 it occurs is this: multiply four by two and you get eight—it occurs in verse 8 the first time; then multiply eight by two and you get sixteen—it occurs in verse 16 the second time. First John 4:8 and 16 give the definition, “God is love.”
Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world [1 John 4:17].
Our love is made “perfect,” and that means complete.
“That we may have boldness in the day of judgment.” If you and I love God, love the Lord Jesus, and love one another as brothers and sisters in the faith, then that will give us boldness, and we will not have any fear of the day of judgment.
“Because as he is, so are we in this world.” In other words, we are just like the Lord Jesus. He was raised from the dead, we are told here, and He has life. Well, we have that life too, and He is up yonder at God’s right hand for us. We are in Christ, and we are accepted in the Beloved.
Therefore, John can go on to say—
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love [1 John 4:18].
There is nothing like fear in the human heart, but the child of God does not need to fear any judgment which is coming. It was all settled when Christ died for you.
“He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” If you are fearful, you cannot enjoy your salvation. Joy stems from love, and if you have love for the Lord Jesus, for God, and for your brethren, then fear has been cast out.
We love him, because he first loved us [1 John 4:19].
He loved us when we were unlovely. He is worth loving. He is worthy. The Lamb is worthy of all of our love, all of our devotion, all of our service.
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? [1 John 4.20].
I didn’t say this; John said it. John says that if you say you love God and hate your brother, you are a liar.
“For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” There is a great deal of nonsense and pious hypocrisy going on today even in our fundamental churches. If we do not love our brother, then we do not love God either.
And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also [1 John 4:21].
This is a commandment. God does not ask you if you feel like it or if you want to. He says, “This is what I command you. Because I love, you are to love.” I get a little weary hearing the talk of “dedicated” and “consecrated” Christians who are lazy on the job. You are not dedicated to the Lord unless you demonstrate it in your life and in your service.
CHAPTER 5
Theme: God is life; victory over the world; assurance of salvation
GOD IS LIFE
In this chapter we have come to the last major division of this very wonderful little book. In the first part of this epistle, we saw that God is light. In the very extensive center section, we saw that God is love. The subject of this final chapter is God is life.
VICTORY OVER THE WORLD
In these first five verses, John talks about victory for the believer over the world. The “world” here is the cosmos, that is, the world with all of its organizations, all of its governments, all of its selfishness, its greed, its sorrow, its sickness, and its awful sin. John is going to say that it is possible for the child of God to have a victory right down here over this world.
Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him [1 John 5:1].
God is life, and that life comes through being born of God. “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God”—this is the method, this is how one is born again. John makes it very clear here and in the opening of his gospel that you become a child of God through simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power [the exousian power, the right, the authority] to become the sons of God, even to them that [don’t do any more nor less than simply] believe on his name” (John 1:12). This means that when you trust Christ, you trust who He is as well as what He did. What He did has no value if He is not who He said He was. Again I must say that the Virgin Birth is very essential. Who is this that died for the sins of the world? It was not an ordinary man who did that because an ordinary man is sinful himself and could not even die to obtain his own salvation. He could die only a judgment death, being eternally separated from God. “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” It is faith which produces the New Birth.
Once you have been born again, how do you know that you have been born again? Do you have some great, overwhelming experience? Do you enter some ecstatic state? Not necessarily; some people do I am told, but that is not the usual procedure. “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.” When you trust the Lord Jesus Christ, you are born again, and God becomes your heavenly Father. He is God the Father, and He becomes your heavenly Father. If He is your heavenly Father and you are begotten of Him, then you will love Him. But it doesn’t stop there—you are also going to love the one who is begotten of Him. In other words, you are going to love other of God’s little children. John has said this before, and he has said that it is not something new with him. In 1 John 3:11 we read, “For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” And the Lord Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if you have love one to another” (John 13:35).
This expression, “born of God,” is very, very important. Being born of God hasn’t anything to do with the fact that you have joined a church or gone through a ceremony. If you are born of God, I hope you have joined a church and that you take part in the ordinances of your church, but following certain rituals does not make you a child of God. The important thing is: Are you born of God? Have you been born again? You are born again when you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, and the proof of it is that you love God. You love your Father—He begot you—and you are going to love His other children because they are your brothers and sisters. This cannot be confined to a certain denomination, church, race, clique, or group. The one who is born again will love others who are born again.
This is the epistle on how you can have the assurance of your salvation, and all along John has been giving to you some of the evidences that you are a child of God:
1. “If you know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him” (1 John 2:29). A child of God will practice righteousness in his life. This does not mean that righteousness is the unusual thing, the abnormal thing, or that once in awhile you practice it. It is to be the practice of your life. You will slip and fall sometimes, but righteousness will be the practice of your life if you are His child.
2. “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (1 John 3:9). A child of God will not practice sin. He will not live in it, revel in it, or make it his life. The life-style of a sinner is sin; he lives in sin all the time, and you don’t expect him to do differently. We all lived in sin until we came to Christ.
3. “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God” (1 John 4:7). A child of God will love other Christians. This is another test that will give assurance to you that you are born of God: Do you love other Christians?
4. “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (v. 4). A child of God will overcome the world.
5. “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not” (v. 18). A child of God keeps himself from Satan.
Two of the evidences, two of the birthmarks of a child of God are given right here in this chapter. We will discuss these last two in more detail as we come to them. John is going to emphasize certain tests of true sonship—love, obedience, and truth. No one can quarrel with these words. Love, obedience, and truth are marks of the child of God.
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments [1 John 5:2].
What does John mean here by “his commandments”? The commandments, as I understand it here, are not referring to the Old Testament law at all, but they are the commandments which the Lord Jesus gave when He was here. For example, we find not ten commandments but about twenty-two in the fifth chapter of 1 Thessalonians: “Rejoice evermore” (v. 16); “Pray without ceasing” (v. 17); and “Quench not the Spirit” (v. 19), etc. These are the commandments for believers today. Every child of God wants to keep these commandments as the practice of his life. This is something that he desires to do, something that he longs to do.
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous [1 John 5:3].
The New Scofield Reference Bible has changed “grievous” to burdensome. I’m not going to quarrel with that because it is a good translation, but the literal is really, heavy. His commandments are not heavy. This does not mean that they are difficult to keep but rather that they do not impose a burden when they are kept. John is saying that the child of God wants to keep His commandments. It is something that he wants to practice; it is not difficult for him to do these things at all. The little girl who was carrying a big, heavy baby was asked by a concerned woman, “Little girl, isn’t that baby too heavy for you?” The child replied, “He’s not heavy. He’s my brother.” It makes all the difference in the world, you see, when he’s your brother. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” The point is that they impose no burden on us because we are keeping them through love.
The story is told about a man and his family who years ago drove into a little town in Oklahoma in a covered wagon. They stopped at the town store to talk to the owner as he sat on an apple box out in front of the store. “What kind of town is this here?” they asked him. The storekeeper said, “Well, what kind of town did you come from?” “Oh,” the man said, “we came from a wonderful town. Everybody there seemed to know each other, seemed to care about each other, and had a concern for each other. They were very wonderful people. We really hated to leave, but we wanted to move west. We’re not sure where to settle down. What kind of town is this?” The storekeeper said, “This is just the same kind of town which you left. It’s that kind of town.” The man said, “Well, then, I think maybe we’ll settle here,” and they drove on down the street.
In a little while another covered wagon drove up in front of the little store. The man asked the storekeeper, “What kind of town is this?” So the storekeeper again said, “What kind of town did you leave?” “We were glad to get away from it,” the man said. “They were some of the meanest people that I have ever met. They were never very neighborly or very helpful. We never had any friends there, and that’s the reason we left.” The storekeeper told him. “Well, I think you are going to find this is the same kind of town. We are the same kind of people.” And the second man decided to drive on.
Another citizen of the town who had been sitting there with the storekeeper said, “Wait a minute! What do you mean by giving those two men two different viewpoints of this town?” And the storekeeper replied, “I’ve learned that any town will be the same kind of town that you have left—because you will be the same kind of person.”
May I say to you, the child of God ought to recognize that he is not to be looking for someone to do something for him, but he is to be expressing love in real action and in real concern for others. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35). If you love the Lord Jesus, if you love your heavenly Father, you are going to love other believers. You will know that you are keeping His commandments, and they will not be a burden to you at all. The Lord Jesus said, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30). It will be heavy unless you have the real love for the Lord and you truly want to serve Him. Then church work and other ministries will never become difficult.
Dr. Ironside taught this epistle of John while I was in seminary, and he told us this story:
Some time ago I read of a man who spent a few months in India. When he came back, he was discussing India at the home of some of his friends, and the talk drifted to missions, and this man, out of his wide experience, about five months in India, said, “I have no use for missions and missionaries. I spent months there, and didn’t see that they were doing anything; in fact, in all that time I never met a missionary. I think the church is wasting its money on missions.” A quiet old gentleman sat near. He had not said anything, but now spoke up and said, “Pardon me; how long did you say you were in India?”
“Five months.”
“What took you there?”
“I went out to hunt tigers.”
“And did you see any tigers?”
“Scores of them.”
“It is rather peculiar,” said the old gentleman, “but I have spent thirty years in India, and in those years I never saw a tiger but I have seen hundreds of missionaries. You went to India to hunt tigers and you found them. I went to India to do missionary work and found many other missionaries.”
It’s owing to what you are looking for, my friend. Are you concerned about God’s work today? Are you concerned about getting out God’s Word? Some folk say, “Well, I don’t see that much progress is being made.” You just don’t happen to be where the action is, for the Word of God is going out, and it is having its effect in hearts and lives.
For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith [1 John 5:4].
Since we hear so much about “victory” in the Christian life today, it may seem strange to you that it occurs so rarely in the New Testament.
What is it that overcomes the world? It is our faith. It is faith that saves us, and it is faith that keeps us. We are saved by faith; we walk by faith. We are born children of God by faith in Jesus Christ, and faith is the only way in which you and I will be able to overcome this world around us.
Now we have an enemy, and John has talked about this enemy before: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world” (1 John 2:15). There is in the world that which is of the flesh, that which is of the world, and that which is of the Devil. As Wordsworth put it, “The world is too much with us.” As believers we are in the world, but we are not to be of it. This world that you and I are in is a big, mean, bad world. We can be caught up in it very easily—we can be trapped by it.
There is an illustration of this in the Old Testament which I think might be helpful to us at this point. It is the story of Joshua and the children of Israel entering the Promised Land. First, I must say that the Promised Land is not a figure of heaven. Our songs which talk about Canaan being heaven and the place to which believers are going simply do not fit what God teaches us in His Word. Actually, Canaan represents a condition in which believers ought to be living down here. We can live out in the wilderness, and there are a great many wilderness believers today. They do not have any fun at all, although they think they do at times. There’s no fun out in the wilderness. The wilderness march was not easy. But the land of Canaan is where we are blessed with all spiritual blessings.
When Joshua entered the land, it was not handed to him on a silver platter. If you and I today are to enjoy the spiritual blessings which are ours, we need to recognize that we have a battle to fight; the enemy holds the territory, and he is not going to let us have any kind of deliverance or victory without a battle. When Joshua entered the Promised Land, therefore, there were three enemies that stood before him. Until he overcame them, he was not able to take the land.
The first enemy was Jericho, and Jericho represents the world. That was the first place Joshua struck. It was obvious that what he was trying to do was to split the land into two divisions and then take one at a time. Then the second enemy was little Ai which represents the flesh. Joshua sent a small contingent up there, thinking it would be easy to take, but that is the one place where he received a telling defeat. Many Christians overcome the world, but they are always overcome by the flesh. In other words, there are many saints who don’t engage in worldly practices, but they go to church and gossip—they indulge the flesh. They can blow the trumpet around Jericho, but they don’t blow the trumpet around Ai. Then finally there were the Gibeonites who represent the Devil. They deceived Joshua. The Devil was a liar from the beginning. He still deceives and works wilily.
Let’s come back to verse 4 and look at it in reference to Jericho. “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world.” If you are a child of God, you are going to overcome the world. How will you gain that victory? “And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” It is not by fighting but by faith. How did this man Joshua overcome Jericho? Jericho was the enemy which was out in front of him, and he had to take that city. How was he going to take the city? By fighting it? He did not fight it at all, but God told him what to do. God said, “I don’t want you to make an assault upon the city. I don’t want you to use a battering ram to try to get through the gate. The thing which I want you to do is to march around the city. Instead of putting only your elite army up in front—the Marines or the special guards—I want you to also put the priests up there with the ark of the covenant. And the priests shall carry horns, and the trumpets are to be blown as they go around the city. But you are not to make an attack upon the city.” It was a most unusual method which God gave to Joshua!
I am confident that the city of Jericho had braced itself for the onslaught of these people who had crossed the Jordan River at flood stage—which must have seemed to Jericho to be an impossibility and a foreboding of things to come. So they shut up their city, ready to defend themselves against Israel. I think that their guard up on the gate gave the signal, “Here they come—the whole army of Israel!” As Israel marched up to the gate, you must remember that there was an army on the inside ready and waiting for them. But when the children of Israel came up to the gate, they made a right face and kept on marching. They marched once around the walls of the city, and then they went back into camp!
You can be sure that there was a meeting of the general’s staff in the city of Jericho that night to try to figure out the strategy that Israel was using against them. As best they could, they prepared themselves for the next day when the guard on the gate again yelled down and said, “Here they come!” They braced themselves for the battle in case Israel tried to break through the gates. Probably there were soldiers up on top ready to pour boiling oil or water down upon them and to shoot arrows, but Israel didn’t attempt to come through. They simply marched around the city again, and they repeated that for six days. By that time, the army staff inside the city of Jericho had just about gone crazy. They didn’t know what in the world was taking place.
On the seventh day, when Israel had gone around one time, the general’s staff heaved a sigh of relief and said, “It sure looks like they’re not going to take the city. They are just doing something very crazy.” From the world’s viewpoint, it was very crazy—you must admit that this was an unusual strategy. But this time the guard said, “Wait a minute! They are not returning to camp. They are marching around again!” And Israel proceeded to march around the city seven times. Then what happened? The priests of Israel blew the trumpets, the people shouted, and the walls of Jericho fell down! The children of Israel probably completely encircled the city, and when the walls of Jericho fell down, the army on the inside was certainly taken by surprise.
How did the children of Israel take the city of Jericho? By fighting? They did not fight at all. They were marching around according to the order given not by Joshua but by that unseen Captain of the host of the Lord. Frankly, I used to have a problem with this incident in Scripture. My problem was not with the walls of Jericho falling down—that fact has been pretty well established by archaeological excavations—but the thing that disturbed me was why a man of Joshua’s proven ability as a military leader would use tactics like this. It is true that God commanded it, but I still think that Joshua might have disagreed with the tactics.
The answer lies in that earlier incident when Joshua saw the man with the drawn sword standing at the edge of the Israelite camp (see Josh. 5:13–15). Joshua went out and said to the man—if you want it in good old Americana—“What’s the big idea? Who told you to draw a sword?” Joshua’s question was, “… Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?” (Josh. 5:13). That’s the way our translation gives it, and it is a good translation, but probably Joshua really meant, “What’s the big idea? Who gave you an order to draw a sword?” Joshua thought he was in charge. But when the man turned and answered, Joshua realized that He was a supernatural person. I personally believe that He was none other than the preincarnate Christ. Then Joshua fell at His feet and worshiped Him. So you see, before the battle of Jericho, this man Joshua learned that he was not really in charge. General Headquarters was not in his tent but in heaven with the Captain of the host of the Lord, for that is how the Stranger identified Himself, “… Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come …” (Josh. 5:14). In other words, the Lord was telling Joshua, “This battle you are fighting is a spiritual battle as well as a physical one, and I’m the Captain.” So General Joshua was now going to take his orders from the “captain of the host of the Lord, ” and the Captain said, “March around the city.” With this incident in mind, I don’t have any trouble understanding Joshua. If you had met him and asked him why in the world he was using such a crazy maneuver, I think he would have agreed with you, “Say, this is crazy, isn’t it? But after all, I’m just taking orders.”
If you have ever had any army experience, you know that a buck private never talks back to a captain. That is, when the captain says,“Go, do this,” the private doesn’t stop and say, “I’ve been thinking this over myself, and I think there is a better way of doing it.” Did you ever hear of a buck private saying that to a captain? No! He says, “Yes, sir! I’ll go do it.” And he goes and does whatever the captain has commanded. When I was in the National Guard, some fellows got into trouble by slipping out during the night. The next day, the captain gave them an order to dig a hole. He said, “I want this hole six feet long, I want it three feet wide, and I want it five feet deep.” The fellows dug the hole and then went in and reported to the captain. The captain came out, looked at the hole, and he said, “Now I want you to fill it back up with the dirt.” They had to fill it back up! That sounds sort of crazy, but they had to obey orders.
Joshua was obeying orders. He was being obedient. He believed the Captain. Hebrews 11 tells us, “By faith the walls of Jericho felldown …” (Heb. 11:30). It wasn’t by fighting or military skills but by faith that the walls of Jericho fell down.
What is the lesson for us today? You and I cannot overcome the world by fighting it. This is one reason that as a pastor I never engaged in any reform movement, no matter how worthwhile it was—and I agreed that many of them were good. I would never serve on the committee, nor would I have part in it as pastor of a church because I do not think I was called to get into that at all. You don’t overcome the world by fighting it. I knew a former movie star many years ago who called me when I was a pastor in downtown Los Angeles and asked if I would serve on a committee to help reform downtown Los Angeles. Downtown Los Angeles needed reforming then, and it still does, but I never felt I was called to do that. I refused to serve on the committee, and she couldn’t believe it. She said, “Do you mean to tell me that you won’t serve on the committee? As a preacher you are not interested in that?” I said, “I didn’t say that. I just won’t serve on the committee.” And I told her why. I said, “The Lord called me to fish in the fishpond, but He never told me to clean up the fishpond. So my business is fishing, giving out the Word of God. I let the Spirit of God do any cleaning up that’s to be done. That is the department He is in, and I’m not in that department.” She didn’t like it, but she had to accept it, of course. I don’t fight the world today. I’m not in any great reformation movement. I’m not trying to straighten up our government, although I think it needs straightening up. I think that both the Democratic and the Republican parties are in a shambles today. We are without leadership as a nation. Although I recognize all of this, it is not my business to try to change it. My business is to give out the Word of God.
Although he had the army, Joshua’s business was not to fight. His business was to believe God. He believed God, and the walls fell down. My friend, today we are saved by faith, and if we are going to overcome this world, we’ll not overcome it by fighting it. We are going to overcome it by faith. That is the only way you and I can deal with this world in which we live, and that is the great message which is here for us.
Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? [1 John 5:5].
When you really trust Christ, it is not a question of your own power, but you are kept by the power of God through faith. We have faith in Christ for salvation in the future and faith in Christ for salvation from the world here and now.
ASSURANCE OF SALVATION
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 truth [1 John 5:6].
You will recall that at the crucifixion of Jesus His bones were not broken in fulfillment of Scripture. In order to hasten death, the Romans would sometimes break the legs of those who were hanging on the crosses, but John tells us in his gospel: “But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe” (John 19:33–35). John was present at the crucifixion of Christ, and he noted something that no one else noted. Chances are that he was closer to the cross than any of the other apostles. He noted that when that soldier pushed the spear into the side of Christ, there came out blood and water—not just one element, but both elements.
Here in his epistle John makes application of this. He emphasized it in his gospel, and now he comes back to it here and says, “He that came by water.” “Water” speaks of what? It speaks of the Word of God. The Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, “… Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). The water is the living Word applied by the Spirit of God. “He that came by water”—the Word of God that the Spirit of God uses. “And blood” refers to the death of Christ. “Even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood.”
“And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.” It is the Spirit who can make these truths live. May I make this rather startling statement: The Lord Jesus told the disciples that between His death and resurrection and the Day of Pentecost they were to tarry in Jerusalem and to do nothing—they were not to witness. Why? They could not witness effectually without the Holy Spirit. Therefore, if anyone is to be saved, not only is Christ’s redemptive death essential, but also that the Spirit of God work in hearts and lives. I am encouraged by letters from listeners to our Bible-teaching radio broadcasts because they demonstrate that the Word of God taken by the Spirit of God can apply the blood of Christ to hearts and lives. Christ died for our sins, but the Spirit of God must make that real to us. Only the Spirit of God can make the death of Christ real to you, and only the Spirit of God can make the resurrection of Christ real to you.
In verse 7 it looks as if there are added three more witnesses which are in heaven—
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one [1 John 5:7].
In a very scholarly presentation, Dr. A. T. Robertson states that this verse is not in the better manuscripts. I heard Dr. Robertson lecture when I was a student in seminary, and, he probably knew more Greek than anybody who has lived in our generation. I remember that when he got up the first day to lecture on the Epistle to the Romans, he had a great big sheaf of notes. He didn’t even look up at the class because he was busy just straightening out those notes. Then he looked up and said, “I don’t see how the apostle Paul ever wrote the Epistle to the Romans without my notes!” Of course, everybody roared at that. Well, Dr. Robertson was a great Greek scholar, and he makes the statement that verse 7 is not in the better manuscripts but was probably written in the margin by some scribe. You must remember that the Bible at first was handwritten. The first book printed was the Bible, but that was not until Gutenberg invented the printing press which was a long time after John and his day. Evidently some scribe put what we have as verse 7 in the margin, and then later on another scribe came along and thought it was to be included in the text. There is nothing wrong with the verse, but we do need to recognize that it is not in the better manuscripts. If we want to be scholarly and accurate and to be able to defend the verbal, plenary inspiration of the Bible, we need to know these things.
In other words, there are not six witnesses presented here. The three in heaven given inverse 7 would do us very little good down here on earth, but it is the three witnesses on earth which we are concerned about and which have a direct bearing on us. That is what needs to be emphasized.
And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one [1 John 5:8].
What is the agreement which these three witnesses have? Well, they agree in one purpose, that is, the purpose of presenting Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world who shed His blood upon Calvary and paid the penalty for our sins.
“There are three that bear witness in earth,” and these three are right here right now. The Holy Spirit will take the Word of God and apply it to your heart. You are reading this book long after the time I actually wrote it. I believe that the Holy Spirit is here, leading right now as I write. When you read 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. His witness is that you might come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
How are you going to come to that knowledge? 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. This is my reason for being a fellow with a one-track mind. All I have ever emphasized in my ministry is the Word of God. I just have one tune that I play—I just have one message that I give. I hope it doesn’t get too monotonous but, my friend, the Word of God is the only thing which can clean up your life even as a believer, and it is the only thing which will keep it clean. This is something very important to know.
We are living in a day when a great deal of attention is given to cleanliness, in fact, too much attention. You are led to believe that if you don’t use a certain miracle bar of soap, you will be out of it, you may even lose your job, and certainly all of your friends are going to desert you. But if you use a certain brand—it’s a “miracle” substance—it will clean you up, and even clean your clothes up. It will clean up everything but what is on the inside of you; it won’t clean up that. Only the Word of God can do that.
The only true miracle cleansing agent in the world today is the Word of God. It can clean you up; it can save you: “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Pet. 1:23). For the Word of God presents Christ who shed His blood for your sins and my sins. He died for our sins; He was raised for our justification. Not only can it save you, but the Word of God can also keep you clean while you are down here. You can use every kind of spray deodorant there is, you can rub it on, you can pour it on, you can buy it in the giant economy size, put it in your swimming pool, and swim in it, my friend, but it won’t clean you on the inside. Only the Word of God can keep you clean today. That is the thing which John is emphasizing here. These three bear witness on earth—the Spirit uses the water of the Word and applies the blood for our salvation. These three all agree in one—that is, they want to get you saved and keep you saved.
If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son [1 John 5:9].
I don’t know about you, but many folk whom I have talked to have reached a credibility gap between themselves and the news media, the politicians, and all who are on television today. I’ll be very candid with you that there are certain news commentators whom I won’t listen to any longer. I know that they are doing nothing in the world but giving out propaganda. They are not giving facts. Everything they give is biased and distorted and twisted for a liberal position. Apparently, they are willing even to misinform you, and they are willing to withhold facts to gain their objective. I have come to the place where it does not matter who they are or to what party they belong, I have no confidence in politicians. Therefore, we are in a place today where it is difficult to receive the witness of men, but the interesting thing is that John Q. Public swallows it hook, line, and sinker. You can tell by the different polls which are taken that a man’s influence or his popularity is determined by what the news media say about him. The biggest frauds in the world can be built up by the media—Hollywood, of course, has done this for years. Most people do receive the witness of men; they are taken in by it. If it is said over television or if it is put into print, they will believe it. There are many people who believe whatever they read or hear, but they will not receive the witness of God! Oh, my friend, the witness of God is greater!
“For this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.” God today is not giving out news on every subject. His news is good news, and it is about His Son who died for us on the cross. That is His message.
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son [1 John 5:10].
“He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.” If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, the Holy Spirit indwells you, and He testifies that these things are true. This is one of the great encouragements in teaching the Word of God by radio. Many people who listen have never seen me (I guess that may be a good thing!), but they have the Holy Spirit indwelling them, and when they hear the Word of God, they accept it because the Spirit bears witness that they are hearing the Word of God. This is quite wonderful, and it is the greatest encouragement in preaching and teaching the Word of God, whether it be from the pulpit, over radio, or through the printed page.
“He that believeth not God hath made him a liar.” When you don’t believe God, you add to your other sins by implying that He is a liar. God says, “Trust Christ, and I’ll save you.” If you say, “I don’t need Christ to be saved,” then you are calling God a liar. I receive many letters like the one from a woman who thought that since she was a member of the church and did a lot of good things, she was all right. She had to listen to the teaching of the Word of God for a long time before she realized that she was a sinner and that she needed Christ as her Savior.
“Because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.” What is “the record”? John is going to tell us—
And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son [1 John 5:11].
What is the record? “This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” Eternal life is to have Christ. It boils down to this one point. This is the gospel in a nutshell. This is the simplest test that can be made—
He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life [1 John 5:12].
“He that hath the Son hath life.” He didn’t say, “He that belongs to the church has life.” You might say, “I’m a Baptist” or “I’m a Methodist” or “I’m a Presbyterian” or “I’m a Nazarene” or “I belong to the Church of God.” It does not matter what church you belong to—your church membership does not mean you are saved. Then 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 no one on earth or in heaven can shake your confidence in Him? My friend, if you haven’t come to that point, you haven’t come anywhere at all. 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 are lost without Him, but if we have Him, we have life.
“And he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” My friend, can it be made any clearer than that? Let’s forget about religion. Let’s forget about all this churchianity. Let’s forget about all this gimmickry that is going on today—taking little courses, going through little rituals, all that sort of thing. Forget about it, my friend! The important thing is: Do you have Christ? Is He your Savior?
This is the reason John has emphasized that Jesus is the Son of God. I want to say to you, He is wonderful. He is God manifest in the flesh. He is the only one who can save us. He is absolutely unique. There is no one else like Him. He’s the only begotten Son of God. He died upon the cross because He alone could pay the penalty for our sins. He rose again, and He is living right this moment at God’s right hand for us. He is the living Christ. Do you have Him today as your Savior? That is the only question you need to answer. If you have Him, you have life—you are saved. That is the record. Do you believe God, or don’t you believe God? If you don’t believe Him, you make Him a liar.
My friend, John has this down right where you can get it. You cannot miss this. The only thing right now that will keep you from coming to Christ is the sin in your life that you don’t want to give up. That is the only thing in the world which will stop you. That is the decision you make.
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God [1 John 5:13].
John has a twofold purpose in writing this epistle: (1) “that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God”—that’s salvation, and (2) “that ye may know that ye have eternal life”—if you have Christ, if you have believed Him, you have life. A great many people say, “I just want to believe that I have eternal life.” The question is: Whom do you believe? Not what do you believe, but whom do you believe? Do you believe God? Do you believe the record that He gave? He says that if you have the Son, you have life. Now do you believe that? John didn’t say if you feel like it or if you have joined something, but if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. And if you have Him, then you have life.
This is the reason John has written this epistle—“that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” This was also the purpose of the gospel which John wrote: “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written [John didn’t write everything, just certain things], that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God [that’s who He is]; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:30–31).
If you have the Son, you have life—John wants you to know that, and you honor God when you know it. That simply means that you are not making God a liar, but you’re trusting Him. It is not a matter of how much faith you have or how you feel about it, it is whether or not you trust Christ. That’s all important.
Having this assurance of eternal life will do something for our Christian life here and now—
And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us [1 John 5:14].
Our assurance will give us confidence in prayer, and believe me, we need confidence in prayer. This word confidence actually means “boldness.” “This is the boldness that we have in him.” This assurance will give boldness in prayer to the child of God.
“If we ask any thing according to his will”—our prayer must be according to the will of God. If you and I are in fellowship with Him, walking with Him, then our prayer would be for God’s will in every circumstance. George Müller put it like this: “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.” It is not trying to get God to do something which He is reluctant to do, but prayer is to be our thinking His thoughts after Him. This is the thing which gives us confidence when we turn to God in prayer.
“He heareth us.” You can be sure that He not only hears our prayer, but He also answers our prayer. God will hear the prayers of His children, but He will not always answer them by giving us what we ask. John is saying here that we can have the confidence that He will answer our request according to the way we pray—when we pray in His will.
And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him [1 John 5:15].
It is wonderful to know that you and I have a heavenly Father. If we are in fellowship with Him, if we are not regarding sin in our lives, and if there are no other hindrances to prayer in our lives, we are not going to pray selfishly. When we are walking in fellowship with Him, when we are following Him, we can have the confidence that He will hear what we ask and answer our prayer. We are not to come to Him with mistrust or in a begging attitude, but we are to come with boldness to ask that God’s will be done.
If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it [1 John 5:16].
“Death” refers here to physical death. It has no reference at all to spiritual death because the child of God has eternal life. John is saying that believers can commit a sin for which their heavenly Father will call them home; that is, He will remove them from this life physically, perhaps because they are disgracing Him.
Let us look at some people in Scripture who have committed a sin unto death. Moses and Aaron committed a sin unto death. You will recall that Moses got angry when the children of Israel kept begging for water and, instead of speaking to the rock as God commanded him, he smote the rock twice. He shouldn’t even have touched that rock. It had already been smitten once before, and he should have rested upon that. The rock was to be an example and a type of Christ. Paul wrote, “And [the children of Israel] did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4). Christ died only once, and Moses spoiled the type by striking the rock twice. “And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them” (Num. 20:12). There was for this man Moses a restoration in that he could continue leading. However, he began to plead with God to forgive him and to permit him to enter the land, but the Lord told him in effect, “Although I have restored you to your place of leadership, you are not going to enter the land.” When Moses kept after the Lord, the Lord said to him, “… speak no more unto me of this matter” (Deut. 3:26). Moses and Aaron both had sinned a sin unto death—physical death.
In the New Testament we have another example of this in Ananias and Sapphira. They were a part of the early church, and they were guilty of a lie (see Acts 5:1–11). They had been willing to give a false impression to the early church; they were willing to live a lie. Because of that, God removed them from this earthly scene.
There is another incident of this mentioned in 1 Corinthians. Some of the people there had actually been getting drunk at the Lord’s Supper, and they were missing the meaning of it altogether. Paul wrote to them, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep” (1 Cor. 11:30, italics mine)—that is, they were dead. Paul is saying that they had committed a sin unto death.
Someone might ask at this point, “What is a sin unto death?” First, let me be clear that John was not speaking of an unpardonable sin. We are talking about a sin unto physical death, not spiritual death. These people were God’s children. He would never have taken them home if they had not been His children. The Lord doesn’t whip the Devil’s children—He whips only His own. When His children sin unto death, He will take them home.
What is this sin? What is it specifically? Well, for Moses and Aaron it was one thing—they lost their tempers, and they destroyed a type of the Lord Jesus. Ananias and Sapphira were living like hypocrites. And in the city of Corinth, there were believers who were getting drunk and were disorderly at the Lord’s Table. So a sin unto death is no one thing specifically. I have a notion that for you it would be different from what it would be for me, but I am of the opinion that every believer is capable of committing the sin unto death—whatever it is for him. You can go on in sin until God will remove you from the scene. This does not mean that every Christian who dies has committed the sin unto death, but it is possible to do that.
Absalom also committed a sin unto death. I believe that Absalom was really a child of God, but he led a rebellion against his father, King David. I have observed something over a period of years. I have watched how God has dealt with troublemakers in the church. I’ve not only seen Him remove them by death, but I’ve also seen Him set them aside so that they were of no more use in the service of God at all. It is possible to commit the sin unto death. Let me repeat that it is physical death not spiritual death.
Let me illustrate this. There is a mother who has a boy, Willie—her little angel child, of course. Next door, though, there lives a little brat about the age of her little angel, and they play together out in the backyard. One day as she is working in the kitchen, she hears that little brat yelling at the top of his voice. She rushes to the door, looks out, and there is her precious little angel on top of the little brat next door, just beating the stuffing out of him! She says, “Willie, you are going to have to come into the house if you are not nice to the little boy next door.” He says, “Yes, Mama. I’ll be better.” She says, “Well, if you are not, I’m going to have to bring you into the house.” So she goes back in, and about thirty minutes go by, but again she hears that familiar cry of the little brat next door. She goes to the door, and the same sight greets her. Her precious little angel is on top of the brat next door, just beating the stuffing out of him. She says, “Willie, come into the house.” He says, “I don’t want to come into the house.” She says, “I said that if you did that again, you would have to come into the house.” He balks, “I don’t want to come into the house!” So what does she do? She goes out and gets him by the hand, and she takes her precious little angel, yelling at the top of his voice, into the house. He had to come in. He may not be her precious little angel anymore, but he still is her son—that fact never was disturbed, but he can no longer play outside. I think that if a child of God goes on disgracing the Lord down here, the Lord will either set him aside or take him home by death. God doesn’t mind doing that. I think He does it in many instances.
All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death [1 John 5:17].
Believers who are alive today have all sinned, but we haven’t sinned a sin unto death. We did something that was wrong, it was unrighteousness, but God didn’t take us home. If He were taking home every believer who sinned, I would have been taken home a long time ago.
We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not [1 John 5:18].
“We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not.” As we have seen in this epistle, you and I have two natures: an old nature and a new nature. That new nature will not sin. It never sins but has a desire for God and for the things of God. That old nature will sin, and it is because of it that a believer does sin.
“But he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.” This is another verse which makes me believe that the child of God can never be demon possessed. I believe that Christians can get to the place where they are oppressed by demons, but if they are actually demon possessed, I would question their salvation—even though they may think that they are born again. Why? Because “greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). The Holy Spirit would not be dwelling where a demon was.
And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness [1 John 5:19].
This is the text of a sermon which I have preached on several occasions entitled “When the Devil Puts the Baby to Sleep.” “And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth [actually, lies asleep] in wickedness [or, in the arms of the wicked one].” In other words, the Devil has the world asleep. The Devil is saying to Vernon McGee, “Sh-h-h. Hush! You’re waking people up, and we don’t want to do that! They are very comfortable. Many people in churches are dead in trespasses and sins, and we don’t want to wake them up. Let’s leave them alone.” The Devil is concerned when people are awakened. You and I are living in a world that is asleep in the arms of the wicked one—if you look around today, you must agree with that statement.
And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life [1 John 5:20].
My friend, Christianity is not a religion. It is a Person, and that Person is Christ. If you have Him, you have salvation—and it is not a religion.
John concludes his epistle by saying—
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen [1 John 5:21].
Anything that stands between Christ and the believer is an idol. John says that you are to keep yourself from the things of the world which occupy your mind and your attention. Covetousness is idolatry; other things are idolatry. Many people are worshiping many things in this wicked world today. These things are nothing in the world but idols. God’s first statement to us is: “In the beginning God created …” (Gen. 1:1). Among His last words to us are these: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
(For Bibliography to 1 John, see Bibliography at the end of 3 John.)
The Second Epistle of
John
INTRODUCTION
A man whom I knew years ago in the South had the best way to divide the three epistles of John that I have ever heard. He called them “one-eyed John,” “two-eyed John,” and “three-eyed John.” I do not think you will forget the three epistles of John if you remember them like this. That man, by the way, was one of the three conservative ministers in the community in which I served in Nashville, Tennessee, at that time. He was a real brother in Christ. Any Christian, regardless of his race, nationality, or station in life, if he is right on the inside, if he has been born again, is my brother. That is the great truth taught in 1 John which will be continued in 2 and 3 John with a different emphasis.
We are considering here, then, “two-eyed John.” Your first impression, I am sure, is the brevity of these two last epistles. It is something that is almost startling. You might wonder why just thirteen verses in the second epistle and fourteen verses in the third epistle should be included in the Scriptures. Both of the epistles are very brief indeed. Someone will say, “Doesn’t their brevity discount their message? Obviously, John didn’t have too much to say.” Not at all. Their brevity does not in any way take away from the importance of these epistles. In fact, it actually enhances them. Although they are very brief, these epistles are very important, and they are essential for getting a proper perspective of the first epistle and avoiding a perverted viewpoint. Let me illustrate it like this. My doctor at one time gave me two kinds of medication that I was to take whenever I suffered certain symptoms. One was a pill so small that I had trouble locating it in the bottle. The other was a capsule which looked like it was too big to swallow. I needed almost a gallon of water to get it down—I had to float it first! But I discovered in using both of them that the smaller one, the teeny-weeny one, was the more potent of the two. In fact, I found out it was the more important one: if the big one didn’t work, then I used the little one. So it is with 2 and 3 John. Their brevity does not make them less potent.
The writer of this epistle is the apostle John. We call him the apostle of love. The Lord Jesus called him a “son of thunder” (see Mark 3:17). I think you can add to the thunder a little lightning, for in his epistles he makes it very clear that you must exhibit love to the brethren or you are not a child of God. John wrote this epistle around a.d. 90–100.
This epistle is like the Book of Philemon in that it is a personal letter. It is written by John to “the elect lady.” The question is often asked whether the Greek word electa is a title or whether it refers to a Christian lady in the early church by the name of Electa. You must recall that John is the apostle who writes of the family of God. Paul writes of the church of God, while Peter writes of the government of God. If you will keep that in the background of your thinking as you come to these epistles written by these different men, it will help you to understand many things they are saying. Regardless of whether it is addressed to an individual or to a church, John is thinking of it in the context of the family of God. Apparently, there was some Christian lady or a local church which was extending hospitality to all those who claimed to be Christian, although some were heretics who denied the deity of Christ and the other great truths of the Christian faith. John warns here in this epistle against entertaining such folk. This is actually the purpose of this little epistle.
The theme of this epistle is: “For truth’s sake.” When truth and love come into conflict, truth is the one that is to predominate; it is the one that has top priority. Have you noticed that in 1 Corinthians 13:13 Paul didn’t say, “Now abideth faith, hope, truth, and love”? He just said, “And now abideth faith, hope, charity [love], these three; but the greatest of these is charity [love].” But when truth is brought in, then truth comes first.
In other words, truth is worth contending for, and it is wrong to receive false teachers. This is the position that I take very definitely. I believe that the truth in the Word of God is worth contending for. When I say truth, I mean, first, that which is basic to the fact that the Bible is the Word of God—there is no question in my mind about it. The second thing of essential importance is the deity of Christ and His work upon the cross for us. When I meet a man who is true on these essentials, then he and I can disagree on non-essentials. I have a very good friend who is a Pentecostal preacher. When we play golf, he and I naturally get into a friendly argument. I always end up by saying to him, “Brother, you and I agree on so many things. I love to hear you talk about the Lord Jesus and about His death on the cross. You thrill my heart when I hear you talk about those things. But I want you to know that we disagree on a few points, and I’m going to pray for you because I think you are wrong.” Well, you know, he turns around and says the same thing to me, and we leave each other laughing. As far as I know, that man has never said an unkind word to me or about me. He is my brother. I wish he could see some things as I do, but it will just have to be that way until he gets a little more light—and I want to be patient with him! But he stands true on the inspiration of the Scriptures, he stands true on the deity of Christ, and he stands true on the fact that Christ died for us. When a man does that, he’s my brother, and I cannot escape that fact.
The key word in John’s first epistle is love, but it is a love that is confined to the family of God. The little children are to love each other in the family of God. This is the mark of a child of God: he loves Christ, and he loves the brethren. How God’s little children are to love each other is the entire sum and substance of that epistle.
It would be helpful to go back to the first epistle and pick up this thought again: “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother” (1 John 3:10). John purposely cast this truth in the negative so that there would be no way in the world that any individual who claims to be a Christian and does not measure up could wiggle out of it. You cannot wiggle out of this: if you do not practice righteousness in your life, you are not of God. This is the outward badge of a child of God. You are to know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, and the proof to others is that you practice righteousness in your life. And if you do not love your brother (your Christian brother—this is not the universal brotherhood of man, for the Bible does not teach that), then you are not a child of God. I didn’t say this—John said it. If you don’t like it, then you take it up with him. John said that you can tell if someone is a genuine believer by his righteous life and his love for other Christians.
But what about the lost sinner who is not in the family of God? Are we to love him? Well, we are told in the Gospel of John: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Follow me carefully now. We are to love people to the extent of taking the gospel to them. We see in the Book of Jonah that Jonah did not love the Ninevites, but God sent him there because God loved them and God said, “Since I love them and they have turned to Me, Jonah, I want you to love them also.” This is the relationship the child of God is to have to the lost world. You cannot love the sinners and their sin—we are not asked to do that. We are asked to love them enough to take the gospel to them. That is the important thing. We are to love them in that sense because God loves them. And then, when they turn to Christ, we will love them also.
Now another question arises: What is to be our relationship to false teachers, to those who deny the deity of Christ? John is going to make it very clear in this second epistle that this is something we need to beware of. He says in verse 7, “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” What should be our relationship to false teachers? Follow me very carefully because this is going to be the nub of this epistle, and if you and I don’t get this correctly, we are going to go haywire in our interpretation and come up with a pseudoliberal viewpoint. All of this “love, love, love” stuff today actually is not biblical at all. We are told to love everybody, but there are some whom the Scriptures tell us not to love but to be very careful of. John writes, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world …” (1 John 2:15). The things that are in the world are identified with the people who are in the world and who have made it as it is. Our love is to take the gospel to them, to give them the Word of God.
John’s emphasis in his first epistle is upon love, but the key word in this second epistle is truth. Now when truth and love are in contrast and conflict, which one should prevail? If we get the answer to that, then that will determine our relationship to the false teacher, to the one who denies the deity of Christ. The so-called apostle of love is going to shock you and me out of our sentimental complacency and our sloppy notion of love. Which one should prevail—truth or love? His startling reply is that truth comes first. Christ said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He didn’t say, “I am love,” but He said, “… I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). You have to come to the Father through Jesus Christ. There is no other way. Why? Because He’s not only the Way, but He is the Truth. It was John who wrote later on that “God is love.” After the Lord Jesus was here and had said that He was the Truth, then John said, “God is love” (see 1 John 4:16). My friend, love can be expressed only within the bounds and context of truth. Love can be expressed only within the limitation and boundary that Scripture sets. Therefore, what about the false teacher? May I say to you, you are not to love the false teacher. John is going to make that abundantly clear. In fact, he is going to say something quite amazing. He says, “You are not even to entertain him in your home. You are not in any way to receive him or to have fellowship with him.” That is just about as strong as it possibly can be.
We need to notice another important word in order to get a proper perspective of what John will be talking about in this second epistle as well as in the third epistle. In the first epistle John said that we are to “… walk in the light, as he is in the light …” (1 John 1:7). Truth and light are the same; they are the Word of God. As we have already seen, love and truth are inseparable. Christ is the epitome of both; He is the incarnation of both. He is the Truth, and He is love. God is love, and He is God. In addition to truth, there is a second word which is featured in this brief epistle—it is the word walk. In 2 John 1:4 you will notice that John says, “I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father” (italics mine). And then in 2 John 1:6, we read, “And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it” (italics mine). Back in the first epistle, John wrote, “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother” (1 John 3:10). That righteousness is Christ, and to deny the deity of Christ is certainly not to do righteousness—the truth is essential. “Neither he that loveth not his brother”—this is the second thing that is very important, the walk. With this second word, we go to the opposite end of the spectrum of the Christian life. Not only is truth essential, but the walk is essential, and therefore we are told to love the brethren.
This epistle, therefore, will not give us a balanced viewpoint of the first epistle. Our contemporary idea of “love, love, love,” that we are to love everyone who comes along, I do not find in the Word of God. When John is speaking of love here, he makes it clear that it is love within the family of God. We need to be very careful about this because a great many are interpreting agape love as nothing in the world but sex. One morning I received a phone call from a lady who had come to know the Lord through our radio ministry. She said to me, “Dr. McGee, I just want you to know that I love you.” She sort of caught herself and then said, “I hope you understand that I’m not talking about man and woman love. I’m saying that I love you as a brother in the Lord who led me to Christ.” Well, I understand that, and I believe that is the kind of love which John is talking about here.
This love in the family of God needs to be exhibited today in the church. I think it is time for many of the churches that have built up a reputation for being fundamental in the faith to now exhibit love among the brethren. I would say that I need that in my own life; I am sure you need more love in your life also.
However, this love is not to slop over. We need to recognize that it has a boundary within the family of God. Along comes one of these heretics, as they did in John’s day. He is apostate; he is actually an antichrist; that is, he denies the deity of Christ. John says, “When one of these fellows comes along, you are not to extend love to him. You are not even to entertain him.”
OUTLINE
I. Love Expressed in the Boundary of Truth, Verses 1–6 (“Love in truth”)
II. Life Is an Expression of the Doctrine of Christ, Verses 7–11 (False doctrine leads to evil deeds.)
III. Personal Greeting, Verses 12–13 (False teachers are not to be received by the Christian, but true teachers are to be received with joy.)
The message of John’s second epistle is essential to having a proper perspective of what he has said in his first epistle. He deals here with the polarity of the Christian life—truth and love. He answers the question: When truth and love come into conflict, which is to predominate, which is to have top priority?
LOVE EXPRESSED IN THE BOUNDARY OF TRUTH
The Elder unto the Elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth [2 John 1].
The Second Epistle of John is a personal letter from “the elder unto the elect lady and her children.” The Greek word for “elder” is presbuteros (presbyter), and it has a twofold meaning. It can mean a senior citizen, referring to age, or it can be a title, referring to an office in the church, a minister or a teacher. I am sure that John is primarily calling himself an elder, speaking of his office in the church. I think he also infers the fact that he is now an old man. He is actually up in his nineties, approaching one hundred, as he writes this epistle. Notice that John does not call upon his office as an apostle. I think the reason is quite obvious: the one to whom he is writing accepts his authority. All he calls himself here is “the elder.”
“Unto the elect lady and her children.” The word electa could be the name of a prominent woman in the church, or it could be the local church itself that John has in mind. “Her children” could be either the physical children of the woman or the spiritual children of the church. These could be interpreted either way. I emphasize the church rather than the individual, applying it to the church at large and the church today. When I say the church, I am not thinking of any local church or any denomination, but the total body of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. This epistle has been relevant for the church down through the centuries, and what is written here has been very productive in the life of the church. I believe that since our contemporary church has such an emphasis on love, we need this little epistle to cause us to shape up and to get a correct perspective of what love is.
“Whom I love in the truth.” The word truth is emphasized in this epistle, and as I have said in the Introduction, it is the key word to the epistle. Christian love can only be expressed in the bounds of the family of God, those who have the truth. “The truth” here is the Word of God and also the one who is revealed in the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. “Whom I love in truth” is the correct, literal translation. John is saying two things here: (1) That the object of his love must be another believer in Christ, a genuine believer; and also (2) that he is genuine in asserting this, that expressing his love is not just a pious platitude he is uttering here.
“And not I only, but also all they that have known the truth.” John embraces the rest of the body of believers here. They also love either this church or this particular woman in the church because of her outstanding testimony.
For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever [2 John 2].
“For the truth’s sake” means a defense of the truth. We need to recognize that the truth needs to be defended. We need to stand for the truth of God and for the Word of God. Many of our so-called conservative men have adopted a very sophisticated and blasé method in an attempt to be clever in what they teach and preach. They will not come out flat-footed and say it just as it is, but they toy around with it and build up some clever alliteration. I’m for alliteration, as you well know, but the point is that the truth needs to be stated clearly.
I had an interesting encounter with a certain teacher several years ago. I was told by a student of his that he didn’t believe a certain doctrine, and I quoted him on it. The man became very much irritated with me, which he had a right to be if I were wrong. I told him, “I’d like for you to clarify this. If you will just write me a letter and state clearly what you believe, I’ll be very happy to read it and to make my apology.” Instead of writing that kind of letter, he wrote a letter in which he made it clear he was highly incensed at me for even suggesting he didn’t believe such and such a doctrine. So I wrote to him again and said, “All you have to do to clear this up is just to state clearly what you do believe.” At the bottom of the page I wrote, “I believe—” and “I do not believe—” and I left him space for his answer, making it very easy for him to reply. That really irritated him, and I was blasted with another letter. So I dropped the matter and found out later that the reason he didn’t answer was because he actually did not believe the doctrine I had questioned him about. But he had attempted to cover up his disbelief. My feeling is that I would respect him for what he believes. Although it is different from what I believe, I would never consider a man to be a heretic or an apostate who believes what he believes. But I cannot respect the fact that his method was and is today never to be clear on exactly what he does believe.
“For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever.” Thank God, we will have the truth forever. In this day when you can’t believe politicians, you can’t believe college professors, you can’t believe the scientists, and you can’t believe the military leadership, it’s nice to have someone in whom you can believe—the Lord Jesus Christ. “For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us”—the indwelling Spirit of God makes these things real to us. “And shall be with us for ever”—the truth will not change; it is unchangeable. Someone has put it like this: “What is true is not new, and what is new is not true.” Like a great many generalizations, that has some exceptions to it, of course, but usually it is true.
In verse 3 John adopts a greeting that is a little different from that of Paul and Peter and James and even himself.
Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love [2 John 3].
There are three words here that we need to be clear on in our thinking. They differ without there really being a great difference in the sense that they all apply to the same thing. The words are love, mercy, and grace. John introduces the word mercy here in his greeting.
What is the difference between the love, the mercy, and the grace of God? We read in Ephesians 2:4–5, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;).” This is such a wonderful Scripture because it combines all three: Paul says that God is rich in mercy, and because of His great love for us, He saves us by grace. What is the love of God? Well, God is love. Before anything was created, God was love. Somebody says, “Whom did He love?” Well, the Trinity existed, and we know the love which existed between God the Father and God the Son. Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer writes, “Love is that in God which existed before He would care to exercise mercy or grace.” Love is the nature of God; it is what is called an attribute of God. God is love, but the interesting thing is that the love of God never saved a sinner. The love of God caused God to move in the direction of mercy and grace; it caused Him to exercise mercy and grace.
Now the question arises: What is the difference between mercy and grace? Dr. Chafer very exactly expresses it: “Mercy, on the other hand, is that in God which duly provided for the need of sinful man.” God is rich in mercy. Why is He rich in mercy? Because He is love. And because God is love, He, by mercy, provided for the need of sinful man. But mercy didn’t save man. Again, I quote Dr. Chafer: “Grace is that in Him which acts freely to save because all the demands of holiness have been satisfied.” God today is free to act in grace. You are a sinner who cannot provide anything for God. You haven’t anything to offer to Him. But now grace means that God can come to you, a lost sinner, and say, “I am love, and I am rich in mercy. I love you, and I have provided by My mercy a Savior for you.” Now if you will trust Him, “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8).
There is a fine distinction here between these words, and someone will say, “It looks like a distinction without a difference.” Well, there is a difference in that which doesn’t differ. Salvation all stems from the love of God, but God does not save by His love or His mercy. After all, our God is a holy God, and the Bible says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son …” (John 3:16): You see, God did not so love the world that He saved the world—He didn’t do that. God so loved the world that by His mercy He provided a Savior for the world, and He can now save by grace.
There is something else here that is important to see. Salvation is not only the expression of the love of God, but it is also an expression of the justice and righteousness of God. We not only need John 3:16, but we also need Romans 3:26: “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” In order to justify you when you trust Christ, God has to be righteous and holy and just. He cannot simply open the back door of heaven and slip you in under cover of darkness. You and I are not fit for heaven. We are alienated from Him. We have no fellowship with Him. Communication broke down in the Garden of Eden, and He is the one who renewed it. Because He must be just and righteous, His mercy provided a Savior, and it was because He loves you. He can be righteous and do this—“that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”
Therefore, John can now write, “Grace be with you”—that is the way God saves you. “Mercy”—mercy provided a Savior. “And peace”—when you have all this, then the peace of God that passeth all understanding is going to keep your heart. As John said, “For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us forever.” You will know that these great truths are not something which God is going to change. He is not going to change His mind tomorrow and say, “Well, I’m going to act differently. I think public opinion is going in another direction, so I’ll change and go with public opinion.” God doesn’t change; He is not a weather vane. I am reminded of the farmer who had on his barn a weather vane which said on it, “God is love.” A preacher drove up to the farm and said to this man, “Do you mean that God’s love is as variable as that weather vane?” The farmer said, “No, I don’t mean that. I mean that it does not matter which way the wind is blowing, God is still love.” My friend, that is true. Our God is love, and because He is love, He has provided salvation for you. He will never change.
“Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who died for you. He is “the Son of the Father”—that is His position in the Trinity.
“In truth and love.” Remember that love must be exercised in the context of truth. There are folk who write to me and say, “You are very dogmatic in your teaching.” I always appreciate those letters because I am not always sure that I give that impression. I want to give that impression when I am teaching the Word of God. I am very dogmatic about it. Now if you ask me what I think I’ll be doing this afternoon, I must say that I don’t know because my wife hasn’t decided yet! I’m not dogmatic about what I am going to do this afternoon. But right now I am writing about 2 John, and I am very dogmatic about what he says here.
I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father [2 John 4].
“Thy children” are either the physical children of this woman or the members of the local church. I think it could be either, and it probably refers to both. “I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth.” “Walking in truth” refers to the manner of life, meaning walking in obedience to the commandments from the Father. It is wonderful to have children who are walking in truth.
“As we have received a commandment from the Father.” The commandment is that we walk in the light as He is in the light, that we order our lives by the Word of God.
And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another [2 John 5].
“The beginning” refers to the beginning of the ministry of Christ in His incarnation.
The teaching that the Lord Jesus gave was: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). He said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples”—not because you are fundamentalists but “if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35, italics mine). John says that this is the commandment that we have had from the beginning, that we are to love one another.
Here we have it: walking in truth and loving one another (again, we are talking about loving fellow believers). This is the balance that is needed today in the church, or else any church will become lopsided. We can become oversentimental in the church. There is a lot of sentimental tommyrot going on, and it is as sloppy as can be: “Oh, we love each other. We have the agape love”—and all that sort of thing. But are you walking in the truth? Are you really walking in the knowledge of the Word of God? All the apostles emphasized that we are to walk in love. My friend, this is very important in these days in which we live. It’s wonderful if you are a fundamentalist—I hope you are—but I hope you are walking in love because you really are not a fundamentalist unless you are.
The objective polarity of the Christian faith and the Christian life is truth and love. John emphasized love in his first epistle, but he also said that that love is for the brethren, it is for believers, it is for those who are in Christ. He said, “My little children, I want you to love one another”—that is, other believers. I do not quite understand this idea of watering down the Christian faith and saying that we are to love everybody, because I know that when you make a statement like that, you don’t love everybody. It is just impossible to do that. There are too many in this world who are unlovely. A lot of us are unlovely, and, as a result, we are not loved. But God loves the world. We are not worth loving, but God loves us all. The important thing is that He tells believers to take the gospel to the world. That is the way that you and I can show our concern and love, if you want to call it that. We are to take the gospel to the lost because God loves them, and then if we take it to them, a love will be begotten in our hearts for those who are actually our enemies. The important thing to see is that God is love—it is His attribute—and His love has provided a Savior for us. But truth is also very important, and you cannot put love above truth, because when you do, then you sacrifice truth. This is John’s emphasis in this second epistle.
And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it [2 John 6].
What is love? It is to walk after His commandments. The Lord said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). This is another way of saying the same thing. The Lord’s commandments are more than the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are basic to government and basic to civilization, but the Christian is called to a higher plane where he is to produce in his life, by the Spirit (it is the fruit of the Spirit), love, joy, peace, long-suffering, etc. If these things are in us and abide in us, you and I are walking after His commandments. If they are not in us, we are not walking after His commandments.
“And this is love.” Let me say it again: Love is not made in the parlor—it is made in the kitchen. Love is not made in the bedroom—it is made out there in the laundry room. Does she wash his clothes? Does he bring home his paycheck? Does he support his family? That is the way you express love in the family, and that is the way you express love in the church—in your concern and in your help for others. You cannot say that you are loving someone unless you have a concern for him, especially a concern for his spiritual welfare.
“And this is love, that we walk after his commandments.” Now this is getting right down into shoe leather. This is getting right down where the rubber meets the road. This is sidewalk salvation. It is that which can walk down the street. You must recall that men like John and Paul were writing to people who lived in the Roman world. In Paul’s day the emperor was bloody Nero. John saw one emperor after another rise who persecuted the Christians. Beginning with Titus, the Roman general who destroyed Jerusalem in a.d. 70, the persecution was severe. The Roman world was a brutal world, a cruel world, a world that was pagan to the core. And yet here were men and women who were walking down Roman roads, living in pagan cities, and they were walking after His commandments. They were translating the gospel into life. This is the thing that is desperately needed in our day.
“This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.” In other words, John is saying, “This thing is not to be put on ice. It is not something to be stored on the shelf. You have heard it from the beginning. The Lord Jesus taught this. Now let’s get busy and walk in it. Let’s manifest love to those outside.”
LIFE IS AN EXPRESSION OF THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST
Again there arises before us the other end of this polarization: love is on one side, and the truth is on the other. John now issues his warning—
For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist [2 John 7].
“An antichrist” should read the antichrist. John said in his first epistle that already there were many antichrists and that there was the spirit of antichrist. How do we identify the spirit of antichrist? John gives us the answer: “Who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” The spirit of antichrist is to deny the deity of Christ. It is to deny everything that is said about Him, everything that He said, and everything that He did for us in redemption by dying on the cross and by being raised bodily from the dead. That is antichrist, and that is the spirit of antichrist.
The spirit of antichrist eventually will be headed up, I believe, not by one man but by two men, because two men are described in Revelation 13. One of these is a great political ruler, an enemy of Christ—he is against Christ. The other is a religious ruler who will imitate Christ and cause the world to worship the first beast, that is, to worship the political ruler. This is coming in the future, and everything this side of it is preparing the way for the coming of this one; so much so that when the political ruler and the religious ruler finally appear, the world will be ready for them. And it looks to me like the world is almost ready for them right now. To begin with, the political ruler will promise peace in the world, and for three and one-half years, he will do a pretty good job of it—but it is not permanent. It will build up to a mighty catastrophe that is ushered in by the war of Armageddon which will last for approximately three and one-half years until the coming of Christ to the earth to establish His kingdom.
At that time also, there will be one religion, and certainly we are moving in that direction even now. It will be a world religion where they will all pool their thinking. It will be a religion that doesn’t really believe anything. There will be nothing to hold them together. We are so often urged today to get rid of that which separates us. My friend, if we get rid of all that separates us, there will not be anything left to hold us together. This is the problem with that type of thing. I am reminded of the story of the little boy who was walking down a jungle trail in Africa, carrying a polkadot umbrella. He met an elephant who said to him, “Where are you going, little boy?” The little boy said, “I’m not going anywhere,” to which the elephant replied, “Well, I’m not either. Let me go with you.” That is the kind of church union that is coming about today. They are going nowhere, they believe nothing, and therefore, they can all get together. This is the deceiver who is finally going to come, one to head up religion and one to head up the politics of this world. This is the Antichrist who is to come.
“For many deceivers are entered into the world.” Gnosticism was running riot in John’s day. Everywhere the gospel has gone, the cults have always followed. The “isms” always follow the preaching of the gospel—they never go before. There were coming along at that time quite a few of what was known as the Gnostic sect which was actually divided into many groups. There were the Cerinthian Gnostics who followed a teacher in Ephesus whose name was Cerinthus. There is a tradition that John, who was the pastor of the Ephesian church, went down to the public bath and saw old Cerinthus taking a bath also. So John got out of the pool, grabbed up his clothes, and didn’t put them on until he got outside, because he wouldn’t have anything to do with that heretic. Well, that is a tradition and may or may not be true, but it certainly expresses the viewpoint of John in his letter here. The Cerinthian Gnostics correspond to several of the cults today in that they taught that Jesus and Christ were two different entities altogether and that the divine came upon Jesus at His baptism and left Him at the cross. There were also the Docetic Gnostics who denied the reality of the physical body of Christ. They said that the apostles thought they saw Jesus, but He actually was not a real person; He was just an appearance. We have a few cults which have picked up that heresy also. This is the reason John said in his first epistle, “We have seen Him. We have heard Him. We’ve gazed upon Him. We’ve handled Him. We know what we are talking about, and He was a real man.”
Then there were certain Jewish sects in that day, and when Christianity came along, they picked up a great deal of the Christian teachings. Evidently, there was a group of Essenes down at Qumran where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls. And at Masada, which fell in a.d. 73, three years after the fall of Jerusalem, there were about 967 zealots who had also picked up some of the teachings of Christ. Both groups had twisted, distorted, and warped conceptions of the person of Christ.
The thing that John is saying here and, which is all-important today is that there are many deceivers who have entered into the world. They seem to have sort of centered right here in Southern California. This is a great incubation center for all kinds of false teachings. I used to say, as I spoke across this country, “I come from a land of flowers, fruits, and nuts—mostly religious nuts. I trust that you folk don’t think that I am one of them!” The important thing is that the way you tell one who is true is by his viewpoint, his teaching, his beliefs concerning the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Unless he thinks rightly of Him, everything else goes down the tube, and that person is a false teacher.
This does not mean that a person cannot hold a different view from what you and I would hold, for example, on election. Election has been a debatable point. John Wesley taught one thing, and John Calvin taught another viewpoint on it. But both of those men believed in the deity of Christ, and when you believe in the deity of Christ, it means you believe in the Virgin Birth, it means you believe the record that we have in the Word of God, and it means you believe in the apostles’ doctrine which they taught in their epistles. There was a difference of opinion about election between these two men, but neither of them was a false teacher because both of them agreed on the essentials of the faith.
Let me use just one other illustration in this connection. I graduated and received my B.D. degree from my denominational seminary, as well as having done graduate work at Dallas Theological Seminary where I received my master’s and doctor’s degrees. That denominational school was amillennial, and they were dead set against the premillennial position. One of the professors and I became very good friends, and I admired him a great deal. That man could exalt the person of Christ. He could defend the virgin birth, the blood redemption, and the bodily resurrection of Christ in a way that I have heard no other person do. I actually sat in his classroom in tears as I heard him exalt the Lord Jesus. But he simply hated premillennialism. He didn’t hate me—he and I were good friends. Because of the fact that he exalted Christ, I never felt we ought to separate or that I ought to break fellowship with him. He was no antichrist. He was a believer. He was an intellectual, and even they are wrong in some things, so I just took it for granted that he was wrong in that particular sphere. I am sure that someday, when he and I get to heaven, we will be in agreement. It may be that both of us will have to change a little relative to our beliefs concerning these secondary matters. I do consider them secondary when you put them down beside the person of Christ. It is what you think of Him that is all-important.
John has emphasized that you are to walk according to the commandments of Christ, and the proof that you are a child of God is that you walk in love for the brethren. Now John has uttered a warning that many deceivers have come into the world. The believer today walks a very dangerous pathway through the world. To the left side of the pathway is the jungle of liberalism and apostasy. It is a beautiful but dangerous jungle because in it are beautiful but dangerous animals which are ready to devour us. I heard recently of a young man who had been in the armed forces and had had a real witness for Christ. But he apparently was lured to a seminary that destroyed his faith. This boy now has gone out into social service work, and his testimony is null and void. He is doing nothing but treading water. My heart goes out to a young fellow like that.
Then, on the opposite side of the pathway, there is a wilderness filled with rattlesnakes. It is the wilderness of extreme fundamentalism which is totally devoid of love. The only thing they think is important is to have the right doctrine. A brother may pat you on the back one day, but the next day, because you do not cross your t’s or dot your i’s as he does, he will attempt to destroy you by circulating a report in order to nullify your influence. Because of an overweening ambition, he will trample you underfoot. Your reputation is not safe in his hands, and he will exhibit hatred and bitterness rather than love toward you.
I have been in active Christian service since 1930, and I’ve met some of the great men of this century, giants of the faith who preached the truth. None of these men ever attempted to separate brethren or to dull the effectiveness of another’s ministry by some slurring gossip. May I say to you, these men were great men, not only in doctrine but also in their lives. I have learned over the years that God’s men who stand for the truth and who preach the Word of God, by and large, are men upon whom you can depend and who are very gracious in every manner.
I remember hearing this story of the late Dr. Harry Ironside when he was holding a conference at one of the prominent conference centers across this country. Some people go to these summer conferences for just one purpose, and that is to compare one speaker to another speaker and to try to set up some sort of conflict between them. I was told that a man came to Dr. Ironside at this conference and said to him, “Dr. Ironside, Dr. So-and-so was here last week and said such and such. But today you said the very opposite thing. Now which is correct?” The man was mentioning a minor point of doctrine. It was nothing vital but was simply a difference of opinion. All of us have differences of opinion, but we can differ without being disagreeable. So Dr. Ironside said to the man, “Well, I didn’t know that Brother So-and-so taught that. That’s quite interesting. Maybe I should look into it. I could be wrong.” And then he walked away. The man stood there with his mouth open, because he surely couldn’t get an argument there! May I say to you, I am confident that Dr. Ironside didn’t feel that he was wrong, but he at least shut up that brother and kept him from trying to drive a wedge between brethren. This is the thing that, in my judgment, is actually more dangerous than liberalism.
I can spot a liberal, and I can say truthfully that I do not associate or fellowship with them. I have nothing in common with them. At one time, I was accused falsely by extreme fundamentalists of fellowshiping with a certain bishop during an evangelistic campaign here in Southern California. The truth is that I never even met the man. I had no reason to. He and I were in two different spheres of activity altogether, and I had no fellowship with him. But I have found that the most dangerous ones for me are the extreme fundamentalists. I would say that I am more afraid of them. They prattle pious platitudes and claim that they have the truth. But woe unto the man who disagrees with them on minor matters, especially the matter of separation, as if that were the all-important issue. Their priorities are not doctrine but assassination of character and name-calling on the lowest level. I have met both ministers and members of churches who frighten me more than a rattlesnake. The venom of bitterness and jealousy and hatred was dripping from their mouths as they feigned their love and devotion to Christ and to the truth. The great message of 2 John is that truth walks in shoe leather, and if it does not, it is dangerous. My friend, we need to be very careful of both extremes of the spectrum of faith today.
John says that the way you are going to tell if one is not a child of God is: “Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother” (1 John 3:10). Love and righteousness are the two manifestations of a child of God. We are to be aware of those who are not believers, the deceivers who deny the deity of Christ. John is saying that if you deny the deity of Christ, you are not a Christian. You may be religious, but you are not a Christian—let’s understand that. After all, Christian means one who is a follower of Christ, one who believes in Him. You cannot be a follower of Christ unless you believe in His virgin birth, unless you believe in His deity, His miraculous life, and His work of redemption upon the cross.
Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward [2 John 8].
You do not lose your salvation when you have fellowship with the wrong folk—we need to understand that very clearly—but you do put yourself in a dangerous position. It does mean that the minute you and I identify ourselves with a cult or go off into this type of thing which denies the deity of Christ, we have lost our reward. There will be no reward for a believer who has done this.
Every believer ought to be working for a reward, to be able to hear Him say someday, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” (see Matt. 25:21). At the end of his life, Paul was able to say, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day …” (2 Tim. 4:7–8). During his life, he wasn’t sure of it, for he said that he didn’t want to be disapproved when he came into the presence of Christ. Therefore, it will behoove us to be very careful not to be taken in by deceivers.
Whosoever transgresseth, and 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 [2 John 9].
The word transgresseth is a very interesting word. In the Greek it is proagoµ. Agoµ means “to go”; pro means “before.” Proagoµ means “to go before or to go ahead.” Therefore, the meaning here is not so much to transgress as to go farther than is right. This is the meaning that Thayer gives in his Greek lexicon of the New Testament—to go farther than is right. “Whosoever goes farther than is right, that is, goes to some extreme.” This is what the Gnostics claimed for themselves. The word gnosis, means “knowledge.” The Gnostics claimed to have a little more knowledge than anyone else, something that made them super-duper saints. There are a few saints in that category today; they feel that they have something the rest of us don’t have. Every now and then, I get a letter from some person who tells me I’m lacking somehow. I recognize that I am, but I don’t feel they are the ones to tell me because they tell it from the viewpoint that they have it and I don’t. They feel like they are super-duper, and they manifest no love for the brethren, which means they are not abiding in the doctrine of Christ. This is the thing that characterizes them.
In my Southland there were a group of people when I was a boy who were known as Holy Rollers. I attended several of their meetings when I was a young fellow just for the entertainment of watching them roll, and they actually rolled. Yet they preached the gospel, and many of them were real believers. Bishop Moore of the old Southern Methodist church was at a conference of Methodist preachers where he was approached by a young country preacher who asked, “Bishop Moore, do you think the Holy Rollers will go to heaven?” The bishop replied, “They will if they don’t run past the place!” It seems to me that that is the condition of which John is speaking here: Whosoever goes farther than is right, whoever becomes an extremist “and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God.”
I was reading sometime ago about several theologians in the East who met with a group of preachers. Together they came to the conclusion that they no longer needed to answer the fundamentalists on the question of the virgin birth of Christ or the deity of Christ or whether Christ died for our sins. They feel like they have graduated from that. They have become highly intellectual, totally sanctified, and have reached the summum bonum of life. They are now up at the apex, looking down on all the rest of us poor folk who believe in the deity of Christ and His death for our sins. To my judgment they have transgressed, abide not in the doctrine of Christ, and have not God. No wonder they came to the conclusion that God was dead! But He wasn’t dead. They were dead—“dead in trespasses and sins” (see Eph. 2:1). “Whosoever transgresseth, and 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.” If you are abiding in the doctrine of Christ, you have God the Father, and you have God the Son, and you have access to the Father through the Son. We have access to God through Christ, by His marvelous, infinite grace if we abide in the doctrine of Christ.
The word abide means “to remain”—this is a permanent arrangement. Someone told me that he had asked a liberal preacher in Los Angeles years ago what he thought about me. This liberal preacher is an outstanding man, a very fine man in many ways. I have always respected him because he is one of the few honest liberals I have met. He just came out and said that he believed practically nothing, and he stuck by his guns. I simply feel he should not be in the ministry. He is sort of like a man selling Fuller brushes who doesn’t have any brushes to sell. This liberal preacher said, “Well, I respect McGee and his viewpoint. The thing is that it’s old-fashioned, and he hasn’t changed it in years. He apparently hasn’t grown a bit.” May I say to you, that is about the nicest compliment the man could have returned to me because I haven’t changed and I intend for it to be that way. John is saying here that he who abides in the doctrine of Christ, who remains in it and doesn’t change, has both the Father and the Son.
If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed [2 John 10].
I cannot think of a stronger statement than this. We need to recall the background of this letter again. John is writing to “the elect lady,” who may have been an outstanding woman in the church, noted for her hospitality. Apparently, she is a woman of means who can entertain guests lavishly. She is very generous. Evidently, some of these Gnostics came by, and she entertained them. Then she was under conviction about it, and she wrote to John. What should she do in a case like that? Should she entertain them? She would feel badly if she turned them away. What really should be her attitude toward an apostate, toward a heretic, toward one who denies the deity of Christ but pretends to be a follower of Christ? Should she entertain him in her home?
We need to understand also that there were no Howard Johnson motels or Holiday Inns or Hilton Hotels or Ramada Inns in the Roman Empire. The little inns that they had were pretty bare places to stay. An inn was not even a place where you got a bed. You had to bring your own bed with you. All you did was rent a space to put down your little mat or pad on which you would sleep. Maybe there were people sleeping on both sides of you, at your head, and down at your feet—all around you. That was the method for travelers in that day. So the homes of believers were always open to traveling evangelists and Bible teachers in the days of the early church. When these men would arrive in a town, there would always be some home where they would be entertained. Remember how Paul stayed in the home of Aquila and Priscilla when he was in Corinth? That was the method in the early church and the general practice of the day.
I can remember when I was a boy in our little town in west Texas that my mother would invite a visiting preacher to come for dinner and sometimes to spend the night. My dad never liked that, I can tell you. He was not a believer, and he didn’t care to have a preacher for dinner or to have him spend the night. We were poor folk, and so the preacher didn’t get lavish entertainment. But he would usually get fried chicken, and my mother really knew how to fry chicken. That was the practice in our little town. Even up to this day, the Holiday Inn hasn’t gotten there; in fact, there isn’t a motel of any kind or description there. In that day the preacher was entertained in the home, but today my recommendation to you is to entertain him in a motel or hotel. That would be the proper way to do it today. The average minister needs a great deal of privacy for study and prayer, and he cannot get it when he is entertained in a home. However, I must say that there are a few homes across this country that I have always enjoyed going into, because I can make myself at home and I feel at home there. They just let me do what I need and want to do, and it is a joy to be there.
This woman to whom John is writing is a woman of hospitality, and she has this question about entertaining false teachers. John lays it on the line here: “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed.”
Now John says something else that ought to alert every one of us today—
For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds [2 John 11].
If you entertain a false teacher, if you support him, you are a partner with him in his deeds. This 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 in it.
The Lord Jesus gave a parable in this connection in which he told about a man who was working for another man and was about to be fired (see Luke 16:1–13). The man called in all his employer’s creditors and offered them a discount if they would pay their bills, which they, of course, were glad to accept. He did this so that after he was fired he would be able to appeal to them for help since he had helped them. That was crooked—our Lord did not say it was right; He made it clear that it was wrong. He said, “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” They are clever out yonder in the business world. There’s many a man trying to make a fast buck today. It is a case of dog-eat-dog. 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, and do you give because of that? Are you moved by a picture of a few orphans, of little children in foreign countries? Do you know that your money is getting to them? Are you motivated today by sentiment? If you are a partner in that which denies the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and all that He is and stands for and all that He did for us, if you are supporting that sort of thing, God will hold you responsible for it. He said that the children of the world are wiser than we are. We ought to get smart. We ought to wise up to this and not be taken in by it. Charity has become a big racket today. Collecting money under false pretenses is one of the biggest rackets there is. This is the reason I sometimes mention that I haven’t yet started an orphans’ home for stray cats in the Aleutian Islands! In fact, I don’t know whether there are any cats up there or not. My business is giving out the Word of God, and I hope this is your business, too.
PERSONAL GREETING
Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.
The children of thy elect sister greet thee. Amen [2 John 12–13].
In other words, John says, “I can tell it better than I can write it.” David said the same thing, “… my tongue is the pen of a ready writer” (Ps. 45:1). When David began to write that wonderful forty-fifth psalm, a psalm of praise to Christ, he simply said, “I wish I could tell it to you. I can say it better than I can write it.” This is the reason I love the radio ministry. I can say it lots better than I can write it.
“The children of thy elect sister greet thee. Amen.” Apparently, they were children of 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, and its message ought to alert every believer today.
(For Bibliography to 2 John, see Bibliography at the end of 3 John.)
The Third Epistle of
John
INTRODUCTION
The writer of this little epistle is John the apostle. I rather facetiously call this epistle “three-eyed John” because a very fine black preacher whom I knew years ago in the South called John’s epistles “one-eyed John,” “two-eyed John,” and “three-eyed John.” I don’t know of a better way of remembering these epistles than this. This epistle, therefore, is “three-eyed John.”
It is now the belief of some expositors that John wrote these epistles last—after he wrote the Book of Revelation. I’m rather inclined to agree with that viewpoint. This means that these epistles were written close to the end of the first century, somewhere between a.d. 90–100, but it would be very difficult to date them exactly. John probably wrote all three epistles very close together. I don’t think there would be much difference in time from one epistle to the other.
In his first epistle, John emphasizes the fact that the family of God is held together by love and that the little children are to love one another. He makes it very clear that if they don’t love one another, they are not God’s children. Children have a love for those who are in their family—that is the normal thing even in natural relationships down here on this earth.
In the second epistle, however, John puts up a tremendous warning that there are apostates, there are many antichrists, and there are many deceivers in the world. He says that a child of God is not to love them. We are not to be concerned with their welfare in the sense of entertaining them in our homes. The child of God is to keep a very close account and to make sure that those he entertains, those he supports, are true to the Word of God; that is, that they believe in the deity of Christ, that they believe that He is God manifest in the flesh. John wrote, “And the Word was made flesh …” (John 1:14). He had already said that the Word was God. Therefore, Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh. He is God dwelling, tabernacling in human flesh. Until a person believes that, he doesn’t have a Savior. If Jesus Christ is just a man and that is all that He is, we do not have a Savior. There is no reason to remember His birth and no reason to remember His death or resurrection if He is just a man. It is all-important to recognize that He is God manifest in the flesh and that His work on the cross was a work that has power to save us. There is power in the blood because of who He is and because He died and rose again bodily. Those who deny these truths are not to be extended the fellowship or the support of the church. John goes so far in the second epistle as to say that believers are not to even bid such a person Godspeed. John said not to help him on his way or give him support. If you do, you are a partaker of his evil deeds, and you are a partner with him. Therefore, it behooves a child of God to know whom he supports.
As we come now to the third epistle, there is a similarity to John’s second letter in some ways. It is very personal in character, and it carries the same theme of truth. Truth again is presented as all-important. When truth and love come into conflict, truth must survive. This means that you are not to love the false teacher. Walking in truth is all-important.
However, this third letter differs from the second in other ways. As you will note from the Outline which follows, this epistle deals with personalities. Also, in the second epistle, John says that the truth is worth standing for, but in this third epistle, John’s emphasis is that the truth is worth working for. Someone has put it like this: “My life in God—that’s salvation. My life with God—that’s communion and fellowship. But my life for God—that’s service.” This epistle deals with my life for God, and it has to do with walking and working in the truth. Love can become very sloppy; it can become misdirected, and it certainly can be misunderstood if it is not expressed within the boundary of truth.
OUTLINE
I. Gaius, Beloved Brother in the Early Church, Verses 1–8 (Gaius, the one to whom the letter is addressed, is urged to extend hospitality to true teachers of the Word.)
II. Diotrephes, “who loveth to have the preeminence,” Verses 9–11 (Evil deeds are an expression of false doctrine.)
III. Demetrius “hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself,” Verses 12–14 (A good life is an expression of true doctrine.)
Years ago I preached a sermon on the subject, “You Will Find Them in the Yellow Pages,” in which I dealt with two men from this little epistle of 3 John—Diotrephes and Demetrius—and with Demas whom Paul spoke of in 2 Timothy 4:10 (see also Col. 4:14; Philem. 23–24). Demas had been a fellow laborer with Paul but had deserted the work; he loved the world and departed from Paul. My sermon was about Demas, Diotrephes, and Demetrius—each of their names begins with a D. I probably should have included Gaius who is also mentioned in this epistle—and if his name had been Daius, I’m sure I would have!
Modern advertising tells us that we can always find it in the Yellow Pages. It does not matter whether you want to purchase an aardvark or a zebra, an atom splitter or a zymometer, an abacus or a zygote, you will find it in the Yellow Pages. If we could get ahold of the Yellow Pages of the Roman Empire in the first century, we would probably find these men listed there. However, we do find them in the Word of God, and they give us the answer to some very interesting questions: How did the believers of the first century make out? How were they holding out at the close of the first century? Did they all become martyrs? Were they all paragons of virtue? Were they all worthy followers of Christ? Were they worthy examples of the faith? Among the millions who turned to Christ in the first three centuries, how did the average believer turn out? Well, here in this epistle we find two who were outstanding men of God—Gaius and Demetrius. These men really stood for the faith of God. We also find one who was not outstanding. Diotrephes was not standing at all; he was doing anything but standing for the truth.
GAIUS—A DELIGHTFUL BROTHER
The elder unto the well-beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth [3 John 1].
“The elder.” As he did in the second epistle, John adopts the term elder. It could refer to his age. He is in his nineties, and certainly he is a presbyter, an elder, in the sense of age. He is a senior citizen at this time. Also, elder speaks of an officer in the early church, and certainly John could claim that. In fact, he could have claimed more. He could have said, “I am an apostle,” but he doesn’t do that. Gaius is a friend, and you don’t write that way to your friend. At least, I don’t write that way to very personal friends. I write to several fellows with whom I was in school and who are old men now—I’m the only one who has managed to stay young, but they’ve gotten old! I call each one of them by his first name, and when I sign my name, I don’t mention the title Doctor at all—those fellows would laugh at me. I simply write my name, Vernon or Mac. I was called Mac when I was in college and seminary. I go by that appellation, and so I just sign that way. John is writing to a personal friend, and he simply says, “The elder unto the well-beloved Gaius.”
“Unto the well-beloved Gaius”—I love that. John’s letter is addressed to a believer in the early church by the name of Gaius. Gaius was a beloved brother in the church. Four times John calls him “beloved” (vv. 1, 2, 5, 11). John knows and loves him in the Lord, and he now writes a letter to this brother who apparently is in some local church.
“Whom I love in the truth.” Immediately we are told that Gaius is sound in doctrine. He accepted the deity of Christ. Gaius is a man who stood for the truth, and he not only stood for the truth but he also worked for the truth. Here is a man who walked and worked in love. He manifested love. You have to think right if you are going to act right—that is true in any sphere of life today.
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth [3 John 2].
“Beloved”—John evidently thought a great deal of Gaius and was very close to him since, again, he calls him “beloved.”
“I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health.” Very frankly, John makes it clear that he wants Gaius to prosper not only financially (he apparently was a man of means), but John also says, “I want you to prosper in your health.” Evidently, Gaius was not a well man.
“Even as thy soul prospereth.” And John wanted him to prosper also in his soul, to grow spiritually. There are a lot of Christians today who are sick spiritually. They have good health physically, but they have pretty bad health spiritually. It is certainly well for a child of God to have both. Good health physically is wonderful to have—many of us didn’t appreciate it until we lost it. And it is important to have good health spiritually. What physical health is to the body, holiness is to the spiritual life of the believer. To be healthy spiritually is holiness; it is to be growing in grace and in the knowledge of Christ.
There were traveling around in that day many men who were teaching the Word of God and doing missionary work. Gaius would open his home to them and entertain them. He was not only a largehearted man, he not only walked in love, but he also walked in truth, and he tested these teachers. And in spite of his poor health, he was able to be very active in hospitality.
For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth [3 John 3].
Many of these traveling evangelists and missionaries reported to John the graciousness of Gaius and his walk in the truth. They said, “When you go to the church where Gaius is one of the leaders, you will find he is a very wonderful man. He is not only a man of means but also a very generous man. I was entertained in his home.” In that day they didn’t put the traveling preacher in a Howard Johnson’s or a Ramada Inn because there weren’t any. If there had been, I believe they would have put him there. But generally, the little inns in the Roman Empire were flea-bitten places, dirty, and sometimes very sinful; so the custom of that day was to entertain these men in homes.
“For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth.” This is the testimony that other brethren gave concerning Gaius. This was their judgment of him. “The truth” is actually the doctrine and the teaching of the apostles. The article should be omitted: “walkest in truth.” This refers not only to doctrine but also to his conduct. The mark of the believer is to walk in truth. Truth is that which is dominant. The summum bonum for the Christian is whether or not he is walking in the truth and walking in the light. It isn’t how you walk but where you walk that is important. Are you walking in the truth? Walking in the truth also means walking in the right conduct or walking in love of the brethren.
Those who were out in a teaching ministry in the early church would come to Gaius’ town and to his church, and they would find that his home was wide open to true brethren. Gaius had a spiritual discernment. He could tell who were the genuine believers and who were not. After all, all you need to do is to make sure about a man’s relationship to the person of Jesus Christ.
What think ye of Christ? is the test
To try both your state and your scheme.
You cannot be right in the rest
Unless you think rightly of Him.
—Author unknown
You must think rightly of Him in order to be right in everything else. These brethren testified, “Brother Gaius tested us out. He found out whether we believed in the deity of Christ. He found out whether we believed in the Virgin Birth and whether we believed that Christ died a redemptive death upon the cross and was raised bodily from the grave. When he found out that we did believe these things, he opened his home and received us and discovered that we also had a love for the brethren. And then his heart was open to us.” What a marvelous testimony Gaius had!
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth [3 John 4].
This is a great comfort. This is wonderful encouragement. “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” John had been the pastor of the church in Ephesus and had led many to the Lord. It is a great joy to him, now that he is an old man, to hear that his converts, scattered out over the area of Asia, are still walking in truth. Here again “walking in truth” means walking in right doctrine and in love for the brethren—his children manifested these things.
It is a great joy to me today to get letters from those who were led to the Lord over the years of my ministry. They say, “We are still walking in the truth,” and perhaps they tell about how they are in a Bible church and are attempting to serve the Lord. That brings joy to my heart. When I hear of young ministers who used to be in my classes and who are now standing for the truth, that brings joy to the heart. My daughter is like a great many other young people today. She thinks her dad is just a little old fogy, more or less a back number. The other day she went out to hear a young man whom I had the privilege of teaching. After she and her husband had gone to hear him, she came back to tell me how wonderful he was and what a glorious message he brought. She told me what the message was as if it was something I had never heard before. It did sound strangely familiar, but I never said anything to my daughter—I just listened as she told me how wonderful it was. Then she said, “You know, Dad, you may not be able to speak to young people today, but he is able to speak to young people, and they listen to him. His church is filled with young people.” Well, I couldn’t help but smile. I didn’t really want to tell her that that fellow’s message just happened to be one of my messages. I was glad that he gave it. I am sure that my daughter has heard me give it, but it didn’t mean anything when Dad gave it because I’m an old fogy. But this young, sharp boy put in a lot of new words that young people use today that aren’t a part of my vocabulary, and of all things, it is just a brand-new message! Do you think I feel badly over that? You do not know what great joy that brought to me in my heart. I know exactly how John felt. John says, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” Isn’t that wonderful? You cannot help but rejoice in that, especially when you have come to the sundown period of life and you know that your future is no longer ahead of you. My future is behind me, and I rejoice in these young preachers who are coming along. And to feel that maybe I had a little part in their training and to know that young people are crowding in to hear them is a wonderful thing.
Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers [3 John 5].
Gaius was evidently one of the children of John, one of John’s converts. His conduct conforms to his doctrine, and it is marvelous when that takes place.
From verse 5 to 8, John commends Gaius for having received and entertained the true teachers of the Word. Let me draw the contrast: In 2 John the apostle warns against receiving false teachers, but in 3 John he encourages the believers to receive the true brethren. Just because you have been deceived and stung for awhile ought not to keep you from receiving the true brethren. I know a lady who supports our radio ministry in a very wonderful way. She is down on the church, and I recently found out why. She happens to be a widow and a very attractive person. She went to a couple of churches where the pastors made a pass at her. Believe me, that turned her off, and she now has nothing to do with the church. Frankly, I have urged her to get into a good Bible church where there are real men of God who will not be doing that sort of thing. Many of us have been disappointed and deceived by false brethren, but we should not let that deter us from supporting that which we believe is of the Lord. This woman gives support only to radio ministries today. Very frankly, I think she’s wrong. I don’t think she is wrong to support radio—don’t misunderstand me—but I do feel that one or two sour experiences ought not to sour you against the church.
John tells us in his second epistle that many deceivers have gone out into the world. Why not be like Gaius and have a little discernment? Don’t support anything—including a church or a radio ministry—until you are sure that it is of God. Be sure that the Word of God is being given out. Be sure that they love the brethren (and that they don’t love the “sistern” too much!). John is talking about things that are very practical today. He is really getting down to the nitty-gritty, right down where the rubber meets the road, right down where the ball hits the bat. He is encouraging Gaius to support the true brethren in the Lord.
Which have borne witness of thy charity before the church: whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well [3 John 6].
These brethren would return from a trip to John’s church. I have a notion that when they came together for the purpose of worship, John would say, “Well, I see Brother So-and-so. He’s been out evangelizing, and we’d like to have a word from him. We’d like to have a report as to how the Lord led him and how the Lord blessed him.” Brother So-and-so would get up and give his report, and he would say, “When I came to this place, there was a brother there by the name of Gaius, and he is a choice servant of God. He opened his home to me, but he doesn’t do that for everybody because he certainly examined me. He made an inspection of me to make sure I was teaching the Word of God. He wanted to know whether or not I believed the Word of God and whether or not I was walking in love. He tested me and found that I was, and then he just opened up his heart and home to me, and we had wonderful fellowship.” Now John is writing to Gaius, and he says, “I have heard this now from several, and I want you to know how much it delights my heart.”
“Whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well.” In the second epistle, John says that if you bid Godspeed to false teachers, you are a partaker with them, you are guilty of their deeds. But now he says that if you help those who are giving out the Word of God and who are walking in love, you do well. This is actually something you should be doing. Why?—
Because that for his name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles [3 John 7].
John writes to Gaius, “These brethren went forth, trusting the Lord, and you opened up your home to them. They are genuine, they are real, and you received them.” These men went out at great sacrifice. They didn’t receive a salary; they didn’t receive any remuneration. They went out trusting the Lord, and homes were opened to them. In some places they were given support; in other places they were not.
“Taking nothing of the Gentiles.” This, my friend, is another way of testing that which is genuine or not. Are you supporting something that is simply a religious racket for money, something that is trying to get every Tom, Dick, and Harry to donate to the cause? Or is it a work of the Lord that depends on the Lord’s people? John says that these true men would take nothing of the Gentiles, that is, from unbelievers.
I always try to make it clear on our radio broadcast that we are just asking believers to support the program. If an unbeliever is listening, we’d rather he not give. We hope he listens; we hope he sends for the literature, but very frankly, I do not really believe God can bless what an unbeliever gives. We believe the scriptural method is to ask only believers to give. These men went forth, taking nothing from the Gentiles. They would not appeal to unbelievers to give to the Lord’s work. I know there are many who disagree, but I do not believe that unbelievers should be asked to support the Lord’s work. As the ark went through the wilderness, it was carried on the shoulders of the Israelite priests. They could not even put it on a cart. God said that the priests were to carry it. And God’s priests today are His believers. Every believer is a priest, and you and I are to carry the Lord Jesus Christ into this world today. Therefore, we do not ask unbelievers to give, but we do ask believers to give—especially those who not only believe in Christ but who also believe that we are giving out the Word of God today. And we do not apologize for asking believers to give because we believe that the Lord’s work is to be carried forward in this method.
We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellow-helpers to the truth [3 John 8].
In other words, you would be a partner with these men if you opened your home to them, if you supported them and helped them on their way. In the second epistle, John warns “the elect lady” not to receive apostates into her home because if she does, she is a partner with them in their evil deeds. Now that warning might cause someone just to shut his home and not receive true brethren either; that is, some might shut up their homes to all who might come in order to make sure that they did not entertain false teachers. But John says, “Wait just a minute. If they are men walking in the light, if they are men walking in love, and if they are men who have the life of God within them, you should receive them.” I think you can tell when a man is speaking by the Holy Spirit. I am sure there was better discernment in the early church than there is in the church today. I am confident that, although we may know more Bible than they did, we certainly do not have the spiritual discernment that they did. But when a man is distinguished as being a man of God who is doing God’s work, he should be supported. “That we might be fellow-helpers to the truth.” When Gaius helped them along, he became a partner with them in getting out the Word of God.
DIOTREPHES—A DICTATOR
Gaius was such a wonderful fellow, one of those choice saints in the early church. You could wish that all of the men in the early church were like that, but I am sorry to have to report that they were not. We come now to another man, Diotrephes, and this is what John has to say of him—
I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not [3 John 9].
John wrote a pentateuch of the New Testament (just as Moses wrote the Pentateuch of the Old Testament); John wrote a gospel, the Revelation, and three epistles. That makes five books—he wrote a pentateuch. If it is true that John wrote his epistles after the Book of the Revelation, this epistle is his swan song. It was written toward the close of the first century, and by that time, many wonderful believers had been brought into the truth and into the church. We might wonder how they got along. Were they all paragons of virtue? Were they all outstanding men of God? Were they worthy followers of Christ? Well, there were some like Gaius, real men of God, men of courage, outstanding men who stood for the things of God. However, there were also men like this man Diotrephes. He is a very different type of individual from Gaius. The thing that marks Diotrephes is that he loved to have the preeminence. Gaius is the delightful brother, but Diotrephes is the dictator. It is said that he even opposed the apostle John. John had written to this church to receive certain men, among whom was an outstanding preacher of the gospel, one of those unknown saints of God, whose name was Demetrius, but this man Diotrephes would not receive him. As I have mentioned previously, the early Christians practiced hospitality. Peter mentions it in 1 Peter 4:9, “Use hospitality one to another without grudging.” Paul also talks about it in 1 Timothy 5:9–10; Romans 12:13; and Titus 1:8. I do not know whether Diotrephes was a preacher or a layman in his church, but he would not even open his home to any of these men whom John had recommended. The reason is that he loved to have the preeminence. His motto was “to rule or ruin.” He was going to have his own way, and it did not make any difference what the result might be.
In verse 8 John urged, “We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellow-helpers to the truth.” May I say to you, there is a real compulsion today upon the child of God to support those who are giving out the Word of God. If you have a preacher who is doing that, you should support him. That was the practice in the early church.
Diotrephes is a man who puts on airs. He is pretentious. He is vainglorious. He struts around as a peacock. He has an overweening ambition. He is puffed up, inflated like a balloon. He is one whom you have to receive with a flourish of trumpets. He comes in in a blaze of glory. That’s Diotrephes. John will bring five charges against him: (1) He must occupy the leading place in the church; (2) he actually refused to receive John; (3) he made malicious statements against the apostles; (4) he refused to entertain the missionaries, the ones who were traveling through the country (and the reason obviously is that he wanted to do the speaking and teaching himself); and (5) he excommunicated those who did entertain the missionaries. In other words, Diotrephes wanted to be the first exalted ruler of the church. Woe unto you if you attempted to oppose him. If he was a layman, I sure feel sorry for his pastor. I am of the opinion he tried to keep his pastor under his thumb in order that he could preside. He wanted to be the one to be heard. Diotrephes was a man who was self-opinionated. He was self-exalting instead of self-effacing. I am sure that he would have claimed to have been a self-made man instead of having let the Holy Spirit make him over. He was self-sufficient, and I think he was guilty of self-admiration also. He was self-willed, self-satisfied, and self-confident. He felt that he could do all the teaching and preaching and that he did not need these other men to come and minister.
As I am saying all of this, I wonder if you recognize this fellow. In many churches today, there are men like Diotrephes, men who want to run the church. I am no longer a pastor of a church, and I can say frankly what I think and what I know to be true. I’m not speaking of any theory whatsoever but of what I know from experience over the years. I have met men who, although they put up a very pious front, have tried to run the church. I have known men like that in churches I have served but, thank the Lord, I never had much trouble with them. Sometimes it is a little clique which will do anything in order to rule. I have watched such people wreck church after church—a little group or an individual like Diotrephes who loves to have the preeminence.
I am going to say something now that may be very harsh. There are many men who may mean well but who enjoy leading in the church. They enjoy being up before a group of people. For the most part, the ones I have met are almost Bible ignoramuses—they know very little about the Word of God. But they love to talk, and their talk has actually sometimes caused me to bow my head in shame as I was sitting there on the platform. Some of the things they say are totally unscriptural, totally beside the point, and dead as a doornail. Then they wonder why their church is losing members. They wonder why people are not coming. It is very evident why. There are many who ought to keep quiet in the church. Remember that Paul said, “Study to be quiet” (see 1 Thess. 4:11). Instead of trying to teach young people to talk, we ought to teach them to keep quiet because we have many older ones today who talk too much. My friend, we ought not to talk in church unless we have something to say, unless we have something from God to say.
Many folk want to be up front in church. Not only have I met Diotrephes, but I have also met Mrs. Diotrephes in the church today. May I say that there are certain people who ought not to sing solos in the church. They do not bring glory to God, and sometimes they select songs which absolutely hurt the service rather than help it. My friend, you ought to search your heart before God before you stand up in the church and begin to sing or talk. Some soloists like to make a little talk before they sing a song. Many times the message they bring is just about as phony as anything can be. They want to tell you why they are going to sing that particular song. Why not just sing the song? If the song has a message, that is all the message a soloist needs to give.
I say all this because I am deeply concerned. I once had the opportunity to observe the moviemakers out here in Hollywood as they worked on the filming of a scene. When I got tired of watching and left, they had already shot that one scene fifteen times, and they were still working on it! I thought as I left, Oh, if only God’s people would work as hard to do everything in the church service to bring glory to the name of Christ! It all deserves the best we’ve got, my friend.
All of us need to search our hearts—even the ministers. Why are you presiding? Why are you leading? Why do you sing? Do you love to have the preeminence? Are you doing this for the glory of God? Certainly we need somebody to preside. We need somebody to sing a solo. We need somebody to teach the Word. Many are needed, but search your heart before you do anything because you can wreck a church if you are one like Diotrephes who loves to have the preeminence.
Mrs. McGee and I were ministering in a certain church where they did not have a pastor at the time. When we left after the service, she said to me concerning the man who presided, “He certainly did enjoy presiding, didn’t he?” I replied, “Yes, he loved it, and I’m wondering whether they really are seeking for a pastor with that man presiding.” He was not only presiding, he was killing the church. The attendance was way down. I felt very sorry for the pastor who would come to the church because he certainly was going to have trouble with that individual.
John now says that he is going to deal with this problem—
Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church [3 John 10].
“Wherefore, if I come”—I do not think this is the if of doubt. We shall see at the end of the epistle that John intends to come and he is coming. But we never know what a day will bring forth. John says, “If I come,” in the sense of, “If something should come up, if something should happen, I might be unable to make the trip.” But his intentions are to come. There is no doubt in his mind about that.
“I will remember his deeds which he doeth.” In Christianity, the important word is truth, and truth manifests itself in love—it is just as simple as that and as important as that. Diotrephes loved to have the preeminence which, by the way, is a characteristic of the flesh. The fruit of the Spirit is meekness, but Diotrephes was a dictator. Meekness does not necessarily mean weakness or cowardice. Someone has said, “Silence is golden, but sometimes it is yellow.” It is too bad there weren’t those in the church who spoke out against Diotrephes. Moses was considered a meek man, but when he got up and talked to the children of Israel, he didn’t sound like a meek man according to our notion of meekness. He spoke with the authority God had given him. The Lord Jesus was meek and lowly, but He went in and cleansed the temple. This is the reason I feel I should speak out on this because nobody else speaks along these lines as far as I know. When this thing is hurting our churches, somebody should say, “Look, brother, sit down. You are spoiling things. You ought not to be loving the preeminence all the time. You should learn to be meek and let others speak.” John says, “Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth.” Diotrephes exhibits that which is not the mark of a believer, by any means. He apparently did not have the truth.
“Prating against us with malicious words.” Diotrephes was attempting to completely destroy the effectiveness of the apostles and especially of John. John says, “When I get there, I’m going to deal with him. I’m going to speak out against him. I’m going to let it be known that this man is using malicious words.”
A man called me sometime ago who was a member of a church that I served at one time. He wept as he said, “I want you to forgive me for saying the things I said about you.” He had gone so far as to say that I had left the church in debt. I have never left in debt any church that I have served. The fact of the matter is that I left that church with a tremendous reserve fund, but he, along with a few others, simply did not mention that. As a result, a false report went out. I told him, “You don’t have to ask me to forgive you. You need to ask the Lord’s forgiveness.” He said, “I’ve already repented and talked to Him.” I told him, “It would be nice if you would now give the true report to those you gave the false report.” He had been a Diotrephes. He enjoyed presiding. He enjoyed having his way. Apparently, a change has come over him now. He is in another church, and I understand that he is doing a good job. I rejoice in that. But he was a Diotrephes. I feel that I should have dealt with him more severely than I did when I was there because John says, “I intend to deal with Diotrephes.”
“And not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.” Imagine this fellow! He is excommunicating anybody who would entertain these men John had recommended. What a horrible picture this is! If you want to wreck a church, just have a man like this or a little group like this and, my friend, you will wreck the church. The sad situation is that there are too many men like this today in Christian circles.
You can call John an apostle of love if you want to, but the Lord Jesus called him a son of thunder. I think they had a regular thunderstorm when John arrived at this church because he said he was going to deal with Diotrephes. It is too bad other churches don’t deal with Diotrephes, because he will wreck a church if he is permitted to go on.
Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God [3 John 11].
John encourages Gaius to continue doing that which is good. Again, he emphasizes that the one who practices righteousness is a child of God but the one who does not practice righteousness is not born of God.
DEMETRIUS—A DEPENDABLE BROTHER
We come now to the third man, Demetrius. He is a lovely fellow. You just cannot help but rejoice in him. Gaius is a delightful brother, Diotrephes is a dictator, and now we will find Demetrius to be a dependable brother.
Demetrius hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself: yea, and we also bear record; and ye know that our record is true [3 John 12].
“Demetrius hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself.” Here is a man sound in the faith. “Yea, and we also bear record.” In the mouth of two witnesses, a thing is established. Demetrius has a good report of all men; the truth bears witness to him, and John says, “I bear witness also.” “And ye know that our record is true.” This church knows that John bears a true witness.
Demetrius is obviously one of these wonderful saints of God whom Diotrephes had shut out of the church. We have only one verse about Demetrius—this is all we know. He is never mentioned again in Scripture. However, this one verse of Scripture gives us an insight into the Christian character of this noble saint of God. We cannot identify him with any other of the same name. His name means “belonging to Demeter,” that is, Ceres, the goddess of agriculture. This identifies him as a convert from paganism. He evidently was brought up in a pagan home and worshiped the gods of the Greeks and Romans. This man, converted, now goes around teaching the Word of God. He adorned the doctrine of Christ. Others testified to his character, and he was true to the doctrine of Scripture.
Demetrius is evidently among the group of men whom John mentions that Diotrephes was not receiving. He is one of the itinerant preachers who went about in the first century—humble, unknown, and unsung. He is a member of that great army which carried the gospel throughout the Roman Empire so that it could be said that the whole world had heard the gospel. The whole Roman world of that day, the whole civilized world, was entirely evangelized. They were pushing out beyond its borders when the apostasy began to set in, when there came in men like Diotrephes.
Demetrius is one of the shining lights of the New Testament, a humble saint of God. Around us today, there are multitudes of people like him. They are not a Diotrephes. And they are not even a Gaius—they are not outstanding Christians. They are just humble saints of God, doing the thing God has called them to do. In a humble way, they are maybe just teaching a little Sunday school class. I heard the other day about one who teaches the handicapped. How wonderful that is, but nobody knows about her. Nobody has ever given her a loving cup. They ought to, but they never have. She doesn’t want it, and she would be embarrassed if you gave her one. There are many saints of God like that today. God is using them in a small way. They are not trying to be the chief soloist; they are just singing in the choir. They don’t try to be the main speaker. They don’t want to preside. They don’t want to be the chairman of every board in the church. They are willing just to fade into the woodwork of the church. But they are pillars of the church. They are supporting the work, and they are encouraging the preacher.
One of the most wonderful church members I ever knew was a dear little lady who came in every Sunday morning on a cane. She never missed a Sunday morning, and she always had something nice to say. She was always encouraging the preacher. She told me one time, “I think that’s my job. It’s all I can do.” Well, she did other things, too. The church is filled with wonderful saints of God. Don’t get the impression that I think that everybody in the church is a Diotrephes. Thank God that there are very few of them. In this epistle here, it is two good men to one bad. I think the average is better than that today in the church—I think maybe it is one hundred to one. Thank God for the Demetrius folk in our churches today.
The tense that John uses here indicates that Demetrius had a good reputation in the past and that he still has a good reputation. Over a long period, Demetrius has demonstrated a time-tested faith. He is Demetrius, the dependable brother. The church knows him as a man of God. Now you might deceive the church, but Demetrius was tested by the truth. He measures up to the definition of a believer. John knows him and agrees. There are three witnesses to the fact that Demetrius adorns the doctrine of Christ.
The real test of the Christian life is not in the arena backed by applause. It was not before the crowd in the Colosseum. There were five million martyrs who bore testimony to the truth of the gospel in the first three centuries and who laid down their lives for Christ. Did you know that there were many more millions who bore witness by the faithful lives they lived each day? Nothing spectacular, nothing sensational, nothing outstanding—they just lived for God. They had a purpose, they had a direction, and they had a thrilling experience. (Our contemporary civilization is experiencing a decadence that characterized Rome in the first century. After World War II, an Englishman wrote the play, Look Back in Anger. It revealed a bottomless pessimism without any hope for the future. This attitude produced the Beatie-brained mob of youth we have today who are without direction. Three young people I met in Athens told me they simply wanted to drop out of society.) Into the decadent first century, with its low morals and erosion of character, there came the message from God that He had given His Son. There were multitudes who came into contact with Him, and they got involved. May I say to you, you may not find their names in the Yellow Pages, but you will find them in the Lamb’s Book of Life. They lived for God unknown to the world, and they died unknown to the world. But they are known to God, and their names are inscribed on high.
I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee [3 John 13].
Though he wrote the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation, two of the longest books of the New Testament, John very frankly says he would much rather tell it to you than write it to you.
But I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name [3 John 14].
Someday this will be true for you and me: we will be able to speak face to face with John. I want to talk with him about these little books he wrote. There are a lot of questions I want to ask him. But, of course, he is referring to the fact that he will come and speak face to face with these men of the first century. He will speak face to face with Diotrephes. I feel sorry for old Diotrephes—I’m sure he really got it in that day. And John will speak to Gaius and Demetrius, those wonderful men of God. He says, “We shall speak face to face.”
“Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name.” Isn’t that a lovely way to end this letter? John says, “I want you to know that our friends who are here with me greet you. And will you greet the friends by name? Go and say to Demetrius, ‘Demetrius, I have a message from John. He wanted to greet you and to tell you he will be coming our way before long.’”
Gaius, Diotrephes, and Demetrius—these are the three men who pass before us in this little epistle. Christianity was on trial in the first century. Two of these men who are mentioned in this epistle are genuine. They are real and wonderful children of God. One is a delightful brother; another is a dependable brother. But the third is a dictator and a phony. May I say to you, the gospel walked in shoe leather in the first century in the Roman Empire. And it needs to get down where the rubber meets the road in our day. In spite of any energy shortage, we need to get the gospel onto the highways and byways of life.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Recommended for Further Study)
Boice, James Montgomery. The Epistles of John. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, n.d.
Burdick, Donald W. The Epistles of John. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1970.
Ironside, H. A. The Epistles of John. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, 1931.
Kelly, William. An Exposition of the Epistles of John. Addison, Illinois: Bible Truth Publishers, 1905.
Mitchell, John G. Fellowship: Three Letters From John. Portland, Oregon: Multnomah Press, 1974.
Robertson, A. T. Epochs in the Life of the Apostle John. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1933.
Stott, J. R. W. The Epistles of John. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964.
Strauss, Lehman. The Epistles of John. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, n.d.
Thomas, W. H. Griffith. The Apostle John. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1956.
Vaughan, Curtis, 1, 2, 3 John. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1970.
Vine, W. E. The Epistles of John. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, n.d.
Wuest, Kenneth S. In These Last Days. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1954. (Deals with the epistles of 2 Peter, John, and Jude.)
The General Epistle of
Jude
INTRODUCTION
Studying the little Epistle of Jude is like working a gold mine because of all the rich nuggets which are here just for the mining.
The writer is Jude, which is the English form of the name Judas. Jude, he tells us here, is the brother of James. Now, in the gospel records there are three or four men by the name of James, and there are three men by the name of Judas. We are helped in our identification of the writer of this epistle by the record in Matthew: “Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?” (Matt. 13:55). So two of these brothers, James, the writer of the Epistle of James, and Judas, the writer of the Epistle of Jude, are half brothers of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are two other men by the name of Judas, and they both were among the twelve apostles of our Lord. The best known, of course, is Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed the Lord. The other apostle by the name of Judas is distinguished in this way: “Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?” (John 14:22, italics mine). The way he is identified is just that he is not Judas Iscariot. Therefore we believe that the writer of this epistle is the third Judas which Scripture mentions, Judas, the half brother of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Notice that neither James nor Jude identify themselves as brothers of the Lord Jesus. James introduces himself as “… a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ …” (James 1:1). And Jude introduces himself as “the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James.” Jude calls himself the servant, meaning “bond slave,” of Jesus Christ. Why didn’t James and Jude capitalize on their blood relationship with Jesus? I think the reason is obvious. Neither James nor Jude believed in the messianic claims of Jesus until after His resurrection. It was the Resurrection that convicted them and confirmed to them that Jesus was who He claimed to be. Up until that time they thought He had just gone “off” on religion, that He was, as the Scripture puts it, beside Himself. But after His resurrection they became believers. You see, it was possible to grow up in a home with Jesus in the days of His flesh and not recognize Him. I believe we see in Psalm 69 that He suffered loneliness and misunderstanding during those growing up years in Nazareth. Therefore His brothers felt that, although they had been reared with Him, they hadn’t really known Him at that time. As Paul expressed it later, “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more” (2 Cor. 5:16). Jude, though a half brother, recognizes that Jesus is the glorified Christ and that human relationship is not meaningful to him in any way. He had to come to Christ as a sinner, accepting Him as Savior just as anyone else did.
By the way, this is the marvelous answer of both James and Jude to an attitude which arose after the era of the apostles. There was a brief period when the family of Jesus was revered in a rather superstitious and sacred way as if they were something special. Actually, they were not superior; they were simply human beings who had to come to Christ just as you and I must come to Christ.
I have always felt that Protestantism has ignored Mary. She was a wonderful person. It was no accident that she was chosen of God to bear the Son of God, but that does not mean she is to be lifted up above all other people. She takes her own rightful place. Elizabeth called her blessed among women, not blessed above women, and Mary herself confessed her need of a Savior (see Luke 1:47). Therefore the brief period through which the church went when the family of the Lord Jesus was elevated to a very high position would certainly have been opposed by James and Jude. They themselves took the position of being merely bond slaves of Jesus Christ.
This book was written around a.d. 66–69.
The theme of the book is assurance in days of apostasy. Jude picked up the pen of inspiration to write on some theme or truth concerning the gospel and our salvation. He could have chosen the subject of justification by faith, but Paul had written on that in Romans. He could have chosen the resurrection of Christ, but Paul had written on that in 1 Corinthians. Or he could have chosen the doctrine of reconciliation, but Paul had written on that in 2 Corinthians. Probably Jude could have written on the great subject of faith, but Paul had written on that in Galatians. Or he could have selected the church as the body of Christ, but Paul had written on that in Ephesians. Or he could have selected the person of Christ, but Paul had written on that in Colossians. Jude could have written about our Great High Priest, but the writer to the Hebrews had already written on that. Or he could have chosen the subject of fellowship, but John was going to write on that later on. So the Spirit of God caused him to develop another subject rather than to develop one of the great doctrines. The Spirit of God arrested his purpose before he could even put down his subject and directed him into another channel. Jude’s subject is the coming apostasy. He gives us the most vivid account that we have of the apostasy, and he presents it in a very dramatic manner. Jude hangs out a red lantern on the most dangerous curve along the highway the church of Christ is traveling. Jude describes in vivid terms and with awe-inspiring language the frightful conditions that were coming in the future. This little epistle is like a burglar alarm. Apostates have broken into the church. They came in the side door while nobody was watching. And this little epistle is like an atom bomb. The first bomb did not fall on Hiroshima or Nagasaki; it fell when Jude wrote this little epistle. It’s an atom bomb, and it exploded in the early church as a warning.
Jude gives the only record in Scripture regarding the contention of Satan with Michael the archangel over the body of Moses. It is a very remarkable passage of Scripture.
Also, Jude records the prophecy of Enoch, which is found nowhere else in Scripture. He sees the Lord coming with ten thousands of His saints.
The little prophecy of Jude affords a fitting introduction to the Book of Revelation.
OUTLINE
I. Occasion of the Epistle, Verses 1–3
A. Assurance for Believers, Verses 1–2 (Sanctified, kept, called)
B. Change of Theme to Apostasy, Verse 3
II. Occurrences of Apostasy, Verses 4–16
A. Inception of Apostasy, Verse 4
B. Israel in Unbelief Destroyed in Wilderness, Verse 5
C. Angels Rebelled; Kept in Chains, Verse 6
D. Sodom and Gomorrah Sinned in Sexuality; Destroyed by Fire, Verse 7
E. Modern Apostate Teachers Identified, Verses 8–10 (Despise authority)
F. Cain, Balaam, Korah—Examples of Apostates, Verse 11
G. Modern Apostate Teachers Defined and Described, Verses 12–16
III. Occupation of Believers in Days of Apostasy, Verses 17–25
A. Believers Warned by Apostles That These Apostates Would Come, Verses 17–19
B. What Believers Must Do in Days of Apostasy, Verses 20–25
1. Build Up
2. Pray In
3. Keep Themselves
4. Look For
5. Have Compassion
6. Save Others
7. Hate Evil
OCCASION OF THE EPISTLE
In the first three verses, Jude gives the occasion for his writing this epistle. Jude will tell us that he intended to write on some theme of our salvation, but the Spirit of God put up a red warning sign and instructed him to call attention to the days of apostasy which would be coming upon the church.
ASSURANCE FOR BELIEVERS
Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called [Jude 1].
“Jude,” as I pointed out in the Introduction, is the English form of the name Judas. In the New Testament, there are three men who bear the name Judas, but we have very good evidence which identifies the writer of this epistle as the half brother of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“The servant of Jesus Christ.” The word servant is literally “bond slave.” He claims no blood relationship with the Lord Jesus as if that would give him a superior position. This ought to lay to rest the notion which arose in the early church, in the post-apostolic period, that the family of Jesus was to be held in reverence because they were super-duper folk. Dr. Marvin R. Vincent, the outstanding Greek scholar, comments in Word Studies in the New Testament:
That Jude does not allude to his relationship to the Lord may be explained by the fact that the natural relationship in his mind would be subordinate to the spiritual (see Luke xi. 27, 28), and that such a designation would, as Dean Alford remarks, “have been in harmony with those later and superstitious feelings with which the next and following ages regarded the Lord’s earthly relatives.”
“The brother of James,” as we have said in the Introduction, is the way Jude identifies himself. Both James and Jude were half brothers of the Lord Jesus, and James was the writer of the epistle which bears his name. He was mentioned by the apostle Paul as one of the pillars in the church at Jerusalem.
“To them that are sanctified by God the father.” The Greek text of Nestle and that of Westcott and Hort, which are the best Greek texts that we have, use the verb agapaoµ, meaning “to love,” instead of hagiazoµ, meaning “to sanctify.” Most scholars agree that “to love” is more accurate than “to sanctify,” and it makes little bit more precious to our hearts to know that we are loved or beloved by God the Father.
I would like to share with you the translation of Kenneth S. Wuest, the late Greek scholar at the Moody Bible Institute. His translation (Word Studies from the Greek New Testament), though a bit involved, in many places brings out the original meaning:
Jude, a bondslave of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who by God the Father have been loved and are in a state of being the permanent objects of His love, and who for Jesus Christ have been guarded and are in a permanent state of being carefully watched, to those who are called ones.
This is a wonderful passage of Scripture. We are beloved by God the Father and preserved for Jesus Christ.
There are several words I must deal with in this text because of their importance. The first word is preserved. It is this word that gives us the key to the Book of Jude which presents the apostasy as it is presented nowhere else in Scripture. How frightful it is! But Jude doesn’t write just to frighten the daylights out of us. Nor does he write just to draw a vivid picture for our information; he gives us this background in order that he might give assurance in days of apostasy. He uses the word keep four times, which is what the word preserve means. They are kept in Jesus Christ—God is the one who keeps them. Notice verse 21 says “keep yourselves in the love of God” and verse 24 says “now unto him that is able to keep you from falling.” You may call it anything you want to, but it gives assurance of salvation to the believer even in the dark days of apostasy.
As we shall see, you and I are presently living in the apostasy. How much farther we will go into it before the Rapture, I do not know—nor does anyone else know. But we definitely are in times of apostasy.
Now looking again at the word preserved, it is interesting to note that in the physical world there are two ways of preserving food. One is with vinegar, and the other is with sugar. There are many saints in our day who I think are preserved all right, but they are preserved in vinegar—that is, they act that way. They have a vinegar disposition. Also, there are saints who preserved in sugar. They are sugar and spice and everything nice—and these are not all women either. But even those who seem to be preserved in vinegar are preserved by God’s grace, which preserves or keeps them. The apostle John will tell us in Revelation 12:11 that “… they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb …”, and that is the only way believers are going to make it through the Great Tribulation. And that is the only way we are going to overcome—by the blood of the Lamb. There is no merit or power in us to overcome the Evil One.
I must resort back to the illustration which the Lord Jesus Himself gave when He said, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Then He goes on to talk about His sheep, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:27–29).
Now if a sheep is kept in safety, it is no credit to the sheep. A sheep cannot defend itself. It doesn’t have sharp fangs and claws to fight its enemy. Neither can it run. A jackrabbit can’t defend itself either, but a jackrabbit can get away from trouble. A sheep can’t even do that. A sheep is helpless. When one of God’s sheep says that he knows he is saved, he is not boasting of his own merit; he is boasting of his Shepherd. He has a wonderful Shepherd. My friend, if you are saying that you are not sure of your salvation, you really are reflecting upon your Shepherd, because He says that He can keep you. He says that no created thing is able to take you out of His Father’s hand. It is a question of whether or not you can hold on to Him. It is a question of His holding on to you. He says that He can, and it is a matter of your trusting Him.
You see, salvation rests upon the Word of God. It is up to you whether you will believe Him or not. Your assurance of salvation rests upon that because He has made it very clear that you have a sure salvation. Here in Jude we are presented with the dark days of apostasy, and God still says that He is able to keep His own.
“And called.” Not only are we preserved in Jesus Christ, safe in Him, but we are also called. The word called, as it is used in Scripture, is not only an invitation that is sent out, but it is an invitation that is sent out and accepted and made real because of the Spirit of God. Let me give you Paul’s statement as found in 1 Corinthians 1:22–24: “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (italics mine). My friend, if you have found in Christ the wisdom and power of God and you have trusted Him, you are one of “the called.” The invitation is sent out, and when it is accepted and believed, then you are the called. That is exactly what Jude means here, and Paul spelled it out for us as well.
Mercy unto you, and peace and love, he multiplied [Jude 2].
We need to recognize the difference between these three words: mercy, peace, and love; then we need to see the strong relationship between them.
Love is an attribute of God. Because God is love, He is merciful and has provided grace. The love of God encompasses all mankind—“God so loved the world” (see John 3:16). It is not His will that any should perish. Today He loves every human being on this earth. He has no favorites. Way back in the Book of Exodus, God made it clear to even a man like Moses that He did not answer his prayer because he was Moses; “And he said, I … will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy” (Exod. 33:19). God answered Moses’ prayer because He found the explanation in Himself; He treats all His creatures alike in that sense. My friend, God loves you today. If you knew how much He loves you, it would break your heart—you would be in tears.
Now you can keep from experiencing God’s love, but you cannot keep Him from loving you. You can’t keep the sun from shining, but you can put up an umbrella to keep the sun from shining on you. And there are certain umbrellas you can put up to keep from experiencing the love of God: the umbrella of resistance to His will, the umbrella of sin in your life, etc.
Although God loved you, He did not save you by love. You see, God has other attributes. He is holy. He is righteous. He is just. He simply cannot let down the bars of heaven and, by lowering His standards, bring you in. He cannot do that any more than a human judge can uphold the laws of the land and yet accept a bribe under the table for letting a criminal off. If he does that, he is a crooked judge. And if God is going to do that with human beings, He is no better than a crooked judge. I do not mean to be irreverent because God is not a crooked judge. God has to maintain His holiness and His righteousness and His justice.
“God so loved the world,” and He loved the world with a merciful love, a love that had a concern and care for human beings. And because of it, He gave His only begotten Son—He provided His Son as the substitute. Now God, on a righteous basis, can save a sinner if he will come to Him and accept His salvation. This is called the grace of God. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8–9).
In Synonyms of the New Testament Dr. R. C. Trench, who was a great Greek scholar, made a clear distinction between these words:
While charis [grace] has thus reference to the sins of men, and is that glorious attribute of God which these sins call out and display, His free gift in their forgiveness, eleos [mercy], has special and immediate regard to the misery which is the consequence of these sins.
Now you can see that the grace of God, not the love of God, has to do with the sins of men. God has provided a Savior who has paid the penalty for sins. On that basis, God saves sinners. That is the grace of God.
However, sin has brought tragedy to the human family. We often hear the question: Why does a God of love permit cancer? Well, disease and death came to the human family as consequences of sin. God sees the misery that sin has caused, and the mercy of God goes out to man. God is rich in mercy. If you come to Him as a sinner and accept His salvation, He will save you by grace. Then, because He is rich in mercy, He will extend His mercy to you. He will bring comfort to you at that time. He will help you and comfort your heart. You can trust Him in your time of need.
The fellow who is writing these words has had two major operations for cancer, and the doctors tell me the cancer is still in my body and can break out anytime. To be frank with you, from where I sit right now I have a great big question: Why? And I am asking the Lord why. But my only refuge is in my heavenly Father. I know He has the answer, although He hasn’t told me what it is. What I’m asking from Him is mercy. He has already saved me by His grace, but now I want His mercy. Mercy is that love of His which goes out to us in our misery here upon this earth.
A sinner needs the grace of God, and he sure needs a whole lot of mercy—I’ve been using a great deal of it these past few years.
Let me share with you from Dr. Trench again. I will repeat what I have already quoted and then go on:
While charis has thus reference to the sins of men, and is that glorious attribute of God which these sins call out and display, His free gift in their forgiveness, eleos, has special and immediate regard to the misery which is the consequence of these sins, being the tender sense of this misery displaying itself in the effort, which only the continued perverseness of man can hinder or defeat, to assuage and entirely remove it…. In the divine mind, and in the order of our salvation as conceived therein, the eleos (mercy) precedes the charis (grace). God so loved the world with a pitying love (herein was the eleos), that He gave His only begotten Son (herein the charis), that the world through Him might be saved (compare Eph. 2:4; Luke 1:78–79). But in the order of the manifestation of God’s purposes of salvation the grace must go before the mercy, the charis must go before and make way for the eleos. It is true that the same persons are the subjects of both, being at once the guilty and the miserable; yet the righteousness of God, which it is quite necessary should be maintained as His love, demands that the guilt should be done away before the misery can be assuaged; only the forgiven can be blessed.
God must pardon before He can heal. Men must be justified before they can be sanctified. In the order of the manifestation of God’s purposes of salvation, the grace of God must go before the mercy of God. The grace must go before and take away and make way for the mercy of God.
The “peace” of God is that experience which comes to the heart that is trusting Christ. Paul says, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1, italics mine). Peace with God is to know that God is not difficult to get along with. He is not making it hard for me; He is not making it hard for you. He wants us to know that He hasn’t anything against us now that we know that we are sinners and have trusted Christ as our Savior. The world may point its finger at you and reject you, but God has accepted you. He loves you, and He wants to give you that peace so that at night you can pillow your head on God’s promises. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). Dr. R. A. Torrey used to call this verse a soft pillow for a tired heart. What a wonderful promise it is!
CHANGE OF THEME TO APOSTASY
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints [Jude 3].
“Beloved.” When Jude uses that term, it really means folk who are loved of God, God’s beloved children.
“Common salvation.” Let’s understand that the word common is the English translation of the Greek word koineµs. The New Testament was not written in classical Greek but in koineµ Greek or common Greek, meaning that it was understood by everyone, educated and uneducated, all over the Roman Empire in the days of the apostles. When Jude said that he had intended to write of the “common salvation,” he must have been referring to something that people throughout the Roman Empire would understand.
Now Jude says here that he was planning on writing on some facet of our salvation. It could have been on redemption, on the person of Christ, on sanctification, or any number of themes, but he didn’t write on any of those themes because “it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” The thought here is that the Holy Spirit detoured Jude from writing on some theme of the faith in order that he might sound a warning concerning the impending apostasy.
The apostasy is a departure from the faith, that is, from the apostles’ doctrine. Apostasy was just a little cloud the size of a man’s hand in Jude’s day, but now it is a storm of hurricane force that fills the land. As Jude writes about the apostasy that was coming on the earth, we can see that many of the things he mentions are already taking place in the world in our day. My friend, the apostasy is not something we are looking forward to; the apostasy is here. It is all about us today.
“Needful.” There was a compulsion, a necessity, a constraint upon Jude. He said, “When I was about to write to you about some great doctrine which the apostles gave us, a necessity was laid upon me instead to exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith.”
“Contend.” There are expositors who suggest that this means to contend on your knees. Well, I have never been able to find any authority for that view, but the thought here is to contend without being contentious. I wish we fundamentalists could contend for the fundamentals of the faith without being fiery and contentious. As Paul put it, “And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt [ready] to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim. 2:24–26). The word contend, as Jude uses it, has in it the idea of agony. The Greek word is epagoµnizesthai, and we get our English word agony from the noun of this word. Instead of writing on some great doctrine, Jude is saying that we are to contend or defend the great doctrines of Christianity.
“Contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” “The faith” was the body of truth given once for all. In the Book of Acts it is called the apostles’ doctrine: “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). Notice that the apostles’ doctrine is the first thing mentioned. Since that is number one on God’s church parade, our church is not a church unless it is doing just that.
We are told in Ephesians 4:15 to speak the truth in love or, as someone has translated it, “truthing in love.” My friend, if you are going to give out the truth, give it out in love. If you do not give it out in love, there is some question about whether or not you are actually giving out the truth. And we are to be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks us—in meekness and fear. A believer should not have a short fuse and become angry when someone differs with him.
Dr. Kenneth S. Wuest has one of the finest books available which gives the literal translation of Jude. Notice his translation in Word Studies from the Greek New Testament:
Divinely-loved ones, when giving all diligence to be writing to you concerning the salvation possessed in common by all of us, I had constraint laid upon me to write to you, beseeching (you) to contend with intensity and determination for the Faith once for all entrusted into the safe-keeping of the saints.
OCCURRENCES OF APOSTASY
Now Jude will set before us the reason we should contend for the faith. Something is happening to the church, and Jude sounds an alarm.
INCEPTION OF APOSTASY
For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ [Jude 4].
“Who were before of old ordained to this condemnation” should be made clear first of all. It actually means that they were written of beforehand. The word ordained is prographoµ, meaning “to write beforehand.” It simply means that other writers had sounded the warning about apostates.
“There are certain men crept in unawares”—they are creeps! Crept in is one of the most interesting phrases in the Greek language. It is pareisdunoµ. Dunoµ means “to enter;” the preposition eis means “into;” and para means “beside.” It means “to enter alongside” or, as Dr. Vincent puts it in his commentary: “To get in by the side, to slip in a side door.” This is the way the apostates have come into the church.
I have been in the church for many years. I have been and am still an ordained Presbyterian preacher—although I am in no denomination today and have no denominational connections at all. As a young person I remember that the church was by and large sound in the faith. When I went to the denominational college, I began to discover that there were ministers who denied practically every tenet of the faith. That opened up a new world to me. Then when I went to the denominational seminary, I found that the liberal element was still growing. The day came when I left that denomination and came to California. Here I entered another denomination, and when I saw it going into liberalism, I got out. I wasn’t put out; I just stepped out voluntarily. During that long period I saw how these men were able to take over a church. They came in the side door. They came in by professing one thing and believing another. They did not come in the front door—that is, they did not declare their doctrinal position. Many of our good laymen have been deceived by ministers like that. Scripture has warned about them. For instance, Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works” (2 Cor. 11:13–15). The expression “transforming themselves” in this verse is very interesting. It is in the Greek metascheµmatixontai, meaning “the act of an individual who is changing his outward expression by assuming an expression put on from the outside.” It is a method of Satan.
Over the years I have seen as many as a dozen strong, outstanding churches across America fall into the hands of liberalism by this method. It is the most deceitful method in the world. Let me give you an instance of one church. I won’t give the location, because the chances are that you know one like it in the area in which you live. It was at one time a church in which the Word of God was preached, people were being saved, and hearts were being blessed. Then the pastor retired or resigned, and a new man appeared on the scene. When he met with the pulpit committee and met with the elders, they asked him about his doctrinal beliefs. He assured them that he believed in all the great doctrines of the faith. You see, he came in the side door because he really did not believe them. He only pretended to believe them and pretended to be sound in the faith. And the interesting thing is that his trial sermon sounded as though he were sound in the faith. He had probably read Spurgeon or Warfield or G. Campbell Morgan and had borrowed enough of their material to preach a good sermon. Hearing him, the congregation thought, This young man is just fine; so they called him as their pastor. But remember that he came in by the side door; he did not believe the doctrine that he preached. Before long they discovered that they had a liberal on their hands. Generally, fundamental churches consider ousting the preacher to be a bad method; so they tolerate him. However, my feeling is that since he came in by the side door, he should be booted out the back door. But they don’t do that. Right at this moment I know of two or three churches which are being ruined by men who pretended to be what they were not.
Remember that Jude said that they “were before of old ordained to this condemnation”—that is, they were written of beforehand. Jude is saying, “I’m not telling you something new—others have written of this also and have warned you of that which is coming.”
Paul is one who repeatedly warned of the apostate. The last time he went by Ephesus, at his last visit with the Ephesian elders, he gave this warning: “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears” (Acts 20:29–31). Although Paul warned them of apostates, the day came when the Ephesian church yielded to them.
Paul also warned the young preacher Timothy: “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts” (2 Tim. 3:5–6). One of the greatest movements we have seen in our day is the formation of women’s Bible study classes all across this country. I thank God for them. However, it needs to be watched very carefully because, since it is a success, you will find that somebody is going to try the side door and slip in. In the history of the church there has never been a woman theologian, and that is very strange indeed. Also, it is true that women have played a prominent part in many of the cults and heresies that have come into the church. While I don’t claim to be an authority in this field, it seems to me that a woman is built finer than a man. She has finer sensibilities and a closer perception than a man has. For this reason she needs to be treated with more care. I have to be more particular with my watch than I have to be with the motor in my car. There is a grave danger (and I have heard this voiced by several ministers across the country) of these women’s movements operating totally outside the church and not cooperating with the church at all. This is also true of the youth movement which is taking place. Also, I have found in my radio ministry that I move largely outside the local church. However, I do try to work with the local church, and I believe that all of these movements should work with the local church if it is a Bible-believing church. Paul is warning about false teachers coming in the side door, and I believe that any movement today which the Spirit of God seems to be blessing needs to be watched very carefully because of the fact that the Devil is going to come in the side door if he can. And if you think he is coming in as the Devil, you are wrong. His ministers pretend to be ministers of light.
The final test, the acid test, of any movement is the teaching regarding the person of Jesus Christ. If it denies the deity of Christ, you can rule it out immediately, but you have to be very careful about this matter of the deity of Christ. There are many facets by which they can deny the deity of Christ and yet give the impression that they actually believe in Him as the Savior of the world. Simon Peter warns of this: “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction” (2 Pet. 2:1).
And Paul, writing to the Galatians, warns: “And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage” (Gal. 2:4). My friend, we need to guard every movement today which God is blessing. These organizations which are outside the church may go off on tangents because the ministers of Satan are waiting to come in the side door.
“Ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” They are by nature ungodly men, and they do two things: (1) They distort and deny the grace of God—“turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness” and (2) they deny the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ—“denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Ungodly” means that they simply leave God out of their lives.
It is important to evaluate whether or not a man who teaches and preaches the Word of God is a godly man. I was amazed to hear from a couple who, I thought, had good spiritual discernment. They attended the classes of a Bible teacher and were greatly impressed by him. In fact, they considered him outstanding. They were willing to tolerate the fact that this Bible teacher was having an open affair with a woman who was not his wife! A man may be an interesting Bible teacher and still be an ungodly man. We need to look at their lives. Are they leaving God out of their lives?
Lasciviousness is a very important word. I suppose the best synonym is wantonness because wantonness has in it the thought of lawlessness and arrogance—doing as you please even if you offend the sensibilities of others. Jude says that the ungodly turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness—into immorality. The apostle Paul warned the Galatian believers about the danger of turning the grace of God into license—permitting them to live any way they pleased. “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13).
Gross immorality characterizes the apostasy of our day. They have thrown overboard all of the great precepts of Scripture concerning morality, and they call it the new morality. There is a growing danger in this country of the church actually espousing and condoning gross immorality. One writer has said that “one of the troubles with the world is that people mistake sex for love, money for brains, and transistor radios for civilization.” The creed of the present day, according to the late Dr. Wallace Petty, can be stated in the following six articles: “God is a creation of wishful thinking; religion is a mechanism of escape from reality; man is a glorified gorilla who asks too many questions and represses too many desires; morals are a matter of taste; love is an art; and life is a racket.” That is the viewpoint of some folk in our day.
The wantonness that we are seeing is marked by an arrogant recklessness of justice. Another definition is “willfully malicious.” Marriage is flouted and considered unessential. You may live with whomever you wish to live with in total disregard of the morality which builds homes and thereby builds a nation. As far back as 1959 Vice Admiral Robert Goldthwaite, Chief of Naval Air Training, told a large group of leading educators, business men, law enforcement officials, and others that there is “a surge of immorality in civilian and military life.” He said that “moral decay” is an acute national problem, and there is urgent need to improve “moral leadership” among youth. During the years since then, the moral decay has reached such proportions that we should be alarmed. We ought to be very careful about the folk who are teaching in our churches. Are they teaching a loose morality? Jude warns us to be on our guard against that.
The other thing that characterizes an apostate is that he denies the Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. He will talk about God and the Lord Jesus, but he denies who and what they actually are.
In Jude’s day the apostasy was Gnosticism. Gnosticism taught that the body was essentially evil, that all matter was evil, and that the spirit alone was good. The conclusion drawn from this was that it didn’t matter what a man did with his body. He was free to satisfy the lusts of the body. He was free to practice blatant immorality, shameless sin, and arrogantly and proudly to flout that sin publicly. That was a perversion of grace.
The same ideas have sprung up again today. The new morality is no newer than the old Gnosticism, the first heresy. The other facet of Gnosticism was a denial of the true God and true Man, our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the mark of an antichrist. John calls such people antichrists in his epistle. It is always the spirit of antichrist which denies the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have spent a long time on this verse because of the importance of the matters it sets before us.
ISRAEL IN UNBELIEF DESTROYED IN THE WILDERNESS
Now Jude is going to give us six examples of apostasy in the past.
Before we look at this section, let me remind you of what the apostasy is. Thayer gives this meaning for the Greek word aphisteµmi: “to remove, to withdraw, to go away, to depart.” When the word is used in 2 Thessalonians, I take the position that it has a twofold meaning. It means the removal of the church since in Paul’s first epistle to the Thessalonians he spoke of the rapture of the church. The Rapture must come first—the aphisteµmi, the departure, the removal of the church. The removal of believers from the earth will lead to the total apostasy—that is, the departure from the faith. Our Lord Jesus asked the question, “… when the Son of man cometh [to the earth], shall he find [the] faith …?” (Luke 18:8). The way the question is couched in the Greek demands a negative answer. Therefore, the answer is no, He will not find the faith on the earth when He returns. There will be a total departure, a total apostasy. Now that cannot come about until the true believers are removed from the earth—and, of course, this can occur at any moment.
Jude is now going to give us six examples of apostasy in the past; that is, departures from the faith. There will be three groups and then three individuals. First, the three groups—
I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not [Jude 5].
In the wilderness Israel in unbelief was destroyed, and it is an example that God does judge apostates. When Israel came to Kadesh-Barnea, they refused to enter the Promised Land.
Now the spies had brought back a report to Kadesh-Barnea that everything God had told them about the land was accurate. But the spies (with the exception of two) didn’t believe that God could bring them into the land, and they persuaded the people to believe that. At first they didn’t want to believe that it was a good land. After they were convinced it was a good land, they wouldn’t believe that God could bring them into the land. They preferred to stay in the wilderness rather than believe God. That is an example of apostasy, a departure from the faith. They departed from the whole basis on which they had left Egypt. God had given them a promise with two parts to it: “I will take you out of Egypt, and I will bring you into the land.” But Israel’s unbelief pushed them back into the wilderness, and God left them there for thirty-eight more years until all of the adult generation had died—with the exception of Caleb and Joshua. Israel had used their children as an excuse for not going into the land; so God said, “But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised” (Num. 14:31).
My friend, in our own lives we sometimes use our children’s welfare as an excuse for not serving the Lord. While that sounds very noble, it infers that God isn’t thinking of our children. God will take care of them and us when we obey Him.
The new generation of Israel did cross the Jordan River and enter the Promised Land, even as God had promised. However, the generation that had apostatized, that had departed from the faith, were destroyed in the wilderness, and they are the first example that Jude gives.
ANGELS IN REBELLION KEPT IN CHAINS
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day [Jude 6].
This opens up to us a truth that we don’t get with such clarity in any other section of the Word of God, although we are told that there will be a judgment of angels. Sometime in the past they didn’t keep “their first estate.” God created angels with a free will. Angels do not reproduce as human beings do; therefore, they do not inherit a sinful nature as humans do. Each angel is created by God with a free will. Now, some of these spiritual creatures were caught up in a rebellion, and now they are reserved in chains.
Apparently, the fallen angels are divided into two groups. The group whose rebellion was so great is evidently locked up, incarcerated, and has no freedom of movement any longer. The other group of fallen angels apparently has freedom of movement and is under the leadership of Satan. It seems evident that these are the demons mentioned in Scripture and that are coming into prominence in our day.
For many years the liberal wing of the church has denied the supernatural and denied that there were any such creatures as angels. We are living in a materialistic age, and the viewpoint was that God and the idea of angels were superstitions that we no longer needed. I believe it was Huxley who said that the belief in God was like the fading smile of a Cheshire cat, that it was disappearing in this scientific age.
Back in 1963 Ben Hecht wrote an article under the title, “New God for the Space Age.” Let me quote the first few paragraphs:
The most amazing event to enter modern history has been generally snubbed by our chroniclers. It is the petering out of Christianity. Not only are the Bible stories going by the board, but a deeper side of religion seems also to be exiting. This is the mystic concept of the human soul and its survival after death.
Parsons are still preaching away on this topic and congregations are still listening. But congregation and parson both seem to have moved from church to museum.
Fifty years ago religion was an exuberant part of our world. Its sermons, bazaars, tag days, taboos and exhortations filled the press. Its rituals brought a glow to our citizenry. At their supper tables a large part of the voting population bowed its head and said grace.
Religion today is a touchy subject, not because people believe deeply and are ready to defend such belief with emotion, but because they do not want to hear it discussed. They do not know quite what they feel and they do not know what to say about God, His angels and the record of His miracles. Not wanting to sound anti-Christian (or antisocial or anti-anything not under general condemnation) they settle for silence. In this silence, more than in all the previous agnostic hullabaloos, religion seems swiftly disappearing.
Remember that Ben Hecht wrote that in 1963. Since that time there has been a tremendous revival.
For many years liberalism has been predicting the death knell of the church and of all that is supernatural. Around 1963 Gibson Winter, a professor of ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School, wrote a book entitled The Suburban Captivity of the Churches in which he made this statement:
U.S. Protestantism—once famous for its diversity—is homogenizing into what is almost a new faith, and if it continues in its present direction, it will be stone-cold dead in a couple of dozen years.
I could give you quotations ad nauseam of what liberals said a few years ago. For instance, a man at the Chicago Theological Seminary made the statement that Protestantism has gotten so prosperous statistically that it has lost all internal discipline whatsoever. “It looks frightfully confining from the outside, but on the inside it has no discipline, no integrity.”
These quotations give a picture of the contemporary liberal church.
However, more recently there has been a revival of interest in that which is supernatural. It is quite interesting that the revival did not come from within the church, not even from within the fundamental church. It came on the campuses of the colleges, especially the campuses of some colleges which a few years ago were totally materialistic and denied everything of the supernatural. Today they are talking about demonism, about Satan, and actually about God and the Bible. All of a sudden an interest in the supernatural has appeared again, and angels seem to make sense even in the space age.
Men and women are concerned as they look about at a world of materialism that has gone crazy. We know how to get to the moon, but we do not know how to control human nature here on this earth. A great problem is arising right here in Southern California. A reputable paper has come out with the fact that Los Angeles is becoming an armed city with gangs who roam the streets. They are free to roam the streets while law-abiding people are imprisoned in their homes, afraid to venture out. Los Angeles has become an armed camp.
A few years ago this materialistic generation was saying that human nature was getting better, and since it has been improved, we don’t need all of our laws; so the lid was taken off. My friend, we found out that instead of its being a bucket of rosewater, it was a bucket of stinking garbage! Vile and unspeakable crimes have been committed; unbelievable immorality has taken place. The question is being asked, “Where does all this vileness and evil come from?” As someone has expressed it, “If there were not the Devil, men would have to invent a devil to explain all the evil which is in this world today.”
It really is not possible to deny that humanity is depraved. None of us seems to realize fully that we belong to a race that is totally depraved and that we live in a world that is under the control of Satan. It was thought that the removal of laws and restrictions would produce a wonderful, free society. However, the developments of recent years have caused men to return to the supernatural. Unfortunately, the emphasis has been on the evil spirits. Men have found they must believe in the evil spirits to explain the wickedness they find in the world.
Well, the Bible has something to say about it. My friend, the Bible is very much up to date. It is the Bible that tells us about the angels which rebelled against God and about those whom “he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”
The Word of God has a great deal to say about the judgments that are coming. Folk without a knowledge of the Bible speak of one great judgment day which is coming. Well, the Great White Throne judgment is coming in the future for the unsaved (see Rev. 20:11–15), but actually there are eight judgments mentioned in the Word of God. One of those eight judgments is the judgment of angels, which will take place during the last days.
In 1 Corinthians we are told the order of the resurrections—“… Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. [The power is obviously evil power, the demonic forces which are in the world.] For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:23–25). So during the Millennium these demonic powers will be judged.
The Scriptures have a great deal to say about the judgment of angels. Let me cite another passage: “Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?” (1 Cor. 6:3). This is something that we would not have known if Paul hadn’t mentioned it. We will be with our Lord during the Millennium. (We’ll probably commute back and forth from earth to the New Jerusalem which is the eternal home of the church.) And at some period, probably during that thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth, there will be the judgment of angels. Although we were created lower than the angels, someday we will have part in their judgment.
Peter gives another reference to the judgment of angels which corresponds to that of Jude: “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [hades, the place of the unsaved dead], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” (2 Pet. 2:4). “Chains of darkness” could not refer to our conception of chains as a series of connected metal links, because angels are spiritual creatures and it would be pretty difficult to put a physical chain on them! The word chains is “bonds,” indicating that they are heavily guarded in a certain place. Again I turn to Dr. Wuest’s translation:
And angels who did not carefully guard their original position of preeminent dignity, but abandoned once for all their own private dwelling-place, with a view to the judgment of the great day, in everlasting bonds under darkness, He has put under careful guard.
As we have seen, this company of angels is awaiting the judgment which apparently will come during the last days.
The other group of fallen angels are the demons which are abroad in the world today. Demonic power, of course, is a reality, although I personally feel that it is being overplayed at the time I am writing this. There is probably a good percentage of so-called demon activity that is phony, but certainly some of it is impossible to explain as natural phenomena. This is the reason the movie, The Exorcist, got under the skin of so many people. Although some of it was fictional, it was based on a factual case. It is an example of the forces of evil that are in the world. It actually took place, and there are other cases like it.
The Book of Revelation has several references to the judgment of fallen angels. “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Rev. 20:10). This is a reference to hell, which is the lake of fire. If you want to argue about its being literal fire, that is all right. It is even more literal than fire and worse than fire. Fire is a very weak symbol of how terrible it is going to be. After all, these are spiritual beings which are mentioned here, and fire as we know it would have no effect upon a spiritual being. Also, we learn from this verse that the Devil is not in hell today. A great many folk think he is there now, but instead he is very busy in your town and mine. Also, he has quite an army of helpers, both supernatural and natural—many folk are helping him, perhaps without realizing it.
Also, the Devil will be responsible for the terrible persecution of believers and especially of Israel during the Great Tribulation of the last days. He will be cast out of heaven: “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Rev. 12:9). Satan will be bound during the kingdom age: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season” (Rev. 20:1–3). And finally he will be consigned to the lake of fire, which we have seen in Revelation 20:10.
SODOM AND GOMORRAH SINNED IN SEXUALITY
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire [Jude 7].
This is Jude’s third example of apostasy in the past. He has mentioned Israel in their unbelief, the angels which kept not their first estate, and now the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them. These cities were so completely judged that they probably are buried beneath the Dead Sea today. Some people believe that they have located them. I am not sure whether or not this is true, and the exact location is unimportant. The important thing to know is that God destroyed these cities because the people defiled their flesh. They were given over to homosexuality or sodomy.
It is interesting that in the parlance of our day sodomy is called homosexuality, adultery is called free love, the drunkard is a respected alcoholic, and the murderer is temporarily insane. Satan is doing a good job of indoctrinating the world with a new vocabulary. Nevertheless, sodomy in God’s sight is gross immorality and the vilest sin of all. The fact that God has judged men in the past for sins of sensuality ought to be a warning to our generation. God will judge any civilization that moves too far in this direction, and I wonder if we haven’t done just that.
MODERN APOSTATE TEACHERS IDENTIFIED
Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities [Jude 8].
These apostate teachers are the ones that we are to beware of. As Jude puts it back in verse 4, they “crept in unawares”; that is, they came in sideways, they came in the side door, they slipped into the church under false colors. Their credentials and their creeds were not the same. They pretended to be something they were not.
There are four points of identification of apostate teachers that Jude gives to us in this verse:
1. They are “filthy dreamers.” You will notice that the word filthy is in italics in the Authorized Version, which indicates that it is not in the better manuscripts, and we can actually leave it out. They are dreamers—they live in an unreal world, a world that does not exist. My feeling is that the theological liberal has never dealt with reality. Liberalism is rather romantic. It sounds good on paper. It is nice to be able to solve all your problems by positive thinking, but there is a lot of power in negative thinking also. We need today to learn how to say no as well as to say yes. Liberals are dreamers in the sense that they will not face up to reality.
Many years ago I read an editorial in Woman’s Home Companion which refers to a group of liberals who have since disappeared from the scene (however, there is a new crop of them abroad in the land today). The editorial reads:
A pledge “to have no part in any war” has been taken by a large body of leading Protestant clergymen in the east. Among them are some of the wisest and most influential ministers we have—men such as Fosdick, Holmes and Sockman in New York for example. This Covenant of Peace Group declares that war settles no issues, is futile and suicidal and is a denial of God and the teachings of Christ. It asserts that the “chain of evil” which holds us to war can and must be broken now. This is noble doctrine. However much events may lead us to differ with it, when these bold and sincere men stand in their pulpits and preach this rejection of all war, let us remember that these clergymen by their record have earned the right to their belief. In a great democracy suppression of the clergy in war or in peace can never justly become an instrument of policy, as it has under the dictators.
Such antiwar philosophy was carried over recently into the years of the war in Vietnam. It got us into a great deal of trouble and difficulty. The protest meetings that it inspired in this country actually prolonged the war and led to the killing of a great many more American boys who would not have been killed otherwise. Such thinking is to not realize that we live in a big, bad world and that reality is something you have to rub your nose into. It is something that you simply cannot ignore. Even steel-belted tires have to get down and go over the rough places, and some of them go flat, by the way. These men are dreamers. They are dealing with that which is not real at all. As long as we have a big navy and as long as we have atom bombs, it is nice to sit back in the cloister of the church and to make brave statements like this, but it just doesn’t work out.
I have a notion that these men stay out of the ghettos and other such places at night, although they may talk very bravely in the daytime. In a denomination which has boasted of how they want to work among the minority groups, they have closed one of their churches which was located in a minority community. I think they have made a big mistake in doing that.
These men are dreamers, and they have gotten into the church and have used the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Imagine making the statement that war is a denial of the teachings of Christ! The Lord Jesus made the statement, “When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace” (Luke 11:21). The way you are going to protect your own is by being armed. He also said that the king who is going to war is going to sit down and figure it out (see Luke 14:31). He didn’t say it was wrong to figure it out. He said the king had better figure it out, and if he is smart, he will figure out how he is going to carry on that war. May I say to you, these men have failed to face up to what the Lord Jesus Christ really said. He told His disciples, when He first sent them out, that they were to take nothing with them, not even a pocketbook (see Mark 6:7–9). However, when they had returned and He was sending them out to the ends of the earth, He said, “Be sure and take your pocketbook. And you had better take your American Express and Diner’s Club cards and your gasoline credit cards. Also, it might be well to have a sword. You will need it to protect yourselves” (see Luke 22:35–36). May I say to you, what nonsense this is—these are dreamers who talk like this. It sounds good to say you don’t want to have a part in war. All of us can agree with that. That’s sort of like Mother, apple pie, and the American flag—we all are for it. It’s great to have no part in war, but we have to face up to reality also. This is a deceptive message that they bring. It’s nice to preach it to a well-heeled crowd on Sunday morning when there is no war and everything seems peaceable.
2. The second thing that Jude says about the apostate teachers is that they “defile the flesh.” The thought that Jude has in mind here is that they engage in base and abnormal immorality. This is the same as the “strange flesh” in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that he talked about earlier. Many churches today have gone on record that they approve of homosexuality. My friend, God judged the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The angels are also a warning to us because they are going to be judged—they are being held for a judgment. And God would not let even His own people whom He had brought out of Egypt enter the Promised Land because of their unbelief. All these are examples to us today, and we had better recognize the fact that God will judge our “new morality.” It is neither new morality nor new immorality; there is really nothing new about it. It goes back to Sodom and Gomorrah, and it goes back even to the days of Noah.
3. These apostate teachers “despise dominion,” which means they reject authority. They are the crowd that wants to get rid of the death penalty. They are the crowd that wants to turn everybody loose to do his thing in his own way. We are seeing what is taking place as a result. Society has broken out today like a cancer in the body politic. We thought we were a civilized people, but we are nothing in the world but a group of savages. And it is because of this matter of despising dominion, of rejecting authority. We want certain laws repealed. For example, we don’t want divorce. The argument given is that there is no reason to have divorce laws, that we ought to just let people stop living together. This breaks right across the morality of any nation, my friend, for the home is the bedrock of any society. During the war in Vietnam, it was tragic to see men with their collars buttoned in the back leading in the protest marches. I felt that the collar buttoned in the back was a real token that they were going in the wrong direction.
4. False teachers “speak evil of dignities.” This means that they disrespect dignities. They protest against rules and those in authority. In other words, they take it out on the police because they represent authority, or they take it out upon men in high places. The president, the governors, and the mayors are made responsible for anything that happens in the nation or the state or the city, regardless of whether they are responsible or not. Why? Because there has been a loss of respect for authority. Now I will grant you that some men in authority have not been worthy of respect, but the office certainly demands respect. Jude will give us an example of this in the next verse.
Let’s notice again the characteristics of these apostates who have come into the church. They came in the side door. They are ungodly. They turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. They deny the Lord Jesus Christ. They are dreamers, they defile the flesh, they despise dominion, and they have disrespect for dignities. These are the things that characterize them, and they are dangerous because of the way they have come into the church.
For ten long and weary years, the Greeks laid siege to the city of Troy, but they did not make a dent in the fortifications. It seemed impregnable, and they could not get an entrance into the city. Then there came forth a suggestion. The suggestion was to build a wooden horse with soldiers concealed inside, to leave it outside the gate, and then to pretend to sail away. So they made the wooden horse, the soldiers were put inside, and it was put by the gate of the city of Troy. Well, curiosity got the best of the Trojans. When they saw the Greeks sailing away, they thought the war was over. They went out, saw the horse, and decided to pull it inside the city. It certainly was a novelty, something to have. That night, the soldiers who were on the inside climbed out, and they were able to unlock the gates of the city from the inside. In the meantime, under cover of darkness, the fleet of Greek ships returned. They had only pretended to sail away. What an entire army of mighty men could not do from the outside in ten years, a few soldiers did from the inside. In the same way, the church has been harmed today from the inside and has been taken over by liberalism. Actually, the church has never been harmed from the outside. Persecution caused it to grow by leaps and bounds. Today we are witnessing the destruction of the church from the inside—it’s an inside job. Christ was betrayed from the inside, not from the outside. One of His own betrayed Him over to His nation; His nation betrayed Him over to the Romans, and the Romans brought Him to the cross. The church is being betrayed today by the ones who have gotten in by the side door.
The apostasy that was a little cloud the size of a man’s hand is now a raging storm that is lashing across the church, casting up foam and fury. We need to hang out this epistle as a storm warning because the apostasy is here in our midst today. I do not say this with any joy or bitterness, but I make it as a statement of fact. All the great denominations of the past are largely gone; that is, they have departed from the faith, probably never to return. They’ve gone into never-never land. As far as I know, there is no record of a church or any organization or an institution, having once departed from the faith, ever returning. I am told there have been some individuals who have, but I do not know any of them.
The Wesley movement which began in England, for example, was a come-out movement. It was begun when the church became cold and indifferent in that day, and the church of Wesley became a warm incubator in which to reproduce life. But I am sorry to say that today in many places it is a deep freeze that preserves the outward form of Wesley but does not have the warmth and the life that was once there.
I must be very frank to say that I do not think that fundamentalism as it is today is the answer. I perceive a real weakness which I think will ultimately undermine even fundamentalism. That weakness is this: Fundamentalism has been exact and precise in doctrine, but in many places it has been devoid of ethics and morals. There are no high principles and practices. There has been a moral breakdown outside in contemporary society, and, unfortunately, it is mirrored in our conservative churches. I was with a group sometime ago which is a fine group, but they are an illustration of what I mean. They are insistent and even belligerent about doctrine and about separation. But when it was called to their attention that one in their midst was guilty of immorality, they actually defended him! The ethical practices of another individual smelled to high heaven although he called himself a fundamentalist. May I say to you, this group took a ho-hum attitude. This hurts the cause of Christ a great deal because it comes from the inside.
We are living in days of apostasy. It may be that there are some who would say to me, “Preacher, you are really being sensational. Aren’t you exaggerating just a little bit?” I don’t think I am, my friend; in fact, I am not sure but what I am giving this in low key to you. I would like to pass on to you the results of a study that was made and some statements made by liberal preachers some years ago now. The situation today is even more alarming than this:
Out of a poll of 700 preachers, the following results were given: 48% denied the complete inspiration of the Bible; 24% rejected the atonement; 12% rejected the resurrection of the body; 27% did not believe that Christ will return to judge the quick and the dead. A Washington, D.C., minister said, “We liberal clergymen are no longer interested in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. We do not believe we should even waste our time engaging in it. So far as we are concerned, it makes no difference whether Christ was born of a virgin or not. We don’t even bother to form an opinion on the subject.” An Arlington, Va., minister said, “We have closed our minds to such trivial consideration as the question of the resurrection of Christ. If you fundamentalists wish to believe that nonsense we have no objection, but we have more important things to preach than the presence or absence of an empty tomb 20 centuries ago.” A leading minister in Washington, D.C., said flatly, “In our denomination what you call the ‘faith of our Fathers’ is approaching total extinction. Of course a few of the older ministers still cling to the Bible. But among the younger men, the real leaders of our denomination today, I do not know of a single one who believes in Christ, or any of the things that you classify as fundamentals.”
My friend, have I exaggerated? Have I overstated the case of whether we are in the apostasy or not?
Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee [Jude 9].
This is a most remarkable verse of Scripture. Here is Wuest’s very fine translation of it: “Yet Michael, the archangel, when disputing with the devil, arguing concerning the body of Moses, dared not bring a sentence that would impugn his dignity, but said, May the Lord rebuke you.”
Satan is a fallen creature and an avowed enemy of God, yet Michael, when contending about the body of Moses, would not bring a sentence that would inpugn the dignity of Satan. Michael even respected the position of Satan. Clement, one of the early church fathers, quotes from an apocryphal writing dealing with the funeral of Moses. When Michael was commissioned to bury Moses, Satan opposed it on the grounds that, since he was the master of the material and matter, the body belonged to him. Michael’s only answer was, “The Lord (that is, the Creator) rebuke thee.” Satan also brought the charge of murder against Moses. Also it is suggested that Satan wanted to hinder the later appearance of Moses at the Mount of Transfiguration.
Lucifer was a creature of God and apparently the highest creature that God created. And then evil was found in him. Don’t think that evil means that he went out and stole something. The evil that was in him was that he put his will against the will of God. He was lifted up by pride, and he wanted to become independent of God. He actually thought he could dethrone God—at least from part of His universe. As far as this world is concerned, God has permitted him to carry on this rebellion, and God has a high and holy purpose in it. But this creature still believes he will be able to take a segment of God’s created universe and be the ruler over it. I’m sure that Satan wants this earth as his.
“Yet Michael … durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.” Michael didn’t curse Satan. He didn’t call him a long list of names. I’m sure that many of us would have been perfectly willing to have done that. We really would have read the riot act to him, but Michael didn’t. Do you know why? Michael is an archangel, and all he did was to say, “The Lord rebuke you.” He didn’t go into a long tirade of epithets or of condemnation, although he could have. Why? Michael had respect unto his office, his position—Lucifer had been created the highest creature.
This is a lesson that you and I need to learn. A great many believers have not learned to bow even to God. My friend, you and I are creatures; He is the Creator. What right have you and I to question anything that He does? Don’t misunderstand me. If you think that I piously accept everything that comes my way, you are wrong. I talk back to Him many times, and I want to know why He lets certain things happen to me. Maybe you do that also. But we need to recognize that God is the Creator; He is also our Redeemer. He is the One who loves us. But our God is high, holy, and lifted up. He is a just and righteous God. He never makes any mistakes. He never does anything wrong. Everything He does is right and, therefore, you and I can trust Him. But do we do that? Do we respect His authority? Do we respect His person? In that day when men must give an account, the Lord Jesus Christ is going to say, “You said, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but you didn’t do the things I commanded. Each one went his own way and did that which was right in his own eyes.” This is the picture of mankind. How about you? How about me today? What a lesson Michael the archangel is to us!
But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves [Jude 10].
I would like, as best I can, to make this verse understandable to you because it is another very important verse in this epistle. When Jude says, “But these speak evil,” the Greek word is blasphemeoµ which by transliteration is our English word blaspheme. The apostates actually blaspheme.
“These speak evil of [blaspheme] those things which they know not: but what they know naturally.” Jude uses two different words here which are both translated “know.” May I say, without recognizing that, it is difficult to determine exactly what Jude means here. The first “know” is eidoµ which speaks of “mental comprehension and knowledge … referring to the whole range of invisible things,” as Vincent defines it. Knowledge is not confined to what you can pour into a test tube or look at under a microscope, although a great many people think that it is. The finer things of life are things you cannot put under the microscope; you cannot pour them into a test tube. For example, what about a wonderful piece of music? What happens if you try to stick it down a test tube or look at it under a microscope? Music needs to be translated into sound, and the ear needs to hear it—you cannot see it at all; it is actually invisible. Love is also invisible—you couldn’t put love under the microscope. How about faith?—you can’t put it under the microscope. My friend, there are a great many things I know, and I know them without any proof from the laboratory. I know them because I have experienced them. The Holy Spirit has made them real to my own heart. “But these speak evil of those things which they know not.” That Washington, D.C., preacher thought he was very brilliant to say that he no longer believed in the Resurrection. May I say to you, there are many things he doesn’t know.
The second word for “know” which Jude uses here is epestamai, which means “to understand.” Vincent says that it was used “originally of skill in handicraft” and that it “refers to palpable things; objects of sense; the circumstances of sensual enjoyment.” These are things you can pour into the test tube. All that these folk know is what they can handle and what they can see. They are like brute beasts because, after all, a brute only knows about the hay or the grass or the corn or another animal that it can eat. This refers to that which they know by instinct. For example, in the fall of the year, the ducks are in Canada, having had a nice summer up there, but all of a sudden they take off. Somebody says, “Boy, are they smart! Those ducks know that before long it will be winter, that snow will be on the ground, and that the lake is going to freeze over. So they take off for the south, and they go all the way down to Mexico and into Central America. They are really very smart!” No, they are not. They move just like a beast, just like a bird moves—by instinct. There is no comprehension, no understanding.
This generation that thinks it is so smart because it only believes what it can pour into a test tube is a poor generation. They do not understand anything that a brute beast couldn’t understand. They have not reached the higher plane of knowledge, what Paul called epignoµsis. Paul says, “You can know that the Bible is the Word of God. You can know that Jesus is the Savior of the world.” These men, knowing just physical things, think they know everything that can be known, and they corrupt themselves in these things. This is the picture of the apostates that Jude gives to us.
CAIN, BALAAM, AND KORAH—EXAMPLES OF APOSTATES
Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core [Jude 11].
Jude has already given three examples of apostate groups: the children of Israel, the angels who rebelled, and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Now we are given another three by way of illustration, and these three are individuals.
“Woe unto them!” The word for “woe” is the Greek word ouai. The very pronunciation of this word is a wail—“Ouai, ouai!” It denotes a wail of grief or of denunciation. Here it is more a wail of denunciation, but it is both. Of these apostates whom Jude has just identified, he now says, “Woe unto them!”
“For they have gone in the way of Cain.” Cain was a religious man but a natural man. He believed in God and believed in religion, but he did it after his own will. He denied that he was a sinner, rejected redemption by blood, and thought that he could come his own way to God. Hebrews 11:4 certainly tells the story: “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.” Cain is dead also, yet he speaks. The way of Cain is the way of a man who refused to bring a little lamb which pointed to Christ. In other words, Cain did not come to God by faith. He did not believe God when He said that man was to bring a little lamb for a sacrifice, that without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins, and that the penalty must be paid. Cain thought that he could come to God his own way, and that is the picture of the apostate today. The apostate calls himself a liberal and a modernist; but, my friend, this is as old as the Garden of Eden. Right outside the Garden of Eden, Cain was a modernist and a liberal. He believed in religion and God, but he did it his own way, not God’s way.
“And ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward.” Here we have the error of Balaam; in 2 Peter 2:15 it is the way of Balaam; and in Revelation 2:14 it is the doctrine of Balaam.
In 2 Peter we see the thing that was the undermining of the man; that is, Balaam was guilty of covetousness which is idolatry. He was a hired preacher. He wanted to make a buck with the gift he had, a gift that was apparently God-given. This was the way of Balaam, and it was his undoing. A man can seek for something other than money, however. He can seek for prominence, for popularity, for fame, for applause, or for position. There are many different things which would put a man in the way of Balaam. Jude says that this marks the apostate.
In the Book of Revelation, you have the doctrine of Balaam. Numbers 22–25 tells us that this man could not bring a curse against the nation Israel, and so he told Balak that by sending the Moabite women into the camp of Israel, he would be able to bring fornication and idolatry into their homes through mixed marriages. You can be sure of one thing: from Genesis to Revelation, God warns against the intermarriage of believers and unbelievers. You cannot condone such marriages on any basis whatsoever. It is unfortunate that too many young people are not warned of this because it has resulted in a great deal of unhappiness.
The error of Balaam here in Jude is that he thought God would have to punish Israel for their sins. He did not recognize that there is a morality that is above natural morality. He thought that a righteous God had to curse Israel. He was totally unaware of the morality of the Cross. It is taught in the Old Testament that God can maintain and does enforce His authority, but He can be just and the justifier of a believing sinner. Balaam did not understand that God would forgive the nation Israel when they turned to Him. It is sometimes difficult for someone to understand how a man can be converted. When I worked in a bank, was led to Christ, and wanted to study for the ministry, my fellow workers, most of whom were church members, could not understand how I could study for the ministry. And they had ample reason to wonder about that, by the way. They couldn’t understand that God had forgiven me and that I had a new life now. They just didn’t believe that. They didn’t believe it because they couldn’t understand it. This is the same problem that Balaam had.
“And perished in the gainsaying of Core [Korah].” You will perhaps recall that Korah led a rebellion against Moses (see Num. 16). He came to the conclusion that Moses was not the only one around who had access to God. Korah rebelled against God’s constituted authority, who was Moses. He wanted to intrude into that which was sacred. In effect he asked, “Has God only spoken to Moses? Who does Moses think he is?” Actually, Moses didn’t think too much of himself or that he had any undue qualifications; in fact, Moses wanted to disqualify himself as the leader of the people out of Egypt. But God had called Moses, and this man Korah rebelled against him. He contradicted the authority of Moses; he intruded into the office of the priests, and he died. In other words, he was a rebellious man, rebelling against God. Jude says that such rebellion characterizes the apostate.
Notice that the things which are true of these three individuals from the Old Testament are also the things which are true of apostates. Cain did not believe that you need to come to God by faith and that you need a bloody sacrifice because man is a sinner. He believed that if you have a religion, that is all you need. The apostate goes along with that. The error of Balaam is to think that a holy God must punish sin and that sinners cannot be forgiven. The apostate makes the same mistake. He says, “How in the world can the sacrifice of Christ save anyone? A man has to do this for himself.” And the apostate rebels against God as Korah did. They assume an authority that is not theirs. They stand in the pulpit and give out politics instead of giving out the Word of God. Instead of telling what God says, they tell people what they say and what they think. A man said to me some time ago, “I have dropped out of my church. I am tired of listening to a preacher who gives political economics and attempts to stand in the position of being an authority on government. He assumes that he has all knowledge, and he never uses the Word of God. He never tells what God says or what God thinks, and I’m tired of listening to him.” I know nothing about that man’s church, but I assume that that preacher is an apostate because he has the mark of the apostate. These three men from the Old Testament illustrate this to us today.
MODERN APOSTATE TEACHERS DESCRIBED
In the next few verses the modern apostate teachers are defined and described. You will not find anywhere language more vivid, more graphic, more dramatic, more frightening than the description of the apostate in the last days.
These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots [Jude 12].
Again let me share with you Dr. Wuest’s translation, which makes the description of the apostate teachers even more vivid:
These are the hidden rocks in your love feasts, sumptuously feasting with you without fear, as shepherds leading themselves to pasture, waterless clouds carried past by winds, autumn trees without fruit, having died twice, rooted up.
What a picture we have here!
“These are spots in your feasts of charity.” The word spots is better translated “hidden rocks” by Dr. Wuest. The picture is of hidden rocks which wreck a ship. They make what Paul calls “shipwreck” of the faith, and Paul names two men who evidently ran into an apostate, a hidden rock, and made shipwreck of the faith (see 1 Tim. 1:19–20). An apostate may be compared to the tip of an iceberg. Very little of it is visible, but if a ship runs into it, the ship will go to the bottom of the sea. Oh, how many people there are, especially young people, whose faith has not only been shaken but wrecked by a person who is an apostate!
“These are spots in your feasts of charity.” The “feasts of charity” were love feasts which were held in the early church before the communion service. It was a time of fellowship when believers brought food and shared a meal together. The poor could bring very little, but it was a time of sharing what they had. Well, the apostates came in with ravenous appetites. They could eat more than anyone else—“feeding themselves without fear.” They were shepherds who were feeding themselves instead of their flock. Not only in the matter of food but also in their failure to teach the Word of God to their flock, it was evident that they were concerned only about themselves.
Milton describes this kind of situation when he writes of his friend, Lycidas. In his poem, he expresses his grief for the young man who had been a great preacher and expositor of the Word but was drowned in the Irish Channel. Milton describes the situation in England as it prevailed in his day: “The hungry sheep look up and are not fed.” What a picture of an apostate in the pulpit!
“Clouds they are without water.” They may look as if they are filled with the Word of God, but they are empty and dry. They may wear robes and speak in pompous, pontifical voices with great authority. They have had courses in public speaking and homiletics, and they know how to spiritualize a text of Scripture and make it mean something entirely different from what God intended. They are like beautiful clouds that drift across the sky without giving any refreshment to the earth.
In my boyhood days I can remember chopping cotton in the summertime and watching the clouds pass over. Oh, how I prayed for rain so I could quit chopping cotton, but there was no rain in those clouds. They were nothing but snowy white puffs. There was no water in them at all. Well, that is Jude’s picture of apostates. They do not have the water of life. They actually know nothing about the Word of God.
“Trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.” When the Lord Jesus gave the warning against false teachers, He said, “… by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt. 7:20). Jude says that the apostate has withered fruit, he is “twice dead, plucked up by the roots.” It was Dwight L. Moody who said that when a man is born once, he will have to die twice and that when a man is born twice, he will have to die only once. Well, Jude says that the apostates are spiritually dead, dead in trespasses and sins—and yet trying to lead others! Also the apostate’s body will have to die; so he is twice dead. What a picture of the apostate—and Jude is not through with him.
Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever [Jude 13].
In the previous verse he said they were like clouds carried about by the wind. These men generally speak on current events every Sunday. They pick up something out of the newspaper or something they have seen on television, and that becomes their subject for the coming Lord’s Day. They do not really give the interpretation of the Word of God which would be applicable for the day.
Now here Jude says that they are “raging waves of the sea.” They just stand in the pulpit and rant. Dr. Thayer says that these false teachers are “impelled by their restless passions. They unblushingly exhibit in word and deed, their base and abandoned spirit.”
“Wandering stars.” Wandering stars just wander through space. They are lawless in that they follow no course whatsoever.
“To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.” This refers to hell. One symbol of hell is fire, and the other is blackness of darkness. The great emphasis has been placed upon the symbol of fire. Hell is literal, of course, but to say it is literal fire isn’t quite adequate for this reason: there will be spiritual creatures there as well as man—and the worst sins of man are spiritual sins such as unbelief. Therefore, physical punishment wouldn’t be quite adequate. My feeling is that man will wish it were literal fire because it will be so much worse than fire. The other symbol, “blackness of darkness,” is to me far more frightening. And I believe that a lost man carries his darkness with him—not only physical darkness but spiritual darkness. John Milton, who had an insight into many spiritual truths, penned these lines:
He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit in the centre, and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the midday sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.
That is tremendous! My feeling is that the horrors of hell will be increased by those who go there. For instance, there is a place on earth called Hell’s Kitchen. Is the difference in the kind of real estate that is there? No, the difference is in the people who are there. This, together with the concept of physical darkness, is to me frightful beyond words. If you have ever been down in Carlsbad Caverns when the lights are turned out, you know what real darkness is. I’d hate to be down there forever, my friend!
We come now to another remarkable passage of Scripture, and the only place it occurs in the Word of God is here in Jude.
And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him [Jude 14–15].
This prophecy of Enoch is not found in the Old Testament. In Genesis 5 we have the record of Enoch, but we are told nothing about his prophecy. Enoch is not a common name; so we may be sure that the man Jude mentions is Enoch of the antediluvian period, the man who walked with God and God took him.
Now let me quote what Dr. Wuest has written about this Book of Enoch:
The quotation is from the apocryphal Book of Enoch. This book, known to the Church Fathers of the second century, lost for some centuries with the exception of a few fragments, was found in its entirety in a copy of the Ethiopic Bible in 1773 by Bruce. It consists of revelations purporting to have been given to Enoch and Noah. Its object is to vindicate the ways of divine providence, to set forth the retribution reserved for sinners, and so show that the world is under the immediate government of God.
Enoch prophesied regarding the false teachers of the last days, and that is a remarkable thing! God apparently did not want the Book of Enoch in the canon of Scripture or it would be there—you may be sure of that. Godly men recognized that it was an apocryphal book, but here is one prophecy that God wanted put into His holy Word. It is a prophecy concerning the coming of Christ with His saints.
We know from the record in Genesis that Enoch was translated, that is, he was removed from the earth without dying. And sometime in the future the church, meaning true believers, are to be removed from the earth without dying. Of course, through the centuries since the time of Christ, believers have been dying so that at the present time most of the church has already passed through the doorway of death. And at the time of the Rapture they are to be caught up together with the living believers to meet the Lord in the air. This teaching is not in the Old Testament at all, yet Enoch is a type or a representative of the believers who will take part in the Rapture. Enoch was removed from the earthly scene before the judgment of the Flood came upon the earth. And the believers who compose the true church will be removed from this earth, will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, before the judgment of the Great Tribulation breaks upon the earth.
Now, after the Great Tribulation, the Lord Jesus will return to the earth. However, at the time of the Rapture He does not come to the earth, but the believers are caught up to meet Him in the air. When we say that the Rapture is the second coming of Christ, we are not quite accurate if we mean that Christ is coming to earth at that time. No, the Rapture is the removal of the church. Then the visible church which is left on the earth, composed of folk who are not true believers, will totally depart from the faith and will enter the Great Tribulation Period. And at the end of the Tribulation, the Lord Jesus will actually come to the earth “to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed,” as Jude has prophesied. This is a remarkable passage of Scripture.
Now notice the penetrating truth brought out in Dr. Wuest’s translation of Jude 14–15:
And there prophesied also with respect to these, the seventh from Adam, Enoch, saying, Behold, there comes the Lord with His holy myriads, to execute judgment against all and to convict all those who are destitute of a reverential awe towards God, concerning all their works of impiety which they impiously performed and concerning all the harsh things which impious sinners spoke against Him.
It is quite interesting that “holy myriads,” which has to do with the numbers of the saints, can be supernatural or natural creatures, which probably means that the church will come back with Christ when He returns to the earth. If the church does come back with Him to reign on the earth, obviously it had to leave the earth sometime before. You simply have to believe in the Rapture if you believe that Christ is coming back to earth with His saints.
“To execute judgment upon all.” When Christ returns to the earth, He is going to execute judgment. Jesus Himself said this in His Olivet Discourse. It is mentioned again and again in the Word of God, and we have seen it in the Old Testament.
“To convince all that are ungodly among them” or, as Dr. Wuest has translated it, “to convict all those who are destitute of a reverential awe towards God.” They are ungodly in the sense that they leave God out. And that is something that is quite popular today.
“Of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed.” Dr. Wuest translates it: “concerning all their works of impiety which they impiously performed.” Their works are actually anti-God.
“And of all their hard speeches [harsh things] which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
Now this prophecy of Enoch, and it is a great prophecy, deals with the judgment upon the organized church which will be in total apostasy after the Rapture. You see, the Rapture will rupture the church—the true believers will leave the earth, and the make-believers will remain and will be here when Christ comes to judge men in that day.
These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage [Jude 16].
Here are five additional identifications of apostates. (1) They are murmurers. Murmuring means to mutter complaints. This is not loud, outspoken dissatisfaction but muttering against God in an undertone. (2) They are complainers, complaining about their lot in life, discontented, never satisfied. If they recognize God at all, they blame Him for everything that has happened to them. I have received hundreds of letters from folk who tell me how discontented, dissatisfied, and unhappy they were with their lot. Then when they came to Christ, all of that changed. And another characteristic of apostates is that (3) they walk after their own lusts or desires. Those desires could be good or bad—not necessarily desires which are base like immorality. It could be anything that leaves God out. It could be a sailing boat, good music, or literature, or even religion in which they find a certain amount of satisfaction, but in their hearts they are discontented. (4) Their mouth speaks great swelling words; that is, they are immoderate and arrogant; they use extravagant language, which is fizz and foam but has no content. I was rather amused by listening to a politician being interviewed. He used a great many modern expressions which are being overworked today. When he had finished, I analyzed what he had said and realized that he hadn’t said anything—he had been just talking. He had not committed himself to anything whatsoever. Well, there are a great many men in the ministry who talk like that also. (5) They have men’s persons in admiration because of advantage. This is literally “admiring countenances.” They are great at applauding others—and they say a lot of things which are not true—because they are looking to men for their promotion, their advantage. You may recall that the Epistle of James has something to say about this: “My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?” (James 2:1–4).
We see this kind of thing going on in our churches all the time. I went into a church some time ago where I was to preach. The folk didn’t know me very well—certainly the ushers did not. Since I arrived early, I thought I would just go in without identifying myself. When I entered the sanctuary, two ushers were busy talking to each other and paid no attention to me; so I just waited. Finally one of them said, “Want a bulletin?”
“Yes, thank you!”
“Were do you want to sit?”
“Well, I don’t know. Where would you want to seat me?”
“How about taking that seat right there?” He wasn’t about to take me down to the front section although there were plenty of seats available. He was not in a friendly mood at all. So, instead of sitting down, I just walked on back. Later when I came out on the platform, I looked back at that usher. Believe me, he was white. After the service he came to me very apologetically. He said, “I didn’t know you were going to be our speaker today. I didn’t realize that you were Dr. McGee.”
“Well,” I said, “it really wasn’t very important for you to recognize me because, very frankly, I was going to preach here today regardless of whether the ushers let me in or not. But I really think it is important that you usher strangers and visitors to a seat and be very friendly with them.”
My friend, as believers we certainly should not have “men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.” Yet I notice this attitude both in churches and in certain Christian schools. One school will give a man from another school an honorary doctor’s degree—something he didn’t work for. Then that brother will arrange to have his school confer a doctor’s degree on the brother who gave him his degree.
Also, this same type of thing is sometimes practiced by preachers. We speak in a certain church, and the pastor introduces us as some great person, which we certainly are not. Then when he comes over to our church to speak, we introduce him as some great person—whether he is or not. Frankly, we should not use that method because it is less than honest. And that is the method of apostates. They do not look to God. They are not concerned whether or not the Lord Jesus will say to them, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” They are more concerned to have the applause of the crowd.
When I was in a certain conference, a very timid preacher came to me with a question. He asked, “Do you preach in your church the way you are speaking here?”
“Certainly. Why not?”
“Well, if I preached that way in my church, I am confident that I would have to resign.”
I said to him very frankly, “I certainly feel sorry for you, and I think that your church is in a bad way. The message you heard me give was given in my church before I came here—I practiced on them!”
Having men’s persons in admiration because of some advantage they will get from it, looking to men for promotion instead of looking to God for promotion, is certainly a condemnation and the mark of an apostate.
OCCUPATION OF BELIEVERS IN DAYS OF APOSTASY
In verses 17–19, believers are warned by the apostles that these apostates would come. Then in verses 20–25, we will see what believers must do in these days of apostasy.
BELIEVERS WARNED THAT APOSTATES WOULD COME
Jude reminds believers that the apostles warned that these apostates would come. In other words, he is saying that this ought not to disturb us. The apostasy is something God has permitted, and He has permitted it for a purpose.
But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ [Jude 17].
Jude is turning away from describing the apostates, and he says, “But, beloved.” He is turning the page as it were, and now he is talking to the beloved. The beloved are not those beloved of Jude. (However, I do think Jude loved them because he would not have written such a strong epistle if he had not loved them and desired to tell them the truth.) The word he uses here means that they are beloved of God. These are the ones who are experiencing the love of God in their lives, and for that reason they are called “beloved.”
“Remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.” All the way through the Word of God, you will find that we are told to remember. In other words, we are to remember the Word of God. You and I should know the Word of God so that our memories can call it up when we need to have these great truths brought to our attention.
“But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is evidence that Jude was not the apostle by that name. He is, as we have indicated, Jude, the half brother of the Lord Jesus. In spite of his blood relationship to Jesus, he takes a very humble attitude. He will use the apostles to corroborate what he is going to say, as he has done before in this epistle. He said earlier, “What I am going to write to you about the apostasy is not new with me. I’m not the only one who has written on it. Others have written of it beforehand.” Now he says here, “You are to remember the words that were spoken to you by the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ.” We will see before we finish this epistle that it is all-essential to know what the Word of God has to say. I do not believe that you can stand for God in this world without tripping up unless you have a knowledge of the Word of God—it is essential. I have seen individual after individual, both men and women, trip up and fall in their Christian walk. I can attribute every such instance that I know of to a lack of knowledge of the Word of God. How important it is for us to know what the Word of God has to say.
We come now to a very important passage of Scripture where I feel that I need a special anointing of the Holy Spirit as I write because it deals with a distinction that is not always made today.
How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
These he they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit [Jude 18–19].
I will begin by giving you Dr. Wuest’s translation of verses 17–19:
But, as for you, divinely-loved ones, remember the words which were spoken previously by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, In the last time there shall be mockers ordering their course of conduct in accordance with their own passionate cravings which are destitute of reverential awe towards God. These are those who cause divisions, egocentric, not holding the spirit.
In verses 17–18, Jude says in effect, “Remember what the apostles said to you. They told you that there would come mockers in the last time and that they would walk after their own ungodly lusts.” That is, the desires of the apostates are totally apart from God and from the will of God.
In verse 19 Jude defines the apostates: “These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.” He has given us so many descriptions of the apostate that there is no reason for us to miss him at all. I believe that you can test an unregenerate person, even an unregenerate minister, by the Word of God. I like to say that I use the Word of God as a Geiger counter. When I give out the Word of God, the Geiger counter registers, and I get a response from the folk who have heard it. Many tell us how the Word of God has actually revolutionized their lives and their homes. It has made everything different, even for those who are believers. But there is another group of people who think that I am a loony bird, that I’m way out in left field, and that teaching the Word of God is a very foolish sort of thing. So you can see that the Geiger counter of the Word of God works, and by it you can test the unregenerate person.
“These be they who separate themselves.” First of all, Jude says that the apostates cause divisions in the church. Vincent says that Jude is speaking of those who “cause divisions in the church…. Of those who draw a line through the church and set off one part from another.” Liberalism was responsible for splitting the great denominations of the church. The liberals took over the church and then said that the fundamentalists were the ones dividing it. Of course, it was not the fundamentalists who divided the church. They were the ones who were holding to the great doctrines upon which the denominations were founded. The original creeds of all the denominations are sound creeds. Although they differ a little at some points, there are no differences at all on the great basics.
The liberals were first called modernists because they wanted to change things. They never liked that name, but they like the name of liberal today. However, the liberal, instead of being broad-minded, whether he is in theology or politics, is to my judgment the most narrow-minded person in the world. Frankly, he is a dangerous man to deal with, because he will deal with you in a vitriolic manner, with bitterness and hatred, and he will not mind hurting you.
“Sensual”—the word is psuchikos from which we get our English word psychology. It means a life that centers about the individual; that is, the “I.” It is an egotistical way of living in which the individual becomes all important: “I come first.” It is selfish; it is natural. It is the life of the unrenewed man, the man who is not born again.
This is Alford’s statement:
The psucheµ [that is, the soul] is the centre of the personal being, the “I” of each individual. It is in each man bound to the spirit, man’s higher part, and to the body, man’s lower part; drawn upwards by the one, downward by the other. He who gives himself up to the lower appetites, is sarkikos (fleshly): he who by communion of his pneuma (spirit) with God’s Spirit is employed in the higher aims of his being, is pneumatikos (spiritual). He who rests midway, thinking only of self and self’s interests, whether animal or intellectual, is the psuchikos (sensual), the selfish man, the man in whom the spirit is sunk and degraded into subordination to the subordinate psucheµ (soul).
The natural man, the sensual man, is a selfish man who lives like an animal. He wants to get all he can. He wants to eat all he can. He wants to get all the money and favor he can. He lives entirely for himself. All this has to do with a man in his natural makeup today.
“Having not the Spirit.” The apostates do not have the Holy Spirit of God; they are not indwelt by the Spirit of God. You will remember that when Paul got to Ephesus, this was the question he directed to those people who were passing as believers but who were not believers. They had heard only of the baptism of John, and Paul asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you first believed?” They knew nothing about it. They had heard about the ministry of John but had not been taught about the Lord Jesus’ death and resurrection. When Paul explained these things to them, they accepted Christ and received the Holy Spirit (see Acts 19:1–7).
We need to understand that man is a tripartite being; that is, he has a threefold nature. In 1 Thessalonians 5:23 we read: “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Man has a body, a soul, and a spirit.
If you read very carefully the account of the creation of man in the Book of Genesis, you will find that physically, man was taken from the ground. There are about fifteen elements in the dirt which are made into our bodies. When we get through with our bodies, at the time of death, we will be moving out of them, and these bodies will return back to the earth. At the resurrection of the believer, the body will be raised a spiritual body. It is sown in corruption, and it is going to be raised in incorruption.
What happened to this physical man that God created? He was given what we would call a soul—but that word is often misunderstood. He was given the psychological part of himself; that is, that part which directs him in his approach to the physical universe. He gets hungry; so he goes and eats. He desires entertainment, and he provides that for himself He may be a very generous individual, very amiable, very attractive, and he may have what we call charisma. Many unsaved people are like that. They are likable folk, and I sometimes wish that all believers were as gracious as some unsaved people whom I meet. Although unsaved folk can be very attractive on the surface, they are very different underneath, of course. This is man’s psychological nature.
But God also breathed into man’s breathing places the breath of life, or the wind, the pneuma, the spirit. This is man’s human spirit, and it is above the psychological. It is that which looks to God, that which longs for God, that which wants to worship.
Man, therefore, has a tripartite nature. He is a trinity: the body or the physical side, the soul or the psychological side, and the spirit or the pneumatic side. The psychological side is what Jude calls “sensual” here in verse 19.
Now what really happened at the fall of man? I like to think of man in his tripartite nature as a house with three floors. On the first floor is the dining room and the kitchen—that is the physical. On the second floor is the library and the music room—that is the psychological. On the top floor is a chapel, a place to worship—that is the spiritual. On the top floor is also the Word of God, because man will not understand it without the Spirit of God leading him; the natural man would not even want it. The spiritual was on the top floor, but at the Fall, man actually died spiritually, and the house turned upside down. The physical side got up on top. Man today in his natural state is primarily physical. Meat and potatoes are top priority. Self-preservation is the first law of life. Man is like the animal world in that he is physical, but man is also psychological. He is self-conscious. He enjoys music. He loves beauty. And he also indulges in immorality. This is the area, the sensual part of man, that Jude refers to here. At the Fall, therefore, the spiritual part of man died. Man no longer had a capacity for God; in fact, he was now an enemy of God.
However, when you and I came to Christ and trusted Him as Savior, we were given a new nature, and that new nature can now respond to the Holy Spirit of God. But we still have that old nature. We are still fleshly, and we can live in the flesh. Paul had a great deal to say about this in the eighth chapter of Romans. He writes in verse 5: “For they that are after the flesh [this is the natural man, the apostate] do mind the things of the flesh [that is all they are interested in]; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit [these folk seek to please God].” Paul goes on in verse 6 to say, “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” When you live in the lower nature—the psychological, the sensual—you are dead to God and have no fellowship with Him. That fellowship is broken. John says, “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” [1 John 1:6]. But he who lives in the Spirit and attempts to please God is truly living it up. The spirit of such a man, instead of going downward and doing the things the flesh wants to do, does the things God wants done. Now Paul says in Romans 8:7, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God [this is the reason Adam ran away from God]: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” You cannot bring that old nature into obedience to God. You cannot reform man. Romans 8:8–9 tells us: “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that [lit., since] the Spirit of God dwell in you….” You cannot please God in the flesh. You can only please Him when you yield to Him and come to the place where He can use you.
This brings me to consider what happens when a man is converted. Before our conversions, you and I were dead in trespasses and sins. We could walk around, we were physically alive, but we were spiritually dead. When a man hears the gospel, the Spirit of God applies it to his heart, and he trusts Christ. We say that he is born again. The spiritual nature is reborn, and he now has a capacity for God. There is no power in that new nature; so the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within him. This is what Paul meant when he wrote, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you …” (Rom. 8:9). In other words, the indwelling Spirit is the mark that you are a child of God. The Holy Spirit is not something that you get ten days or so after you are converted. If you don’t get Him at the moment you are converted, you are not converted because it is the Holy Spirit who regenerates—we are “born of the Spirit” (see John 3:8). The Holy Spirit is there not only to help you but also to interpret to you the Word of God. And the Word of God is no longer foolishness to you, because a new world and a new life have been opened to you.
However, there is the struggle that goes on which Paul talks about in Galatians 5:17: “For the flesh lusteth [warreth] against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” There are these two natures within a believer. The old nature, this lower nature, this psychological part of man, wants to turn away from God. This spiritual part now wants to turn to God. If you are a child of God, you know about that conflict. There are times when you want to turn away from Him, and there are times when you want to turn to Him. This is the reason most of us are like a roller coaster in our Christian lives. We go up today, and it is great, but then we go down tomorrow. What a trip it is—up and down! It ought not to be that way, but, unfortunately, most of us would have to testify that that is true of us.
In 1 Corinthians 15:45 Paul talks about the Resurrection, and he has this to say: “… The first man Adam was made a living soul [that is, the psychological]; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit [that is, a life-giving spirit].” This is the difference between Adam No. 1 and Adam No. 2, between Adam in the Garden of Eden and the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. The Lord Jesus came to give His life that He might be a life-giving Spirit. Paul goes on to say in verses 46–47: “Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural [Adam was a psychological being]; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.” This, I believe, is the big difference between Adam before his fall and the man today who is regenerated. We are today made sons of God and are given a spiritual nature with a capacity for God. Man’s highest nature at the beginning was that God breathed into his breathing places, but that was a spirit that could fall. We have a nature today that is a sinful nature, and we will have it as long as we are in this body because it actually controls this body—this is the psychological part of man. But at the moment of regeneration we were given a new nature which responds to God and cannot fall.
When I first studied psychology (it was one of my major areas of study at one time), they said that psychology was the study of the soul of man. Then they got away from that, and they said it was the study of the mind of man. Behaviorism came along and then Freudianism later on, and they took their theory of man farther and farther away from anything psychological or even mental. Man became nothing in the world but a sort of robot or IBM computer. You can press a certain button and always get a certain reaction from him. As a result, the saying went around that psychology first lost its soul, and then it lost its mind. I do not know whether it has recovered it or not!
The thing that I want to emphasize here is that the flesh pulls man down and the Spirit pulls man up. Jude says that these apostates never get into the realm of the Spirit—“having not the Spirit.” They are “sensual”; they never get above the psychological state. Therefore, it is very easy to tell whether or not you are a child of God, my friend. Paul lists the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19–21, and if you are producing those in your life, you are living in the flesh. He then lists the fruit of the Spirit in verses 22–23. If you have those things in your life, you are a child of God. But the apostate does not have those things in his life. He cannot have them because he does not have the Spirit of God.
I have spent a little time with this because I feel it is very important that you and I understand ourselves and why we have all the conflicts and frustrations that we Christians have. We have two natures. The psalmist says that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (see Ps. 139:14). Man is a very complicated creature. A man walks this earth today with a body that is taken out of the dirt, but he also has a capacity for God. A man who wants to worship and serve God can become a son of God through faith in Jesus Christ—what a glorious prospect this is!
WHAT BELIEVERS MUST DO IN DAYS OF APOSTASY
Now having described the apostasy that was coming and the apostates who would come into the church, Jude mentions seven things which believers can do in days like these in which you and I are living.
But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost [Jude 20].
“But ye, beloved”—he is talking to believers, those beloved of God. What can we do today?
1. “Building up yourselves on your most holy faith.” What does he mean by that? Well, building up yourselves on your most holy faith means that you study the Word of God. It is my conviction that since God gave to us sixty-six books, He meant that we are to study all sixty-six of them—not just John 3 or John 14 and other favorite passages. Oh, how many Bible classes go over and over the same books: John, Romans, maybe Ephesians, and they don’t miss Revelation. Do not misunderstand me, all those books are very important, but what about the other sixty-two books? Why don’t we study all of them? My friend, if you are going to build up yourself on your most holy faith, you must have the total Word of God. You cannot build a house without a foundation; then you will need to put up some timbers that will hold the roof; then you are going to need a roof on it and siding and plaster on the inside. And this is what the total Word of God will do for you. This is what we are to do in days of apostasy.
Both Peter and Paul urged believers to study the Word of God in days like these. Paul wrote in his swan song: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed …” (2 Tim. 2:15). Then in the next chapter Paul said that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. My friend, the recourse that you and I have as children of God in these days is the Word of God.
The reason many folk fall by the wayside is because the seed (which is the Word of God) fell among stones. It didn’t get deeply rooted. Unless you study all of the Word of God, get down in the good, rich soil, you are not going to become a sturdy, healthy plant. It won’t be long until you will be stepped on and the sun will burn you out. You will not be able to stand in days like these.
Peter in his second epistle, writing of the apostasy, says, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation” (2 Pet. 1:19–20). You cannot just pull out one or two little verses and think you have a good knowledge of the Bible. It is a tragedy to build a system of doctrine based on a few isolated verses drawn out of the Scriptures.
This reminds me of the story of President Lincoln having his portrait painted. The artist kept shifting Lincoln around trying to get him at an angle so the wart on his face wouldn’t show. Finally, after he had him adjusted to his satisfaction, he said, “Mr. Lincoln, how do you want me to paint you?” Lincoln said, “Paint me just as I am—wart and all.”
My friend, certainly there are parts of the Word of God that you will not enjoy reading. There are sections that will step on your toes, and you would like to avoid that. But today it is necessary to build up ourselves on our most holy faith because these are days of apostasy.
“Your most holy faith” does not refer to your own personal faith. Rather, it is the faith, the body of truth which has been given to us in the Word of God. When the church first came into existence, this was called the apostles’ doctrine. Of this Mayor says:
The faith here is called ‘most holy’ because it comes to us from God, and reveals God to us, and because it is by its means that man is made righteous, and enabled to overcome the world.
2. “Praying in the Holy Ghost.” Jude mentions the second thing we are to do in days of apostasy. The word Ghost is the Greek pneuma, more frequently translated “Spirit.” “Praying in the Holy Spirit” is an unusual phrase, occurring at only one other place in the Scriptures. In the Epistle to the Ephesians, Paul mentions putting on the whole armor of God, and each piece of armor is for defense with the exception of two items. One offensive weapon is “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints” (Eph. 6:18). The second offensive weapon was mentioned in verse 17, “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” This is precisely what Jude writes. First, we are to build up ourselves on our most holy faith; then we need to pray in the Spirit.
Many years ago in Dallas, Texas, there was a very fine man, Mr. Will Hawkins, who had a radio program which he called “The Radio Revival.” I do not know of any program during the Depression and afterwards that influenced people more than his program did. One of the features of his radio broadcast was what he called a sword drill, a test of the knowledge of the Word of God, and I thought it was about the best way it could be used. My friend, you and I need a sword drill; that is, we need to listen to God first before He has to listen to us, because we could say a lot of foolish things. We are to take the sword of the Spirit, because we need to build up ourselves in the faith—we should learn to use that sword.
Praying in the Holy Spirit is a little different from handing God a grocery list of “Gimme, gimme, gimme.” Don’t misunderstand me, petition, as it is called in theology, is a part of prayer. But how about praise and how about worship? Our prayer should include adoration and praise to almighty God. Dr. Earl Radmacher once told me about directing a prayer meeting in a church he pastored. The prayer meetings had been pretty dead, as most church prayer meetings are, unfortunately. They should be the real powerhouse of the church body, but they usually are not. One night Dr. Radmacher announced that they were not going to have any requests but only praise and thanksgiving to God for what He had done for them. Dr. Radmacher said that it turned out to be the briefest prayer meeting they had ever had! It is amazing how few things we thank God for and how little praise goes up to Him. However, petition is certainly important, and prayer that includes that is a real ministry. When Paul asked the Christians in Rome to pray for him, he wrote: “Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me” (Rom. 15:30). The word for “strive” is agonize. We are to pray like that.
Praying in the Holy Spirit means that we pray by means of the Holy Spirit; we are dependent upon Him. Paul wrote in Romans 8:26, “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” You and I actually do not know what to pray for. We are like little children. When I take my little grandson to the store, he wants everything he sees. He asks for things that he shouldn’t even have because they would not be good for him. Then I think, That’s just the way we pray. We are like little children: “Lord, I want this—Lord, give me that.” God doesn’t always give us what we want. Why doesn’t He? Because when we pray like that, we are not praying in the Spirit. We need to learn to let the Holy Spirit make intercession for us.
Years ago a missionary in Venezuela sent me a little cross on which was printed a definition of prayer: “Prayer is the Holy Spirit speaking in the believer, through Christ, to the Father.” That is a very good definition of prayer.
My friend, we need to learn to pray. No wonder the disciples, having heard the Lord Jesus pray and thinking of their own little paltry prayers, said, “Lord, teach us to pray” (see Luke 11:1). Many of us need that, but there is very little instruction today about learning to pray. Yet we need to learn to really pray in these days of apostasy.
Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life [Jude 21].
This verse gives us two more things we as believers are to do in days of apostasy.
3. “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” We need to recognize that God loves the believer. We have seen that Jude addresses the believers as “beloved.” Let me repeat—this does not imply that he loves them or that they love him but that they are beloved of God. Again, let me say that you cannot keep God from loving you, although you can put up an umbrella or a roof so that you will not feel the warmth of God’s love. Jude is saying, “Keep yourselves out there in the sunshine of God’s love.” Let His love flood your heart and life. This is needed in days of apostasy.
4. “Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” There was a man here in Southern California, a professor in a seminary, whom I had asked to preach in the church I served, and someone questioned that he really believed in the rapture of the church. So I had lunch with him and asked him this specific question: “Do you believe in the imminent coming of Christ?”
“I do.”
“On what basis do you believe that He will take the church out? That is, on what grounds do you and I expect to be taken out at the time of the Rapture?”
He said very definitely, “I was saved because God extended mercy to me, and when He takes me out of the world at the time of the Rapture, it still will be by the mercy of God.”
That is a good answer, and it cleared up all doubts of his position on the rapture of the church.
My friend, as we have seen, the mercy of God is the fact that God has a concern and care for you today. And He has an abundance—He is rich in mercy. He was so concerned about you that He extended His mercy to you and saved you by His grace.
Notice that Jude says, “Looking for the mercy.” The word looking is the Greek word prosdechomai, meaning “to expect, to wait for.” The Lord Jesus wants us to live in an attitude of expectation for His return. At the time of the Rapture, I am expecting to leave this world, and I hope it will happen during my lifetime. But I will be going out because of His mercy, not because of who I am. If it depended upon who I am, I wouldn’t make it.
When I first went to Nashville, Tennessee, there was a very fine Bible class there that had been taught the theory of a partial rapture; that is, that only the super-duper saints would go out at the Rapture. They were a wonderful group of folk, and they supported my ministry in Nashville. I even had the privilege of teaching the class several times. However, in talking with some of them, especially the leaders, they made it clear that they expected to go out at the time of the Rapture because they were the super-duper saints, but I had the feeling that they weren’t sure about me. Well, I want them and everyone else to know that when the Lord takes the church out, I’m going along—whether you like it or not—because I am looking for that mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now notice Dr. Wuest’s translation of verse 21:
With watchful care keep yourselves within the sphere of God’s love, expectantly looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ resulting in life eternal.
And of some have compassion, making a difference [Jude 22].
5. “Of some have compassion.” There is some question among Greek scholars as to the correct translation of this verse. Instead of “making a difference,” I prefer the rendering “who are in doubt.” There are a great many good, sincere folk today who are in doubt. They do have honest doubts, and we need to be patient with them. Being in the ministry I have had some difficulty in being patient with some folk. I remember a woman who came to our midweek Bible study in a church I served many years ago. Every week for six weeks she came to me with some question. I had the feeling that she was trying to trap me or trick me with her questions, and one night I answered her so sharply that she turned and walked out. The woman who always came with her was a member of my church, and she came to me afterward and said, “Dr. McGee, be patient with her. She is a very brilliant woman. In fact, she is listed in Who’s Who. But she has been in practically every cult here in Southern California, and she is really mixed up. Now she is trying to find her way out. Will you be patient with her?” Well, knowing her background, of course, I was patient after that and answered her questions the best I could. About three months later she accepted Christ as her Savior. I had a wonderful letter after she had returned to Ohio in which she told how the Lord was leading her.
My friend, we are living in days when there is so much doubt cast upon the Word of God that those who really want to believe it have problems in doing so. We do well to be patient with them—they are honest doubters.
And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh [Jude 23].
6. “And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire” refers to sinners whom we consider hopeless. It seems impossible that they will ever be saved. And yet I have seen some of these folk come to know Christ by hearing God’s Word by radio. Jude admonishes us not to give them up—“others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.” What a tremendous statement!
In Zechariah 3:2 we read this: “And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” When God intended to save Jerusalem, He said, “I am just taking a brand out of the fire.” Apparently there is no one who is beyond redemption, if they want to be saved.
7. “Hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.” The word flesh refers to the psychological part of man, the part of man that can go only so far. It can, for example, appreciate good music, but it cannot be acceptable to God. There have been attempts to come up with the right word for this psychological part of man. The word soul is not adequate because it doesn’t express what it should. Some call it the selfish part of man. That is not a good definition because some psychological people are very generous although they are not Christian. Others speak of it as the animal, which is even worse. Although these people generally attempt to satisfy the lower nature, animal is not the proper word. Still others call them intellectual, which is the worst one of all. Lange, in his Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, attempts to adequately describe these folk:
He is becoming flesh, wholly carnal or animal. If allowed to continue he will become utterly dehumanized, or that worst of all creatures, an animal with a reason, but wholly fleshly in its ends and exercises, or with a reason which is but the servant of the flesh, making him worse than the most ferocious wild beast—a very demon—a brutal nature with a fiend’s subtlety only employed to gratify such brutality. Man has the supernatural, and this makes the awful peril of his state. By losing it, or rather by its becoming degraded to be a servant instead of a lord, he falls wholly into nature, where he cannot remain stationary, like the animal who does not “leave the habitation to which God first appointed him.” The higher being, thus utterly fallen, must sink into the demonic, where evil becomes his god, if not, as Milton says, his good.
The fact is that the child of God should hate “even the garment spotted by the flesh.” God cannot use anything that the flesh produces. Everything that Vernon McGee does in the flesh is repulsive to God. He hates it. And we should learn to hate it.
This little Epistle of Jude closes with a glorious benediction.
Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen, [Jude 24–25].
Let me give you a literal translation:
Now unto him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you (make you stand) before the presence of his glory blameless with great rejoicing, to the only wise God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and majesty and might and authority, before all time both now and forever. Amen.
If you want to know the place that Jesus Christ should have in your life, especially in these days of apostasy, here it is in this marvelous benediction.
“Through Jesus Christ our Lord”—He is God. And He is our Lord; He should be the Lord of our lives. Glory should be given to Him. We should glorify Him, tell how great He is, how wonderful He is, how mighty He is and mighty to save. He is majestic, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is mighty—all power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth. This universe has not slipped from under His control. All authority belongs to Him, and whether you like it or not, you are going to bow the knee to Him someday.
In these days of apostasy, God’s children need to bring glory to the name of Jesus Christ and to try to hold Him up before a gainsaying world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Recommended for Further Study)
Coder, S. Maxwell. Jude: The Acts of the Apostates. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1958.
Ironside, H. A. Exposition of the Epistle of Jude. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, n.d.
Kelly, William. Lectures on the Epistle of Jude. Denver, Colorado: Wilson Foundation, 1970.
Wolff, Richard. A Commentary on the Epistle of Jude. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1960.
Wuest, Kenneth S. In These Last Days: II Peter, I, II, III John, and Jude in the Greek New Testament for the English Reader. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1954.
Revelation
INTRODUCTION
As we begin this book of Revelation, I have mingled feelings. I am actually running scared as we come to this, one of the great books in the Word of God. Candidly, I must also say that it is with great joy that I begin it. Let me explain why I say this.
It has long been my practice, when I need a time of relaxation, to read a mystery story, a detective story. I confess that mystery stories have been more or less a hobby of mine over the years.
I do not read much of Agatha Christie anymore for the very simple reason that I have read so many of hers that I can usually figure out who the killer is, who committed the murder. Now I read Dorothy Sayers. By the way, she is a Christian, and she gets a great deal of Scripture into her books. The unsaved are reading the Bible without realizing it. Anyway, I have always enjoyed mystery stories.
When I began my ministry, I was a single man, and on Sunday nights after the evening service, I would get into bed and read one of the mystery stories.
Well, about one o’clock in the morning I would get to the place where the heroine has been tied down to the railroad tracks by the villain, and old Number 77 is going to be coming along in about twenty minutes. She is in a desperate situation. I think that the hero is going to be able to get there and rescue her, but I find out that he is in that old warehouse down by the pier, tied to a chair under which is a stick of dynamite with the fuse already lighted! Well, I can’t leave the hero and heroine at one o’clock in the morning in that kind of position. But, since it is time for me to turn over and go to sleep, I slip over to the final page. A different scene greets me there. I see the hero and the heroine sitting out in a yard. I see a lovely cottage encircled by a white picket fence. They are married now and have a little baby who is playing there on the lawn. What a wonderful, comfortable scene that is!
So I would just turn back to the place where I stopped reading, and I would say to the hero and heroine, “I don’t know how you are going to get out of it, but I tell you this: It’s going to work out all right.”
My friend, I have a book in the Bible called the Book of the Revelation, and it tells me how this world scene is going to end. I will be frank to say that I get a little disturbed today when I see what is happening in the world. It is a dark picture as I look out at it, and I wonder how it is going to work out. Well, all I do is turn to the last book of the Bible, and when I begin to read there, I find that it’s going to work out all right. Do you know that? Emerson said that things are in the saddle, and they ride mankind. It does look that way. In fact, it looks as if the Devil is having a high holiday in the world, and I think he is, but God is going to work it out. God Himself will gain control—in fact, He has never lost control—and He is moving to the time when He is going to place His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, upon the throne of His universe down here. It does look dark now. I think that any person today who looks at the world situation and takes an optimistic view of it has something wrong with his thinking. The world is in a desperate condition. However, I’m no pessimist because I have the Book of Revelation, and I can say to every person who has trusted Christ, “Don’t you worry. It’s going to work out all right.” My friend, the thing is going to come out with God on top. Therefore, I want to be with Him. As Calvin put it, “I would rather lose now and win later than to win now and lose later.” I want to say to you, friend, that I am on the side that appears to be losing now, but we are going to win later. The reason I know this is because I have been reading the Book of Revelation. And I hope that you are going to read it with me.
As I have said, I approach the Book of Revelation with fear and trembling, not primarily because of a lack of competence on my part (although that may be self-evident), but many other factors enter into this feeling. First of all, there may be a lack of knowledge on the part of the readers. You see, the Book of Revelation is the sixty-sixth book of the Bible, and it comes last. This means that we need to know sixty-five other books before we get to this place. You need to have the background of a working knowledge of all the Bible that precedes it. You need to have a feel of the Scriptures as well as have the facts of the Scriptures in your mind.
There is a second factor that gives me a feeling of alarm as I enter this book. It is the contemporary climate into which we are giving these studies in Revelation. It is not primarily because of a skeptical and doubting age—although it is certainly that—but it is because of these dark and difficult and desperate days in which we live. We see the failure of leadership in every field—government, politics, science, education, military, and entertainment. Since the educators cannot control even their own campuses, how are they going to supply leadership for the world? Business is managed by tycoons. And the actors can be heard on the media talk programs. Listening to them for only a brief time reveals that they have nothing to say. They do a lot of talking, but they say nothing that is worthwhile. None of these groups or segments of our society have any solutions. They are failures in the realm of leadership. There is a glaring lack of leadership. There is no one to lead us out of this moral morass or out of the difficult and Laocoön-like problems which have us all tangled up. We are living in a very difficult time, my friend. In fact, I think that it is one of the worst in the history of the church.
Knowledgeable men have been saying some very interesting things about this present hour. Please note that I am not quoting from any preachers but from outstanding men in other walks of life.
Dr. Urey, from the University of Chicago, who worked on the atomic bomb, began an article several years ago in Collier’s magazine by saying, “I am a frightened man, and I want to frighten you.”
Dr. John R. Mott returned from a trip around the world and made the statement that this was “the most dangerous era the world has ever known.” And he raised the question of where we are heading. Then he made this further statement, “When I think of human tragedy, as I saw it and felt it, of the Christian ideals sacrificed as they have been, the thought comes to me that God is preparing the way for some immense direct action.”
Chancellor Robert M. Hutchins, of the University of Chicago, gave many people a shock several years ago when he made the statement that “devoting our educational efforts to infants between six and twenty-one seems futile.” And he added, “The world may not last long enough.” He contended that for this reason we should begin adult education.
Winston Churchill said, “Time may be short.”
Mr. Luce, the owner of Life, Time, and Fortune magazines, addressed a group of missionaries who were the first to return to their fields after the war. Speaking in San Francisco, he made the statement that when he was a boy, the son of a Presbyterian missionary in China, he and his father often discussed the premillennial coming of Christ, and he thought that all missionaries who believed in that teaching were inclined to be fanatical. And then Mr. Luce said, “I wonder if there wasn’t something to that position after all.”
It is very interesting to note that The Christian Century carried an article by Wesner Fallaw which said, “A function of the Christian is to make preparation for world’s end.”
Dr. Charles Beard, the American historian, said, “All over the world the thinkers and searchers who scan the horizon of the future are attempting to assess the values of civilization and speculating about its destiny.”
Dr. William Yogt, in the Road to Civilization, wrote: “The handwriting on the wall of five continents now tells us that the Day of Judgment is at hand.”
Dr. Raymond B. Fosdick, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, said, “To many ears comes the sound of the tramp of doom. Time is short.”
H. G. Wells declared before he died, “This world is at the end of its tether. The end of everything we call life is close at hand.”
General Douglas MacArthur said, “We have had our last chance.”
Former president Dwight Eisenhower said, “Without a moral regeneration throughout the world there is no hope for us as we are going to disappear one day in the dust of an atomic explosion.”
Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, ex-president of Columbia University, said, “The end cannot be far distant.”
To make the picture even more bleak, the modern church has no solutions for the problems of this hour in which we are living. There was a phenomenal growth in church membership, especially after World War II, but that took place for only a few years. The growth went from 20 percent of the population in 1884 to 35 percent of the population in 1959. That was the high point of Protestant church membership. And it would indicate the possibility of a church on fire for God. Then it had wealth and was building tremendous programs, but recently the church has begun to lose, and it certainly is not affecting the contemporary culture of the present hour.
As far back as 1958 the late David Lawrence wrote an editorial which he entitled “The ‘Mess’ in the World.” He described it very accurately, but even he did not have a solution for it. As we look out at the world in this present hour, we see that it is really in a mess.
For a long time now men in high positions have looked into the future and have said that there is a great crisis coming. (I wonder what they would say if they lived in our day!) As a result of this foreboding, there has been a growing interest in the Book of Revelation.
Although good expositors differ on the details of the Book of Revelation, when it comes to the broad interpretation, there are four major systems. (Broadus lists seven theories of interpretation and Tregelles lists three.)
1. The preterist interpretation is that all of Revelation has been fulfilled in the past. It had to do with local references in John’s day and with the days of either Nero or Domitian. This view was held by Renan and by most German scholars, also by Elliott. The purpose of the Book of Revelation was to bring comfort to the persecuted church and was written in symbols that the Christians of that period would understand.
Now let me say that it was for the comfort of God’s people, and it has been that for all ages, but to hold the preterist interpretation means that you might as well take the Book of Revelation out of the Bible, as it has no meaning at all for the present hour. This viewpoint has been answered and, I think, relegated to the limbo of lost things.
2. The historical interpretation is that the fulfillment of Revelation is going on continuously in the history of the church, from John’s day to the present time. Well, I believe that there is a certain amount of truth in this as far as the seven churches are concerned, as we shall see, but beyond that, it is obvious that the Book of Revelation is prophetic.
3. The historical-spiritualist interpretation is a refinement of the historical theory and was advanced first by Sir William Ramsay. This theory states that the two beasts are imperial and provincial Rome and that the point of the book is to encourage Christians. According to this theory, Revelation has been largely fulfilled and contains only spiritual lessons for the church today.
The system we know today as amillennialism has, for the most part, adopted this view. It dissipates and defeats the purpose of the book. In the seminary of my denomination, I studied Revelation in both Greek and English from the standpoint of the amillennialist. It was amazing to see how the facts of the Revelation could be dissipated into thin air by just saying, “Well, these are symbols.” But they never were able to tell us exactly what they were symbols of. That was their problem. The fact of the matter is that some very unusual interpretations arise from this viewpoint. One interpreter sees Luther and the Reformation in a symbol that to another student pictures the invention of the printing press! In my opinion, interpretations of this type have hurt and defeated the purpose of the Book of Revelation.
4. The futurist interpretation is the view which is held by all premillennialists and is the one which I accept and present to you. It sees the Book of Revelation as primarily prophetic. Most premillennialists follow a certain form of interpretation that conforms to the Book of Revelation. (We will see this in the outline of the book.) It begins with the revelation of the glorified Christ. Then the church is brought before us, and the whole history of the church is given. Then, at the end of chapter 3, the church goes to heaven and we see it, not as the church anymore, but as the bride which will come to the earth with Christ when He comes to establish His kingdom—that thousand-year reign that John will tell us about. It will be a time of testing, for at the end of that period Satan will be released for a brief season. Then the final rebellion is put down and eternity begins. This is the viewpoint of Revelation which is generally accepted.
In our day there are many critics of this interpretation who not only attempt to discount it but say rather harsh things about it. One recent book of criticism, written by a layman, quotes me as being unable to answer his argument. Well, the fact of the matter is that he called me at home one morning as I was getting ready to go to my office. I wasn’t well at the time, and I didn’t want to get involved in an argument with a man who obviously was very fanatical in his position. In his book he makes the statement that I was unable to answer his question. If he misquotes the other Bible expositors as he misquotes me, I would have no confidence in his book whatsoever.
In his book he maintains that the premillennial futurist viewpoint is something that is brand new. I’ll admit that it has been fully developed, as have all these other interpretations, during the past few years. When I was a young man and a new Christian, I was introduced to the theory known as postmillennialism. The postmillennialists believed that the world would get better and better, that the church would convert the whole world, and then Christ would come and reign. Well, that viewpoint is almost dead today. After two world wars, a worldwide depression, and the crises through which the world is passing, there are very few who still hold that viewpoint. By the time I enrolled in the seminary of my denomination, every professor was an amillennialist, that is, they didn’t believe in a millennium. It was to that view that most of the postmillennialists ran for cover. There was one professor in the seminary who was still a postmillennialist. He was very old and hard of hearing. In fact, when they told him that the war was over, he thought they meant the Civil War. He was really a back number, and he was still a postmillennialist.
At the risk of being a little tedious, I am going to give you the viewpoints of many men in the past to demonstrate that they were looking for Christ to return. They were not looking for the Great Tribulation, they were not even looking for the Millennium, but they were looking for Him to come. This expectation is the very heart of the premillennial viewpoint as we hold it today.
Barnabas, who was a co-worker with the apostle Paul, has been quoted as saying, “The true Sabbath is the one thousand years … when Christ comes back to reign.”
Clement (a.d. 96), Bishop of Rome, said, “Let us every hour expect the kingdom of God … we know not the day.”
Polycarp (a.d. 108), Bishop of Smyrna and finally burned at the stake there, said, “He will raise us from the dead … we shall … reign with Him.”
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who the historian Eusebius says was the apostle Peter’s successor, commented, “Consider the times and expect Him.”
Papias (a.d. 116), Bishop of Hierapolis, who—according to Irenaeus—saw and heard the apostle John, said, “There will be one thousand years … when the reign of Christ personally will be established on earth.”
Justin Martyr (a.d. 150) said, “I and all others who are orthodox Christians, on all points, know there will be a thousand years in Jerusalem … as Isaiah and Ezekiel declared.”
Irenaeus (a.d. 175), Bishop of Lyons, commenting on Jesus’ promise to drink again of the fruit of the vine in His Father’s kingdom, argues: “That this … can only be fulfilled upon our Lord’s personal return to earth.”
Tertullian (a.d. 200) said, “We do indeed confess that a kingdom is promised on earth.”
Martin Luther said, “Let us not think that the coming of Christ is far off.”
John Calvin, in his third book of Institutes, wrote: “Scripture uniformly enjoins us to look with expectation for the advent of Christ.”
Canon A. R. Fausset said this: “The early Christian fathers, Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, looked for the Lord’s speedy return as the necessary precursor of the millennial kingdom. Not until the professing Church lost her first love, and became the harlot resting on the world power, did she cease to be the Bride going forth to meet the Bridegroom, and seek to reign already on earth without waiting for His Advent.”
Dr. Elliott wrote: “All primitive expositors, except Origen and the few who rejected Revelation, were premillennial.”
Gussler’s work on church history says of this blessed hope that “it was so distinctly and prominently mentioned that we do not hesitate in regarding it as the general belief of that age.”
Chillingworth declared: “It was the doctrine believed and taught by the most eminent fathers of the age next to the apostles and by none of that age condemned.”
Dr. Adolf von Harnack wrote: “The earlier fathers—Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, etc.—believed it because it was part of the tradition of the early church. It is the same all through the third and fourth centuries with those Latin theologians who escaped the influence of Greek speculation.”
My friend, I have quoted these many men of the past as proof of the fact that from the days of the apostles and through the church of the first centuries the interpretation of the Scriptures was premillennial. When someone makes the statement that premillennialism is something that originated one hundred years ago with an old witch in England, he doesn’t know what he is talking about. It is interesting to note that premillennialism was the belief of these very outstanding men of the early church.
There are six striking and singular features about the Book of Revelation.
1. It is the only prophetic book in the New Testament. There are seventeen prophetic books in the Old Testament and only this one in the New Testament.
2. John, the writer, reaches farther back into eternity past than does any other writer in Scripture. He does this in his gospel which opens with this: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Then he moves up to the time of creation: “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). Then, when John writes the Book of Revelation, he reaches farther on into eternity future and the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
3. There is a special blessing which is promised to the readers of this book: “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand” (Rev. 1:3). It is a blessing promise. Also, there is a warning given at the end of the book issued to those who tamper with its contents: “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book” (Rev. 22:18–19). That warning ought to make these wild and weird interpreters of prophecy stop, look, and listen. It is dangerous to say just anything relative to the Book of Revelation because people today realize that we have come to a great crisis in history. To say something that is entirely out of line is to mislead them. Unfortunately, the most popular prophetic teachers in our day are those who have gone out on a limb. This has raised a very serious problem, and later on we will have repercussions from it.
4. It is not a sealed book. Daniel was told to seal the book until the time of the end (see Dan. 12:9), but John is told: “Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand” (Rev. 22:10). To say that the Book of Revelation is a jumble and impossible to make heads or tails out of and cannot be understood is to contradict this. It is not a sealed book. In fact, it is probably the best organized book in the Bible.
5. It is a series of visions expressed in symbols which deal with reality. The literal interpretation is always preferred unless John makes it clear that it is otherwise.
6. It is like a great union station where the great trunk lines of prophecy have come in from other portions of Scripture. Revelation does not originate or begin anything. Rather it consummates and concludes that which has been begun somewhere else in Scripture. It is imperative to a right understanding of the book to be able to trace each great subject of prophecy from the first reference to the terminal. There are at least ten great subjects of prophecy which find their consummation here. This is the reason that a knowledge of the rest of the Bible is imperative to an understanding of the Book of Revelation. It is calculated that there are over five hundred references or allusions to the Old Testament in Revelation and that, of its 404 verses, 278 contain references to the Old Testament. In other words, over half of this book depends upon your understanding of the Old Testament.
Let’s look at the Book of Revelation as an airport with ten great airlines coming into it. We need to understand where each began and how it was developed as it comes into the Book of Revelation. The ten great subjects of prophecy which find their consummation here are these:
1. The Lord Jesus Christ. He is the subject of the book. The subject is not the beasts nor the bowls of wrath but the Sin-bearer. The first mention of Him is way back in Genesis 3:15, as the Seed of the woman.
2. The church does not begin in the Old Testament. It is first mentioned by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 16:18: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
3. The resurrection and the translation of the saints (see John 14; 1 Thess. 4:13–18; 1 Cor. 15:51–52).
4. The Great Tribulation, spoken of back in Deuteronomy 4 where God says that His people would be in tribulation.
5. Satan and evil (see Ezek. 28:11–18).
6. The “man of sin” (see Ezek. 28:1–10).
7. The course and end of apostate Christendom (see Dan. 2:31–45; Matt. 13).
8. The beginning, course, and end of the “times of the Gentiles” (see Dan. 2:37–45; Luke 21:24). The Lord Jesus said that Jerusalem will be trodden down of the Gentiles until the Times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
9. The second coming of Christ. According to Jude 14–15, Enoch spoke of that, which takes us back to the time of the Genesis record.
10. Israel’s covenants, beginning with the covenant which God made with Abraham in Genesis 12:1–3. God promised Israel five things, and God says in Revelation that He will fulfill them all.
Now I want to make a positive statement: The Book of Revelation is not a difficult book. The liberal theologian has tried to make it a difficult book, and the amillennialist considers it a symbolic and hard-to-understand book. Even some of our premillennialists are trying to demonstrate that it is weird and wild.
Actually, it is the most orderly book in the Bible. And there is no reason to misunderstand it. This is what I mean: It divides itself. John puts down the instructions given to him by Christ: “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter” (Rev. 1:19)—past, present, and future. Then we will find that the book further divides itself in series of sevens, and each division is as orderly as it possibly can be. You will find no other book in the Bible that divides itself like that.
To those who claim that it is all symbolic and beyond our understanding, I say that the Book of Revelation is to be taken literally. And when a symbol is used, it will be so stated. Also it will be symbolic of reality, and the reality will be more real than the symbol for the simple reason that John uses symbols to describe reality. In our study of the book, that is an all-important principle to follow. Let’s allow the Revelation to say what it wants to say.
Therefore, we have no right to reach into the book and draw out of it some of the wonderful pictures that John describes for us and interpret them as taking place in our day. Some of them are symbolic, symbolic of reality, but not of a reality which is currently taking place.
The church is set before us in the figure of seven churches which were real churches in existence in John’s day. I have visited the ruins of all seven of them and have spent many hours there. In fact, I have visited some of them on four occasions, and I would love to go back tomorrow. To examine the ruins and study the locality is a very wonderful experience. It has made these churches live for me, and I can see how John was speaking into local situations but also giving the history of the church as a whole.
Then after chapter 3, the church is not mentioned anymore. The church is not the subject again in the entire Book of the Revelation. You may ask, “Do you mean that the church goes out of business?” Well, it leaves the earth and goes to heaven, and there it appears as the bride of Christ. When we see her in the last part of Revelation, she is not the church but the bride.
Then beginning with chapter 4, everything is definitely in the future from our vantage point at the present time. So when anyone reaches in and pulls out a revelation—some vision about famine or wars or anything of that sort—it just does not fit into the picture of our day. We need to let John tell it like it is. In fact, we need to let the whole Bible speak to us like that—just let it say what it wants to say. The idea of making wild and weird interpretations is one of the reasons I enter this book with a feeling of fear.
It is interesting to note that the subject of prophecy is being developed in our day. The great doctrines of the church have been developed in certain historical periods. At first, it was the doctrine of the Scripture being the Word of God. This was followed by the doctrine of the person of Christ, known as Christology. Then the doctrine of soteriology, or salvation, was developed. And so it has been down through the years. Now you and I are living in a day when prophecy is really being developed, and we need to exercise care as to what and to whom we listen.
When the Pilgrims sailed for America, their pastor at Leyden reminded them, “The Lord has more truth yet to break forth from His Holy Word…. Luther and Calvin were great shining lights in their times, yet they penetrated not the whole counsel of God…. Be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written word of God.” That, my friend, is very good advice because God is not revealing His truth by giving you a vision or a dream or a new religion. Therefore, we need to be very sure that all new truth comes from a correct interpretation of the Word of God.
As I have indicated, the twentieth century has witnessed a renewed interest in eschatology (the doctrine of last things) which we call prophecy. Especially since World War I, great strides have been made in this field. New light has fallen upon this phase of Scripture. All of this attention has focused the light of deeper study on the Book of Revelation.
In the notes which I have made on this book, I have attempted to avoid the pitfall of presenting something new and novel just for the sake of being different. Likewise, I have steered clear of repeating threadbare clichés. Many works on Revelation are merely carbon copies of other works. In my own library I have more commentaries on the Revelation than on any other book of the Bible, and most of them are almost copies of those that have preceded them.
Another danger we need to avoid is that of thinking that the Book of Revelation can be put on a chart. Although I myself have a chart and have used it in teaching, I will not be using it in this study. The reason is that if it includes all it should, it is so complicated that nobody will understand it. On the other hand, if it is so brief that it can be understood, it doesn’t give enough information. I have several charts sent to me by different men in whom I have great confidence. One of them is so complicated that I need a chart to understand his chart! So, although I won’t be using a chart, I will use the brief sketch below to attempt to simplify the different stages of the Revelation and also give the overall picture. As you can see, it begins with the cross of Christ and His ascension. In chapter 1, we see the glorified Christ. In chapters 2–3 we see the church. In chapters 4–5 we see that the church is in heaven. Then on earth the Great Tribulation takes place, chapters 6–18. In chapter 19 we see that Christ returns to the earth and establishes His kingdom, and chapter 20 gives us the thousand-year reign of Christ. Then the Great White Throne is set up, the place where the lost are judged, and in chapters 21–22 eternity begins. That is the Book of Revelation.
Stauffer has made an important observation:
Domitian was also the first emperor to wage a proper campaign against Christ, and the church answered the attack under the leadership of Christ’s last apostle, John of the Apocalypse. Nero had Paul and Peter destroyed, but he looked upon them as seditious Jews. Domitian was the first emperor to understand that behind the Christian movement there stood an enigmatic figure who threatened the glory of the emperors. He was the first to declare war on this figure, and the first also to lose the war—a foretaste of things to come.
The subject of this book is very important to see. To emphasize and reemphasize it, let me direct your attention to chapter 1, verse 1—“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass” (italics mine). Let’s keep in mind that this book is a revelation of Jesus Christ. In the Gospels you see Him in the days of His flesh, but they do not give the full revelation of Jesus Christ. There you see Him in humiliation. Here in Revelation you see Him in glory. You see Him in charge of everything that takes place. He is in full command. This is the unveiling of Jesus Christ.
Snell has put it so well that I would like to quote him:
In the Revelation the Lamb is the center around which all else is clustered, the foundation upon which everything lasting is built, the nail on which all hangs, the object to which all points, and the spring from which all blessing proceeds. The Lamb is the light, the glory, the life, the Lord of heaven and earth, from whose face all defilement must flee away, and in whose presence fullness of joy is known. Hence we cannot go far in the study of the Revelation without seeing the Lamb. Like direction posts along the road to remind us that He, who did by Himself purge our sins, is now highly exalted and that to Him every knee must bow and every tongue confess.
To that grand statement I say hallelujah! For the Lamb is going to reign upon this earth. That is God’s intention, and that is God’s purpose.
As I have said, the Book of Revelation is not really a difficult book. It divides itself very easily. This is one book that doesn’t require our labor in making divisions in it. John does it all for us according to the instructions given to him. In verse 18 of the first chapter the Lord Jesus speaks as the glorified Christ: “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” Notice the four grand statements He makes concerning Himself. “I am alive. I was dead. I am alive for evermore. And I have the keys of hell [the grave] and of death.” Then He tells John to write, and He gives him his outline in chapter 1, verse 19: “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.” My friend, this is a wonderful, grand division that He is giving. In fact, there is nothing quite like it.
He first says, “I am he that liveth.” And He instructs John, “Write the things which thou hast seen.” That is past tense, referring to the vision of the Son of Man in heaven, the glorified Christ in chapter 1.
Then He says, “I was dead, and, behold, I am alive.” And His instruction is, “Write the things which are.” This is present tense, referring to Christ’s present ministry. We are going to see that the living Christ is very busy doing things today. Do you realize that He is the Head of the church? Do you know the reason the contemporary church is in such a mess? The reason is that the church is like a body that has been decapitated. It is no longer in touch with the Head of the church. We will see Christ’s ministry to the church in chapters 2–3.
Thirdly, Christ said, “I have the keys of hell and of death.” And when we get to chapter 5, we will see that no one could be found to open the book but one—the Lord Jesus Christ. So chapters 4–22 deal with the future, and Christ said to John, “Write the things that you are about to see after these things.” It is very important to see that “after these things!” is the Greek meta tauta. After what things? After the church things. So in chapters 4–22 he is dealing with things that are going to take place after the church leaves the earth. The fallacy of the hour is reaching into this third section and trying to pull those events up to the present. This gives rise to the wild and weird interpretations we hear in our day. Why don’t we follow what John tells us? He gives us the past, present, and future of the Book of Revelation. He will let us know when he gets to the meta tauta, the “after these things.” You can’t miss it—unless you follow a system of interpretation that doesn’t fit into the Book of Revelation.
As you will see by the outline that follows, I have used the divisions which John has given to us:
I. The Person of Jesus Christ—Christ in glory, chapter 1.
II. The Possession of Jesus Christ—the church in the world is His, chapters 2–3.
III. The Program of Jesus Christ—as seen in heaven, chapters 4–22.
The last section deals with the consummation of all things on this earth. This is what makes Revelation such a glorious and wonderful book.
In the first division of the Book of Revelation we will see the person of Christ in His position and glory as the Great High Priest who is in charge of His church. We will see that He is in absolute control. In the Gospels we find Him to be meek, lowly, and humble. He made Himself subject to His enemies on earth and died upon a cross! We find a completely different picture of Him in the Book of the Revelation. Here He is in absolute control. Although He is still the Lamb of God, it is His wrath that is revealed, the wrath of the Lamb, and it terrifies the earth. When He speaks in wrath, His judgment begins upon the earth.
The person of Jesus Christ is the theme of this book. When the scene moves to heaven, we see Him there, too, controlling everything. Not only in Revelation but in the entire Bible Jesus Christ is the major theme. The Scriptures are both theocentric and Christocentric, God-centered and Christ-centered. Since Christ is God, He is the One who fills the horizon of the total Word of God. This needs to be kept in mind in a special way as we study the Book of Revelation—even more than in the Gospels. The Bible as a whole tells us what He has done, what He is doing, and what He will do. The Book of Revelation emphasizes both what He is doing and what He will do.
The last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, closes with the mention of the Sun of Righteousness which is yet to rise. It holds out a hope for a cursed earth, and that hope is the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Book of Revelation closes with the Bright and Morning Star, which is a figure of Christ at His coming to take the church out of the world. The Rapture is the hope of the New Testament, just as the revelation of Christ was the hope of the Old Testament. And the Book of Revelation will complete the revelation of Christ.
Notice also that there is a tie between Genesis and Revelation, the first and last books of the Bible. Genesis presents the beginning, and Revelation presents the end. Note the contrasts between the two books:
In Genesis the earth was created; in Revelation the earth passes away.
In Genesis was Satan’s first rebellion; in Revelation is Satan’s last rebellion.
In Genesis the sun, moon, and stars were for earth’s government; in Revelation these same heavenly bodies are for earth’s judgment. In Genesis the sun was to govern the day; in Revelation there is no need of the sun.
In Genesis darkness was called night; in Revelation there is “no night there” (see Rev. 21:25; 22:5).
In Genesis the waters were called seas; in Revelation there is no more sea.
In Genesis was the entrance of sin; in Revelation is the exodus of sin.
In Genesis the curse was pronounced; in Revelation the curse is removed.
In Genesis death entered; in Revelation there is no more death.
In Genesis was the beginning of sorrow and suffering; in Revelation there will be no more sorrow and no more tears.
In Genesis was the marriage of the first Adam; in Revelation is the marriage of the Last Adam.
In Genesis we saw man’s city, Babylon, being built; in Revelation we see man’s city, Babylon, destroyed and God’s city, the New Jerusalem, brought into view.
In Genesis Satan’s doom was pronounced; in Revelation Satan’s doom is executed.
It is interesting that Genesis opens the Bible not only with a global view but with a universal view—“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). And the Bible closes with another global and universe book. The Revelation shows what God is going to do with His universe and with His creatures. There is no other book quite like this.
OUTLINE
I. The Person of Jesus Christ—Christ in Glory, Chapter 1
A. Title of the Book, Chapter 1:1
B. Method of Revelation, Chapter 1:2
C. Beatitude of Bible Study, Chapter 1:3
D. Greetings from John the Writer and from Jesus Christ in Heaven, Chapter 1:4–8
E. The Post-Incarnate Christ in a Glorified Body, Judging His Church (the Great High Priest in the Holy of Holies), Chapter 1:9–18 “we know him no longer after the flesh”
F. Time Division of the Contents of Apocalypse, Chapter 1:19
G. Interpretation of the Seven Stars and Seven Lampstands, Chapter 1:20
II. The Possession of Jesus Christ—The Church in the World, Chapters 2–3
A. Letter of Christ to the Church in Ephesus, Chapter 2:1–7
B. Letter of Christ to the Church in Smyrna, Chapter 2:8–11
C. Letter of Christ to the Church in Pergamum, Chapter 2:12–17
D. Letter of Christ to the Church in Thyatira, Chapter 2:18–29
E. Letter of Christ to the Church in Sardis, Chapter 3:1–6
F. Letter of Christ to the Church in Philadelphia, Chapter 3:7–13
G. Letter of Christ to the Church in Laodicea, Chapter 3:14–22
III. The Program of Jesus Christ—The Scene in Heaven, Chapters 4–22
A. The Church in Heaven with Christ, Chapters 4–5 “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also”
1. Throne of God, Chapter 4:1–3
2. Twenty-four Elders, Chapter 4:4–5
3. Four Living Creatures, Chapter 4:6–11
4. Book with Seven Seals, Chapter 5:1–4
5. Christ: the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and the Lamb Which Has Been Slain, Chapter 5:5–10
6. Myriads of Angels of Heaven Join the Song of Praise and Redemption, Chapter 5:11–12
7. Universal Worship of the Savior and Sovereign of the Universe, Chapter 5:13–14
B. The Great Tribulation in the World, Chapters 6–18
1. Opening of the Seven-Sealed Book, Chapters 6–8:1
a. Opening of the First Seal, Chapter 6:1–2 (Rider on a White Horse)
b. Opening of the Second Seal, Chapter 6:3–4 (Rider on a Red Horse)
c. Opening of the Third Seal, Chapter 6:5–6 (Rider on a Black Horse)
d. Opening of the Fourth Seal, Chapter 6:7–8 (Rider on a Pale Horse)
e. Opening of the Fifth Seal, Chapter 6:9–11 (Prayer of the Martyred Remnant)
f. Opening of the Sixth Seal, Chapter 6:12–17 (The Day of Wrath Has Come—Beginning the Last Half of the Great Tribulation)
g. Interlude, Chapter 7
(1) Reason for the Interlude between the 6th and 7th Seals, Chapter 7:1–3
(2) Remnant of Israel Sealed, Chapter 7:4–8
(3) Redeemed Multitude of Gentiles, Chapter 7:9–17
h. Opening of the Seventh Seal—Introduction of Seven Trumpets, Chapter 8:1
2. Blowing of the Seven Trumpets, Chapters 8:2–11:19
a. Angel at the Altar with Censer of Incense, Chapter 8:2–6
b. First Trumpet—Trees Burnt, Chapter 8:7
c. Second Trumpet—Seas Become Blood, Chapter 8:8–9
d. Third Trumpet—Fresh Water Becomes Bitter, Chapter 8:10–11
e. Fourth Trumpet—Sun, Moon, Stars Smitten, Chapter 8:12–13
f. Fifth Trumpet—Fallen Star and Plague of Locusts, Chapter 9:1–12
g. Sixth Trumpet—Angels Loosed at River Euphrates, Chapter 9:13–21
h. Interlude between the Sixth and Seventh Trumpets, Chapters 10:1–11:14
(1) The Strong Angel with the Little Book, Chapter 10:1–7
(2) John Eats the Little Book, Chapter 10:8–11
(3) Date for the Ending of “The Times of the Gentiles,” Chapter 11:1–2
(4) Duration of the Prophesying of the Two Witnesses, Chapter 11:3–12
(5) Doom of the Second Woe—Great Earthquake, Chapter 11:13–14
i. Seventh Trumpet—End of Great Tribulation and Opening of Temple in Heaven, Chapter 11:15–19
3. Seven Performers During the Great Tribulation, Chapters 12–13
a. The Woman—Israel, Chapter 12:1–2
b. The Red Dragon—Satan, Chapter 12:3–4
c. The Child of the Woman—Jesus Christ, Chapter 12:5–6
d. Michael, the Archangel, Wars with the Dragon, Chapter 12:7–12
e. The Dragon Persecutes the Woman, Chapter 12:13–16
f. Remnant of Israel, Chapter 12:17
g. Wild Beast Out of the Sea—a Political Power and a Person, Chapter 13:1–10
(1) Wild Beast, Description, Chapter 13:1–2
(2) Wild Beast, Death-Dealing Stroke, Chapter 13:3
(3) Wild Beast, Deity Assumed, Chapter 13:4–5
(4) Wild Beast, Defying God, Chapter 13:6–8
(5) Wild Beast, Defiance Denied to Anyone, Chapter 13:9–10
h. Wild Beast Out of the Earth—a Religious Leader, Chapter 13:11–18
(1) Wild Beast, Description, Chapter 13:11
(2) Wild Beast, Delegated Authority, Chapter 13:12–14
(3) Wild Beast, Delusion Perpetrated on the World, Chapter 13:15–17
(4) Wild Beast, Designation, Chapter 13:18
4. Looking to the End of the Great Tribulation, Chapter 14
a. Picture of the Lamb with the 144,000, Chapter 14:1–5
b. Proclamation of the Everlasting Gospel, Chapter 14:6–7
c. Pronouncement of Judgment on Babylon, Chapter 14:8
d. Pronouncement of Judgment on Those Who Received the Mark of the Beast, Chapter 14:9–12
e. Praise for Those Who Die in the Lord, Chapter 14:13
f. Preview of Armageddon, Chapter 14:14–20
5. Pouring Out of the Seven Mixing Bowls of Wrath, Chapters 15–16
a. Preparation for Final Judgment of the Great Tribulation, Chapters 15:1–16:1
(1) Tribulation Saints in Heaven Worship God Because He Is Holy and Just Chapter 15:1–4
(2) Temple of the Tabernacle Opened in Heaven that Seven Angels, Having Seven Golden Bowls, Might Proceed Forth, Chapters 15:5–16:1
b. Pouring Out of the First Bowl, Chapter 16:2
c. Pouring Out of the Second Bowl, Chapter 16:3
d. Pouring Out of the Third Bowl, Chapter 16:4–7
e. Pouring Out of the Fourth Bowl, Chapter 16:8–9
f. Pouring Out of the Fifth Bowl, Chapter 16:10–11
g. Pouring Out of the Sixth Bowl, Chapter 16:12
h. Interlude Kings of Inhabited Earth Proceed to Har-Mageddon, Chapter 16:13–16
i. Pouring Out of the Seventh Bowl, Chapter 16:17–21
6. The Two Babylons Judged, Chapters 17–18
a. The Apostate Church in the Great Tribulation, Chapter 17
(1) Great Harlot Riding the Wild Beast, Chapter 17:1–7
(2) Wild Beast Destroys the Great Harlot, Chapter 17:8–18
b. Political and Commercial Babylon Judged, Chapter 18
(1) Announcement of Fall of Commercial and Political Babylon, Chapter 18:1–8
(2) Anguish in the World Because of Judgment on Babylon, Chapter 18:9–19
(3) Anticipation of Joy in Heaven Because of Judgment on Babylon, Chapter 18:20–24
C. Marriage of the Lamb and Return of Christ in Judgment, Chapter 19
1. Four Hallelujahs, Chapter 19:1–6
2. Bride of the Lamb and Marriage Supper, Chapter 19:7–10
3. Return of Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Chapter 19:11–16
4. Battle of Armageddon, Chapter 19:17–18
5. Hell Opened, Chapter 19:19–21
D. Millennium, Chapter 20
1. Satan Bound 1000 Years, Chapter 20:1–3
2. Saints of the Great Tribulation Reign with Christ 1000 Year, Chapter 20:4–6
3. Satan Loosed After 1000 Years, Chapter 20:7–9
4. Satan Cast into Lake of Fire and Brimstone, Chapter 20:10
5. Setting of Great White Throne Where Lost Are Judged and Follow Satan into Lake of Fire and Brimstone, Chapter 20:11–15
E. Entrance Into Eternity; Eternity Unveiled, Chapters 21–22
1. New Heaven, New Earth, New Jerusalem, Chapter 21:1–2
2. New Era, Chapter 21:3–8
3. New Jerusalem, Description of the Eternal Abode of the Bride, Chapter 21:9–21
4. New Relationship—God Dwelling with Man, Chapter 21:22–23
5. New Center of the New Creation, Chapter 21:24–27
6. River of Water of Life and Tree of Life, Chapter 22:1–5
7. Promise of Return of Christ, Chapter 22:6–16
8. Final Invitation and Warning, Chapter 22:17–19
9. Final Promise and Prayer, Chapter 22:20–21
CHAPTER 1
Theme: The Person of Jesus Christ
In the first division of this book we see the person of Christ. We see Christ in His glory and position as the Great High Priest who is in charge of His church. We see Him in absolute control. In the Gospels we find Him meek, lowly, humble, and dying upon a cross. He made Himself subject to His enemies on earth. He is not like that in the Book of Revelation. He is in control. He is still the Lamb of God, but we see the wrath of the Lamb that terrifies the earth.
The major theme of the entire Bible is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Scriptures are both theocentric and Christocentric. Since Christ is God, He is the One who fills the horizon of the total Word of God. This needs to be kept in mind in the Book of Revelation more than in any other book of the Bible, even more than in the Gospels. The Bible tells what He has done, is doing, and will do. Revelation emphasizes what He is doing and what He will do. We need to keep that in mind.
THE TITLE OF THE BOOK
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John [Rev. 1:1].
In my book Reveling Through Revelation I have included my own literal translation of each verse of the Book of Revelation, and in this book I will use some of it also. I don’t use it because it is better. For many years I have called my translation the McGee-icus Ad Absurdum translation. I would not defend it if anyone made an attack upon it. It is merely an attempt to lift out of the Greek what John is actually saying and to try to couch it in language that may be a little more literal and understandable to us in our day. It will appear in italicized type after the King James version:
The unveiling of Jesus Christ which God gave Him to show unto His bond servants things which must shortly come to pass completely, and He sent and signified it (gave a sign) by His angel (messenger) to His servant John.
First of all, please note that the title of this book is Revelation—singular, not plural. A retired preacher came to me when I was a pastor in downtown Los Angeles to make an attack upon my interpretation of the Book of Revelation. He said, “You just don’t know anything about Revelations,” using the plural. I replied, “Brother, you are absolutely accurate in that I know nothing about the Book of Revelations. I have never even seen that book.” He was astounded and later embarrassed by his own ignorance when he realized that the Book of Revelation is the Revelation. It is the apokalupsis, that is, “the uncovering, unveiling, or revelation” of Jesus Christ.
“To shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass.” In the last chapter of Revelation, John is instructed, “Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand” (Rev. 22:10). It is not a sealed book; it is open and to be understood in our day. This is in contrast to the prophecy in the Book of Daniel which Daniel was instructed to seal. Our Lord Jesus gave what are known as the “mystery” parables. Very frankly, to the majority of the church today they are still a mystery. But our Lord put it like this: “And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them” (Mark 4:11–12). You see, my friend, in the Gospels we have only the half-story. We need the Book of Revelation because it is the consummation of it. Of course, it can be understood only if the Spirit of God is our teacher. But the Book of Revelation takes off the veil so we can see Christ in His unveiled beauty and power and glory. This book is the opposite of a secret or a mystery. It is a disclosure of secrets, and it is called prophecy in the next verse, as we shall see.
When a so-called Christian says that he does not understand the Book of Revelation, it makes me wonder, because this book was given to us in order that we might understand these mysteries of the kingdom of God.
“To show” means by word pictures, by symbols, by direct and indirect representations.
“And he sent and signified it.” That is, he used symbols. And keep in mind that the symbols are symbolic of reality. Peter gave us a great rule for the interpretation of prophecy in 2 Peter 1:20: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” You don’t interpret a single text by itself; you interpret it in the light of the entire Word of God. Ottman said, “The figurative language of Revelation is figurative of facts.”
“To shew … things” assures us that what John tells us is not ethereal and ephemeraldream stuff. There is a hard core of real facts in this book. What are “things”? One night Mrs. McGee and I took care of our little grandson. We let him play in the den where we keep a bunch of toys for him to play with when he stays with us. He went into the den and got out all of those things. In fact, he calls them his things. He spread them all over the floor of the den. We indulge the little fellow, and we didn’t make him pick up all of his toys after he was through playing. We didn’t pick them up either. So later that night, when I walked through the den, I stepped on some of his things. In fact, I stumbled over them and took a tumble. You can say that “things” are symbols, but you don’t take a tumble over symbols. And in the Book of Revelation, the “things” are made out of hard stuff. These “things” are reality. Any time John uses a symbol, he will make it clear to us that he is using a symbol. And we can be sure that he is using a symbol because the reality is far greater than the symbol. In fact, the symbol is a poor representation of the reality.
“Must”—He says that they must shortly come to pass. The word must has in it an urgent necessity and an absolute certainty.
“Shortly” has a connotation that is very important for us to note. The word occurs quite a few times in the Scriptures. For instance, we have it in Luke 18:8 where our Lord says, “I tell you that he will avenge them [His elect] speedily….” The word speedily is the same word as shortly. It means that when the vengeance begins, it will take place in a hurry. There will be no waiting around for it. That implies that the Lord is not coming soon, but that when He does return, the things He is talking about will happen shortly and with great speed. His vengeance will take place in a brief period of time.
John tells us that it is the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him. Notice the steps of revelation: It originated with God, it was given to Jesus Christ, He gave it to His angel, His angel gave it to John, and from John it goes to His servants that they might know what is coming to pass. And that is the way it has come to you and me today.
The Steps of Revelation
By the way, this raises a question that I sometimes hear. Someone says, “Well, preacher, you painted yourself into a corner, because you said that angels are not connected with the church age.” Yes, and I still say that. The angel mentioned here is a heavenly messenger, but notice that John is writing primarily about future things; that is, what Jesus is going to do in the future. And beginning with chapter 4, everything is future and will take place after the church has left the earth. Therefore, we see angels coming back into prominence. This is true to the way the book moves.
THE METHOD OF REVELATION
Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw [Rev. 1:2].
Who bore witness of the Word of God, and of the testimony (witness) of Jesus Christ, even as many things as he saw.
“Who bare record” or, as I have translated it, “who bore witness” is in the Greek an epistolary aorist. It means that John projects himself up to where his readers are, where you and I are in this day, and he looks back at what he is writing.
“Of the word of God.” The “word of God” refers, I believe, to both Christ and the contents of this book. He is the living Word, and when the written Word reveals Him to us, He is the living Word, you may be sure of that.
“And of the testimony [witness] of Jesus Christ.” I prefer the word witness rather than testimony. It occurs ninety times in the writings of John—fifty times in his gospel record.
“And of all things that he saw.” He was an eyewitness of the visions. What John saw, he made pictures of, and the Book of Revelation is television, friend. It was the first television program ever presented, and it is one you would do well to watch. It came from heaven from God the Father, through His Son, Jesus Christ, and it was given to an angel who gave it to John, who wrote about what he saw. Not only did John hear, he also saw, and these are the two avenues through which we get most of our information. I sometimes wonder if John didn’t smell things just a little bit, too, because there are parts of this book where you catch the odor also.
THE BEATITUDE OF BIBLE STUDY
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand [Rev. 1:3].
This verse gives us the beatitude of Bible study. This is the first of seven beatitudes found in the Book of Revelation. This verse says, “Blessed is he that readeth,” and that means the reader, or in the church, the teacher. Both those who read this book and those who hear it will be blessed. And both the reader and the hearer are to keep those things which are written in the book. The threefold blessing comes from reading, hearing, and keeping. I believe those who go through the Book of Revelation will receive a special blessing. I really believe it because that is what John says.
“For the time is at hand” does not mean that the things which are mentioned at the end of the book are happening in our day, but it does mean that the beginning of the church on the Day of Pentecost began this movement of the Lord Jesus’ ministry in heaven. We are going to see a vision of Him in this chapter, a vision of the glorified Christ. Then we will see what His ministry is, and that will move us right on into the future.
GREETINGS FROM JOHN, THE WRITER, AND FROM CHRIST IN HEAVEN
John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne [Rev. 1:4].
This is a very wonderful greeting! “John to the seven churches which are in Asia.” “Asia” encompassed a great deal of what we generally call Asia Minor or modern Turkey. Notice that John connects no title with his name. I have a notion that John was well known in these seven churches. We know that he had been pastor of the church at Ephesus, and apparently he had oversight of all the churches in that area.
Before we go further, let me call your attention to the number seven. In this verse there is the mention of seven churches and seven Spirits. The number seven has a religious meaning in the Word of God, which was apparent to the people in John’s day but is totally foreign to us in our day. The gambling sector of our society is very conscious of numbers, as are folk who are superstitious, but we are not accustomed to attaching any religious significance to numbers. However, in the Word of God the number seven is prominent. It does not denote perfection, but it does denote completeness. Sometimes completeness is perfection, but not always.
Seven speaks of that which is complete and that which is representative. In a particular way, seven has to do with God’s covenant and dealings with Israel. For instance, the Sabbath, circumcision, and worship are all hinged around the seventh day. As you go through the Word of God, you notice that Jericho was compassed about seven times, Naaman was instructed to dip in the Jordan River seven times, there were seven years of plenty and seven years of famine in Joseph’s time in Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar was insane for seven years, there are seven beatitudes in the New Testament, there are seven petitions in the Lord’s Prayer, there are seven parables in Matthew 13, seven loaves fed the multitude, Jesus spoke seven times from the cross, and in the Book of Revelation the number seven cannot be ignored or considered accidental. Seven is the key number of this book.
Here in the fourth verse, John writes to the “seven churches.” Weren’t there other churches in Asia? We know there were churches at Colosse, Miletus, Hierapolis, Troas, and at many other places. I have stayed at Hierapolis. It is still a place, and it is about ten miles from Laodicea, which is now in ruins. There are three motels at Laodicea and a store or two. The ruins of Hierapolis are absolutely magnificent and quite significant, because they reveal what a tremendous place it was at one time. In contrast, the ruins of Laodicea are, for the most part, under a wild oat field. They have not been excavated. John was directed to write to seven churches, and Hierapolis was not one of the seven, although it was an important center of Christian influence and the ruins of four early Christian churches have been found there. John was directed to write to only seven certain churches because he was giving the complete history of the church and they were representative churches, as we shall see.
“Asia” refers to the provinces which include Lydia, Mysia, Caria, and parts of Phrygia. It does not mean the continent of Asia nor does it include all of Asia Minor (Asia Minor is a term which was not used until the fourth century a.d.), but it covers a great area of Asia Minor, especially along the coast.
“Grace be unto you, and peace.” The word grace is charis, the Greek form of greeting, and peace is shalom, the Hebrew form of greeting. Peace flows from grace, and grace is the source of all our blessings today. The Book of Revelation reveals the grace of God and also peace. We don’t need to be frightened as we study this book; we can have the peace of God in our hearts.
It is “from him … and from the seven Spirits,” which brings the Trinity before us. The “seven Spirits” refer to the Holy Spirit and probably have reference to the seven branches of the lampstand, as we shall see later on.
“Which is, and which was, and which is to come” emphasizes the eternity and immutability of God. Notice now the mention of each member of the Trinity: “Jesus Christ” (in the next verse) refers to God the Son, the “seven Spirits” refer to the Holy Spirit, and “him which is, and which was, and which is to come” refers to God the Father.
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen [Rev. 1:5–6].
In these two verses we have the titles which are given to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the interesting thing is that there are seven titles:
1. “Faithful witness”—Jesus Christ is the only trustworthy witness to the facts of this book. The facts are about Him. He testifies of Himself. It is difficult to believe other people, but we can believe the Lord Jesus.
2. “First begotten of the dead” is firstborn from the dead. Firstborn is the Greek prototokos, which has to do with resurrection. He is the first to rise from the dead, never to die again. This is a marvelous picture! Death was a womb which bore Him. He came out of death into life. The tomb was a womb, as far as He was concerned. He is the only One back from the dead in a glorified body. No one else has come that route yet, but His own are going to follow Him in resurrection, and the Rapture will be next (see 1 Thess. 4:14). Then will come the revelation when He will come to the earth.
3. “The prince [ruler] of the kings of the earth” speaks of His ultimate position during the Millennium. “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9–11).
4. “Unto him that loved us” is actually in the present tense and emphasizes His constant attitude toward His own. The Book of Revelation should not frighten us too much because of the fact that it is from the One who loves us. Jesus Christ didn’t love us only when He died on the cross, although He loved us at that time, but He also loves us today. Right at this very minute, Jesus loves you.
5. “Washed [loosed] us from our sins in his own blood.” The blood of Christ is very important. It is not just a symbol. In the Old Testament, God taught His people that the “… life of the flesh is in the blood …” (Lev. 17:11). In this verse God goes on to say, “I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls ….” When Christ shed His blood, I think every drop came out of His body. He gave that for you and for me. He gave His life, if you please. He died, and I am not inclined to belittle the blood of Christ as some men are doing today. I still like the song with these words:
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
“There Is a Fountain” —William Cowper
Peter wrote, “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet. 1:18–19). Because of that shed blood, Paul could write to the young preacher Timothy, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). He loosed us from our sins in His own blood. What a wonderful, glorious thing!
6. “And hath made us kings and priests [a kingdom of priests] unto God and his Father”—believers are never called kings. They are a kingdom of priests and are going to rule with the Lord Jesus. Quite frankly, I don’t get wrought up over the popular song, “The King Is Coming.” The King is coming, all right, but when He comes as King, He will come to the earth, and at that time He is going to put down all unrighteousness. But before He comes to earth as King, He will come in the air, an event we call the Rapture. At that time He will come as my Savior. He comes as the Bridegroom for His bride, the church, whom He loves and gave Himself for. He comes as the lover of my soul. For this reason I am not thrilled with “The King Is Coming.” My relationship to Him is much closer. He is my Lord. He has not made us “kings and priests,” He has made us a kingdom of priests, and we are going to reign with Him.
It is interesting to note that it reads, “unto God and his Father.” Why doesn’t it read, “unto God and our Father”? Because He is the Father of Jesus in a sense that He is not our Father. You see, we become sons of God through regeneration, being born from above, by accepting Him as Savior. But Christ’s eternal position in the Trinity is that of the Son.
7. “To Him the glory and the dominion unto the ages of the ages!” (my own translation). This is emphasizing eternity. “Amen.” Christ is the amen, as we saw in Isaiah. That is a title for Him. Jesus Christ is both the subject and the object of this book. He is the mover of all events, and all events move toward Him. He is the far-off eternal purpose in everything. All things were not only made by Him, but all things were made for Him. This universe exists for Him.
Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen [Rev. 1:7].
“Behold, he cometh with clouds” denotes the personal and physical coming of Christ.
“And every eye shall see him” reveals that His coming will be a physical and bodily appearance, an appeal to the eye-gate. As far as we know, when Christ takes the church out of the world at the Rapture, He doesn’t appear to everyone. I don’t believe in a secret rapture as some folk have attempted to describe it, but at the time of the Rapture He does not come to the earth. Believers are to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. If Christ will be coming to the earth at that time, there is no point in being caught up in the air. Therefore, this is not the Rapture which is being described in this verse. This is His return to the earth as King.
“Every eye shall see him.” The emphasis in the Book of Revelation is upon His coming to this earth to establish His kingdom.
“All kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.” Probably a better translation is this: “All the tribes of the earth shall beat their breasts because of him.” This is going to be the reaction of all Christ-rejectors. The world will not want to see Him.
“Even so, Amen” means “Yea, faithful.” He is going to do it, my friend. He is not going to change His mind about it. He is faithful.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty [Rev. 1:8].
“I am Alpha and Omega.” This is quite a remarkable statement in the Greek language. The alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. From an alphabet you make words, and Jesus Christ is called the “Word of God”—the full revelation and intelligent communication of God. He is the only alphabet you can use to reach God, my friend. The only language God speaks and understands is the language where Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega and all the letters in between. He is the “A” and the “Z,” and He is the “ABC.” If you are going to get through to God the Father, you will have to go through the Son, Jesus Christ. Here the emphasis is upon the beginning and the end. Here in the original Greek the Omega is not spelled out as is the Alpha. Why? Because Christ is the beginning, and the beginning is already completed. But the end is yet to be; so He didn’t spell out the Omega in this instance. One day He will complete God’s program. This is a very interesting detail in the Greek text.
“The beginning and the ending” refers to the eternity of the Son and His immutability. Concerning this, Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.” When it says that He is the same, it does not mean that He is walking over yonder by the Sea of Galilee today. He is not. But it means that in His attributes He is the same. He has not changed. He is immutable. Since He is the beginning and the ending, He encompasses all time and eternity.
“Saith the Lord” is an affirmation of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“Which is,” that is, at the present time, He is the glorified Christ.
“Which was”—past time, the first coming of Christ as Savior.
“Which is to come”—future time, the second coming of Christ as the Sovereign over this earth.
Verses 4–8 have comprised this very remarkable section of greetings from John, the writer, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember that He says He loves us; so let’s not be afraid of anything that is to follow.
THE POST-INCARNATE CHRIST IN A GLORIFIED BODY JUDGING HIS CHURCH
I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ [Rev. 1:9].
I, John, who am your brother, and partaker with you in the persecution (for Christ’s sake), and kingdom and patience in Jesus; I was (found myself) in the isle called Patmos because of [Gr.: dia, on account of] the Word of God and the witness of Jesus.
“I John”is used three times in this Book of Revelation—the other two are at the end of the book.
“Your brother, and companion in tribulation” does not refer to the Great Tribulation. John was in trouble. Domitian (a.d. 96), the Roman emperor, had put him in prison on the Isle of Patmos. John had been active in the church at Ephesus, and he had supervision over all the other churches, and he had been teaching the Word of God. You get into trouble when you teach all of the Word of God. John knew all about trouble, and so did the early church. So if it comes to you and me, it is nothing new at all.
Again let me say that John is not referring to the Great Tribulation but to the persecution that was already befalling believers. And “the kingdom” refers to the present state of the kingdom. By virtue of the new birth, which places a sinner in Christ, he is likewise in the kingdom of God. This is not the millennial kingdom—that has not been established yet. Christ will institute it at His coming.
Someone has said that we are living today in the kingdom and patience—patience is where the emphasis is.
John explains the reason he was on the Isle of Patmos. He was exiled there from about a.d. 86 to 96. It is a rugged, volcanic island off the coast of Asia Minor. It is about ten miles long and six miles wide.
“Jesus,” you will notice, is the name used by John in both his gospel and in the Apocalypse. When he wants to bring glory to Him, he calls Him Jesus, and then he lifts Him to the skies. I hope that we can do that, also.
Before we look at the next verses, let me remind you that John was given this great vision on the lonely Isle of Patmos. It is a vision of the post-incarnate Christ in His glorified body as He is judging His church. In other words, we shall see the Great High Priest in the holy of holies.
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,
Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea [Rev. 1:10–11].
I was (found myself) in (the) Spirit in the Lord’s Day, and heard behind me a great sound, as of a (war) trumpet, saying, What you are seeing, write (promptly) into a book, and send (promptly) to the seven churches, unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
My own translation is not a finished translation by any means, and I do not recommend it, but it is an attempt to get from the original Greek what is actually being said.
The Holy Spirit is here performing His office work. That is why I pray that the Spirit of God might take the things of Christ and show them unto us. That is exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ said the Holy Spirit would do when He came. The Lord’s exact words were, “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you” (John 16:13–14).
We are beginning to get a vision of the glorified Christ. We are considering Him in His office as the Great High Priest today.
I fully recognize that in myself I am totally incompetent to try to explain these tremendous verses. Only the Spirit of God can make them real to us. However, Hebrews 3:1 tells us, “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.” So we are considering Him in His present office of Great High Priest.
“I was in the Spirit,” John says. The Holy Spirit was moving upon John and giving him a panoramic picture. This is cinerama. It is sight and sound. It is an appeal to both the eye-gate and the ear-gate.
“On the Lords day.” The meaning of this is controversial. Some outstanding Bible scholars interpret this as being a reference to the Day of the Lord. While I certainly respect them and their viewpoint, I cannot accept this view, although the great theme of Revelation will deal with the Day of the Lord, which is the Tribulation Period and the millennial kingdom. But John says that he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day and, in my judgment, the Day of the Lord and the Lord’s Day are two different things. We recognize that anti-fat and fat auntie are two different things and that a chestnut horse and a horse chestnut are two different things. And I would say that the Day of the Lord and the Lord’s Day are two different things also, and that the Lord’s Day refers to what we call Sunday.
“I … heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet.” Who was it? He will tell us—
And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks;
And in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle [Rev. 1:12–13].
And I turned to see the voice which was speaking with me, and when I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands One like to a Son of Man, clothed with a garment, reaching to the foot, and girt about the breasts with a golden girdle.
John heard a voice like a war trumpet, and it spoke to him. When the Lord Jesus descends from heaven to remove His church from the earth, He will come with a shout. First Thessalonians 4:16 tells us about it: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” His voice will be like the voice of an archangel, and His voice will be like a trumpet, because it is identified here as just that. But it will be Christ’s own voice. He is not going to need any archangel to help Him raise His own from the dead.
What a thrill it is to see this picture of the Lord Jesus Christ! It is a vision of One like the Son of Man. He is “clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the breast with a golden girdle.” The seven golden lampstands remind us of the tabernacle. There it was one lampstand with seven branches. Here it is seven separate lampstands. Since these lampstands represent seven separate churches (v. 20), the difference is explained. The function of all is the same. The Lord Jesus said, “I am the light of the world, and when I leave, you are to be the light in the world” (see John 8:12).
We see the Lord Jesus Christ pictured here as our Great High Priest. His garments are those of the high priest—check Exodus 28:2–4. The garments represent the inherent righteousness of Christ. In Him is no sin, and He knew no sin.
Concerning the girdle, Josephus states that the priests were girded about the breasts. The ordinary custom was to be girded about the loins. But the emphasis here is not on service but on strength. It speaks of His judgment in truth.
We are asked to consider our Great High Priest as He stands in the midst of the churches. He is judging the churches; He is judging believers that the light might continue to shine. My friend, it is important to see what Christ’s present ministry is.
This is a subject about which I have wanted to write. I haven’t gotten around to it yet and may never write it, but I have a title for it: The Contemporary Christ. I hear so many foolish things that are being said about what Jesus is doing in our day. My friend, the Scripture does not leave us in the dark regarding what He is doing today. It mentions three very definite ministries.
First, there is the intercession of Christ. He is our Great High Priest. He is standing at the golden altar in heaven today, where He ever lives to make intercession for us (see Heb. 7:25). We love that part of His ministry. It is a wonderful thing.
Secondly, we have the intervention of Christ. He steps outside of the Holy Place to the laver. There He washes the feet of those who are His own. He washes those who have confessed their sins. Christians have sin, and those sins must be confessed in order to have fellowship with Him. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). He is girded today with the towel, and He carries the basin; He intervenes on our behalf.
John also says in his first epistle: “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.” He has made every provision that we sin not. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t reached that state yet. And, frankly, I have never met anyone who has. But John says, “And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father …” (1 John 2:1). Christ is our advocate. That is, He is on our side defending us when we are accused, and Satan is the accuser of the brethren.
There is yet another ministry of Christ that is not very popular. It is the ministry mentioned in the first chapter of Revelation, and I think that is one reason this section of Revelation is so little known. Here we see His ministry of inspection. What Christ is doing today is clearly outlined in the Scriptures. He ascended to heaven and sat down at the right hand of God, but He did not start twiddling His thumbs. When we are told that He “sat down,” it means that He finished His work of redemption for man. He died on earth to save us, and He lives in heaven to keep us saved. I think He is busier today trying to keep us saved than He was when He was on earth.
We have the three ministries of Christ; we have His intercession, His intervention, and His inspection. The inspection of Christ is what we are going to look at now. Where is He now? We see Him walking in the midst of the lampstands. In the Book of Exodus we see the golden lampstand. It was the most beautiful article of furniture in the tabernacle. It was made of solid gold, and there were three branches on each side of the main stem. The top of each stem was fashioned like an open almond blossom, and the lamps were set there. The lamps represent the Holy Spirit; the golden lampstand itself represents Christ—His glory and His deity. Christ sent the Holy Spirit into the world. The golden lampstand holds up the lamps, and the lamps, in turn, reveal the beauty and glory of the lampstand. That is the picture we have in Revelation. I trust that even now the Holy Spirit will make Christ, in all of His glory, wonder, and beauty, real to you that you may see yourself in the light of His presence as He inspects you. That is not a popular teaching today. We don’t like to be inspected, but in Revelation we see Him walking in the midst of the lampstands, performing His ministry of inspection.
In the tabernacle the high priest had the sole oversight of the lampstand. The other priests had other duties to perform, but the high priest took care of the lampstand. He was the one who lighted the lamps. He poured in the oil and trimmed the wicks. If one of the lamps began to smoke and did not give a good clear light, he was the one who snuffed it out. The Lord Jesus is walking in the midst of the lampstands today. He is in the midst of His church, made up of individual believers. He is doing several things: He trims the wicks. In John 15 we are told that He prunes the branches of believers so that they might bring forth fruit. One of the reasons He lets us go through certain trials on earth is so that He might get some fruit off our branches or that He might make our light burn more brightly. He is the One who pours in the oil, which represents the Holy Spirit. I get so tired today of hearing people say, “The Holy Ghost this, and the Holy Ghost that.” My friend, Jesus Christ is the Head of the church. He is the One who sent the Holy Spirit into the world. He said that when the Holy Spirit came He would do certain things, not just any old thing you want Him to do. The Holy Spirit is doing what the Lord Jesus sent Him into the world to do. Christ is the Head of the church. The Lord wants light, and He is the One who pours in the Holy Spirit to get that light. If there is any light coming from my ministry, it comes from the Holy Spirit. He is the source. No light originates in Vernon McGee. I found that out a long time ago.
Christ does something else, and it makes me shiver. He sometimes uses a snuffer. If a lamp won’t give good light and it keeps smoking up the place, the Lord Jesus snuffs it out. This is what John meant when he said that there is a sin unto death (see 1 John 5:16). You and I can be set aside. Oh, the number of people whom I have known to be set aside—preachers and elders and deacons and Sunday school teachers! Christ put them aside. He is walking in the midst of the lampstands, and He wants them to produce light.
His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters [Rev. 1:14–15].
“His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow” speaks of His eternal existence. He is the Ancient of Days (see Dan. 7:9).
“His eyes were as a flame of fire” speaks of His penetrating insight and eyewitness knowledge of the total life of the church. He knows all about you. He knows all about me. He sat over the treasury and watched how the people gave. Last Sunday He watched you when you put your offering in the plate. You didn’t think anybody knew what you gave, did you? Also, His eyes met those of Simon Peter after he had denied Him. After that happened, Peter went out and wept. If you could only see the eyes of your Savior today! My friend, He is looking at us.
“His feet like unto fine bras” or burnished brass is symbolic of judgment. That brass or brazen altar outside the tabernacle proper represents Christ’s work down here on earth when He died on the cross. It was there that He bore your judgment and my judgment for sin. And now He is judging those of us who are His own.
General Nathan Twining was the man who gave the command to drop the first atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He later became the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he dropped another “atom bomb” on December 10, 1959, and it had just about as great a repercussion as the literal bomb did. He dropped the latter bomb when he told the French in particular, and the other European countries in general, that they were not carrying their share of the defense of NATO and that they were falling down on their responsibility in defending Europe. He told them that NATO was coming unglued. The repercussions from his announcement are still reverberating through Europe today. Although General Twining was accurate in his charges, the reaction was bitter, and there were counter charges made, and denials and excuses were offered. About that time, when President Eisenhower went to Europe, he received the coolest reception he had ever experienced. Why? The human heart resents criticism.
Human nature rebels against judgment being passed upon it. Man likes to be handed a passel of little rules and regulations which he can keep. That is the reason so many study courses are popular with Christians—they want to be legalistic. They don’t want to live by grace. Give Christians a few little rules they can go by, and they are very happy. The result, however, is a group of Band-Aid believers. They put on a little Band-Aid here and another one there, and they think that is all that is necessary to heal a broken leg. Why? The human nature that man has will purr like a pussycat when flattered, but it will bristle like a porcupine when failure to do a job is noted. That is the reason that the present position of Christ and His contemporary work of inspection are largely ignored by the church. He occupies the position of Judge of the church, and He does not flatter; He does not ignore what He sees; He does not shut His eyes to sin and wrongdoing. His constant charge and command to His own is “Repent!” We are going to see this as we move along in the Book of Revelation. He says to His church, “Change or I will come to you and I will remove your lampstand” (see Rev. 2:5). The church has smarted and squirmed under this indictment down through the ages and still does. This is the result of the natural resentment that is in the heart of lukewarm believers. And the “Laodicean” church pays scant attention to what Christ has to say. As someone has said, “There is a Man in glory, but the church has lost sight of Him.”
“His voice as the sound of many waters” is the voice of authority—the voice that called this universe into existence, the voice that will raise His own from the grave, the voice that will take His own out of the world to be with Him.
All these figures add to the picture of Christ as our Great High Priest, inspecting and judging His church. Consider your Great High Priest. The Spirit of God will help you see Him in all of His beauty and glory. How wonderful He is!
And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength [Rev. 1:16].
“He had in his right hand seven star” means that He controls this universe.
“Out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword.” One man asked me, “Do you think that a literal sword goes out of His mouth?” Of course not! Scripture tells us that the sword represents His Word. In Hebrews 4:12 we read, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” God judges by His Word. He judges by it today. When He speaks the Word, my friend, you had better sit up and take note because He means business.
“His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.” You can’t even look at the sun. Do you think you will be able to look at the Creator who made the sun, the One who is the glorified Christ? How wonderful He is!
And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last [Rev. 1:17].
John is the disciple who had an easy familiarity with Christ on earth. He is the man who reclined upon His bosom in the Upper Room. John was very close to the Lord Jesus—in fact, he didn’t mind rebuking Him on an occasion. But when he saw the glorified Christ on the Isle of Patmos, he did not go up to Him and pat Him on the back or shake hands with Him. He didn’t even try to begin a conversation. He fell at His feet as dead! The effect of the vision upon John was nothing short of paralyzing.
My friend, since John reacted like that, we can be sure that when you and I get into the presence of the Lord Jesus, we are not going to approach Him in a familiar way. We will fall at His feet as dead. He is the glorified Christ today. And let me say that I do not like the irreverence of the “Jesus culture” that we see today, speaking of Him or to Him as if He were a buddy. Nor do I like to hear someone sing or say that Jesus is a friend of theirs. Now, you may think I am hard to please. You are right; I am. But Jesus said, “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you” (John 15:14). If you say that Jesus is a friend of yours, you must be implying that you are obeying Him. Oh, my friend, if we could see Him in all of His glory and His beauty, we would not get familiar with Him.
But the marvelous thing is that He says, “Fear not.” This is the greeting of Deity addressing humanity. And He gives four reasons why we should not fear.
1. “I am the first and the last.” This speaks of His deity. He came out of eternity, and He moves into eternity. The psalmist says, “Be fore the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Ps. 90:2). The word everlasting means from the vanishing point in the past to the vanishing point in the future He is God. He is first because there were none before Him, and He is last for there are none to follow Him.
I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death [Rev. 1:18].
2. “I am he that liveth, and was dead”—or, the living One who became dead. This speaks of His redemptive death and resurrection. Most of us have a guilt complex. We are afraid somebody will point a finger at us and say, “You are guilty.” We are, of course, but Paul deals with this question in Romans 8:34, where he says, “Who is he that condenmeth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” Where is the fellow who is going to condemn you? Paul says, “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ who died.” Do you find fault with me? Do you say I am a great sinner? I want you to know that Christ died for me, and He is risen from the dead. He rose for my justification to show that I am forgiven and that I am going to heaven someday. And He is even at the right hand of God—how wonderful—and He makes intercession, that is, He prays for me. We see this in His next reason:
3. “And, behold, I am alive for everinore.” This refers to His present state. He is not only judging, but He is making intercession for us. How we need that!
4. “And have the keys of death and of hades.” The keys speak of authority and power. Jesus has power over death and the grave right now—because of His own death and resurrection. Hades is the Greek word for the unseen world. It can refer to the grave where the body is laid or to the place where the spirit goes.
My friend, you and I can take comfort in the fact that Jesus has the keys of death. He is the One who can relieve us of the terrible fear of death.
TIME DIVISION OF THE APOCALYPSE’S CONTENTS
The following verses give us the chronological order and division of this Book of Revelation in three time series: past, present, and future. Right now I am making this division arbitrarily, and then as we progress through the book I can demonstrate that it is accurate.
Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter [Rev. 1:19].
1. “Write the things which thou hast seen.” Up to this point what had John seen? He had seen the glorified Christ. Let me remind you that this is a Christocentric book. The glorified Christ is the subject. Don’t get your eyes on the horsemen or on the bowls of wrath or on the beasts—they are just passing through. Fix your eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the One who was, who is, and who will be. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And John is to write the vision he has had of Him.
2. “The things which are.” What are the things that are? They are the things that pertain to the church, church things. And we are still here after nineteen hundred years. The matters concerning the church are recorded in chapters 2–3.
3. “The things which shall be hereafter.” Or, as my own translation reads: the things which you are about to see after these things [meta tauta]. This is the program of Jesus Christ, and we shall see that the church goes to heaven, and then we shall see the things that take place on the earth after the church leaves it. This program of Christ is covered by chapters 4–22.
INTERPRETATION OF SEVEN STARS AND SEVEN LAMPSTANDS
The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches [Rev. 1:20].
You see, John will make it clear when he is using symbols, and he will help us understand what the symbols mean. Otherwise, he is not using symbolic language but is taking about literal things.
“The mystery of the seven stars … and the seven … candlesticks.” A mystery in Scripture means a sacred secret, that which has not been revealed before. And this had not been revealed before it was given to John. It pertains specifically to that which John has seen. He is the only one who has looked upon the glorified Christ. You may ask, “Hadn’t Paul seen the glorified Christ?” Well, what did Paul see? He said that he saw “… a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun …” (Acts 26:13). I can’t even look at the sun, and I don’t think Paul could have seen Christ in all of His glory, but he knew that He was there. The brightness even blinded Paul for a few days. Therefore, John was the first to see the glorified Christ.
The “seven stars” are identified as the “seven angels.” Ale stars represent authority. In Jude, verse 13, apostates are called wandering stars. The word angel literally means “messenger” and may be either human or angelic beings. It could refer to a messenger of the angelic hosts of heaven or to a ruler or a teacher of a congregation on earth. I like to think that it refers to the local pastors of the seven churches which we are going to look at in the next two chapters. I like to hear a pastor called an angel because sometimes they are called other things. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll hold to that interpretation.
“The seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.” The English word candlestick should be lampstand since it holds lamps rather than candles. It represents the seven churches of Asia, as we shall see. Then, in turn, these represent the church as a whole, the church as the body of Christ.
INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTERS 2 AND 3
This brings us to the section on the “church,” which is also called the body of Christ. He loved the church and gave Himself for it. The church is the body of believers which the Father has given Him and for whom He prayed in John 17.
After chapter 3, the church is conspicuous by its absence. Up to chapter 4, the church is mentioned nineteen times. From chapter 4 through chapter 20 (the Great White Throne Judgment), the church is not mentioned one time. The normal reaction is to inquire as to the destination and location of the church during this period. It certainly is not in the world. It has been removed from the earth.
These seven letters have a threefold interpretation and application:
1. Contemporary—they had a direct message to the local churches of John’s day. I intend to take you to the location of these seven churches in these next two chapters. I have visited the sites of these.churches several times, and I want to visit them again and again, because it is such a thrill and because it brings me closer to the Bible. You can get closer to the Bible by visiting these seven churches than you can by walking through the land of Israel. The ruins have an obvious message. John was writing to churches that he knew all about. In The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia Sir William Ramsay said, “The man who wrote these seven letters to the seven churches had been there, and he knew the local conditions.”
2. Composite—each one is a composite picture of the church. There is something that is applicable to all churches in all ages in each message to each individual church. In other words, when you read the message to the church in Pergamum, there is a message for your church and a message for you personally.
3. Chronological—the panoramic history of the church is given in these seven letters, from Pentecost to the Parousia, from the Upper Room to the upper air. There are seven distinct periods of church history. Ephesus represents the apostolic church; Laodicea represents the apostate church. This prophetic picture is largely fulfilled and is now church history, which makes these chapters extremely remarkable.
Now let me call your attention to the well-defined and definite format which the Lord Jesus used in each one of the letters to the seven churches:
1. There was some feature of the glorified Christ (whom John saw in chapter 1) that was emphasized in addressing each church. A particular thing was emphasized for a particular purpose, of course.
2. The letters are addressed to the angel of each church. As I have said, it is my understanding that the angel is just a human messenger whom we would designate as the pastor of the church.
3. He begins by stating to each, “I know thy works,” although there has been some question about that in regard to a couple of the letters.
4. He first gives a word of commendation, and then He gives a word of condemnation. That is His method, but the exceptions should be noted. There is no word of condemnation to Smyrna or Philadelphia. Smyrna was the martyr church, and He is not about to condemn that church. Philadelphia was the missionary church that was getting out His Word, and He didn’t condemn it. He has no word of commendation for Laodicea, the apostate church.
5. Each letter concludes with the warning, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith.”
In this second major division of the book, we see the things that are, that is, church related things. Each of the seven letters is a message which the Lord Jesus sent to a particular church.
We today may not be conversant with the fact that in the first and second centuries letter-writing and travel were commonplace in the Roman Empire. There was extensive communication throughout the Roman Empire during that period. Therefore, the seven letters of the Apocalypse are very remarkable for other reasons, the most important of which is that they are direct letters from Christ to the churches. (This means that we have two epistles to the Ephesians—one that Paul wrote and one that the Lord Jesus gave through John.) Dr. Deissmann, in his book, Light from the Ancient East, made a distinction between letters and epistles which has been proven to be artificial and entirely false. The fact that these are called letters to the seven churches rather than epistles does not lessen their importance. They had an extensive outlet, and they reached multitudes of people. There were many outstanding churches in the Roman Empire, but these seven outstanding churches were chosen for several reasons, one of which was that they were located in probably the most important area of the Roman Empire during the first, second, and even third centuries. The area was important because it was where East and West met. By 2000 b.c. there was a civilization along the coast of Asia Minor (the modern west coast of Turkey). It is a very beautiful area. It reminds me of Southern California—but without smog, of course. Not only is it beautiful, but some of the richest land is there. In ancient times the heart of the great Hittite nation was located there. Ephesus was founded about 2000 b.c. by the Hittites, as was Smyrna (modern Izmir). Pergamum obviously was founded later, and then Thyatira and Sardis even later, and they were made great during the time of Alexander the Great. The Anatolian civilization met the Greek civilization there. You can always tell the difference because the gods of the Anatolians (a more primitive people) were beasts, whereas the gods of the Greeks were projections and enlargements of human beings.
Ephesus was a city of about two hundred thousand people. It was a great city and had a huge outdoor theater which could seat about twenty thousand people. It was a place of resorts, and the Roman emperors came there. It was a city constructed of white marble, a beautiful place, and Paul commented on that. If we think that the impact of the gospel was not great in that area, we are entirely mistaken. Such was the impact of the gospel on Ephesus that four great pillars or towers were placed at the entrance to the harbor, and upon them was the emblem of the cross. One monument was dedicated to Matthew, one to Mark, one to Luke, and one to John. Only one pillar stands there today, but it still bears the symbol of the cross. And there are other evidences of the tremendous impact of the gospel where pagan temples were later turned into churches.
After the ministry of Paul and John, there was a tremendous Christian population in that area. It seems that Paul had his greatest ministry in the city of Ephesus, and Luke writes, “… all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:10). Not all turned to Christ,but everyone heard. That was probably the greatest movement that has ever taken place in the history of the church.
CHAPTER 2
Theme: The church in the world
Ephesus was not only a beautiful city, it was the chief city of the province of Asia. It was called “the Vanity Fair of Asia.” Pliny called it “the Light of Asia.” It was both the religious and commercial center of that entire area which influenced both East and West—Asia and Europe. When Paul landed at the harbor in Ephesus, he looked down Harbor Boulevard, all in white marble. As he moved toward the center of the city, he saw all sorts of lovely buildings, temples, and gift shops. There was a large market on his right as he went up the boulevard, and ahead of him on the side of a mountain was a theater that seated twenty thousand people. Off to his left was the great amphitheater that seated over one hundred thousand people. At times there were as many as one to two million people gathered in Ephesus. It was here that Paul had his greatest ministry, and it was here that John later became pastor.
This city was first formed around the temple of Diana by the Anatolians who worshiped Diana. The first temple was a wooden structure, built in a low place very near the ocean—in fact, the waters lapped at the very base. In time, the Cayster and the little Maeander River brought down so much silt that, by the time of Alexander the Great, it had filled in around the temple. I have never seen any country that washes as much as that valley washes. The river itself is as thick as soup because it is carrying so much soil deposit. When Alexander took the city (by the way, the temple burned on the night Alexander was born), he turned it over to one of his generals, Lysimachus. Because the silt was coming and the harbor was filling up, Lysimachus moved the people to a higher location, and that is where the ruins of the city can be seen today. It is the city which was there when Paul came.
At the site of the old temple, a foundation of charcoal and skins was laid over this low, marshy place, and Alexander the Great led in the construction of a new temple of Diana which became one of the wonders of the ancient world. It was the largest Greek temple ever constructed. In it were over one hundred external columns about fifty-six feet in height, of which thirty-six were hand carved. The doors were of cypress wood; columns and walls were of Parian marble; the staircase was carved out of one vine from Cyprus.
The temple served as the bank of Asia and was the depository of vast sums of money. It was an art gallery displaying the masterpieces of Praxiteles, Phidias, Scopas, and Polycletus. Apelles’ famous painting of Alexander was there. Behind a purple curtain was the lewd and crude image of Diana, the goddess of fertility. She was many-breasted, carried a club in one hand and a trident in the other. Horrible is Diana of the Ephesians could be accurately substituted for “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” Diana was the most sacred idol of heathenism. Her temple was four times larger than the Parthenon at Athens, and it was finally destroyed by the Goths in a.d. 256. Of course, it was standing in Paul’s day. If you want to see something of the magnificence of the place, go to Istanbul, to the Hagia Sophia. Those beautiful green columns that are there were taken out of the temple of Diana by Justinian when he built Hagia Sophia. Seeing only these columns gives us some conception of the beauty of the temple of Diana.
Around the temple of Diana were performed the grossest forms of immorality. She was worshiped by probably more people than was any other idol. The worshipers indulged in the basest religious rites of sensuality and the wildest bacchanalian orgies that were excessive and vicious. And farther inland, the worship of Diana became nothing more than sex orgies, and her name was changed from Diana to Cybele.
Paul came to Ephesus on his third missionary journey to begin a ministry. For two years the Word of God went out from the school of Tyrannus. Of this experience Paul wrote, “For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries” (1 Cor. 16:9). Later John, the “apostle of love” and the “son of thunder,” came to Ephesus as a pastor. He was exiled to Patmos, then after about ten years of being exiled and imprisoned, he returned to Ephesus. The Basilica of Saint John, which is located on the highest point there, is built over the traditional burial spot of the apostle John.
CHRIST’S LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN EPHESUS
The Lord Jesus Christ speaks to this church in the midst of crass materialism, degraded animalism, base paganism, and dark heathenism. Note this carefully, because I consider this message to be one of the most important of all.
Unto the angel of the church of Ephesues write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks [Rev. 2:1].
This is my translation:
Unto the messenger of the church in Ephesus write; These things saith the One holding the seven stars in His right hand, the One walking (up and down) in the midst of the seven golden lampstands.
Notice that He holds in His hand the church. It is under His control. He doesn’t have that control now, but He did then. “He walketh” literally means that He is walking up and down. I believe that He is still walking up and down in our day and that He is still judging the church.
He has seven words of commendation for this church:
I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted [Rev. 2:2–3].
1. “I know thy works.” We need to understand that He is speaking to believers. The Lord Jesus does not ask the lost world for good works. For example, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5). In Romans 4:5 Paul says, “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” Christ is talking to His own. After you are saved, He wants to talk to you about good works. He has a lot to say about this subject. In Ephesians 2:8–10 we read, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Paul could write to Titus, “They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate” (Titus 1:16). Someone has said, “The Christian ought to be like a good watch—all gold, open-faced, well-regulated, dependable, and filled with good works.” The Lord Jesus is saying to the church in Ephesus, as Paul had said, “… be filled with the [Holy] Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). And Paul went on to tell them what they could do as Spirit-filled believers. And now the Lord Jesus commends them for their good works.
2. “I know … thy labour.” What is the difference between work and labor? The word labor carries a meaning of weariness. In the gospel record it says that Jesus became wearied with His journey. That was the weariness which Ephesian believers experienced. They suffered weariness in their labor for Him.
3. “I know … thy patience.” Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
4. “How thou canst not bear them which are evil.” They would not endure evil men.
5. “Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars.” They tested everyone who came to Ephesus claiming to be an apostle. They would ask them if they had seen the resurrected Christ, and they soon found out whether or not they were really apostles. If they were not, they asked them to leave town. The Lord Jesus commended them for testing men, and I feel this is more needed today than it was even then.
6. “Hast borne … for my name’s sake hast laboured.” For His name’s sake they were bearing the Cross. They preached Christ. They believed in the virgin birth of Christ; they believed in His deity; they believed in His sacrificial death and resurrection. And they paid a price for their belief.
7. “And hast not fainted.” More accurately, it is “hast not grown weary.” What does He mean by this? Earlier He said that they had grown weary, and now He says they have not grown weary. Well, this is one of the great paradoxes of the Christian faith. I can illustrate it by what Dwight L. Moody once said when he came home exhausted after a campaign and his family begged him not to go to the next campaign. He said to them, “I grow weary in the work but not of the work.” There is a lot of difference. You can get weary in the work of Christ, but it is tragic if you get weary of the work of Christ.
These seven words of commendation, which the Lord Jesus gave to the local church at Ephesus, also apply to the period of church history between Pentecost and a.d. 100, which the Ephesian church represents. Now He has one word of condemnation:
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love [Rev. 2:4].
Nevertheless I have against thee that thou art leaving thy best love.
They had lost that intense and enthusiastic devotion to the person of Christ. It is difficult for us to sense the state to which the Holy Spirit had brought this church. He had brought the believers in Ephesus into an intimate and personal relationship to Jesus Christ. He had brought them to the place where they could say to the Lord, “We love you.” This may seem like a very unimportant thing to us today, but their love for the Lord was very important to Christ. He was saying to the Ephesians, “You are leaving your best love.” They hadn’t quite departed from that love, but they were on the way. It is difficult for us in this cold, skeptical, cynical, and indifferent day in which we live to understand this. The world has intruded into the church to such an extent that it is hard for us to conceive of the intense, enthusiastic devotion the early church gave to the person of Christ. The early church first went off the track not in their doctrine but in their personal relationship to Jesus Christ.
Ephesus was a great city, and it had many attractions that were beginning to draw believers away from their first love for Jesus Christ. This was the church that became so potent in its evangelism in that area of about twenty-five million people that even the Roman emperors and the nobility of that day had an opportunity to hear the gospel. In that area there was such a mighty moving of the Spirit of God that it has probably never been duplicated since.
Every now and then we meet someone or read about someone who has had that close personal relationship with Christ. David Brainard, the missionary to Indians in this country, was such a man. He suffered from what was then called consumption (we know it as tuberculosis). He would travel to the Indians by horseback, and sometimes he would have a convulsion, vomit blood, become unconscious, and fall off his horse. He would lie in the snow, and when that happened, his horse learned to stay right there. When he regained consciousness, he would crawl back onto his horse and be on his way to preach to the Indians. As he went, he would cry out, “Lord Jesus, I’ve failed You, but You know that I love You.” He had that close, intimate relationship with Christ.
My friend, that personal relationship is all-important in our day, also. We are so involved in methods—I am rather amused at some of the Band-Aid courses which are being offered—and they are making Band-Aid believers. Generally, the course is some little legal system that gives you certain rules to follow and certain psychological patterns to observe which will enable you to solve all your problems. They try to teach you how to get along with yourself (that’s a pretty big order!), with your neighbors, and especially with your wife. All of those relationships are very important, and a great many people think that if they can follow a few rules, they will have the key to a successful Christian life. My friend, let me put it in a nutshell by asking one question: Do you love Jesus Christ? I don’t care what your system is, what your denomination is, what your program is, what little set of rules you follow, they will all come to naught if you don’t love Him. Although some systems are better than others, almost any system will work if you love Christ. An intimate relationship with Christ will make all of your relationships and all of your Christian service a joy.
The story is told in New England about two girls who worked in a cotton mill. They were friends, but when one of them quit working there, they lost touch with each other. Finally, they met one day on the street. The working girl asked her friend,
“Are you still working?”
“No,” she said, “I got married!”
When that girl worked in the mill, she watched the clock, and every evening when five o’clock came, she had her coat on and was on her way out. It was hard work, and she didn’t like it. Now she is married and she says that she has quit working.
Well, if you could look at her life, you wouldn’t think she had quit working. She gets up earlier than ever before to prepare breakfast for her husband and to pack his lunch. Then she throws her arms around him as she tells him good-bye. All day long she is busy cleaning house and washing clothes and caring for two little brats who are two little angels to her because they are hers. Then when five o’clock comes, she doesn’t put on her coat and leave; she starts cooking dinner. About six o’clock here comes her husband. She is right there at the door to throw her arms around him and tell him how much she has missed him that day. When a man comes home in the evening, opens the door, and hears a voice from upstairs or from the rear of the house calling, “Is that you?”, he knows the honeymoon is over. But this girl is in love. Her husband’s workday is over, but hers has only just gotten started. She serves dinner to her husband and feeds the children. Then she washes the dishes, puts the children to bed—and that’s not easy—and works around getting things ready for her husband for the next day. I tell you, she is weary when she finally gets into bed—but she’s not working anymore, she says! Why? Because she is in love. That’s the difference.
My friend, when your home life and your church, life become a burden, there is something wrong with your relationship with Christ. When you get that straightened out, other things will straighten out also.
This is the reason the Lord Jesus said to the Ephesian believers, “You are getting away from your first love, your best love.” What is the solution for them?
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent [Rev. 2:5].
“Remember.” That is the first thing they were to do. Memory is a marvelous thing. Someone has said that God has given us memories so we can have roses in December. Well, here in California we have short memories so we have roses all year-round. But memory is a wonderful thing. Someone else has said that memory is a luxury that only a good man can enjoy. My friend, do you remember when you were converted? Do you remember what a thrill it was and what the Lord Jesus meant to you? Have you become cold and indifferent to Him? Are you in a backslidden condition? Remember. Remember where you once were. You can get back to that same place.
“And repent.” Believe me, Christians need to repent. We need to break the shell of self-sufficiency, the crust of conceit, the shield of sophistication, the veneer of vanity, get rid of the false face of “piosity,” and stop this business of everlastingly polishing our halo as if we were some great saint. Repent! Repentance means to turn back to Him, and it is the message for believers. How dare the church tell an unsaved man to repent. What he needs to do is to turn to Christ for salvation. When he turns to Christ, he will turn from his sin—as the Thessalonians “… turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; And to wait for his Son from heaven…” (1 Thess. 1:9–10). But the church needs to repent, and that is the message they do not want to hear today. Remember, repent, and return unto Him.
“Or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove the candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.” Christ says that He will remove your lampstand. Oh, how many churches in our day have been practically closed. Once the crowds came, but they don’t come anymore because the Word of God is no longer being taught. My friend, Christ is still watching the lamps, and He doesn’t mind trimming the wicks or even using the snuffer when they refuse to give light.
But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate [Rev. 2:6].
Nicolaitans is a compound word. Nikao means “to conquer” and laos means “the people.” We get our word laity from that. It is difficult to identify who the Nicolaitans were. Some scholars think that they were a priestly order which was beginning to take shape and attempt to rule over the people. Another theory is that there is no way to identify this group in any of the early or late churches. The third explanation is that there was a man by the name of Nicolaus of Antioch, who apostatized from the truth and formed an Antinomian Gnostic cult which taught (among other doctrines) that one must indulge in sin in order to understand it. They gave themselves over to sensuality with the explanation that such sins did not touch the spirit. That “Nicolaitans” refers to this cult is probably the best explanation. The church in Ephesus hated it. A little later on we will see that the church in Pergamos [Pergamum] tolerated it.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God [Rev. 2:7].
“He that hath an ear.” This is what I call a “blood-tipped ear,” which was the requirement for the Old Testament priests. Not everyone can hear the Word of God. Oh, I know they can hear the audible sound, but they miss the message. The Lord Jesus uses the phrase to alert dull ears. We learn from the gospel records that He often used that expression. He said that they have ears to hear but they hear not. Now He speaks to those with spiritual perception.
“Let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” “The Spirit” is the Holy Spirit, the Teacher of the church.
“To him that overcometh” refers to genuine believers, and we can overcome only through the blood of the Lamb.
“Will I give to eat of the tree of life.” You will recall that man was forbidden to eat of the Tree of Life after the Fall, as recorded in Genesis 3:22–24. But in heaven the “no trespassing” sign will be taken down, and all of us will be given the privilege of eating of the Tree of Life. I don’t know what kind of fruit it has, but I believe it will enable us really to live it up. Most of us don’t know much about living yet. We have sort of a vegetable existence down here, but we will have a good fruit existence up there—we’ll eat of the Tree of Life. We are going to live as we have never lived before.
“The paradise of God” means the garden of God. Heaven is a garden of green primarily and is not just a place with streets of gold.
The church of Ephesus represents the church at its best, the apostolic church.
CHRIST’S LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN SMYRNA
Smyrna is the martyr church, the church that suffered martyrdom for Christ. The word Smyrna means “myrrh” and carries the meaning of suffering.
The city of Smyrna is still in existence in our day. It has a Turkish name, Izmir, which may lead you astray, but it is the same city. It has been continuously inhabited from the time it was founded. I have been there; in fact, we stay in Izmir when we visit the sites of the early churches in that area. It is a commercial city. There are those who have told us that Izmir will soon be larger than Istanbul. It will certainly be a larger commercial center. There is a tremendous population there. The modern city covers so much of the ruins of ancient Smyrna that you are apt to miss the beauty which was there.
I have taken some pictures of it and use them as slides in an illustrated message. I try to point out the beauty of that harbor. It is very large and one of the most beautiful harbors that I have seen. In fact, Smyrna was one of the loveliest cities of Asia. It was called a flower, an ornament, and it has been called the crown of all Asia. The acropolis is located on Mount Pagos. In fact, the early city that goes back to about 2000 b.c., a Hittite city at that time, was built around the slope of Mount Pagos. Later Alexander the Great had a great deal to do with building it into the beautiful city that it became. There were wide boulevards along the slopes of Mount Pagos. Smyrna was called the crown city because the acropolis was encircled with flowers, a hedge, and myrtle trees. The city was adorned with noble buildings and beautiful temples—a temple of Zeus, a temple of Cybele (Diana), a temple of Aphrodite, a temple of Apollo, and a temple of Asclepius. Smyrna had a theater and an odeum, that is, a music center—it was the home of music. Also it had a stadium, and it was at that stadium that Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna and student of the apostle John, was martyred, burned alive in a.d. 155.
In Christian literature, Smyrna means “suffering.” The Lord Jesus, in His letter addressed to the church there, said that He knew their sufferings and their poverty. He had no word of condemnation for them or for the church at Philadelphia. They were the churches that heard no word of condemnation from Him, and it is interesting that these two cities, Smyrna and Philadelphia, are the only two which have had a continuous existence. Their lampstand has really been moved, but there are a few Christians in Izmir. Although they are under cover, they have made indirect contact with us when we have been there. They do not come out in the open because Christians are persecuted even today in modern Turkey.
As Ephesus represents the apostolic church, so Smyrna represents the martyr church which covers the period from about a.d. 100 to approximately a.d. 314, from the death of the apostle John to the Edict of Toleration by Constantine, which was given in a.d. 313 and ended the persecution of Christians—not only in Smyrna but all over the Roman Empire.
Now here we have the Lord Jesus addressing the church at Smyrna. It is His briefest message, and it is all commendatory—everything He has to say to them is praise.
And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive [Rev. 2:8].
And to the messenger of the church in Smyrna, write, These things saith the first and the last, who became dead, and lived.
This verse is a reference to chapter 1, verses 17–18, which says, “And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” The Lord chose from the vision of Himself that particular figure which was fitting for each church. To the church in Smyrna the Lord describes Himself as “the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive.”
“The first and the last” means that there was nothing before Him and there will be nothing to follow Him. He has the final disposition of all things. The persecuted believers needed to know that He was the One in charge and that the persecution was in the planning and purpose of God.
“Who became dead, and lived” has a real message for martyrs. His experience with death identified Him with the five million who were martyred during this period. (According to Fox’s Book of Martyrs, five million believers died for Christ during this period.) Christ was triumphant over death and can save to the uttermost those who are enduring persecution and martyrdom.
He has something further to say to them—
I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.
Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life [Rev. 2:9–10].
There are seven things in this church which the Lord commanded:
1. “Tribulation” is mentioned first. The word works is not in the best manuscripts. I prefer to leave it out, but if you want to include it, fine. Remember, this is not the Great Tribulation; it means simply trouble. Since the awful persecution of the church by the Roman emperors is not called the Great Tribulation, surely our small sufferings are not the Great Tribulation. But the church in Smyrna endured much tribulation, and they suffered for the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. “Poverty” denotes the lack of material possessions. The early church was made up largely of the poorer classes. When the wealthy believed in Christ, their property was confiscated because of their faith. “But thou art rich” denotes the spiritual wealth of the church—they were blessed with all spiritual blessings. Notice the contrast to the rich church in Laodicea. To that church He said, “You think you are rich, but you are really poor and don’t know it.”
When I am a visiting conference speaker in churches across the land, pastors like to tell me about the millionaire or persons of prominence whom they have in their congregation. Well, the martyr church couldn’t brag about that. They had in their congregation slaves, ex-slaves, runaway slaves, freed slaves, poor people, and those who had lost whatever money they had when they became Christians.
3. “The blasphemy of them which say they are Jews … but are the synagogue of Satan.” The implication is that the Jews in Smyrna who had come to Christ were Jews inwardly as well as outwardly. In Romans 9:6 Paul says that not all Israel is Israel. It is his religion that makes a Jew a real Jew. His religion is the thing that identifies him. Speaking of them nationally, the Lord said that their father was “… a Syrian ready to perish …” (Deut. 26:5). But Smyrna was a city of culture in which many Jews had discarded their belief in the Old Testament. Although they said they were Jews, when a Jew gives up his religion, there is a question whether or not he is a Jew. In Germany many tried to do that, by the way. Down through the years there has been only a remnant of these people who have truly been God’s people.
4. “Fear none of those things” is the encouragement of the Lord to His own in the midst of persecutions. This is the second time in this book that the Lord has offered this encouragement. History tells us that multitudes went to their death singing praises to God.
5. “The devil [Satan] shall cast some of you into prison.” We are going to look at this fearful creature later on, but Christ labels him as being responsible for the suffering of the saints in Smyrna. You and I tend to blame the immediate person or circumstance which serves as Satan’s tool, but the Lord Jesus goes back to the root trouble.
I would like to insert a personal word at this point. I could classify and pigeonhole everything that has come into my life as God’s judgment or God’s chastisement, but when I began experiencing so many physical problems, I was puzzled. Then quite a few people began writing to say, “I believe Satan is responsible for the things that are happening to you.” And I decided this must be the explanation for the many physical problems that afflicted me.
6. “Ye shall have tribulation ten days.” There were ten intense periods of persecution by ten Roman emperors (these dates are approximate):
Nero—64–68 (Paul was beheaded under his reign)
Domitian—95–96 (John was exiled during that period)
Trajan—104–117 (Ignatius was burned at the stake)
Marcus Aurelius—161–180 (Polycarp was martyred)
Severus—200–211
Maximinius—235–237
Decius—250–253
Valerian—257–260
Aurelian—270–275
Diocletian—303–313 (the worst emperor of all).
7. “Be thou faithful unto death”—and they were. They were martyrs for Him. He promises them “a crown of life.” Remember that He is addressing the believers who lived in Smyrna, the crown city. It is interesting that to them He is saying that He will give crowns—not crowns of flowers—or of anything else perishable—but crowns that will be eternal.
The Lord has special crowns for those who suffer. I know many wonderful saints who are going to get that crown some day. My friend, if you are suffering at this moment and you have wondered if He cares, He has something good for you in eternity. You will get something that no one else will be getting, except others in your condition. God’s Word says, “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him” (James 1:12).That crown of life means that you are really going to live it up someday. What a glorious prospect that is for invalids and those on beds of pain today.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not he hurt of the second death [Rev. 2:11].
“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” Have you heard Him today? Is He speaking to you?
“The second death.” Dwight L. Moody put it like this: “He who is born once will die twice; he who is born twice will die once.” And if the Rapture occurs during his lifetime, he won’t even have to die that one time. The “second death” is the death which no believer will experience. The first death concerns the body. The second death concerns the soul and the spirit; it is eternal separation from God. No believer will have to undergo that.
CHRIST’S LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN PERGAMUM
In our King James text this city is called Pergamos, but in Turkey it is called Pergamum, and I assume that is the correct spelling.
The church in Pergamum is representative of church history during the period of approximately a.d. 314 to a.d. 590. I call it paganism unlimited because during this time the world entered into the church and it began to move away from the person of Christ. This letter was Christ’s message to the local church at Pergamum, of course, but it also has this historical significance.
First, let me give you the location of Pergamum. Izmir is the great city where tourists go because the airport and the hotels are there. You go about sixty-five miles south to reach Ephesus and about seventy miles north to reach Pergamum. These three were the royal cities, and they vied one with another. Smyrna (Izmir) was the great commercial center, Ephesus was the great political center, and Pergamum was the great religious center.
Pergamum was the capital of the kingdom of Pergamum. The acropolis still stands there, and the ruins of the great temples and the city are on top of it. It was a city in Mysia, labeled by Pliny “by far the most illustrious of Asia.” It is one of the most beautiful spots in Asia Minor. Sir William Ramsay says that it was the one city that deserved to be called a royal city. In it was a temple built to Caesar Augustus, which made it a royal city. Augustus came to this beautiful area when the climate got cold in Rome. There was a healing spa there. It was not the commercial city that Smyrna was because it was not a seacoast town and it was off the great trade routes which came out of the Orient. But it was a fortified, stronghold city, built to withstand the enemy. It was built on a mountain, and the acropolis dominated the whole region of the broad plain of the Caicus. The original city was built between the two rivers which flowed into the Caicus and entirely surrounded this huge rocky hill, this promontory that stood out there alone. To visit it makes quite an impression. First you see that great mountain standing there, and you see the ruins on top.
Not only did Pergamum boast great temples, but it also had the greatest library of the pagan world. It was a library of over two hundred thousand volumes. In fact, the city got its name from the parchment (pergamena) which was used. This great library was the one which Mark Antony gave to his girl friend, Cleopatra. She lugged it off to Alexandria in Egypt, and that library was considered the greatest library the world has ever seen—and it originally came from Pergamum.
If you are ever in Istanbul and go into Hagia Sophia, you will see there a great alabaster vase, taller than I am and a thing of beauty, which was brought there from Pergamum. Of course, the city of Pergamum was rifled and denuded by the enemy when they finally took the city and destroyed it.
And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges [Rev. 2:12].
“To the angel of the church in Pergamos.” This letter was addressed, as were other letters, to the angel or messenger of the church, which was probably the one we would call the pastor.
“These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges” means the Word of God. The Word of God has the answer to man’s need and man’s sin, which in Pergamum was false religion. It was a city that emphasized religion, and the only way it could be reached would be by the Word of God.
I know thy works and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth [Rev. 2:13].
“Where thou dwellest.” The Lord commends this church for three very definite things. First, He takes note of their circumstances. He knew that these believers were living in a very difficult place. And, my friend, the Lord takes note of our circumstances. Sometimes we are inclined to condemn someone who is caught in a certain set of circumstances, but if we were in the same position, we might act in an even worse way than he is acting.
“Even where Satan’s seat [throne] is” reveals that religion was big business in Pergamum and that Satan’s headquarters were there. This ought to settle the question for those who think that Satan is in hell at the present time. He has never yet been in hell because hell hasn’t opened up for business yet. Satan will not be in hell until much later, as we shall see in chapter 20. At the present, Satan is loose and is the prince of this world, controlling kingdoms and going up and down the earth as a roaring lion, hunting for whom he may devour (see 1 Pet. 5:8). But he does have headquarters, and Christ said they were in Pergamum at that time. Since those days, I think that he has moved his headquarters around to different places. I used to get the impression that he had moved them to Los Angeles, and he may have done so because that is another great religious center of every kind of cult and “ism” and schism.
The reason our Lord said that Satan’s throne was in Pergamum was because of the heathen temples there. Of course, all of this is in ruins today. There are markers and some reconstruction going on there now. But in John’s day it was Satan’s throne. As you enter the gate of the city, you see that the first temple to your right is the imposing temple of Athena. Directly above it is the great library. You would see the great temple of Caesar Augustus and Hadrian’s great temple, which covers quite a bit of territory. There are other things that are quite interesting. There is the great altar to Zeus with an idol on it near the palace of the king. It is a very impressive spot, and some folk believe that it was the throne of Satan. Well, I think that it is included but that Satan’s throne is a combination of all of these.
There are two other areas which are especially outstanding. One of them is the temple of Dionysius. I crawled down the side of that mountain to get pictures of the ruins of the temple of Dionysius, which is beside the ruins of the theater there. Some folk asked me why I did that. Well, Dionysius is the same as Bacchus, the god of wine, the goat-god. He is depicted with horns, but with his upper part as a man and his lower part as a goat, with cloven feet and a tail. In our day that is the modern idea of Satan, but the notion that Satan has horns, cloven feet, and a forked tail did not come from the Bible. Where did it come from? Well, it came from the temple of Dionysius, the god Bacchus, the god of wine or alcohol. My friend, we ought to be proud that we are Americans, but we also need to bow our heads in shame. Do you know how we got this country in which we live? We got it from the Indians (and I guess they got it from someone else), but the way we got it was not by bullets but by alcohol. Also Hawaii was taken away from the Hawaiians by giving them liquor. Alcohol has taken more territory than anything else. Satan is the god of liquor all right!
Then the other outstanding temple was of the god Asklepios. Down from that great promontory was the greatest hospital of the ancient world. It was the Mayo Clinic of that day. It was, first of all, a temple to Asklepios. If you are looking at the Greek god Asklepios, it is a man, but when you see the Anatolian or Oriental Asklepios, it is a serpent. There in Pergamum it was a serpent. I have pictures which I took of that great marble pillar which stands like an obelisk now but apparently was a pillar in the temple of Asklepios. The construction of the temple was unusual in that it was round. There they used every means of healing imaginable. They used both medicine and psychology—and about everything else.
Put yourself in this situation: you go down long tunnels, and above are holes that look like airholes for ventilation but are not. As you walk along these tunnels, sexy voices come down through the holes, saying to you, “You are going to get well. You are going to feel better. You are going to be healed.” (Does that have a modern ring?) You go down to the hot baths where you are given a massage. There is a little theater there where they give plays of healing. If they haven’t healed you by now, as a last resort they put you in that temple at night and turn loose the nonpoisonous snakes which crawl over you. (That is known as the shock treatment in our day!) If they don’t heal you, they will drive you crazy, that’s for sure. They have a back door where they take out the dead. They don’t mention the ones they don’t heal; they speak only of those who recover.
Caesar Augustus loved to go there. He wasn’t exactly sick; he was an alcoholic. They just dried him out every year when he would come over. This was a great place, and for seven hundred years it was a hospital that people came to from all over the world. May I say to you, healing was satanic in those. days. There is no question about the fact that there were good men there who used medicine, but basically, it was satanic. It was where Satan’s throne was. That is important to see.
Now here is another word of commendation to the believers at Pergamum, “thou holdest fast my name.” They were faithful in their defense of the deity of Christ.
As we have noted, the church at Pergamum is representative of the church in general during the years of a.d. 314 to approximately a.d. 590. Actually, it was an age that produced great giants of the faith. When the Arian heresy (which denied the deity of Christ) arose, Athanasius from North Africa was the great defender of the faith, and because of him the Council of Nicea in a.d. 325 condemned Arianism. And another man was Augustine, who answered the Pelagian heresy which denied original sin and the total corruption of human nature and also denied irresistible grace. These are two giants during this period who stood unshakably for the great doctrines of the faith.
“And hast not denied my faith” refers to the body of true doctrine which is believed by Christians.
“Even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr.” Antipas was a martyr about whom we know nothing at all. He apparently was the first one at Pergamum, and there was a great company of martyrs who followed him.
So far Christ has had only words of commendation for the church at Pergamum, but now He condemns two things which were in that church—
But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate [Rev. 2:14–15].
The two items for condemnation were the doctrine of Balaam and the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. “The doctrine of Balaam” is different from the error of Balaam (see Jude 11), which revealed that Balaam thought that God would curse Israel because they were sinners. It is also different from the way of Balaam (see 2 Pet. 2:15), which was covetousness. But here in the verse before us, it is the doctrine or teaching of Balaam. He taught Balac the way to corrupt Israel by intermarriage with the Moabite women. This introduced into the nation of Israel both idolatry and fornication. And during the historical period which the church at Pergamum represents, the unconverted world came into the church.
“The doctrine of the Nicolaitans.” We have seen that the church in Ephesus hated it, but here in Pergamum there were some who were holding that doctrine. Although we do not know exactly what the doctrine was, it probably was a gnostic cult developed by Nicolaus which advocated license in matters of Christians’ conduct and apparently a return to religious rituals by clergy, ignoring the priesthood of all believers. Christ says that He hates it! You see, Christ hates as well as loves. We had better be careful that we are not indulging in the things that He hates.
Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth [Rev. 2:16].
“Repent.” In other words, the only cure was repentance (metanoeµson, “a change of mind”). God’s Word says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness?” (1 John 1:9). If they would not repent, the Lord said He would fight against them with the sword of His mouth, which is the Word of God. What a mistake we make if we think that the church has the authority to decide what is right and what is wrong. The true church is made up of believers in Jesus Christ, and they form what Scripture calls the body of Christ. They are to be lights in the world. And if we are going to be lights in this dark world, we need to be careful to identify with the person of Jesus Christ and to recognize, not the church, but the Word of God as our authority.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it [Rev. 2:17].
“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” This is to you and me today.
“To him that overcometh” is the definition of a genuine Christian. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb. Never are we overcomers, but we overcome by His shed blood. We know that the victory was won by Christ and not by ourselves.
“Hidden manna” speaks of the person and the death of Christ as He is revealed in the Word of God. In fact, Jesus said that He Himself was the Bread: “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:32–35). The believer needs to feed on Christ—this is a must for spiritual growth. And, actually, Christ is hidden from view; He is not known or understood in our day. My, how folk misrepresent Him and abuse Him!
“I … will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.” A white stone suggests that believers are not black-balled in heaven. Trench said, “White is everywhere the color and livery of heaven.” Frankly, this is rather a difficult figure to interpret. But it is helpful to learn that the people of Asia Minor to whom John was writing had a custom of giving to intimate friends a tessera, a cube or rectangular block of stone or ivory, with words or symbols engraved on it. It was a secret, private possession of the one who received it. Well, Christ says that He is going to give to each of His own a stone with a new name engraved upon it. I do not believe that it will be a new name for you and me but that it will be a new name for Him. I believe that each name will be different because He means something different to each one of us. It will be His personal and intimate name to each of us.
CHRIST’S LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN THYATIRA
The church at Thyatira is representative of Romanism, which takes us into the Dark Ages from a.d. 590 to approximately a.d. 1000. It was a dark period.
When you leave Pergamum, you begin to move inland. Thyatira and the remaining three churches are inland. Thyatira was situated in a very beautiful location. Sir William Ramsay has written this about it:
Thyatira was situated in the mouth of a long vale which extends north and south connecting the Hermus and Caicos Valleys. Down the vale a stream flows south to join the Lycus (near whose left bank Thyatira was situated), one of the chief tributaries of the Hermus, while its northern end is divided by only a ridge of small elevation from the Caicos Valley. The valleys of the two rivers, Hermus and Caicos, stretch east and west, opening down from the edge of the great central plateau of Anatolia towards the Ægean Sea. Nature has marked out this road, a very easy path, for the tide of communication which in all civilised times must have been large between the one valley and the other. The railway traverses its whole length now: in ancient times one of the chief routes of Asia Minor traversed it.
Thyatira was located in this long vale or pass. Thyatira was a city built for defense. However, most cities built for defense were situated upon an acropolis or a promontory and walls were put around them. But Thyatira was different. It stood in the middle of that vale on a very slight rising ground. Its strength lay in the fact that Rome stationed the elite guard there.
Thyatira was built by Lysimachus and again by Seleucus I, the founder of the Seleucid dynasty, whose vast realm extended from the Hermus Valley to the Himalayas. It finally fell to the enemy. No city in that area was so completely destroyed and rebuilt as was this city. For this reason, it is very disappointing to visit the ruins of Thyatira in our day. They cover only one very small block.
This city became prosperous under the sponsorship of Vespasian, the Roman emperor. It was the headquarters for many ancient guilds: the potters’, tanners’, weavers’, robe makers’, and dyers’ guilds. It was the center of the dyeing industry. This is where the labor unions must have originated! Lydia, the seller of purple, who in Philippi became Paul’s first convert in Europe, came from here (see Acts 16:14). That purple color spoken of is what we know today as “Turkey red”—and I mean that color is red. The dye was taken from a plant that grows in that area. Apollo, the sun god, was worshiped here as Tyrimnos.
And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass [Rev. 2:18].
This pictures the Son of God in judgment. His eyes are like a flame of fire, searching them out, and His feet are like burnished brass, which represents judgment. Christ is judging this church.
However, He has words of commendation for this church. If you think that the Roman church during the Dark Ages is to be condemned wholeheartedly, you need to check up on the history of it. The Lord Jesus says,
I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first [Rev. 2:19].
Christ has six words of commendation for the church of the Dark Ages in which were many true believers who had a personal love of Christ which was manifested in works. Works are actually credentials of true believers. James says, “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works” (James 2:18).
The six words of commendation are:
1. “Works” were the credentials of real believers. There were many who lived spotless lives and by their good works “adorned the doctrine.”
2. “Love.” It was a church in which there was love, in spite of the fact that it had gone in for ritualism. There were some wonderful saints of God during that period: Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, John Huss, Savonarola, and Anselm were all men in the Roman church.
3. “Faith.” Though it is placed after works and love in this instance, it is the mainspring that turns the hands of works and love.
4. “Ministry” is service.
5. “Patience” is endurance in those days of darkness.
6. “Thy last works are more than the first.” In this church, works increased rather than diminished.
All six virtues are produced within the believer by the Holy Spirit.
There is one frightful charge of condemnation:
Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth her self a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols [Rev. 2:20].
But I have against you that you tolerate the woman (wife) Jezebel, who calls herself the prophetess, and she teaches and seduces my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed to idols.
Jezebel had brought paganism into the northern kingdom of Israel. And evidently there was in the local church at Thyatira a woman who had a reputation as a teacher and prophetess who was the counterpart of Jezebel, the consort of Ahab.
And concerning the historical period of the Dark Ages which the church at Thyatira represents, pagan practices and idolatry were mingled with Christian works and worship. The papacy was elevated to a place of secular power under Gregory I (a.d. 590), and later by Gregory VII, better known as Hildebrand, (a.d. 1073–1085). The introduction of rituals and church doctrine supplanted personal faith in Jesus Christ. Worship of the Virgin and Child and the Mass were made a definite part of the church service. Purgatory became a positive doctrine, and Mass was said for the dead. The spurious documents labeled Donation of Constantine and Decretals of Isidore were circulated to give power and rulership to the pope.
As Jezebel killed Naboth and persecuted God’s prophets, so the Roman church instituted the Inquisition during this period.
“Seduce” means a fundamental departure from the truth, according to Vincent. Jezebel stands in sharp contrast to Lydia, who came from Thyatira. Jezebel is merely a forerunner of the apostate church, as we shall see in chapter 17.
And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not [Rev. 2:21].
“Space” is time. The Lord Jesus Christ has patiently dealt with this false system for over a thousand years, and there has been no real change down through the centuries in this system. In fact, Rome boasts that she never changes—semper idem, always the same.
Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds [Rev. 2:22].
“Great tribulation” could refer to the persecution which Rome is enduring under communism. Or it may mean the Great Tribulation into which the apostate church will go.
“Their deeds” should be translated her deeds.
And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works [Rev. 2:23].
“Children” are those who were brought up under this system.
“And I will kill her children with death” is translated by Vincent: “Let them be put to death with death,” referring to the second death.
“All the churches” refers to the church of all the ages.
“The reins” means literally the kidneys and refers to the total psychological makeup—the thoughts, the feelings, the purposes. When He searches the reins and the hearts, it means that He searches our entire beings.
But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden [Rev. 2:24].
But I say to you, to the rest in Thyatira, who do not hold this doctrine, which are of those who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will put upon you none other burden (weight).
The church in Thyatira, we know from history, had a very brief existence because it went down with the city when it was captured by the enemy.
“The depths of Satan” perhaps refers to a gnostic sect known as the Ophites who worshiped the serpent. They made a parody of Paul’s words. All heresy boasts of superior spiritual perception, and that is what this group did.
But that which ye have already hold fast till I come [Rev. 2:25].
Obviously, Christ is beginning to say to His church, “I am coming to take you out, and because of this, you should stand fast for Me.”
And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations [Rev. 2:26].
The works of Christ are in contrast to the works of Jezebel. The works of Christ are wrought by the Holy Spirit. We overcome by faith and not by effort.
“I give power over the nations” was explained by Paul when he wrote to the Corinthian believers: “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? … (1 Cor. 6:2).
And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father [Rev. 2:27].
This is a reference to the millennial reign of Christ in which believers are to share.
And I will give him the morning star [Rev. 2:28].
Christ is the Bright and Morning Star (see Rev. 22:16). Christ’s coming for His own at the Rapture is the hope of the church. “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches [Rev. 2:29].
The children of Jezebel will not hear, but the true children of the Lord Jesus will hear, for the Holy Spirit opens the “blood-tipped ear.”
CHAPTER 3
Theme: The church in the world—continued
CHRIST’S LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN SARDIS
In the panorama of church history, Sardis represents the Protestant church during the period between a.d. 1517 and approximately a.d. 1800. It began, I believe, when Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses onto the chapel door of the church at Wittenburg, Germany. It is an era which started with the Reformation and takes us into the beginning of the great missionary movement in the history of the church.
Sardis was the capital of the great kingdom of Lydia and one of the oldest and most important cities of Asia Minor. It was located inland and built on a small, elevated plateau which rises sharply above the Hermus Valley. On all sides but one the rock walls are smooth, nearly perpendicular and absolutely unscalable. The only access is on the southern side by a very steep and difficult path. One time when I was there, another preacher and I tried to make the climb. He went farther than I did, but we both gave up long before we reached the top.
As the civilization and the commerce grew more complex, the high plateau became too small, and a lower city was built chiefly on the west side of the original city. The old city was used as an acropolis. Actually this made it a double city, and it was called by the plural noun Sardeis or Sardis. The plain was well watered by the Pactolus River. It became the center of the carpet industry and was noted for its wealth. Coins were first minted there. Its last prince was the wealthy Croesus who was captured by Cyrus. He was considered the wealthiest man in the world, and everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. Sardis was ruled by the Persians, by Alexander, by Antiochus the Great, and finally by the Romans. It was destroyed by an earthquake during the reign of Tiberius.
In our day the ruins of the temple of Cybele and also of the temple of Apollo can still be seen. It is one of the few double temples that you will find in the world. Cybele was known as Diana in Ephesus, but when you get inland, she becomes a nature goddess. She was the goddess of the moon, and Apollo was the god of the sun—they were brother and sister. This was a very corrupt worship, much like the worship of Diana at Ephesus.
Extensive excavations have taken place at Sardis. They are rebuilding the gymnasium and also the synagogue. And they have dug up the Roman road that is there. The thing that thrilled me when I looked at that road was that I knew the apostle Paul had walked up and down it.
And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead [Rev. 3:1].
“These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars.” He presents Himself to the church at Sardis as the One having the seven Spirits of God; that is, He is the One who sent the Holy Spirit into the world.
As we have seen, Sardis represents the Protestant church. My friend, the church today needs the Spirit of God working in it. We think we need methods, and we have all kinds of Band-Aid courses for believers in which you put on a little Band-Aid, and it will solve all your problems. What we really need to do is to get to the person of Christ whom only the Holy Spirit can make real and living to us. This is the thing Protestantism needs today.
Following the dark night of the Dark Ages, the Holy Spirit was still in the world doing His work. He moved in the hearts of men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, and many, many others.
“I know thy works.” This is the word of commendation. Remember that the Reformation recovered the doctrine of justification by faith, and this faith produced works.
“That thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.” Protestantism today, as a whole, has a name that it lives, but it is dead. Many Protestant churches today are just going through the form. They are building all the time, and people are coming, especially on Sunday mornings. But there are not many at the midweek service, when they really ought to come to hear the Word of God. “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.” This is a frightful condemnation and is a picture of Protestantism today.
We need to recognize that all of the truth was not recovered by the Reformation. For example, I believe that the doctrine of eschatology, prophecy, is just now being developed in our own day.
Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God [Rev. 3:2].
Let me give you my translation of this verse:
Wake up and watch out and establish the things that remain which were about to die, for I have found no works of thine fulfilled (perfected) before my God.
This is the second word of condemnation, and it is a word of warning which had particular meaning in Sardis. As I have said, Sardis was located on the top of a mountain. It had one entrance on the southern side which was the only way you could get into the city in the old days. Therefore, all that Sardis had to do was to put a detail at that one place to watch the city. But on two occasions in their history they had been invaded by their enemies because they had felt secure, believing that the hill was impregnable, and the guard went to sleep on the job. In 549 b.c. the Median soldiers of Cyrus scaled the parapet, and then again in 218 b.c. Antiochus the Great captured Sardis because a Cretan slipped over the walls while the sentries were careless. What the Lord says to this church at Sardis is this: “You wake up and watch out!” This was embarrassing because of the two occasions in their history when they had been caught napping. He says to the church, “Don’t you go to sleep!”
Protestantism, as a whole, has turned away from looking for the coming of Jesus Christ, and they have built up these systems that certain things must be fulfilled before He can come. My friend, it is tissue-thin from where we are right now to the coming of Christ for His church. He could come the next moment or tomorrow. Don’t say that I said He is coming tomorrow because I don’t know. It may be a hundred years, but, my friend, His imminent return is what we are to look for. Sardis didn’t know when the enemy was coming, and we don’t know when Christ is coming—we have no way of knowing at all.
In view of the fact that the Rapture could take place at any moment, the church is to be alert. The date is not set, nor even the period in which He will come, and the reason for that is that the church is to be constantly on the alert for His coming—“Looking for that blessed hope …” (Titus 2:13). You see, anyone can make ready for a fixed hour, but you must always be ready for an unexpected hour. The Lord Jesus is saying to Protestantism that they are constantly to be on the alert.
“For I have not found thy works perfect before God.” Protestantism did recover the authority of the Word of God, the total depravity of man, and justification by faith, but there are many other things that they did not recover. The Reformation was not a return to the apostolic church.
Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee [Rev. 3:3].
“Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent.” The idea is that they were to hold fast to these things because they were about to die. The great truths which were recovered in the Reformation are being lost. For instance, the Protestant church, by and large, has lost the authority of the Word of God. Rather than holding to the doctrine of the total depravity of man, many of our conservative churches are improving and using cosmetics on the carnal nature, thinking that somehow or another you can get up a few little rules and regulations which are going to enable you to live the Christian life. Also, the great doctrine of justification by faith has been pretty much abandoned, and a legalistic message is given that you have to do something in order to be saved. These are the things which characterize Protestantism today; it is very far from its original position.
“If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.” As we have seen, Sardis was built high upon a mountaintop which was impossible to scale except at one point. There is so much erosion of the soil in Turkey that two thousand years ago—in the days of Paul and John—the mountain was much higher and even more inaccessible than it is today. In spite of that, there were these two occasions when enemy soldiers gained entrance to the city. This was very embarrassing to this city—two times it was captured because the guard went to sleep. The Lord says to the church at Sardis, “Don’t you go to sleep. Wake up and watch out.” He could come at any moment. The people of Sardis did not know when the enemy was coming, and we do not know when the Lord Jesus is coming.
Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy [Rev. 3:4].
But thou hast a few names (persons) in Sardis that did not besmirch (defile) their Christian life (garments); and they shall walk with me in white (garments); for they are worthy.
In Israel it was never the corporate body of the total national life but always a remnant that was true to God. Here the church is told, “You have a few.” In Luke 12:32 the Lord called His church “little flock.” Protestantism today has its saints who love the Word, who are faithful to Him even in these days, and who stand by the Word of God. They do not engage in sin-defiling activities, nor are they engaged in fleshly activity.
Protestantism has produced some great men, and I will mention some, although I am going to leave out a great many. I think of the Reformation leaders: Martin Luther and John Calvin stand out, head and shoulders, above all others. Of course, there was John Knox, a great man of God who did so much for Scotland. Later on, there was John Bunyan, the great Baptist who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, which tells of his own life and how God marvelously saved him. John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist church. God marvelously saved that man and used him in such a way that he is given credit by historians for saving England from the revolution which destroyed France and prevented it from ever becoming a first-rate nation again. Wesley has been called the greatest Englishman of all. He certainly did more for that country than any other Englishman who has ever lived. Then there was a man like John Moffat, the Scotchman who went to Africa, and David Livingstone who first opened up that continent. William Carey went to India and later was followed by a sickly young man by the name of Henry Martyn. Finally, I always like to include Titus Coan, who led the greatest revival since Pentecost out in the Hawaiian Islands.
Protestantism has had some names who didn’t defile themselves and were true to the Word of God. There are quite a few such men living today, but I wouldn’t dare to begin to name them because of the fact that I would be apt to leave some out who ought to be included.
Protestantism has certainly produced some great men of God. Romanism did the same thing, even during the Dark Ages, but that does not mean to commend the system. The system of Romanism and the system of Protestantism, as they are revealed in the great denominations which have departed from the faith, to me are the organizations which will eventually bring in the apostate church because they have departed from the great tenets and doctrines of the Christian faith.
Verse 5 is a difficult passage of Scripture—
He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels [Rev. 3:5].
“He that overcometh.” The one who overcomes by the blood of Christ, of course, never does it because of his own strength, cleverness, or ability.
Now He makes this statement which has caused the difficulty in understanding: “I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.” It is interesting to note that in the genealogies there are only two books which are identified: (1) “the book of the generations of Adam” (see Gen. 5:1)—we are all in that book, but it is a book of death—and (2) “the book of the generation of Jesus Christ” (see Matt. 1:1). The phrase, “the book of the generation,” is an unusual expression. It occurs only in connection with Adam and then in connection with Christ.
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ is the Book of Life. I believe that you get into that book by faith in Christ. This, then, raises the question here: Is it possible for you to be in the Book of Life and then have your name blotted out? Can you lose your salvation? If that is true, then the Lord Jesus should not have said, “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28). Again and again throughout Scripture we have the assurance given to us of our salvation.
I would like to give you now an excerpt from Dr. John Walvoord’s book The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which is a very good explanation of what is meant in this verse:
Some have indicated that there is no explicit statement here that anybody will have his name blotted out, but rather the promise that his name will not be blotted out because of his faith in Christ. The implication, however, is that such is a possibility. On the basis of this some have considered the book of life not as the roll of those who are saved but rather a list of those for whom Christ died, that is, all humanity who have possessed physical life. As they come to maturity and are faced with the responsibility of accepting or rejecting Christ, their names are blotted out if they fail to receive Jesus Christ as Saviour; whereas those who do accept Christ as Saviour are confirmed in their position in the book of life, and their names are confessed before the Father and the heavenly angels.
I think that that is a good, sound interpretation.
In Revelation there is a great importance placed on this book (see Rev. 13:8; 17:8; 20:12, 15; 21:27; 22:19). In these references the thought is that there are those whose names are recorded and those whose names are not recorded in the Book of Life. We will talk about it again, especially when we get to the last reference in the twenty-second chapter.
Some have identified the two books in chapter 20, verse 12, as the book of profession and the book of reality. They hold that names are erased from the book of profession but not from the book of reality. Others have suggested that all names are placed in the Book of Life at the beginning, but some are removed. A person’s lack of decision for or rejection of Christ causes his name to be removed at the time of death. Both of these views propose serious objections as well as having good points to commend them.
I am confident that the whole thought is simply that it was amazing that anyone in Sardis would be saved but that there were some whose names He said would not be blotted out of the Book of Life. He didn’t say that anybody had been blotted out; He just said that even in Sardis there would be some saved. May I say to you, the important thing is whether or not your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. I do not believe that after you are saved you would ever be able to lose that salvation.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches [Rev. 3:6].
This, again, is the blood-tipped ear that needs to hear the voice of the Spirit speaking through the Word of God the message of Christ to His church today.
CHRIST’S LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN PHILADELPHIA
The church in Philadelphia represents what I call the revived church, dating from approximately the beginning of the nineteenth century to the Rapture. This is the church that has turned back to the Word of God. Today in Protestantism and also in the Roman Catholic Church, there are multitudes of people who are turning to the Word of God. Mail which I receive from all over the world indicates that there are people wanting to hear the Word of God and who are hungry for it. This period is pictured in the church of Philadelphia.
I have visited the city of Philadelphia, and it is today a rather prosperous little Turkish town. It is located in a very beautiful valley that is inland a great distance, about 125–150 miles from the coast. The valley is a very wide one which runs north and south, and the Cogamis River of that valley is a tributary of the Hermus River. The city was built on four or five hills in a picturesque setting. Today it is spread out a great deal, and it is a typical Turkish town.
Philadelphia is in an area that is subject to earthquakes. The great population that was in that area left primarily because of earthquakes and, of course, because of warfare. When Tamerlane and the other great pagan leaders came out of the East, it was a time when all those who were left were slaughtered. Therefore, today no descendants of the original population are there. However, this city has had continuous habitation from its very beginning.
This city was like a Greek island out in Lydia, out in the Anatolian country, an area which the Greeks considered to be heathen and pagan—the Greek word for it was barbarian. In fact, anyone who was not a Greek was considered a barbarian in those days. The Lydian language was spoken there at first, but by the time of the apostles, the Greek language had taken over, and it was a typical Greek colony. This was the outpost of Greek culture in a truly Asiatic and Anatolian atmosphere. It was called a “little Athens” because of the fact that it was in this area and yet was truly Greek.
It was a fortress city used to waylay the enemy who would come in to destroy the greater cities like Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum—those were the three great cities. These other cities were largely fortress cities where garrisons were stationed either to stop the enemy or delay him as he marched toward the western coast.
Philadelphia is in a country where erosion is at work; the soil is quite alluvial, but it is very fertile soil. Beautiful laurel trees, many flowers—I noticed that they are growing just about everything that is imaginable. It was particularly celebrated for its excellent wine. Great vineyards covered the surrounding hills, and the head of Bacchus was imprinted on their coins.
The city did not get its name, as so many seem to think, from the Bible. Actually, the city got its name because of the love that Attalus II had for his brother Eumenes who was king of Pergamum. Attalus had a great love and loyalty for his brother, and because of that it is called “the city of brotherly love.”
In a.d. 17 a great earthquake struck this city and totally destroyed it. The same earthquake totally destroyed Sardis and many other Lydian cities throughout that area. Tiberius, the emperor at that time, allocated a vast sum of money for the rebuilding of these cities, and they were then restored.
This is the one church besides Smyrna for which our Lord had no word of condemnation. Why? Because it had turned to the Word of God. It is interesting concerning the two churches which He did not condemn that the places are still in existence, although the churches have disappeared. However, in Philadelphia there is something quite interesting about which I would like to tell you. First of all, there are the remains of a Byzantine church, which reveals that Christianity was active there up until the twelfth or thirteenth century. The people who are caretakers of that area today must be Christians. Although I could not converse with them, they very graciously brought me a pitcher of water and a dipper on the very warm day I was there. The man and his wife who brought it were all smiles. I couldn’t talk to them, and they couldn’t talk to me, but I felt that we did communicate something of Christian love.
The remains of that Byzantine church are still there, but that is not the pillar that is mentioned in verse 12, although many believe that it is, and that is where the guides take the tours. However, before my first trip there, I had seen a picture of a big amphitheater in Adam’s Biblical Backgrounds; so I told my guide that I wanted to go up there on the side of the hill. The amphitheater was no longer there, but there was a Turkish coffee shop where my guide talked to a man. He said that there had been an amphitheater but it was totally destroyed except for one pillar. I have a picture of that pillar which is hidden away under the trees. Why did the Turkish government get rid of that amphitheater? I’ll tell you why: The Seljuk Turks brutally killed the Christians in Philadelphia, and they wanted to get rid of every vestige of that old civilization. Today they would rather that you and I forget about it.
Philadelphia is the place where Christian and Saracen fought during the Crusades, and in 1922 Turkey and Greece fought in Philadelphia. There are apparently a few Christians there today, as I have suggested, but they are under cover because they would be severely persecuted.
The church of Philadelphia continued into the thirteenth century. This church was in a very strategic area to be a missionary church, and that is actually what it was. I have labeled it the revived church because it returned to the Word of God and began to teach the Word of God.
This represents something that I think we see in Protestantism today. It began back in the last century and has gained since then, so that Bible teaching is not something that is new, by any means, but it has certainly become rather popular today. We feel very definitely that our Bible-teaching radio program has come in on the crest of a wave of interest in the Word of God.
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth [Rev. 3:7].
“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write.” The angel is the human messenger, the pastor, of the church. This is the Lord’s method in all of these churches.
“These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth.” In each of these messages, the Lord always draws something from that vision of Himself as the glorified Christ, our Great High Priest, in chapter 1. Here He reminds them that He is holy. He was holy at His birth, He was holy at His death, and He is holy today in His present priestly office. He was so called at His birth when the angel said to Mary, “… therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35, italics mine). And in His death He was holy. We are told in Acts 2:27: “Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption” (italics mine). He was holy in His death and in His resurrection. What a marvelous thing this is! He is also holy today in His high priestly office. “For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens” (Heb. 7:26, italics mine).
“He that is true.” John 14:6 tells us, “… I am the way, the truth, and the life….” True means “genuine” with an added note of perfection and completeness. Moses did not give the true bread; Christ is the true Bread (see John 6:32–35).
“He that hath the key of David.” This is different from the keys of hades and death which we saw in chapter 1, verse 18. This speaks of His regal claims as the Ruler of this universe. “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:32–33). He will sit on the throne of David in the Millennium, but today He is sovereign, sitting at His Father’s right hand, waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool.
“He that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth.” He is the One today who is able to open and to close, and because of that He is a comfort to us (see Matt. 28:18–20).
I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name [Rev. 3:8].
I know thy works: behold, I have given thee a door opened, which none can shut, for thou hast a little strength [Gr.: dunamin], and didst keep my word, and didst not deny my name.
This is the verse that we have taken as the maxim for our “Thru the Bible” radio program. We began with it at the first, and it means a great deal to us.
The church at Philadelphia was the one which was true to the Word of God. In our day the church which it represents could not be called the Protestant church or the Roman Catholic church or any other church. Actually, it represents all churches the world over—regardless of their labels—which still remain true to the Word of God.
The Lord commends the Philadelphian church on seven counts:
1. “I know thy works.” The Lord Jesus is looking for fruit; He is looking for works in the lives of believers. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:8–10).
My friend, there is something wrong with your faith if it doesn’t produce works. Good, old, practical, camel-kneed James was a great man of prayer who said, “… shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works” (James 2:18). “Works” are not works of law but works of faith. Calvin said, “Faith alone saves, but faith that saves is not alone.” Saying faith produces works.
2. “Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it.” This could be a door to the joy of the Lord or to a knowledge of the Scriptures. I personally believe that it is a door to the knowledge of the Scriptures, which means that if He opens the door, He intends for you to move in because He will open a door of opportunity for witnessing and for proclaiming the Word of God. I believe that both go together.
3. “For thou hast a little strength [dunamin].” Dunamin is the Greek word from which we get our English word dynamite. He says, “You have a little power.” This was a humble group of believers which did not have impressive numbers, buildings, or programs. I get a little weary today hearing every Christian group making reports. Even here at “Thru the Bible” we like to tell you how many radio stations our broadcast is heard on. My, how we like to talk about those things! My friend, that type of thing is not worth anything. We like to talk about the hundreds of letters we receive from those who have accepted Christ—that’s nothing. The important thing is whether or not we are getting out the Word of God. He will do the counting. God has His own computer which is registering all this, and He tells us that we had better not. The apostle Paul said, “I don’t even judge myself” (see 1 Cor. 4:3). Why not? In effect he is saying, “I may report too many converts. I may speak ‘evangelistically’ and give you a wrong figure. I may look at this a little differently than God does. I need to wait until I get into His presence for the accurate rendering of it.”
4. “And hast kept my word.” In a day when there was a denial of the inspiration of the Scriptures, this church believed the Bible to be the authoritative, inspired Word of God. A twentieth-century theologian, of course of the liberal ranks, stated that no intelligent person could believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. Well, that sure puts me in a bad light! I am, therefore, not an intelligent person because I do believe in the inspiration of the Bible—that is, if his definition is right, but I do not think he is right even about that.
5. “And hast not denied my name.” In a day when the deity of Christ is blatantly denied by seminary and pulpit, here is a group of believers who have remained true to Him by proclaiming the God-man and His substitutionary death for sinners.
This church in Philadelphia has been labeled many things. Some have called it the missionary church; some have called it the serving church; some have called it a live church—all of these are accurate. I personally like to call it the revived church or the Bible-believing church; it is the Bible church. The thing that the Lord Jesus emphasizes is this: “Thou … hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.” In that day of unbelief and skepticism, the Lord Jesus is commending this church because it has kept His Word. This is the church that got out the Word of God and, as far as we know, this church lasted longer than any other of the seven churches mentioned here. Until the thirteenth century, it had a continuous existence. It was destroyed by the Seljuk Turks when they came in and brutally murdered all the believers who were left in this church. It was also a missionary church. It is the belief now that the fact that Christianity penetrated into India as early as it did was because this church had sent out missionaries.
Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee [Rev. 3:9].
Let me give you my translation:
Behold I give of the synagogue of Satan, of them that say they are Jews, and are not, but lie. Behold, I will make them that they shall come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.
The remnant of Israel which was being saved had left the synagogue by this time. They had given up the Law as a means of salvation and sanctification. Those who continued in the synagogue were now in a false religion. As Paul makes it clear, “… For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel” (Rom. 9:6)—they were no longer true Jews. He considered the true Israelite to be the one who had turned to Christ.
Ignatius, according to Trench and reported by Vincent, refers to a logical situation where converts from Judaism preached the faith they once despised. By the way, the Roman Empire used Jews for the purpose of colonizing. They would send a regular colony of them into a foreign area, as they did into this section, and this is the reason there were so many Jews there.
6. “Behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.” The Lord Jesus says here that He will make the enemies of the Philadelphian church to know that He loves this church. This is His sixth point of commendation.
Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth [Rev. 3:10].
Because thou didst keep the word of my patience, I, also, will keep you out of (from) the hour of the trial, which is (about) to come upon the whole inhabited world to test (try) them that dwell upon the earth.
7. This last commendation is that this church kept the Word of Christ in patience. This is evidently the patient waiting for the coming of Christ for His own (see 2 Thess. 3:5). It has been in the present century that the doctrines of eschatology have been developed more than in all previous centuries combined. During the past forty years, there has been a revival of interest, both in Europe and in America, in fact, all over the world, relative to the second coming of Christ. Even the liberals talk about it now and then.
“Because thou hast kept the word of my patience.” I believe that God today is still patient with a world that has rejected His Word. It is not like it was back in the days of Noah. They didn’t have the written Word of God, yet God judged them; they did have a man bringing the message to them. But today we do have the Word of God. There is a Gideon Bible in practically every hotel and motel room throughout the world. In the different countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa, I find that the Word of God has penetrated all of these areas. The Philadelphian church is the church that believed in the Word of God.
“I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.” Christ’s final word of encouragement to His church is that it will not pass through the Great Tribulation. The church is to be removed from the world (see 1 Thess. 4:13–18), which is its comfort and hope (see Titus 2:13). Such is the patient waiting of the church “… who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Heb. 6:12). The church is not anticipating the Great Tribulation with all of its judgment (see John 5:24; Rev. 13:1–8, 11–17), but rather it is looking for Him to come.
“The hour of temptation” is definitely a reference to the Great Tribulation—it’s worldwide. After the preliminaries are put down in chapters 4–5, in chapters 6–19 you have presented the Great Tribulation Period. This is the period that He says is coming upon all the world to test those that are upon the earth.
“I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation.” He says that He will keep them not only from that awful holocaust that is coming on this earth, that period of judgment, but also from the hour of temptation. Therefore, this is to my judgment a complete deliverance. When He says, “keep thee from the hour,” I have translated it, “keep thee out of the hour of trial.” By any stretch of the imagination, you could not say that this church is going through the Great Tribulation Period. I believe that the period of the Philadelphian church continues right on through to the rapture of the church. This is the church which will go out at the time of the Rapture.
The church of Laodicea, as we shall see, is an organization which will continue on in the world, although the Lord gives a marvelous invitation to it, and many even in that Laodicean church will turn to Christ and be taken out at the time of the Rapture. But there is a church that goes through the Great Tribulation Period, and that is the apostate church, the church of Laodicea.
What we have here, therefore, is the coming of Christ to take His own out of the world and His promise to the church of Philadelphia that it will not go through that particular period that is coming on the earth.
I would like to give here another quotation from Dr. John Walvoord’s book, The Revelation of Jesus Christ:
If the rapture had occurred in the first century preceding the tribulation which the book of Revelation describes, they were assured of deliverance. By contrast, those sealed out of the twelve tribes of Israel in 7:4 clearly go through the time of trouble. This implies the rapture of the church before the time of trouble referred to as the great tribulation. Such a promise of deliverance to them would seemingly have been impossible if the rapture of the church were delayed until the end of the tribulation prior to the second coming of Christ and the establishment of the kingdom.
Christ says to the church—
Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown [Rev. 3:11].
“Behold, I come quickly.” “Quickly” does not mean soon. Rather, it has the idea of suddenness and an air of expectation; that is, He will come at a time they know not. It does not mean He is coming immediately, but His coming will be sudden. This is the promise that is the hope of the church. Actually, the church is not looking for the Great Tribulation Period. Nowhere are you told that you are to gird up your loins, grit your teeth, and clench your fists because the Great Tribulation is coming and you are certainly going through it! He never said that, but “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
Let me say again that the Philadelphian church represents the revived church, the church that has returned to the Word of God. It is this church that is to be raptured, His true church, and I do not think you can put them in any denomination or any local church. They are scattered throughout the world today, and you will find some of them belonging to some very funny organizations. I don’t understand that, but that is apparently none of my business; that is something they will have to straighten out with the Lord.
Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name [Rev. 3:12].
There are two pillars in Philadelphia today. One is that of the Byzantine church, which I do not think is the reference here. But there is also a pillar on the side of the hill, hidden among those cedar and laurel trees. That pillar is all that remains of the city of John’s day. “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God.” The church down here was destroyed, but the permanent pillar is up yonder.
“And I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.” This is the passport and visa of the believer which will enable him, as a citizen of heaven, to pass freely upon this earth or anywhere in God’s universe. He is a pillar to “go no more out,” but with God’s passport he is to go everywhere. Although this is paradoxical, it is all wonderfully and blessedly true.
“I will write upon him my new name.” This is His name. We do not have a new name; rather, He is saying that He has a new name for Himself that He will give to us. This new name is a personal relationship we will have with Him.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches [Rev. 3:13].
The Lord has a message that He gives to each one of these churches. It applied to that local church, but it also applies to us today.
CHRIST’S LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN LAODICEA
The letter of Christ to the church in Laodicea is the last of these seven letters. Sir William Ramsay calls Laodicea “the city of compromise.” This city was founded by Antiochus II (261-246 b.c.). It had a Seleucid foundation. Seleucus was one of the generals of Alexander who took Syria. Lysimachus took Asia Minor, but apparently Seleucus moved over into his territory and took some of his ground, including this city.
Laodicea was about forty miles east and inland from Ephesus on the Lycus River, which flows into the Maeander River. It is located at what is known as the “Gate of Phrygia.” Out of the Oriental East, the great camel caravans came down through the Gate of Phrygia and through Laodicea. This road came out of the East and went to Ephesus, to Miletus, and also up to what is called Izmir today but was Smyrna in that day. Laodicea was in a spectacular place, a great valley. Today its ruins are largely covered up with the growth of what looks like wild oats. Its name means “justice of the people.” It was named for Laodice, the wife of Antiochus. Although there were several cities which bore this name, this was the most famous one of all.
Between Laodicea and going on up to the Phrygian mountains, there was in this valley a great Anatolian temple of the Phrygian god, Men Karou. This was the primitive god of that area. The temple was the very center of all society, administration, trade, and religion. There was a great market there, and strangers came from everywhere to trade. I suppose that the large market in Istanbul today is very similar to it.
Laodicea was a place of great wealth, of commerce, and of Greek culture. It was a place of science and of literature. It boasted an excellent medical school which, again, was very primitive and actually very heathen. Here is where they developed what was known in the Roman world as Phrygian powder, a salve for the ears and the eyes. Laodicea was also a center of industry with extensive banking operations. Cicero held court here. It is said that he brought notes here to be cashed in this city. Jupiter, or Zeus, was the object of worship in Laodicea.
The city was finally abandoned because of earthquakes. The very impressive ruins of two Roman theaters, a large stadium, and three early Christian churches are still there. The city itself has not been excavated. In other words, these ruins which I have mentioned protrude through all the debris and wild growth that is there. I have heard that there is an American foundation which has set aside two to three million dollars to excavate Laodicea. I would love to join that excavation for it would be very worthwhile.
Laodicea was a place of great commerce where they made clothing. As you stand on the ruins of Laodicea, you can look around at the nearby hills and see where Colosse is located and also Hierapolis, where there are springs. The greatest ruins are not in Colosse or Laodicea but in Hierapolis. The hills have a very funny color. The people took the clay from those hills, put it with a spikenard, and made it into a salve for the eyes and ears. This salve was shipped all over the Roman Empire. Today the chemical analysis reveals that there is nothing healing in that clay at all, but somebody made good money at it in that day. We like to think we are civilized today, but there is a lot of medicine on the market that won’t do you a bit of good; yet we are buying it just as fast as we can because of high-pressure advertising. We had better not criticize these people too much—but the Lord Jesus did. He is going to tell them that they had better get the real eye salve that will open their eyes.
And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God [Rev. 3:14].
And to the messenger of the church in Laodicea write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.
This is the only place in Scripture where Amen is a proper name, and it is the name of Christ. In Isaiah 65:16 it should read, “the God of the amen.” In Isaiah 7:9 the word believe is amen. In 2 Corinthians 1:20 we read, “For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” The Lord Jesus is the Amen. He has the last word. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the One who is going to fulfill all the promises of God, and He lets the Laodiceans know this because this is the church that has rejected the deity of Christ. The word Amen is the only thing that He draws out of the vision of Himself that we had in the first chapter.
“The faithful and true witness.” This reveals that the Lord Jesus Christ alone is the One who will reveal all and tell all. This is the day when it is very difficult to hear the truth. We certainly don’t get it through the news media or from the government. Both our educational institutions and the military are great brain-washing institutions. Whom can you believe? Well, there is One who is the faithful and true witness even in the days of apostasy. You cannot believe the church in many instances today; the liberal church has no message for this hour.
“The beginning of the creation of God” means that He is the Creator. We live in a day when the myth of evolution, the evolutionary hypothesis, is that which is accepted. A college professor, a friend of mine, who has accepted the evolutionary hypothesis, said to me, “I want facts. I want science.” I said, “Wait a minute. There are not but two explanations for the origin of this universe in which you and I live. One is speculation, because nobody was there to see it and nobody is able to come up with the answer. The other is revelation—what the Word of God has to say. Very frankly, the difference between you and me is that you accept speculation and I accept revelation. As far as I am concerned, I feel that I am on more solid ground because I have the testimony of the One who did the creating, and He ought to know something about it.” The Lord Jesus is “the beginning of the creation of God.”
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth [Rev. 3:15–16].
With the other churches, when the Lord Jesus said, “I know thy works,” He meant good works; He was commending them for good works. But the Lord Jesus has no word of commendation for this church. All is condemnation here. Even the “works” here are not good works; they are evil works.
“That thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.” This had a background and a local meaning for the people in that day. Being down in the valley, they had difficulty getting water in Laodicea. As I stood there in the ruins, I looked south toward the Phrygian mountains, some of which are very high. I was there around the first of June, and there was still an abundance of snow on top of those mountains. The Laodiceans built an aqueduct to bring that cold water down from the mountains. When it left the mountains, it was ice cold, but by the time it made that trip all the way down the mountains to Laodicea, it was lukewarm. And lukewarm water is not very good.
Down in the valley where the Lycus River joins the Maeander River, there are hot springs. The springs are so hot that steam is produced. The Turkish government has capped it and is using it today, and I understand they intend to develop its use even more because it is there in abundance. It is the hottest water you can imagine; a lot of it is just steam. However, when they would take this hot water up to Laodicea, by the time it got there, it was no longer hot—it had become lukewarm water.
When the Lord Jesus said to the Laodicean church, “You are neither cold nor hot,” they knew exactly what He was talking about. They had been drinking lukewarm water for years. Water left the mountains ice cold, and it left the springs steaming hot, but when they got it, both were lukewarm, and it was sickening. We like to put a little ice in our water, and many folk drink hot water, but lukewarm water is just not good, my friend. The Lord Jesus said that this church was neither cold nor hot and He would spew it out of His mouth.
A cold church actually means a church that has denied every cardinal doctrine of the faith. It is given over to formality and is carrying on in active opposition to the Word of God and the gospel of Christ. You find today in liberalism that they are in active opposition to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Hot speaks of those with real spiritual fervor and passion like the Christians in Ephesus, although they were even then getting away from their best love. Oh, the Spirit of God had brought them to a high pitch in their personal relationship to Christ!
But the Laodicean church was neither hot nor cold—just lukewarm. Between those positions of hot and cold, you have this lukewarm state. I would say that this is a picture of many, many churches today in the great denominations that have departed from the faith. Many churches—both in and out of these denominations—attempt to maintain a middle-of-the-road position. They do not want to come out flatfootedly for the Word of God and for the great doctrines of the Christian faith. And at the same time, they do not want to be known as a liberal church. So they play footsie with both groups. I have broken fellowship with quite a few men who are extremists in both directions, some extreme fundamentalists and some extreme liberals. And many of these men attempt to play both sides of the street. That is a condition that is impossible. This is the thing that makes the Lord Jesus sick. He very frankly says that He will spew them out of His mouth.
To my judgment this middle-of-the-road position is the worst kind of hypocrisy there is. “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (v. 1). “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (2 Tim. 3:5).
In its beginning Protestantism assumed the position of believing all the great doctrines of the Christian faith. The creeds of all the great historic denominations are wonderful creeds. The Westminster Confession of Faith is unparalleled in my estimation, but it is now largely repudiated by the church that owned it for years. The Heidelberg Catechism is a marvelous confession, but who is following it? Who believes these wonderful creeds in our day? The churches have a form of godliness but are denying the power thereof. They have a name that they live, but they are dead. They are neither hot nor cold—they are lukewarm.
This is the condition of the church today, and unfortunately, it is the condition of a great many so-called fundamental, conservative churches. Thank God that there are many who do not come under this classification. But the thing that is absolutely startling and frightening and fearful is that He says, “I will spue thee out of my mouth.” In other words, “I will vomit you out of my mouth.” Does that sound to you like the church which He’s going to rapture, to whom He says, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2–3)? I don’t think so. That is the church He draws to Himself, but here is a church He just vomits out because it is lukewarm. Lukewarm water makes you sick at your stomach. I am of the opinion that if He spoke to a lot of churches today, He would say, “You make Me sick at My stomach. You’re professed Christians. You say you love Me. You say it, but you don’t mean it.”
This is a heart-searching message for this hour because we are living in the time of the Laodicean church and of the Philadelphian church. Both of them are side by side, and there is a great bifurcation in Christianity today. It is not in denominations, and it is not Romanism and Protestantism. The great bifurcation consists of those who believe the Word of God and follow it, love it, obey it, and those who reject it. That is the line of division today.
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked [Rev. 3:17].
Thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing; and thou dost not know that thou art the wretched one and miserable (the object of pity) and poor and blind and naked.
“Because thou sayest, I am rich.” The city of Laodicea was a rich city. I suppose that Laodicea and Sardis were probably two of the richest cities in that entire area at that particular time.
“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” They believed that the dollar was the answer to every problem of life. After World War II that was the assumption that the American government was run on. All we did was dole out dollars all over the world, thinking that we would buy friends, make peace, and settle the problems of the world. Very frankly, I believe that our nation has probably complicated the world more than anything else. We thought that all we had to do was to allocate money and we would solve the problems of the world. My friend, riches never solved any problem. This church in Laodicea tried it: “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”
The Laodicean church made its boast of material possessions. Conversely, the church in Smyrna was poor in material things. It was the church of slaves and poor folk. There were not many rich and not many noble in the early church. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:26, “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.”
The present-day church boasts of large membership, prominent people, huge attendance, generous giving, and ornate buildings. A phenomenal growth in Protestant congregations, 242,000 in 1970 to 78,900,152 in 1980 (according to the World Christian Encyclopedia) would indicate the possibility of a church on fire for God. And there are other indications: Wealth beyond the wildest dreams of our forefathers; mass evangelistic meetings attended by tens of thousands; and use of other mass media such as radio and literature increasing constantly.
Worldly wealth is the measuring rod for the modern church. Spiritual values have been lost sight of or are entirely ignored. The church as a whole is not only rich in earthly goods, but it actually is in the business of accumulating wealth. People are urged to make their wills in favor of so-called Christian organizations. Some radio and television programs and other professed Christian works are operated as promotional schemes to raise money to provide luxurious care for the promoters. My friend, you ought to check how the money you give to Christian work is being spent. When you write your will, I hope you will leave money for Christian work, but you ought to make sure that after you are gone, it is going to be spent for that which you intended.
On the spiritual side of the ledger, the Laodicean church is “the wretched one.” It is worse off than any of the seven churches. It is to be pitied because it is spiritually poverty-stricken. In it is no study of the Word, no love of Christ, and no witnessing of His saving grace; yet it is blind to its own true condition. It lacks the covering of the robe of righteousness.
A pastor in Arlington, Virginia, put this in his church bulletin some years ago. It is an “Open Letter to Jane Ordinary”—
Dear Jane:
I am writing to help you shake this feeling of uselessness that has overtaken you. Several times you’ve said that you don’t see how Christ can possibly use you. The church must bear part of the responsibility for making you feel as you do. I have in mind the success-story mentality of the church. Our church periodicals tell the story of John J. Moneybags who uses his influential position to witness for Christ. At the church youth banquet, we have a testimony from All-American football star, Ox Kickoffsky, who commands the respect of his teammates when he witnesses for Christ. We are led to think that if you don’t have the leverage of stardom or a big position in the business world, you might as well keep your mouth shut. Nobody cares what Christ has done for you.
We’ve forgotten an elementary fact about Christian witness, something that should encourage you: God has chosen what the world calls foolish to shame the wise. He has chosen what the world calls weak to shame the strong. He has chosen things of little strength and of small repute, yes, and even things which have no real existence to explode the pretensions of the things that are, that no man may boast in the presence of God.
When Jesus Christ chose His disciples, He didn’t choose Olympic champs or Roman senators. He chose simple people like you. Some were fishermen, one was a political extremist, another was a publican, a nobody in that society. But these men turned the Roman world upside down for Christ. How did they do it? Through their popularity? They had none. Their position? They had none. Their power was the power of Christ through the Holy Spirit.
Jane, don’t forget that we still need the ordinary in the hands of Christ to turn the world upside down.
In the church today we sing:
The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is His new creation by water and the word:
From heaven He came and sought her to be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her, and for her life He died.
“The Church’s One Foundation” —Samuel J. Stone
Yet the inscription on the cathedral in Lübeck, Germany, is still true:
Thus speaketh Christ our Lord to us:
Ye call Me Master and obey Me not.
Ye call Me Light and see Me not.
Ye call Me Way and walk Me not.
Ye call Me Life and choose Me not.
Ye call Me Wise and follow Me not.
Ye call Me Fair and love Me not.
Ye call Me Rich and ask Me not.
Ye call Me Eternal and seek Me not.
Ye call Me Noble and serve Me not.
Ye call Me Gracious and trust Me not.
Ye call Me Might and honor Me not.
Ye call Me Just and fear Me not.
If I condemn you, blame Me not.
This is the church in Laodicea. This is the church that Stanley High spoke of when he said:
The church has failed to tell me that I am a sinner. The church has failed to deal with me as a lost individual. The church has failed to offer me salvation in Jesus Christ alone. The church has failed to tell me of the horrible consequences of sin, the certainty of hell, and the fact that Jesus Christ alone can save. We need more of the last judgment and less of the Golden Rule, more of the living God and the living devil as well, more of a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. The church must bring me not a message of cultivation but of rebirth. I might fail that kind of church, but that kind of church will not fail me.
My friend, we are living in the Laodicean period today, and the church is failing to witness to the saving grace of God.
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see [Rev. 3:18].
“I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich”—this is the precious blood of Christ.
“And white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear”—this speaks of the righteousness of Christ.
“And anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see”—this speaks of the Holy Spirit who opens the eyes of believers today.
This admonition was very meaningful to the church at Laodicea. Sir William Ramsay has this very helpful comment in his excellent book, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia:
The Laodicean Church must also learn that it is blind, but yet not incurably blind. It is suffering from disease, and needs medical treatment. But the physicians of its famous medical school can do nothing for it. The tabloids which they prescribe, and which are now used all over the civilized world, to reduce to powder and smear on the eyes, will be useless for this kind of ophthalmia. The Laodiceans must buy the tabloid from the Author himself, at the price of suffering and steadfastness.
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent [Rev. 3:19].
This word zealous means “to be hot.” This is His last message to the church. He says, “Be zealous.” Be hot. Get on fire for God. He is ordering this church to forsake its lukewarm state, and He says, “Repent.” This church needs repentance more than all the others. And the message of repentance is for the contemporary church, but you will not be popular if you preach that, I can assure you. It is not too late even for those in this church to turn to Christ: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”
Beginning at verse 20 is a general invitation which goes out from the Lord Jesus at any time—
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me [Rev. 3:20].
This is a picture of the Lord Jesus at the heart’s door of the sinner. It is a glorious picture. The English artist, Holman Hunt, attempted to put this concept on canvas. He pictured Christ standing at a door. When he first painted the picture, he invited his artist friends to criticize. One of them said to him, “Holman, you have left off a very important part of the door. You left off the handle of the door.” Hunt replied, “This door is a picture of the human heart, and the handle of the door is on the inside.” This is the picture of Christ we have in Revelation. He stands at the door and knocks. He will not crash the door. Regardless of what some extremists say on this matter of election, the Lord Jesus has moved heaven and hell to get to the door of your heart, but when He gets there, He will stop and knock. You will have to open the door to let Him in.
“I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” This speaks of fellowship, of feeding on the Word of God, and of coming to know Jesus Christ better.
To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne [Rev. 3:21].
Again, I call attention to the fact that when the Lord Jesus speaks of His relationship with the Father, He always makes it unique. He says, “My Father.” He said, “… I ascend unto my Father …” (John 20:17, italics mine)—not our Father—because the relationship is always different with Him.
The Lord Jesus is preparing us for the next scene that will be coming up when He says, “and am set down with my Father in his throne.” This is the picture that we are going to see in the chapters which follow.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches [Rev. 3:22].
This is a special message from the Lord Jesus to all the churches for which you need the blood-tipped ear to hear. This is the reason that you and I must be very careful in our study of the Word of God, that we not run ahead of the Spirit of God, but that we let Him be our teacher. If you have a blood-tipped ear, He wants you to hear what He has to say. Only the Spirit of God can make the Word of God real to you.
This concludes the messages to these seven churches. These are “the things which are,” and they have been very important. I have spent a lot of time with these seven churches because they relate to the period in which we live and to our crowd. If we are a member of His church, we are also a member of His body, a part of that great company, beginning with the Day of Pentecost and coming down to the present hour, who have trusted the Lord Jesus as their Savior.
We have seen these seven churches blocked off into very definite periods of time, and they are largely fulfilled. I believe that we are in the period of the last two churches. As we have said before, there is a bifurcation in the organized, visible church today. There is that church, represented by the Laodicean church, which is moving farther and farther into the apostasy, and there is also that church which is staying by the Word of God, the church represented by the Philadelphian church. This is the church which will be raptured. The other church has a tremendous organization, including all the denominations, all those which profess to be Christian churches but which have long since departed from the Word of God and from the person of Christ. This is the division that exists in the church. One church will be raptured; the other will go into the Great Tribulation Period.
There has been a message for each of these churches. Personally, I enjoy going through these messages since I have now made several trips to the churches in Turkey, that is, Asia Minor. I have visited the ruins of all seven of these churches at least twice and some of them as many as four or five times. As we have come to each church, I can see the ruins before my eyes, and I can visualize the local situation. The Lord Jesus spoke to that local situation, and He was also blocking off all of church history because these are seven representative churches which cover the complete period of the church while it is here on the earth. And there is also a message in each of these for you and for me today.
To the church at Ephesus, there was a warning given that is also for us today. It was a warning of the danger of getting away from the best love, that is, getting away from a personal and loving relationship with Jesus Christ. The real test of any believer, especially those who are attempting to serve Him, is not your little method or mode or system or your dedication or any of the things that are so often emphasized today. The one question is: Do you love Him? Do you love the Lord Jesus? When you love Him, you will be in a right relationship with Him, but when you begin to depart from the person of Christ, it will finally lead to lukewarmness. The apostate church was guilty of lukewarmness. It may not seem to be too bad, but it is the worst condition that anyone can be in. A great preacher in upper New York state said: “Twenty lukewarm Christians hurt the cause of Christ more than one blatant atheist.” A lukewarm church is a disgrace to Christ.
The Lord Jesus told the church in Smyrna not to fear suffering. Believe me, that is one thing that we in the church are frightened of today. We do not want to pay a price for serving the Lord Jesus, and yet that is His method.
To the church in Pergamum He said, “But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam …. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate” (Rev. 2:14–15). There is a grave danger in wrong doctrine today, and that was the thing that was wrong in the church in Pergamum.
To the church in Thyatira He said, “Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols” (Rev. 2:20). The “new morality” is a grave danger for many today. Some folk think they can accept Christ and then live on a low plane. You will not get by with it, my friend, if you are His child.
In the church in Sardis, the Protestant church, there was the danger of spiritual deadness. He said, “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (v. 1). What about your church, brother? Is it alive? Are you alive? Or are you dead in a dead church today? Many folk are in that condition, and yet they talk about holding the historic doctrines of the faith. But, my friend, the glaring defect in Protestantism today is deadness. And that is the worst thing of all.
The church in Philadelphia was not in any grave danger. The Lord Jesus does not condemn that church at all, but He does say, “Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown” (v. 11). What was it they had? He had commended them because they had kept His Word. We, too, need to be careful about this. As I look back now over the years of my ministry, I see men who started out true to the faith, many of them much stronger men than I was, men who defended the Word of God in a way that I did not in those early days, but they have now departed from the faith. I am amazed at that, but that is a grave danger even in the church in Philadelphia today. Nothing should deter us at all from keeping His Word.
To the church in Laodicea the Lord Jesus said, “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (v. 16). This is the apostate church which professes to be Christian but lacks reality. But even to this church He issues a final call to repentance and an invitation to come to Himself.
CHAPTER 4
Theme: The church in heaven with Christ
We have seen the history of the church in the seven churches of chapters 2–3, but as we come to chapter 4, the question naturally arises: What has happened to the church? From chapter 4 through the rest of the Book of Revelation, there is no mention of the church except when you get to the invitation at the end, which is a general invitation and hasn’t anything to do with the chronology of the book. From here on you will not find the word church mentioned. Up to this point, the word church has occurred again and again, in fact nineteen times. But now the church goes off the air—there is no mention of it. It has gone off the air because it went up in the air; it was caught up in the air to meet the Lord in the air. The church has gone to heaven—that is what has happened to it. The Rapture takes place during the Philadelphian period, and the so-called church which continues on the earth is just an organization. It will go through the Great Tribulation Period, and we are finally going to hear it called a great harlot—what a frightful designation! Actually, the most frightful picture in the Bible is the seventeenth chapter of Revelation. Are we going to see the church again? Yes, but she is no longer a church; she is a bride—a bride adorned for her Husband.
Chapters 4–22 comprise the final major division of this very wonderful book. John was given the division of this book, and he passed it on to us. We ought not to miss it, for He said in chapter 1, verse 19, “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter”—that is, meta tauta, meaning “after these things.” “Things which must be hereafter” of verse 1 corresponds to “the things which shall be hereafter” of chapter 1, verse 19. Both are meta tauta in the Greek, indicating a change from this to an entirely different scene and subject.
Several striking facts make it self-evident that we advance to a new division beginning with chapter 4. The climate and conditions change radically:
1. The church is no longer seen in the world, although up to chapter 4, there have been nineteen references to the church in the world. In fact, the subject of chapters 2–3 has been entirely devoted to the church in the world. However, from chapter 4 to the end of the Revelation the church is never mentioned in connection with the world. The final and lone reference is a concluding testimony after the world’s little day has ended (see Rev. 22:16). Christ said of His own, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:16). He also said to His own men, “… I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:3).
2. The scene definitely shifts to heaven in chapter 4. Since the church is still the subject, we follow it now to its new home—heaven. How did the church get to heaven? This is a good question, and Paul gives the answer: “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17). He defines the operation in 1 Corinthians 15:51–52: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
Faith places the sinner on the launching pad, in the guided missile of the church, from whence he shall go to meet the Lord in the air. The saints enter the opened door to heaven. The church is with Christ, and Christ is in heaven, directing the events of the Great Tribulation Period that we are going to see when we get to chapter 6.
3. The church is not a name but a definition of those who have trusted Christ in this age. This is something which we need to get fixed in our minds because our thinking on this today is often muddled. The word church is ekklesia in the Greek; kaleoµ means “to call,” and ek means “out of.” Therefore, ekklesia means “a group of people called out of the world.”
When the church arrives at its destination in heaven, it loses the name by which it was known in the world and other terms are used to describe it. We are going to see it in chapter 4 as twenty-four elders, representatives of the church in heaven. We are also going to see the church in heaven as a bride, coming down to her new home, the New Jerusalem.
The apostate organization, which bears the ecclesiastical terminology and continues on in the world, is not hereafter given the title of “church” either, but the frightful label of “the harlot.” The late Dr. George Gill said years ago in a seminary class, “There are going to be some churches which will meet the next Sunday after the Rapture, and they won’t be missing a member—they will all be there.” Why? Because it is the church of Laodicea—that is, it professes to be Christian but lacks reality.
4. The judgments beginning at chapter 6 would not be in harmony with the gracious provision and promise that God has made to the church. If the church remained in the world, it would frustrate the grace of God because He has promised to deliver us from judgment.
5. Finally, to continue from chapter 3 to chapter 4 without recognizing the break is to ignore the normal and natural division in the book as stated in chapter 1, verse 19.
As we enter this last division of the book with all of its judgment and wrath, it is well to keep in our perspective that Jesus Christ is central. He is directing all events as He brings them to a successful but determined conclusion. There is “in the midst of the throne … a Lamb” (Rev. 7:17). He is a Lamb because He died for the sins of the world. And He is the One who is going to judge.
After these things, after the church things have concluded, the scene shifts from earth to heaven. It is a radical change. However, the Word of God describes personages and activities in heaven as normally as it described them on earth. There is no strain or involvement in superstition or mystery. The bridge over thegreat gulf is passed with ease and a reverent restraint. Only the Holy Spirit could describe things in heaven with as much ease as He describes things on the earth. What would have happened if a man had written this book? You know that the minute he got to the heavenly scene, he would have the wildest sort of things to say. How do I know that? Well, read the books that are out today which try to describe the overworld and the underworld and the unseen world. They are always rather startling and amazing. In fact, the use of this approach is one way that we can know a book is false. There is an awful obsession today, even among some Christians, with the subject of demons and of the Devil. I have no truck with that outfit at all. I have often been asked why I haven’t written a book on this subject. Frankly, at first I thought I would, but when so many books started coming out, all as wild as a March Hare and all dealing with the sensational, I changed my mind. You don’t have the sensational here in Revelation. We simply move to heaven, and the scene is awe inspiring, but it lacks that which man would put in.
The church is not seen under the familiar name it had in the world, but is now the priesthood of believers with the Great High Priest. Heavenly scenes and creatures greet us in this section (chs. 4–5) before our attention is drawn to the earth where, at the opening of the Great Tribulation, the four horsemen are to ride.
THE THRONE OF GOD
Christ is viewed here in His threefold office of Prophet, Priest, and King. He is worshiped as God because He is God.
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter [Rev. 4:1].
Here is my translation of this first verse:
After these things [Gr.: meta tauta] I saw, and behold a door set open in heaven; and the first voice which I heard, a voice as of a trumpet speaking with me and saying, Come up hither, and I will show thee the things which must come to pass after these things [meta tauta].
“After these things” (meta tauta) is used twice here; it both opens and closes the verse. This repetition certainly lends great emphasis and importance to the phrase. Apparently, John was afraid the amillennialists would miss it; so he used it twice in this particular place.
“I saw”—that is the eye-gate. “I heard”—that is the ear-gate. This is like a television program which we are looking at. This is the first great television program. We have had a wonderful treat in our day to view a television program from the moon, but that is nothing in comparison—here is a television program from heaven! This ought to interest believers a great deal and not cause us to take off like a skyrocket into some wild sort of dreamy stuff Heaven is a real place. There is a lot of reality there, and we ought not to get uptight over this scene that is now before us. We need to handle it in a normal way, but I admit that I cannot help but get excited about it all.
“I saw, and behold a door set open in heaven.” This is one of the four open doors in the Book of Revelation:
1. In chapter 3, verse 8, speaking to the church in Philadelphia, the Lord Jesus says, “I have set before thee an open door.” It seems that this refers to a door of opportunity for giving out the Word of God.
2. The open door of invitation and identification with Christ is in chapter 3, verse 20: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” That door is the door to your heart.
3. We have an open door here in verse 1, which is the way to God through Christ, as we shall see.
4. In chapter 19, verse 11, we see a door opened in heaven again. That is the open door through which Christ will come at His second coming. He comes out at the end of the Great Tribulation to put down all of the unrighteousness and rebellion against God and to establish His kingdom.
John did not see this door opening as the Authorized Version of verse I suggests. This door was open all the time. It is the door through which believers have come to God for over nineteen hundred years. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). He also said, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture” (John 10:9). The open door to heaven is the Lord Jesus Christ. He also is the One who will come to the door of your heart—that is the wonder and glory of it all.
We enter by faith. In modern terminology, we might express it thus: faith puts us on the launching pad of the church, which is Christ, and at the Rapture we go through this door like a guided missile. It is not just shot out into space going nowhere, but if man can hit the target of the moon, I do not think the Lord Jesus will have any trouble getting His church into heaven.
“Come up hither” is heaven’s invitation to John, and it is an invitation to all of the fellowship that know Christ as Savior. John wrote in 1 John 1:3: “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”
John is saying in effect, “We heard it, we saw it, and we declare it unto you. I am letting you know this so that you can have fellowship also, and one of these days you will be going up through that open door.”
“And the first voice which I heard, a voice as of a trumpet speaking with me.” This is the sound which calls the church to meet Christ in the air. And whose voice is it? It is the voice of Christ. This introduces us to one of the simple symbols which occurs frequently from here on in the Revelation. That it is a symbol is evident—a trumpet does not speak. Jazz devotees describe the trumpet playing of certain musicians by saying that their trumpets “talk.” When jazz addicts say that, they are just using a symbol. A trumpet never talks. The voice of Christ is like a trumpet, and this is the voice that Paul wrote of in 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
This is a definite statement concerning the Rapture. When anyone tells you that the word rapture is not in the Bible, remember that the Greek word for “caught up” is harpazoµ; it means “caught up, raptured, or snatched up.” Hal Lindsey calls the Rapture “the great snatch.” I guess that is good vocabulary for young people today, but I prefer the term “caught up,” and it means rapture. If you don’t like the word rapture, then call it harpazoµ. That’s what Paul called it. We are to be caught up, and His voice will be like a trumpet. It pulled John up, and someday it will pull you and me up.
“Come up hither, and I will shew thee the things which must come to pass after these things.” After what things? After the church has completed its earthly ran and is caught up.
And immediately I was in the spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne [Rev. 4:2].
At once (straightway) I found myself in the Spirit: and behold, a throne set in heaven, and one sitting on the throne.
“At once (straightway)” denotes the brevity of time, which is one of the characteristics of the Rapture. Paul said that we are to be caught up “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (see 1 Cor. 15:51–52). A twinkling of an eye is pretty brief Some psychologist has measured it. He considered the twinkling of an eye to be, not the going down of the eyelid, but the going up of the eyelid—that is reducing it to a fine point! But he determined that it is 1/1000 of a second. That is how quick the Rapture is going to be—immediately, straightway, at once.
“I found myself in the Spirit,” In other words, the Holy Spirit is still guiding John into new truth and is showing him things to come (see John 16:13).
“And, behold, a throne set in heaven, and one sitting on the throne.” The throne was already there, but John now sees it for the first time. Our attention is now directed to the center of attraction. The throne represents the universal sovereignty and rulership of God. It means that He is in control. The general headquarters of this universe is in heaven, not in Washington, D.C., or London or Moscow or any other place down here. This is the picture that we are given in the Word of God. We read in Psalm 11:4, “The Lord is in his, holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men” (see also Ps. 47:8; 97:2; 103:19; Ezek. 1:26–28). It is the throne of God the Father, and Jesus sits at His right hand. Psalm 110:1 tells us, “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my tight hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (see also Heb. 1:3; 12:2). The Lord Jesus is in charge of all events here.
The throne of grace now becomes a throne of judgment. This is another reason that I say very definitely that the church is gone from the world when this takes place. If the church were still on the earth when Christ has left the place of intercession and has come to the place of judgment, He is in the wrong place for the church.
And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald [Rev. 4:3].
All that we see here is color, beautiful color like precious stones. We do not get a picture of God at all—He never has been photographed. Our attention is directed to the One who is seated on the throne. Although He is God the Father, we should understand this to be the throne of the triune God. Nevertheless, the three persons of the Trinity are distinguished: (1) God the Holy Spirit in verses 2 and 5; (2) God the Father here in verse 3; and (3) God the Son in verse 5 of chapter 5. What we have before us here is the Trinity upon the throne.
John could distinguish no form of a person on the throne, only the brilliance and brightness of precious stones.
“And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper.” The jasper stone was the last stone identified in the breastplate of the high priest (see Exod. 28:20). It was first in the foundation of the New Jerusalem and also the first seen in the wall of the New Jerusalem (see Rev. 21:18–19). It was a many-colored stone with purple predominating. Some identify it with a diamond. It was in the breastplate of the high priest of Israel, representing little Benjamin whom Jacob called “the son of my right hand.” Perhaps this speaks of Christ as He ascended and took His place at the right hand of the Father.
The “sardine stone” is the sixth stone in the foundation of the New Jerusalem (see Rev. 21:20). Pliny says it was discovered in Sardis from which it derived its name. In color it was a fiery red. The sardine stone was the first stone in the breastplate of the high priest, representing the tribe of Reuben, the first-born of Jacob. And Christ is the Son of God, the firstborn from the dead.
“Rainbow” is the Greek word iris, which can also mean “halo.” While the rainbow is polychrome, here it is emerald, which is green (see Ezek. 1:28). After the judgment of the Flood, the rainbow appeared as a reminder of God’s covenant not to destroy the earth again with a flood (see Gen. 9:13–15). It appears here before the judgment of the Great Tribulation as a reminder that a flood will not be used in judgment. Green is the color of the earth. The suggestion here is that of the prophet Habakkuk: “… in wrath remember mercy” (Hab. 3:2)—and God will do that.
THE TWENTY-FOUR ELDERS
And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold [Rev. 4:4].
There has been a great deal of speculation as to who these elders are. The Greek word for “elders” is presbuteros. By the way, the word presbyterian comes from that, and I am reminded of the story about the little girl who came home from her Presbyterian Sunday school, and her mother asked her what they had talked about. “We talked about heaven,” the little girl replied. “Well, what did they say about it?” her mother asked. “The teacher said that there were only twenty-four Presbyterians there!”
Seriously, elders were representatives. We know that Israel had elders and that elders were appointed in the early churches to rule and to represent the entire church (see Titus 1:5). Their role was clearly understood by the people in John’s day. These twenty-four elders stand for the total church from Pentecost to the Rapture. Therefore, I can say categorically and dogmatically that here is the church in heaven.
“White raiment” is the righteousness of Christ (see 2 Cor. 5:21).
“Crowns of gold” indicates that the church will rule with Christ (see 1 Cor. 6:3). Crowns are also given as rewards (see 2 Tim. 4:8; James 1:12; 1 Pet. 5:4) when the bema judgment, the judgment seat of Christ, takes place.
And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God [Rev. 4:5].
The tense here is the present tense; it should be proceed, not proceeded. It is taking place right there and then.
“Lightnings and thunderings” always precede a storm in the Midwest and generally indicate the intensity of the storm. I think that the meaning here is that judgment is coming.
“And voices” indicates that it is not a haphazard judgment, but it is directed by the One on the throne.
“The seven Spirits of God” is a clear reference to the Holy Spirit.
THE FOUR LIVING CREATURES
And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind [Rev. 4:6].
“A sea of glass” denotes its appearance and not the material of which it is made. This sea is before the throne of God and is another indication that the emphasis is not on mercy but on judgment. This sea represents the holiness and righteousness of God (see Matt. 5:8; Heb. 12:14).
We are told in 1 Thessalonians 3:13, “To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” This placid sea indicates the position of rest to which the church has come. No longer is she the victim of the storms of life. No longer is she out there on the tossing sea.
“Four beasts” are literally “four living creatures.” The Greek word is zoµa, from which we get our English word zoo. It doesn’t mean a wild beast as we might think. We will have a wild beast when we get to chapter 13, but that is a different word and a different type of beast. This is just a living creature. The emphasis is not upon the bestial, but upon the vital, upon the fact that they are living.
“Four beasts full of eyes before and behind.” This speaks of their alertness and awareness. They resemble both the cherubim of Ezekiel 1:5–10; 10:20; and the seraphim of Isaiah 6:2–3.
And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle [Rev. 4:7].
I agree with those who identify each of these living creatures with the gospel which it represents, and I believe this is accurate, although such an application is questioned a great deal.
“The first living creature was like a lion,” and the first Gospel represents the Lord Jesus as the King. He was born a King, He lived a King, He died a King, He was raised a King, and He is coming again as a King. Everything He does in the Gospel of Matthew He does as the King. Remember that God said that the tribe of Judah was like a lion, that the King, the Ruler, would come from that tribe, and that the scepter would not depart from Judah until Shiloh came (see Gen. 49:9–10; Rev. 5:5).
“The second living creature like a calf [ox].” This is the beast of burden, the servant animal domesticated. In the Gospel of Mark, Christ is presented as the Servant. There is no genealogy given in this gospel. If you hire someone to mow your lawn or to wash your dishes, you do not ask him who his papa and mama are. What difference does it make? You want to know whether or not he can do the job. The Gospel of Mark presents Christ as the Servant.
“The third living creature had a face as a man.” The third Gospel, the Gospel of Luke, presents the Lord Jesus as the Son of Man. It is His humanity that is emphasized.
“The fourth living creature was like a flying eagle.” He communicates the deity of Christ as seen in the Gospel of John.
These living creatures also represent the animal world, as suggested by Godet. The lion represents wild beasts, the calf represents domesticated beasts, the eagle represents birds, and man is the head of all creation. Note that there is no mention of fish. In the new heaven and the new earth, there will be no more sea, and since there is no sea, you will not need any fish. Nor will there be reptiles. The serpent will not be there to introduce sin as he did at the beginning.
And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come [Rev. 4:8].
These six wings correspond to the seraphim of Isaiah 6:2.
Instead of had, it should be having—this is the present tense. This is where the action is, and this is talking place.
That which they say repeatedly is, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.” This is the same refrain as that of the seraphim in Isaiah 6:3.
“Which was, and is, and is to come” refers to Christ. He identified Himself at the very beginning of this book in just that way: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8). He is identified for us, and therefore we do not need to speculate in places like this.
And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever,
The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created [Rev. 4:9–11].
This is the first great worship scene which we see in heaven.
When should be whensoever, indicating that this is a continual act of worship. In other words, praise and adoration are the eternal activity of God’s creatures in heaven. The creature worships the Creator as the triune God: “Holy, holy, holy.” Worship is the activity of heaven.
I have a sermon which I have not preached in quite some while, which is entitled, “Why Do You Want to Go to Heaven?” Many people say that not everybody who is talking about heaven is going to heaven. The better question is, Why do you want to go to heaven? Is the idea to miss hell? I myself do not think that to be an unworthy motive, but may I say to you that if you go to heaven, you are going to find yourself either getting down on your face or getting up, worshiping the triune God and especially the Lord Jesus Christ. If you find worship boring down here and you are not interested in worshiping the Lord Jesus and expressing your heart’s desire to Him, why in the world do you want to go to heaven? We are going to spend a lot of time up there worshiping Him.
“And cast their crowns before the throne.” The crowns of the church are laid at Jesus’ feet as an act of submission and worship. Many people talk of there being a crown for them over there. Frankly, if we get a crown at all, I think that after we wear it for awhile and the newness wears off, we are going to feel embarrassed. What in the world are we doing wearing a crown? The only One worthy up there is the Lord Jesus. Therefore, we are going to lay our crown at His feet.
“For thou hast created all things.” Dr. Walvoord, in his very excellent book, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, calls attention to something here that I think is important. The living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne. They worship Him for His attributes, because He is who He is. However, the four and twenty elders who represent the church worship Him not only because of His attributes but also because of what He has done. Here they worship Him as Creator—“thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” In other words, the church comes out of this little earth which is God’s creation, and they join in the worship because He created this earth down here. Genesis 1:1 is accurate, and the church believes it.
“And for thy pleasure they are and were created.” “For thy pleasure” is more accurately translated “because of thy will.” The reason that God created this earth and that things are as they are is because it was in His plan and purpose. I do not understand a great deal of what He is doing, and I do not understand a great deal about this universe in which I live, but I do know that it is created this way because this is the way He wanted it. He is in charge, and we are to worship Him because He created this little earth. I am glad that He did, and I am glad that He created me. He could have forgotten all about me, but I am glad that I was in the plan and purpose of God. We worship Him because of that.
CHAPTER 5
Theme: The church in heaven with Christ—continued
Chapter 5 continues this scene of the church in heaven with Christ. I think it is well for us to spend a little time here to get acquainted with where we are going. I am sure that you would not buy real estate in Florida without seeing it first, although I had an uncle who did just that. After he went down and saw it, he reported that he had some of the finest alligators that he had ever seen—all of his property was under water! He had bought it sight unseen. We have a lot of uninhabitable desert here in California, and even in the Hawaiian Islands there are great areas of nothing but a lava bed. You had better know what you are buying. Therefore, if you are going to heaven, you will want to know something about where you are going, and that is the reason this chapter ought to be interesting to you.
In chapters 4–5 we find that the church (the body of believers) is in heaven with Christ. The Lord Jesus said to his disciples, “… I go to prepare a place for you…. that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2–3). We are going to be with Him.
The scene of chapter 5 is set in heaven, preparatory to the events of the Great Tribulation. Since the church is in heaven with Him, it surely could not go through the Great Tribulation down here on the earth. The throne was the center of chapter 4. The Lion and the Lamb, both of whom represent Christ, are the center of chapter 5. Christ is the Lamb on the throne. He is both Sovereign and Savior. He is in full charge of all the events which follow in this book. Let us not lose sight of Him.
THE BOOK WITH SEVEN SEALS
This chapter opens with and, a connective, a little conjunction, which indicates that something went before. It is the string that ties us back to chapter 4. Actually, we don’t need a chapter division here because it is all the same subject.
And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals [Rev. 5:1].
Here is my translation of this verse:
And I saw on the right hand of Him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the back, close sealed (sealed tightly) with seven seals.
“I saw”—John is the witness of these events; this is something that he sees. Someone pointed out to me in a letter sometime ago that I have the habit of saying, “Isn’t this a wonderful picture?” or, “Isn’t that a picture for you?” I wasn’t aware that I use that expression as I teach, but I guess I do. I think that we ought to bring all our senses to bear upon the Word of God and especially in studying Revelation. John is seeing, and he is hearing. This is the reason that I frequently use slides to illustrate my sermons. I receive some criticism for that, but may I say to you, we need to see and to hear a lot of things to aid our understanding of the Scriptures. The Word of God should grasp and lay hold of all of our senses, even of our taste and smell. For example, there are certain scenes in Revelation where you can smell the fire and brimstone.
God the Father holds here in His hand a scroll which is rolled tightly and sealed closely with seven seals. Stauffer is the one who calls our attention to the fact that the Roman law required that a will be sealed seven times, as illustrated in the wills left by Augustus and Vespasian. While it is interesting that this method was used, we know that in the Book of Revelation the number seven is not just an accidental number and that it wasn’t used only because they used it in the Roman Empire.
Godet considers this scroll to be “the book of the new covenant.” Others label it “the book of judgment.” Walter Scott considered it “the revelation of God’s purpose and counsel concerning the world.” It perhaps should bear no title because it is, as Dr. Harry Ironside has suggested, the title deed to this world. You will remember that when the children of Israel were going into captivity, Jeremiah was instructed to have his servant go and buy some property and to get the title deed to it, because God promised that Israel was going to be returned to the land (see Jer. 32:6–15).
Who holds the title deed to this earth down here? It is none other than the Lord Jesus; He alone has it. In Daniel 7:13–14 we read: “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.”
This suggests, I believe, that what is being handed over to the Lord Jesus (we will see it handed over to Him) is the title deed to this world in which you and I live. He created it, He redeemed it, and it belongs to Him.
In Zechariah, which is a book that you need to know in order to know Revelation, we read: “Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll. And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I answered, I see a flying roll; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof is ten cubits. Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it” (Zech. 5:1–3).
This flying roll is the same thing as the scroll here in Revelation. Some think that the Ten Commandments are on this roll and that the world is to be judged by those commandments. I am not sure that that is it. Many suggestions have been made in an attempt to identify this book, but this is one place where we cannot be dogmatic.
The suggestion, which I consider to be more in line than any other, is that this book represents God’s new covenant with Israel. God talks about this covenant a great deal. In Jeremiah we read, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah…. I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer. 31:31, 33). Paul writes in Romans: “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins” (Rom. 11:26–27).
In Hebrews we find these words: “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them” (Heb. 10:16). This is what Jeremiah had spoken of. The writer to the Hebrews continues: “And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin” (Heb. 10:17–18).
The old covenant which God had made with Israel depended upon man. The Ten Commandments said, “Don’t, don’t, don’t.” It depended upon the weak arm of the flesh, and as a result, it failed. This was not because there was anything wrong with the Ten Commandments or with the Law that God gave. The problem was with man. The same thing occurred in the Garden of Eden. Many people think that there was something wrong with the forbidden fruit or that the tree was something unusual. I think it was good fruit and just like any other. The problem was not the fruit on the tree but the pear (pair) on the ground! This New Covenant depends upon the power of the throne of God; it depends upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof [Rev. 5:2].
Who has the right and title to this world? Who can rule it? Who can establish justice and righteousness? Do you think that maybe the Democrats can do it? Do you think that the Republicans can do it? Do you think that any administration can do it? Do you think the United Nations can do it? I trust that you are not so deluded at this late time in the history of the world that you believe that man can solve his own problems. The Word of God makes it very clear that he cannot.
“A strong angel” means a powerful angel. He has “a loud voice.” This is speaking now of power, that which is needed to make this covenant effective.
And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon [Rev. 5:3].
No man of Adam’s line has a right to open the book and to take charge of this earth. There have been a great many who have tried to do it. Adam lost dominion through sin. Moses was the lawgiver, but he was also a lawbreaker. David and his line failed. None of Adam’s line qualifies. There is none today. The Ruler must be a Redeemer, the Sovereign must be a Savior of mankind, and Jesus Christ is the only One. Stand aside, Adam, you cannot do it, and neither can any of your children. Satan is working at it, but he cannot do it either. The question is: Who is going to be able to do it?
And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon [Rev. 5:4].
John is disturbed by this a great deal. This man had a real passion for prophecy. He had a holy affection and a pious curiosity. He wanted to look into the things that even angels cannot look into. John enters into the drama because he has come from earth. The Revelation was written in tears. Is the earth to continue in sin and sorrow? Is there no future for the earth? Listen to what Paul has to say: “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Rom. 8:23).
Is no one competent to rule this earth? John is overwhelmed by the possibility that there may be no one. Again Paul writes: “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Rom. 8:22).
Personally, I believe that evolution is the most pessimistic philosophy and theory that anyone can entertain today. No wonder it has led to so many suicides among the intelligentsia. What hope is there for the future if it took millions of years to get to where we are today? Isn’t there someone who can straighten out this problem? It is so petty and little and narrow-minded for politicians to say that they are going to make peace in our time. It is even more tragic to hear the church say that they can straighten out the affairs of the world or even that they can evangelize the world. My brother, may I say to you, there are just not any around who can qualify to open this book and to take charge of this earth that we are on. And John weeps a great deal because of this.
It is a good thing that this book was not opened here in Southern California because we have a whole passel of preachers who say that they can tell you what is on the inside of this book, on the outside, and all around it. They can even tell you what’s on the cover! They have all the answers. If John had just been in California, instead of being on the island of Patmos, they could have given him the answers! Well, John didn’t have the answer, but there will be One who can open the book, as we shall see.
CHRIST, THE LION AND THE LAMB
And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof [Rev. 5:5].
And one from among the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath overcome to open the book, and the seven seals thereof.
Evidently, any one of the elders could have answered. They had spiritual illumination. I think that this further identifies them as the church because the Lord Jesus had said to His own: “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you” (John 15:15).
The Lord Jesus Christ is the only One who has the right and title to this earth. He not only redeemed you and me, but He also redeemed the earth. He is identified in this section in all His ministries that relate to the earth.
“The Lion of the tribe of Juda” identffies Him, of course, with the tribe of Judah of the people of Israel. When old Jacob was dying, he called his twelve sons around him, and this is the prophecy he gave concerning Judah: “Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be” (Gen. 49:9–10). The Lord Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He is also “the Root of David.” In 2 Samuel 7, that great chapter of God’s covenant with David, He says, “I am going to bring One in your line who shall rule, not only over these people, but over the whole earth.” The Lord Jesus Christ has the right to rule, as He is the fulfillment of the prophecies made in the Old Testament relative to the future of the world. All of those prophecies will be fulfilled at His second coming to the earth to establish His kingdom.
And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth [Rev. 5:6].
John is still a spectator to this scene. He says, “I beheld, I saw this.”
“A Lamb”—the word there is in the diminutive; literally, it means a little lamb. This denotes its gentleness and its willingness to be sacrificed. Christ was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and He did not open His mouth at all (see Isa. 53:7). He was the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world (see John 1:29).
“As it had been slain” indicates the redemptive and vicarious, substitutionary death of Christ. The emphasis is upon the fact that He was slain with violence.
“Stood” should rather be “standing.” This speaks of His resurrection. He is no longer seated at the right hand of God. He is moving now, and He is moving to power. He is coming to this earth. The judgment of the Tribulation is about to strike the earth. The winds are already blowing on the earth.
“In the midst of the throne” is indicative of the fact that He is before the throne and ready to act as the righteous Judge.
“Seven horns” denotes complete power. A horn speaks of power (see Dan. 7–8). He is omnipotent. “Seven eyes” denotes complete knowledge. Christ is omniscient. He is the omnipotent and omniscient God. He moves in the fullness of the Spirit, who is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding.
The Lord Jesus Christ is a Lion and a Lamb. The lion character refers to His second coming; the lamb character refers to His first coming. The lion is symbolic of His majesty; the lamb is symbolic of His meekness. As a lion He is a Sovereign; as a lamb He is a Savior. As a lion He is a Judge; as a lamb He is judged. The lion represents the government of God; the lamb represents the grace of God.
And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne [Rev. 5:7].
“Took” is correctly “hath taken.” The Lord Jesus moves to the throne through the Tribulation Period. He judges the world in righteousness before He reigns in righteousness. He is no longer the intercessor of the church, for the church is now with Him. He is beginning to act as Judge. The movement here is important.
And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints [Rev. 5:8].
“When he had taken [took] the book” is in the aorist tense, meaning completed action. This is the great movement of all creation, and the Lord Jesus takes over now.
Notice the worship of the Lamb by the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders. “Harps” denote praise. The elders do not play on the harps; they are just a token of praise to God. I am so glad to have found out that I am not going to be an angel playing on a harp in heaven—that just doesn’t appeal to me! You may want a harp, and if you want one, I guess in heaven they will get one for you, but I am thankful that I don’t have to have one.
The twenty-four elders act as priests. Only the church is a priesthood of believers in heaven. Dr. Carl Armerding gives the arresting thought that the prayer of Christ for believers in John 17 is answered in the elders: our Lord’s prayer that they might know Him, that they might be with Him, and that they might behold His glory is all answered in this scene of the elders in heaven.
The “vials full of odours” is more accurately “bowls full of incense.” These are identified as “the prayers of saints.” Obviously, the elders represent the body of Christ, which is called the church and they are the priesthood.
And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;
And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth [Rev. 5:9–10].
And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy art thou to take the book and to open the seals of it: for thou wast slain and didst purchase unto God in thy blood [men] of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, and madest them unto our God a kingdom and priests, and they shall reign on the earth.
“They” indicates that both the living creatures and the elders sing this song. The angelic hosts join the church in praise.
“Sing” (present tense) denotes the continuation of praise. Praise is directed to the Lamb with the book. He is praised now as the Redeemer of men in all ages and races. In heaven is going to be the first time that I will sing. I have never been able to sing, but I am going to be in that chorus, and I am going to sing praises unto Him.
The “new song” is the song of redemption. The old song is the song of creation. In the Book of Job we are told that the sons of God sang. They were singing because God was the Creator; they didn’t really know anything about the love of God then. Now we can sing about our Savior who loves us and who gave Himself for us. What a picture we have here!
“Worthy” reveals that He now fills the entire horizon of praise and worship. Actually, worship is returning to worth, that which belongs to Him; and He is the only One worthy of praise.
“And hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.” They sing of His shed blood in heaven. Down here many denominational churches are taking out of their hymn books all references to His blood, but in heaven they will be put back in the hymn book. I guess that may be the reason the Lord isn’t going to embarrass some of those folk by taking them into heaven, because they would have to sing about the blood there.
The change of the pronoun from “us” to “them” is important. They are praising the Lamb for those yet to be saved on the earth—the tribulation saints.
“A kingdom and priests” refers to the tribulation saints. The church will not reign on the earth, but over the earth.
MYRIADS OF ANGELS JOIN THE SONG
And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;
Saying a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing [Rev. 5:11–12].
And I saw, and I heard a voice of many angels round about the throne and the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousands of ten thousands (myriads), and thousands of thousands, saying with a great voice, Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to take the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and horror, and glory, and blessing.
When John says, “ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands,” I think that he means they were innumerable. In effect John says, “At first I looked and I saw a company of angels around the elders, and they were singing—and I thought that was great. But all of a sudden I looked out yonder and, boy, there was a crowd which I could not count!” Nobody could have counted them. A computer couldn’t count them. God’s created intelligences were praising Him. My friend, I do not know why you want to go to heaven if you do not want to worship and praise Him down here.
UNIVERSAL WORSHIP OF THE SAVIOR AND SOVEREIGN
And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.
And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever [Rev. 5:13–14].
Every animate creature of God joins in this universal act of worship, both in heaven and earth. Evidently, the animals in the earth and the fish in the sea join in this volume of praise! The living creatures add their amen to it, and the church falls down in silent adoration and praise.
If I could, I would sing the “Hallelujah Chorus,” for as we come to the end of this very remarkable scene in heaven, we see that all praise and honor and worship must go to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are not in the habit of praising and worshiping Him, why don’t you start right now?
CHAPTER 6
Theme: Opening of the first six seals
The sixth chapter of Revelation is the great watershed, the great divide, of the Book of Revelation. Here is a division that is all-important. Traveling on Highway 66 across northern New Mexico, you go through Albuquerque, then Gallup, to Winslow, Arizona, and up to Flagstaff. Somewhere in that area there is a place called the Continental Divide. I am told that you could drop a chip in a stream which is flowing on the west side of the divide, and it would end up in the Pacific Ocean, or you could put a chip in a stream on the east side of the divide, and it would eventually end up in the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Gulf of Mexico. This is a very important division which separates those two chips so that they find themselves worlds apart. We have such a great divide at chapter 6 of the Book of Revelation.
The third and final major division of Revelation began with chapter 4 where we found ourselves transferred to heaven. John was caught up to heaven, and we went right up with him and began to see things in heaven. However, we did not see anything labeled the church, because the church was the name given to it down here on the earth. But we did see the twenty-four elders. The elders had to get there some way—they were caught up, and they represent the church which will be at this time in heaven with Christ. From here on in the Book of Revelation, the church is no longer mentioned on the earth at all. There is an invitation at the end of the book which comes from the church, but that refers to this day in which we live.
You can see an orderly process in the Book of Revelation, and we need to follow Peter’s rule for prophecy: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation” (2 Pet. 1:20)—that is, you do not interpret any prophecy by itself Each prophecy must be looked at as a part of a system and a program, and it must fit in with the others. By the time we get to the sixth chapter, a great many forget that John gave to us an orderly division of the Book of Revelation. John was told in Revelation 1:19, “Write [1] the things which thou hast seen”—that was that glorious vision of the glorified Christ as the Great High Priest amidst the lampstands, where He is keeping the light burning here upon the earth. [2] “…And the things which are”—that was the seven churches which represent the total earthly experience of the church from the Day of Pentecost to the parousia, from the Upper Room to the upper air, the total history of the church on earth. [3] “…And the things which shall be hereafter [meta tauta].” The earthly career of the church was ended in chapter 3. John said meta tauta, after these things, twice at the opening of chapter 4. He did that for the benefit of those who hold the historic viewpoint of Revelation, the amillennialists. Beginning, therefore, with chapter 4, John is showing us “the things which must be hereafter.”
In chapters 4–5, we were in heaven with John. The first thing that we saw was a throne, and the Lord Jesus was there. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah who is sitting at God’s right hand, waiting until His enemies are to be made His footstool down here. He is also the Lamb, and we saw the emphasis upon His first coming. The Lamb, because He is the Redeemer, is the One who is able to take the seven-sealed book, which is the title deed of this earth.
Do you know that the Lord Jesus is the only One who is able to judge this earth? He is the One who is able to judge, not only because of who He is—He is God manifest in the flesh—but also because of what He has done. He created this earth, and that gives Him a right. He is worshiped in chapter 4 as the Creator. But then He also redeemed this earth, and in chapter 5 He is worshiped as the Redeemer. Since He is the Creator and the Redeemer, He is the only One worthy to judge this earth. He is the only One who is able to rule this earth. What a reflection upon the consummate conceit of little men down here who want to be judges! What right has the Supreme Court to judge anyone? What right has the Senate or the House of Representatives or the president to judge anyone? Who do they think they are? May I say to you, the Lord Jesus Christ alone is worthy to sit in judgment. Until one of these men can measure up to Him, he is not really in a position to judge in his own ability and strength. Any human judge who does not look to God is not worthy to sit on any bench and judge anyone. The injustice that is upon this earth today is brought about by little man sitting in judgment upon others. Jesus Christ is worthy. That is the picture that is given to us at the close of chapter 5.
OPENING OF THE SEVEN-SEALED BOOK
As we come to chapter 6, the scene shifts to the earth, and the question naturally is: What happens on the earth when the church leaves? The Great Tribulation takes place, and that is the subject of chapters 6–18. The opening of the seven-sealed book is the subject specifically of chapter 6 through verse 1 of chapter 8. These seven seals open up the Great Tribulation Period. The Lord Jesus breaks the seals, and the four horses ride forth. We will see the martyred dead during that period and the coming of the day of wrath. In a very orderly way, the seventh seal introduces the blowing of seven trumpets (see Rev. 8:2–11:19). The blowing of the seventh trumpet introduces seven startling persons (see Rev. 12–13). The beast out of the sea introduces the seven bowls of wrath (see Rev. 15–16). The last bowl of wrath brings to us the burden, or the judgment, of Babylon, and that brings to an end the Great Tribulation Period (see Rev. 17–18), and then Christ comes to the earth.
It is interesting to note that upon Babylon are the first and the last judgments. Babylon, at the Tower of Babel, represents the first organized rebellion against God (see Gen. 11:1–9). Babylon also represents the last rebellion against God, both religiously (see Rev. 17) and politically (see Rev. 18). This brings to an end man’s little day on this earth.
The important thing for us to keep before us is the One who is worthy to open this book. He is directing everything now. As we were told at the beginning, this is the Revelation, the unveiling, of Jesus Christ. He is no longer walking among the lampstands, for they have all been removed from this earth. He is no longer the High Priest, standing as intercessor, but He is now the executor of God’s will upon the earth as He opens the seals of the book. All the judgments of the Great Tribulation usher forth from the seals out of which come the trumpets, the persons, and the bowls.
The Great Tribulation is triggered from heaven. Jesus Christ directs the entire operation. This is the reason that Psalm 2:9 says, “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron….” Many will say that they don’t like all this. Do you have a better suggestion as to how He should put down the rebellion on this earth? If you do, would you pass it on to the Lord Jesus? How do you think He should put it down? Suppose He came like He did more than nineteen hundred years ago. Do you think they are ready in Moscow, in the Kremlin, to turn authority over to Him? How about in any other country? How about in our country? I’m telling you, they are not about to turn it over to Him in Washington, D.C. Neither of our political parties is interested in putting Jesus Christ on the throne. They have some very unworthy men on both sides who would like to be on the throne. My friend, may I say to you that He alone is the One who is worthy. And how is He going to come to power? Exactly as the second psalm says: “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.” We are going to see that taking place from now on in the Book of Revelation—this is judgment on the earth.
The church will be delivered from this period of judgment. Why? Is it because they are such nice, sweet, Sunday school children? Oh, no. They are sinners, but they are saved by the grace of God. Only those who reject the grace of God go into the Great Tribulation Period. This is my reason for believing that God has raised up the medium of radio in our day to get the Word of God out to the ends of the earth. He is going to let them all hear the gospel, and when they make their decision, that will decide whether or not they are going into the Great Tribulation.
Chapters 4–5 were but the preparation for that which was to follow—the judgment of the earth. In chapter 4 we saw the throne and the triune God; in chapter 5 we saw the book and the Lord Jesus Christ.
There are certain factors that are brought into focus which increase the intensity and the ferocity of the Great Tribulation:
1. The Holy Spirit will restrain evil no longer. Do I mean that He will leave the world? No, He won’t leave. He was in the world before the Day of Pentecost, but on the Day of Pentecost He assumed a new ministry of baptizing believers into the body of Christ, a ministry of indwelling them, of filling them, and of leading and guiding them in this world. He will take the church out of this world, but that does not mean that He is going to leave. He will still be here, but He will not restrain evil any longer. In other words, man is going to have his little day during that period, and so is Satan. This is the reason I don’t want to be here.
2. The true church, as light and salt, will be gone from the earth. Although the church has very little influence in the world today, it still has a little, but when it leaves the earth, there will be none left.
3. The Devil knows that he has but a short time. He is going to make hay while the sun shines. He is going to take advantage of it during this period, and God is going to give him free rein.
4. Evil men will be free to carry out their nefarious plans. In other words, Antichrist will be able to take over this earth for a brief period of time.
5. There will be direct judgment from God. We see that here in v. 17, which says, “For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”
I do not think that the Great Tribulation breaks suddenly like a great tornado. The opening of the seals is gradual, logical, chronological. They are opened one at a time. The Book of Revelation makes sense, my friend.
As we come to the text of this chapter, may I make the statement very carefully that, from chapter 4 on, this is speaking of the future. Now if it is future and if we today are in the time of “the things which are,” the period of the church, we cannot drag any of the seals, the trumpets, the bowls, or the persons up into our own day. I do believe we are seeing the setting of the stage, but I do not think that any of these things are taking place today. Yet we find that a great many persons are interpreting this section in just that way. It is sensationalism, of course, and I guess it gets listeners and sells books, but it surely isn’t according to the way John put it down here. I simply want to lay it down as an axiom that from chapter 6 on it has reference to the future, and none of these things has come to pass as yet.
The section of Revelation which deals with the seven churches could be fitted into history, but you cannot fit any of this which follows into history. The differences between the two great systems of interpreting prophecy—the futurist and the historic viewpoints—really become manifest at this point in Revelation. The historical theory takes the position that all of this is history and can be fitted into history. It is quite interesting to me that many who hold the historical viewpoint assume that this is future from here on, or a little farther down they make it future—in other words, they just can’t fit it into history. The amillennialist tends to fit everything from here on into history. As a result, there are about fifty different systems of interpretation, according to Dr. Walvoord, that have come out of the historical viewpoint. My friend, forty-nine of those are bound to be wrong, and personally, I think the other one is also wrong!
I went to a seminary that was amillennial, where they attempted to fit the rest of Revelation into the historical, or the amillennial, viewpoint. It became ridiculous and even comical at times. For example, when we reached the place where Scripture says that Satan was put into the bottomless pit, we were taught that that has already taken place. I asked the professor, “How do you explain the satanic activity that is taking place today?” He replied, “Satan is chained, but he has a long chain on him. It is like when you take a cow out into a vacant lot and tether her out on a long rope and let her graze.” That was his explanation! And my comment was, “Doctor, I think Satan’s got a pretty long chain on him then, because he is able to graze all over the world today!” It really makes some Scriptures seem rather ridiculous when you follow the historical viewpoint.
May I say very definitely that John has made it clear that we have now come to future things, and anything from here on through chapter 20 is still future. We are following a chronological order here, and it is very logical. You simply cannot say that these events are taking place today, and you cannot fit them into history.
OPENING OF THE FIRST SEAL—RIDER ON A WHITE HORSE
The Lord Jesus Christ takes the seven- sealed book, and He breaks the first seal.
And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer [Rev. 6:1–2].
Here is my own translation of these verses:
And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as a sound of thunder, Go. And I saw, and behold a white horse, and one sitting on him having a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering, and to conquer.
Christ is going to break all the seals, ad seriatum, right in order. He is in full charge, and every creature in heaven is moving at His command. So the four horsemen are now to ride forth. He breaks the seal, and says, “Go.” Although the King James Version gives the impression that an invitation is given to John to “Come and see,” the phrase “and see” should be omitted, and since the order issues from heaven, the proper translation is “Go.”
It is restated by John that he “saw” and he “heard.” This is television that we are looking at.
Attempts to determine the symbolism of the rider on the white horse have given rise to many differences of opinion. The preponderate interpretation among commentators is that he represents Christ. They use Psalm 45 and Revelation 19 in support of their position. But most of the contemporary Bible expositors of the premillennial school say that the white horse and the rider is Antichrist. That is the position of Scott, Ironside, Chafer, Walvoord, Woodbridge, and Pentecost. And it happens to be my position also. It would be pretty difficult for the Lord Jesus, who is the One opening the seals, now to make a quick change, mount a horse, and come riding forth.
To me that would be a rather inconsistent and unbelievable position. I personally take the viewpoint that this is Antichrist, this is an imitation of Christ, this is one who pretends to be Christ, who comes forth.
We are moving today in the direction of a world dictator. More and more is this true. All the nations of the world are disturbed. Lawlessness abounds, and governments are not able to control as they should. This is all preparing the way for the coming of one who is going to rule.
Antichrist does not appear as a villain. After all, Satan’s angels are angels of light. He is not going to have horns or cloven feet. Rather, he is going to be the most attractive man the world has ever seen. They will elect him, and the world will acclaim him because he has come in his own name. But when he takes over, it sure is going to be bad for the world.
This is not just the ravings of a preacher here in California. This is something that other men in other walks of life, who apparently make no great claims to being Christians, have said. Professor A. J. Toynbee, Director of Studies in the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said:
By forcing on mankind more and more lethal weapons and at the same time making the whole world more and more interdependent economically, technology has brought mankind to such a degree of distress that we are ripe for deifying any new Caesar who might succeed in giving the world unity and peace.
That will be the platform that Antichrist will come in on—world unity and peace. I think that if anybody appeared on the scene now and offered the world that, the world wouldn’t ask whether he came from heaven or hell. I don’t think they would care, because they want peace at any price, and we have spent billions of dollars trying to obtain it.
G. K. Chesterton observed in his day: “One of the paradoxes of this age is that it is the age of Pacifism, but not the age of Peace.” There is a great deal of talking about peace.
In a news item some time ago, we read of a woman in Fayetteville, Arkansas, who named the United Nations as the beneficiary to her $700,000 estate “in the fervent hope that this relatively small contribution may be of some effect in bringing about universal peace on earth and good will among men.” I want to say that she poured that money down a rat hole, because you are not going to buy peace with $700,000 or even millions of dollars. We have given away billions of dollars throughout the world, and we do not have peace.
The Ford Foundation, one of the world’s wealthiest private organizations, has announced that their money eventually will be used to work for world peace and better government, living and education conditions—yet the world gets worse all the time.
When Antichrist comes to power, he is going to talk peace, and the world will think that it is entering the Millennium when it is actually entering the Great Tribulation. The Great Tribulation comes in like a lamb, but it goes out like a lion. A promise of peace is the big lie the world is going to believe.
This rider could not be Christ, therefore, in view of the fact that Christ is the Lamb in the midst of the throne who, as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, is directing these events from heaven and is giving the orders to the four horsemen to ride. Christ is clearly identified in Revelation 19, while here the identity is certainly obscure, which suggests that it is not Christ but an imitation of Him.
OPENING OF THE SECOND SEAL—RIDER ON A RED HORSE
And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.
And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword [Rev. 6:3–4].
And when He opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, Go. And another horse, fiery red (flame colored) went out. And there was given to the one sitting on him to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill (violently) one another, and there was given to him a great sword.
The first horseman could not be Christ, because when He brings peace to this earth, it is going to be permanent. This is a short-lived peace. Immediately after the white horse went forth, here comes the red horse of war on the earth. The peace which the rider on the white horse brought to the earth was temporary and counterfeit. The Antichrist presents himself as a ruler who brings peace to the world, but he cannot guarantee it, for God says, “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” (Isa. 57:21). And that passage of Scripture certainly has been fulfilled.
Isn’t peace exactly what every candidate for office in our country has promised? Certainly that has been true in my lifetime. I never shall forget the candidate who said that our boys would never again go across the ocean to fight. What baloney that was! We were promised peace, and every candidate since then has promised peace. One of them dropped two atom bombs, and immediately afterward we began to talk about peace. Every candidate since then—no exception and regardless of party—has said he was going to bring peace. My friend, we are as far from peace today as we have ever been. Already the clouds are gathering for World War Ill.
Antichrist will be a phony. He won’t bring peace because here goes the fiery red horse of war riding throughout the earth again. And this is going to be a real world war. Don’t say that this has been fulfilled—it hasn’t been. It is future.
OPENING OF THE THIRD SEAL—RIDER ON A BLACK HORSE
And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine [Rev. 6:5–6].
And when He had opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, Go. And I saw, and behold a black horse, and the one sitting on him having a balance (scales) in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures say, a choenix (a quart) of wheat for a denarius, and three choenix (quarts) of barley for a denarius; and do not hurt the oil and the wine.
John again says, “I heard” and “I saw.” He just wants to make sure that we know that. The color of the black horse indicates mourning (see Jer. 4:28; Mal. 3:14, “mournfully in black”), and it also speaks of famine. In Lamentations 4:8–9 we read: “Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.”
The black horse represents the worldwide famine that is to come on the earth. Always after a war there is a shortage of foodstuff.
The Greek historian Herodotus says that a choenix (quart) of corn was a soldier’s daily supply of food. A denarius was a day’s wage (see Matt. 20:2). Therefore, a working man will be unable to support his family in that day.
The oil and the wine are luxuries that are enjoyed by the rich. Oil would correspond to our toiletries, the beauty aids and the body conditioners that we use today; that is, the luxuries of life. The wine corresponds to the liquor that will be in abundance. Isn’t it interesting that there will not be enough foodstuff, not enough barley for food, but there will be enough barley to make liquor! They will make it in that day, and the rich are the ones who will get it.
Let me be very frank. During World War II the rich, for the most part, were able to get meat. They were able to get the luxuries of life. A very wealthy man told me that he never missed getting a big T-bone steak anytime that he wanted it. But I can remember getting very tired of eating tongue, which was one thing we didn’t have to have blue chips to get and was something that was not rationed. In this day that is coming, things won’t change. The rich are going to get theirs, but the poor won’t be able to get theirs. That is the way it has always been. I feel like saying, “Ho hum,” when I hear these sincere egg-headed boys talking about how they are going to work out the poverty problem. All that it has accomplished is that it has given a good job to a lot of them, but so far it hasn’t filtered down and been a blessing to the poor. It has never helped the poor to lift themselves up with any degree of pride. Why? Because the only Man who can lift up the poor is Jesus Christ. None of these egg-headed boys is able to do it. I am sorry to have to say that, but somebody needs to speak out against all of this tomfoolery that our government is going through. All that this wasteful spending of money does is to create more bureaucracy and to sap our tax dollars. This is the sort of thing that is abroad today, but just think what it is going to be like in that future day. This which we are talking about in the Revelation is future. The only reason that I make application to today is to show that this is not unreasonable; it is going to take place.
Way back in 1798, the Rev. Thomas Malthus concluded that “the power of population is infinitely greater than the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man.” His prediction had little weight in his day. In 1959 the United Nations’ seventy-seven-nation Food and Agriculture Organization met in Rome to talk about “the fight against hunger and malnutrition.” At this meeting Toynbee declared: “Sooner or later food production will reach its limit. And then, if population is still increasing, famine will do the execution that was done in the past by famine, pestilence and war combined.” Sir John Boyd Orr, at one time the Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, warned, “I shall finish my office by giving a last warning to the world. If it is not solved there will be world chaos in the next fifty years. The nations of the world are insane.” Someone has reported, “There are today 750 million people getting hungrier in countries bordering the Communist sphere.” This thing is growing, my friend. Famine always follows war.
OPENING OF THE FOURTH SEAL—RIDER ON A PALE HORSE
And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth [Rev. 6:7–8].
And when He had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, Go. And I looked and behold a pale (greenish-yellow) horse; and the one sitting upon him, Death was his name; and Hades followed with him. And there was given unto them authority over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with famine, and with death (pestilence), and by the (wild) beasts of the earth.
Here is a pestilence that is going to take out one-fourth of the population of the earth. There will not be enough antibiotics and penicillin to go around in that day to stop it.
“Death was his name.” Death is no more personalized here than is war—although the rider is given the name of death. There is more involved in physical death than meets the eye, for the human being is more than physical, and death is more than cessation of physical activity. While death takes the body, hades is the place where the spirit of a lost man goes (see Luke 16:23, ASV).
A literal translation of Romans 5:14 reads thus: “And nevertheless death became king from Adam down to Moses, even over them who did not sin after the fashion of Adam’s sin [transgression] who is the type of Him [The Adam] who was to come [The Coming One].”
“Death was his name; and Hades followed with him.” The word for hades is sometimes unfortunately translated by the word hell as in Luke 16:23 where, speaking of the rich man and Lazarus, we read: “And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.” Hell is a very unfortunate translation there; it is this same word hades, and, actually, it does not refer to hell at all. It speaks of physical death—either where the spirit goes or of the grave where the body is placed. In other words, while death takes the body, hades is the place where the spirit of a lost man goes. The Lord Jesus spoke of it in that way.
Paul personifies death in Romans 5:14, as he does sin in that same section, and he does it for emphasis. Sin and death entered the world at the same time. Death is the result of sin. During the interval from Adam to Moses, men did not commit the same sin as did Adam, nor was their sinning a transgression of a law, as was Adam’s, because the Ten Commandments had not been given. Yet it was a period when men sinned and died. Adam’s sin became their sin, for they died as Adam died. Even babies died in the Flood.
Death evidently has an all-inclusive, three-fold meaning that we do not ordinarily attach to it. We think of death as referring only to the body. (1) This is physical death, and it refers only to the body. It comes to a man because of Adam’s sin. (2) Then there is what is known as spiritual death, which is separation from, and rebellion against, God. We inherit a dead nature from Adam; that is, we have no capacity for God and no desire for Him at all. (3) Finally, there is eternal death, which is eternal separation from God. Unless a man is redeemed, this inevitably follows. This is the second death that we will find later on in chapter 20, verse 14.
Before Adam sinned, God said to him, “… for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17). Well, Adam lived physically for more than nine hundred years after that, but he was dead spiritually to God. He ran from God. He no longer had a desire for fellowship with God. He died spiritually, and physical death followed and has come into the human family. More and more it deteriorates mankind. Most of us are being propped up today by modern medicine and the marvelous developments of science in order to stay alive. Actually, the human race is deteriorating all the time. Human life would be much shorter than it is if it were not for all the modern gadgets which keep us alive down here.
Adam is definitely declared here to be a type of Christ. Death must be laid at Adam’s door as his total responsibility. You see, God did not create man to die. It was a penalty imposed because Adam transgressed God’s command. Because Adam is the federal head of our race, his transgression is our transgression, and his death is our death. Now Christ is the head of a new creation, and this new creation has life only in Christ. He alone can give life. He is totally responsible for the life and eternal bliss of those who are His own.
Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer put it like this, and this is a theological statement:
Thus spiritual death comes mediately through an unbroken line of posterity. Over against this, physical death is received from Adam immediately, as each person dies in body because of his own personal share in Adam’s first sin.
During the Great Tribulation, death will ride unbridled. The Lord Jesus put it like this: “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matt. 24:22).
At the Great White Throne judgment, death will be finally destroyed (see Rev. 20:14). This is confirmed by Paul who writes, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26). And John reasserts it in Revelation 21:4: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”
The sword, famine, pestilence, and wild beasts will decimate this earth’s population by one-fourth. This is something that, through His prophet Ezekiel, God had said would come: “For thus saith the Lord God; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?” (Ezek. 14:21).
The pale horse represents plague and pestilence that will stalk the earth. It also encompasses the possibility of germ warfare. Dr. Frank Holtman, head of the University of Tennessee’s bacteriological department, said, “While the greater part of a city’s population could be destroyed by an atomic bomb, the bacteria method might easily wipe out the entire population within a week.”
We have seen the riding of the four horsemen, and this follows exactly the pattern that the Lord Jesus gave while He was on the earth. In Matthew 24:5–8, in the Olivet Discourse, He said: “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many [the white horse]. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars [the red horse]: see that ye be not troubled: for all these must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines [the black horse], and pestilences [the pale horse], and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” This is the opening of the Great Tribulation.
OPENING OF THE FIFTH SEAL—PRAYER OF THE MARTYRED REMNANT
And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? [Rev. 6:9–10].
And when He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar of burnt sacrifice the souls [Gr.: psuchas] of those slain on account of the Word of God, and on account of the witness which they had; and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long (until when) O Master, the Holy and True, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth (earth dwellers)?
This altar is in heaven and is evidently where Christ offered His blood for the sins of the world. I take the position that His literal blood is in heaven. Let me confirm that with Hebrews 9:23–24 which says: “It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.”
The souls mentioned here are the Old Testament saints. As the Lord Jesus put it: “That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation” (Luke 11:50–51).
Included with these are those who will be slain in the Great Tribulation Period, as we have already found that one-fourth of the population will be wiped out. They are resting on solid Old Testament ground as they plead for justice on the basis of God’s holy law.
And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled [Rev. 6:11].
My translation of this verse is:
And there was given to them to each one a white robe; and it was said to them, that they should rest (in peace) yet for a little time until their fellow servants also, and their brethren who should be killed even as they were, should be fulfilled.
In other words, the tribulation saints are to be included with the Old Testament saints in the second resurrection.
OPENING OF THE SIXTH SEAL—THE DAY OF WRATH HAS COME
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind [Rev. 6:12–13].
And I saw when He opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell into the earth, as a fig tree casteth her unripe figs when she is shaken of a great wind.
This is evidently the beginning of the last half of the Great Tribulation Period. The great day of His wrath is before us. The Great Tribulation opens and closes with these upheavals in the natural universe: (1) The beginning of the Tribulation (compare Joel 2:30–31 with Acts 2:20) and (2) the end of the Tribulation (see Joel 3:9–17; Isa. 13:9–13; 34:1–4; Matt. 24:29).
The fact that we are having an increase in earthquakes today is no fulfillment of this at all. This is to take place in the Great Tribulation Period. But the interesting thing is that in the past earthquakes have really destroyed a great deal of the population of this earth. Professor R. A. Daley, in his book Our Mobile Earth, has written this:
In the last 4,000 years earthquakes have caused the loss of 13,000,000 lives, and far the most awful earthshock is yet to come. “And there was a great earthquake, such as there was not since there were men upon the earth, so great an earthquake, so mighty; and the cities of the nations fell” (Rev. 16:18).
What a picture we have here! The earthquakes today are not a fulfillment. They merely show that it could happen as God’s Word says it will.
And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places [Rev. 6:14].
Here is my translation:
And the heaven was removed as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
I think that this verse is to be taken quite literally. We see the same thing in Nahum 1:5 and again in chapter 20, verse 11.
And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? [Rev. 6:15–17].
And the kings of the earth and the princes, and the chief captains, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman and free man hid themselves in the caves and rocks of the mountains. And they say to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One sitting on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the Great Day of their wrath came, and who is able to stand?
There are those on the earth who are praying to the rocks and to the mountains to fall upon them, because they want to be hidden. Hidden from whom? From the wrath of the Lamb. This is the great day of the wrath of God.
“The wrath of the Lamb” is a paradoxical phrase. The wrath of God is the Day of the Lord, that day that is spoken of all the way through the Old Testament prophets, a day that is coming upon the earth and is yet future. It is called here “the wrath of the Lamb”—that is a strange statement.
The Bible is filled with paradoxes, and I am sure that you have discovered that. A paradox is a proposition which is contrary to received opinion; that is, it is that which is seemingly contradictory. On the surface the assertion seems contradictory, but closer examination reveals it is factual. For example, here are several paradoxes. The farther an object goes from you, the larger it gets. That is not true, but it is true. When a balloon goes up, it gets smaller to the eye, but the balloon is getting larger all the time as the atmosphere gets thinner. Another paradox is that water flows uphill in Sequoia National Park. You may not believe that, but there are tons of water flowing uphill there. The Sequoia National Park is filled with giant redwood trees, and those redwoods are pulling up tons of water all the time. They call it osmosis, which is a scientific word which means they don’t really know what is happening. A third paradox is that the closer you get to the sun, the hotter it is. But out in the Hawaiian Islands, a tropical climate, if you look up on the top of Mauna Kea, there is snow up there although it is closer to the sun than you are. May I say to you, there are a lot of paradoxes that are true.
Here we have “the wrath of the Lamb.” The lamb is a familiar figure of Christ. Suppose a little lamb, which is noted for gentleness and meekness, did get angry? What then? It is like a tempest in a teapot. From the days of Abel to those of John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus is depicted as a lamb. The apostle John calls Him “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13.8). In other words, God did not choose the lamb because it possessed characteristics of Christ, neither did He choose it for the sacrificial aspect. God created such an animal to represent Christ. Christ is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, before any lamb was ever created.
The Lord Jesus Christ has the qualities of a lamb. He was meek—“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Matt. 11:28–29). He was gentle—“… Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14). He was harmless—You never see a sign saying, “Beware of the lamb.” You see “Beware of the dog,” but not of the lamb. He was humble—Christ washed the feet of His disciples. This is a tremendous thing. He is One whose life was marked by winsomeness. His life was like the perfume of a lovely and fragile flower. His coming was a doxology. His stay was a blessing. His departure was a benediction. Even the unbelieving world has been fascinated by His life. The lamb sets forth His sacrifice. Abraham said, “… God will provide himself a lamb …” (Gen. 22:8), and God did provide Himself a Lamb.
But what about “the wrath”? Wrath is strange and foreign even to the person of God, is it not? God loves the good. God hates the evil. He does not hate as you and I hate. He is not vindictive. God is righteous, God is holy, and He hates that which is contrary to Himself. He says that Jehovah is a man of war. He is strong and mighty. He is mighty in battle. The gospel reveals the wrath of God. Paul said, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18). Look at this world we are in, my friend. It already reveals the wrath of God, the judgment of God.
It is like mixing fire and water to bring wrath and the Lamb together, but all the fury of the wrath of God is revealed in the Lamb. When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He made a scourge of small cords, and He drove the moneychangers out of the temple. Was He bluffing? He was not. He called the religious rulers a generation of vipers, whited sepulchres. He cursed the fig tree. He said, “Woe unto thee, Chorazin and Bethsaida” (see Matt. 11:21). Christ rejected Jerusalem, but He had tears in His eyes when He did so. He still controls the forces of nature, and He uses them in judgment. God has declared war against sin. I say, Blessed be His name. He will not compromise with that which has brought such havoc to the human family! There is a day coming when the wrath of the Lamb will be revealed. Somebody says, “I thought He was gentle and would not punish sin.” My friend, God said, “Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him” (Ps. 2:10–12).
CHAPTER 7
Theme: God seals a remnant of Israel and saves a redeemed company of Gentiles
The Book of Revelation has been labeled a book difficult to understand. Some folk say that it is just a mumbo jumbo of a great many visions which are out of this world and which no one can understand. It is my conviction that this book is very logical and is divided in a very simple manner which no one can miss. If we get bogged down in some passage and try to take symbols and juggle them to fit into any system that we might choose, then we are going to be in real trouble. Rather, we should just let John tell us where we are as we go along. We are now in a section that the Lord Jesus labeled the Great Tribulation. This period takes place after the church leaves the earth, after the church concludes its mission and is taken to be with the Lord. I think that this is not only a reasonable conclusion, but I personally feel it is very clear, not only here, but elsewhere in Scripture.
Peter said that “… no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation” (2 Pet. 1:20). In other words, you cannot lift out just one verse here or there or even consider only the Book of Revelation and expect to interpret accurately the whole of prophecy. It is essential to recognize that the Book of Revelation happens to be the last book of the Bible. When you are studying arithmetic in school, you begin with “two plus two equals four.” You do not start the little ones in first grade with atomic physics or with higher mathematics. Since this book is the last book of the Bible, the only requirement is to have a working knowledge of the sixty-five books which go before. Then you will find that this book makes a great deal of sense and is quite logical.
John is going into detail now concerning the Great Tribulation Period, a period that has not been elaborated upon in any other place in Scripture except in the Olivet Discourse which the Lord Jesus gave (see Matt. 24–25). John is merely widening that out and giving us additional information. What he says is based on what the Lord Jesus had to say.
In chapter 6 we saw the opening of the seven seals; actually, we have had the opening of only six seals so far. These six seals revealed the four great tragedies that are coming upon the earth, the beginning of the judgments. The fifth seal let us look at a martyred company of people, a great throng. In the sixth seal we were introduced to some of the signs of the doom that is to come upon a godless world in the Great Tribulation Period.
In this period the church is never mentioned by name. The reason it is never mentioned by name is because John is recording things on earth, and at this particular time the church is not on earth. John was told to write the things he had seen, and he saw the vision of the glorified Christ. Then he was to write about “the things which are.” He was in the church period, and we are still in it today. Since the church is still in the world, we are in the period of “the things which are.” The church was the theme of chapters 2–3: the church in Ephesus, the church in Smyrna, the church in Pergamum, the church in Thyatira, etc. But in the chapter before us there is no talking to the church because the church is not here on earth. We saw in chapters 4–5 that the church was in heaven—that is where the church will go at the time of the Rapture. I will deal later with the reason why the church cannot go through the Great Tribulation Period. There is actually a moral and a theological problem if the church were to enter even one phase of the Tribulation Period.
The subject, therefore, has changed, and we are now talking about things other than the church. We have been introduced to a book with seven seals, and the seals are being removed. Six seals have been removed in the previous chapter. The four horsemen introduce the Great Tribulation Period, and the seven seals give an overall picture of that seven-year period. The last of the seals bears down on the last three and one-half years of the Great Tribulation Period. At this point, one-fourth of the population of the earth has been destroyed in judgment, destroyed in death. I am sure that anyone reading Revelation senses the fact that it is going to be very difficult to make it through this period—especially for those who turn to God, accept Christ, and stand for Him. The question is: Will believers be able to stand for Him during this period?
John is now going to put down another principle which he will follow because he knows that you and I are going to have trouble with the Revelation. Therefore he has made it very simple for us. He introduces series of sevens, but the way that he deals with them is the important thing for us to see. A format is followed from the breaking of the seals to the bowls of wrath. Between the sixth and seventh of each, there is an interlude of seemingly extraneous matter, but it is explanatory matter—it explains the action and answers certain questions. This is what chapter 7 will do for us. This principle of an explanatory interval will be true of the seven trumpets, of the seven performers and of the seven bowls of wrath. You will find John following this principle all the way through this particular section of Revelation, so that we do not lose our way.
We need now to deal with the question that any reasonable person would raise at this point: What about people turning to God and getting saved during this period? Second Thessalonians makes it clear that the Holy Spirit, the Restrainer, is removed from the earth (see 2 Thess. 2:7). He has taken the church to present it to Christ. Since you cannot have any turning to God without the work of the Holy Spirit, will anybody get saved without the Holy Spirit being present on the earth?
My friend, the Holy Spirit will be present. I did not say that the Holy Spirit will have left the world but that He no longer will restrain evil. The Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost to perform a specific ministry of calling out a body of believers in the church which is referred to as the body of Christ. When the church is removed from the earth, that peculiar ministry of the Holy Spirit will end. One of His ministries in this particular era has been that of restraining evil. It was absolutely essential that He be a restrainer in order for the gospel to penetrate a Satan-controlled and Satan-blinded world. How could the Word go out unless the Spirit of God held back evil? Just think of the forces of evil that are working against the getting out of the Word of God today. In my own experience with our Bible-teaching radio ministry, we just sailed along like a breeze for a year or two. Then problems came along. I became ill, and all sorts of things took place. When we finally regained our equilibrium and began to look around, we saw what was happening: the enemy was busy. Believe me, if the Restrainer had not been at work, I am sure that we would have been removed from the scene.
How are people going to get saved during the period of the Great Tribulation if the Holy Spirit will not be restraining evil? The Great Tribulation is the Devil’s holiday. That is the day when he is going to have freedom to do as he pleases. We will see why God is going to grant that: it is a period of the judgment of God upon a Christ-rejecting world. Then, does anybody get saved in the Great Tribulation Period? My friend, I believe that there will be a greater company saved in that period than in any other seven-year period in the history of the world. Chapter 7 is going to tell us how that will take place. The Holy Spirit is in the world after the church is removed just as He was in the world before Pentecost. In reading the Old Testament, you will find the Spirit of God working in the hearts and lives of men and women. Many multitudes were brought to God, but He was not restraining evil in the world, and He was not baptizing believers into the body of the church in the Old Testament. That is what He is doing today, but that ministry will cease. However, He will still be in the business of getting men and women to Christ. He will continue His ministry which has always been one of taking God’s creation and renovating it. We are told in the beginning, “… the spirit of God moved [brooded] upon the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). The Spirit of God broods over this earth today and has from the very beginning and will continue doing so after the church is removed from the earth. He will have to have an unusual, special program during this period, and John is now going to tell us what that program is going to be.
REASON FOR THE INTERLUDE
The reason for the interlude between the sixth and seventh seals is given to us in the first three verses of this chapter.
And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree [Rev. 7:1].
I give my own translation simply in an attempt to give the literal words and try to say what John was saying:
After this I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding firmly the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on the earth nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
“After this” refers to the tremendous judgment of the previous chapter, the riding of the four horsemen. In the riding of the four horsemen I believe we have been given a bird’s-eye view of the Great Tribulation Period, an overall picture, and now the details are going to be given to us.
“After this I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth.” A smart-alecky young fellow got up at a meeting years ago where Dr. Harry Ironside was speaking and said: “I told you the Bible was unscientific! The Bible teaches that the earth is flat because it says ‘the four corners of the earth.’” Dr. Ironside replied, “Young man, I am amazed that you didn’t know that the earth has four corners. They are North, East, South, and West.” Those are the four corners, and that is the direction of the four angels. There is one in the North, the East, the South, and the West.
“Holding firmly the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.” These would be the winds of judgment. God uses wind in judgment, and He controls the wind. Psalm 148:8 says, “Fire, and hail; snow, and vapours; stormy wind fulfilling his word.”
The winds of judgment are now to be held back. Nothing can move until God accomplishes His purpose. What is His purpose going to be? I do not think that God would permit any period to continue on this earth in which there were not some of the human family turning to God, because that is His purpose. I do not think He would continue to keep this world running; I think He would shut it down, turn it off, and speak it out of existence if there were not folk turning to Him. Therefore, this will be a period when multitudes will turn to Him.
A great company is going to be saved, and this reveals that these judgments will accomplish a purpose for God. It will cause multitudes to turn to Him in this period, and it will cause another multitude to turn against Him. It is just like the effect of the sun shining down on a piece of soft clay. What will the sun do to the clay? It will harden it. What would be the effect of that same sunlight upon wax? It would melt it. The sun has the opposite effect upon clay and wax. The judgments of God are the same. In our lives as believers, when trouble comes to us—I’ve discovered this in my own life—it will either draw us to God or drive us from Him. We need to be drawn to Him, and that is the reason the Lord lets some of us have sicknesses. He wants to draw us closer to Himself, and this is His way of doing it.
We cannot explain every little detail here in this chapter—at least, I cannot. I get a little irritated and provoked that I do not know as much as some of these so-called prophetic teachers claim to know today. They seem to have a private line in to the Lord. They now know the date when the Lord is coming again, and not only that, they can actually interpret some of these passages in the most amazing fashion. Where the Scriptures say that the blood during the war of Armageddon will be up to the bridle bits, some of these fellows can tell you the type of blood it is! They irritate me because I don’t seem to be able to get that kind of information—and then I wonder what the value of it is when you get it. To begin with, the church ought to understand clearly that we have been delivered from going through this period. The Lord Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath [right now] everlasting [eternal] life, and shall not come into condemnation [judgment]; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). The Great Tribulation is a judgment, and the church is not coming into it. He made it clear to the church of Philadelphia that He was going to deliver them from that hour. What hour? The hour that John is talking about right now. We need to let Scripture speak for itself.
And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,
Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads [Rev. 7:2–3].
Again, this is my translation:
And I saw another angel ascending from (the) sunrising, having (the) seal of (the) Living God, and he cried with a great voice to the four angels, to whom it had been given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, until we shall have sealed the servants (bond slaves) of our God, in their foreheads.
“Another angel” means this is a fifth angel. He is apparently of a higher rank than the other four because he gives them orders. As we see in the Book of Daniel and also in the Epistle to the Ephesians, there are gradations of orders of angels, both good and bad. Satan has the demon world well organized; he probably has generals, lieutenant colonels, majors, lieutenants, sergeants, and then a great many privates. On the other side, God also has His angels arranged. This angel gives orders to the other four.
“He cried with a great voice.” In the Greek this is phoµne megale. If you turn phoµne megale around, you can see where we get our English word megaphone. Megale means “great”; phoµne means “noise or voice.”
This is an indication that frightful and fearful judgment is getting ready to break upon the earth, and it is therefore necessary to secure the servants of God. If He does not seal them, they are not going to make it through. However, they are going to be preserved in this day of wrath that is coming on the earth. The Lord Jesus Himself mentioned this in Matthew 24:21–22: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” For the sake of these who have been sealed, this terrible time will be shortened.
What is the mark that is put upon their foreheads? Now here is a place where I must confess (I sure hope you won’t let this get out) that I do not know the answer, and I can only make suggestions. There are many who know what the mark is, but the interesting thing is that you cannot get any two of them to agree as to what it is. I have come to the conclusion that they are all wrong. We are not told what it is, and I do not think it is important for the church to know what the mark is. We are simply told that they are going to be marked. We do know that there are those who will not be able to trade during this period when the Antichrist comes to power unless they have the mark of the Beast. This mark of God’s is in contrast to the mark of the Beast. My feeling is that it is a spiritual mark that will be in their lives: “… by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt. 7:20)—by their lives. I believe that is going to be the mark of God’s own during this period because the godless are really going to be godless in this period. I personally don’t see how they can be any more godless than the godless in the world today, but the Word of God says they can go much farther than they have gone even in our day.
We now have this interlude before the seventh seal is opened. This angel is apparently more than a sergeant; he is probably a lieutenant colonel or a general. He says, “Hold everything! Hold back the winds of judgment, the winds of the Great Tribulation Period, because we have to seal these folk so they can make it through.” There will be two great companies sealed, one out of the nation Israel and the other out of the Gentiles.
Where is the church? The church is not here; they are with Christ in, I believe, the New Jerusalem. He said that He was going to prepare a place for those who were His, and now that He has taken them off the earth, they are with Him. That city will come down from God a little later on in the Revelation, and we will get a look at it.
The reason, therefore, for the interlude between the sixth and seventh seals is to make sure that these sealed ones are going to make it through the Great Tribulation Period. The Lord Jesus made it very clear that they are going to make it through.
REMNANT OF ISRAEL SEALED
When God deals with Israel, I have always noticed that He deals with dates and He deals with numbers. When He is dealing with the church, He does not deal with either dates or numbers. Paul never turned in a report to anybody as to how many were saved. Even when we get to the great company of Gentiles who are saved in the Great Tribulation Period, the number is not given. When God deals with Israel, however, He deals with numbers and He deals with dates. The insistence of some Bible teachers to set dates for these prophetic events has hurt the study of prophecy and has brought it down to a low level, whereas this aspect ought to be kept on as high a level as any other subject of prophecy.
And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel [Rev. 7:4].
And I heard the number of those sealed, a hundred and forty and four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the children of Israel.
One hundred forty-four thousand is the number sealed from the nation Israel, but we will see that out of the earth there will be a multitude of Gentiles saved—too numerous to count. I notice that all the evangelists and preachers today are able to give you a count of the number saved in their meetings. In fact, some may give you a count that is a little bit larger than it really is. But here is one company of saved that they couldn’t count.
Apparently, in the Great Tribulation there is going to be a great company who are to be saved. How are they going to be saved? They are going to be sealed. The Holy Spirit is going to be here, not only to regenerate them, but He will also have a special ministry of sealing in this period. The seal guarantees that they are going to be delivered. When you go down to the post office to register a letter, a postal clerk puts a stamp on it and puts a seal on it, and you pay a little extra for that. That seal means that the entire postal department is going to get behind that letter and see that it is delivered. They may be a little late in delivering it, but they guarantee that they are going to deliver it. That is what “sealed” means here. The Holy Spirit guarantees that they will make it through the Great Tribulation. If it weren’t for the seal, they wouldn’t make it through.
If you really want to know the truth, Vernon McGee would not make it through today if it weren’t for the Holy Spirit. I wonder if you and I really realize how weak we are? I would deny Him before the sun went down if it wasn’t for His work in me by the Spirit of God. We all have that nature which is in rebellion against God.
This company of the 144,000 can be identified without any speculation whatsoever. To me it is almost nonsense for any group to claim that they are the 144,000. Two cults did that in their beginnings, but then they passed 144,000 in membership. Apparently, they were not very optimistic when they started out. They say they take it literally, but they have a problem, now that they have passed that number. They should have gone out of business when they got to 144,000, but they didn’t.
This number does not refer to any group in existence today, nor does it refer to the church. During the Great Tribulation, 144,000 are going to be saved “out of every tribe of the children of Israel.” If you think that you are in the 144,000, you are not only saying that you belong to Israel, but you also had better know your tribe because the tribes are going to be identified.
It is very clear that God will have a remnant of His people who are going to be saved. This may seem to you like a big number, but actually it is very small. There are over fourteen million Jews today in the world, and in comparison to that number, you can see that the remnant of the children of Israel is really going to be very small.
There is no use speculating here or trying to draw on symbols. Some even say that the number—144,000—is a symbol of another number. Cannot God say what He wants to say? Cannot He count? Certainly He can. If He says 144,000, I do not think He means 145,000. I think He means exactly 144,000.
“Out of every tribe of the children of Israel.” From the day God called Abraham, there has always been a remnant that is true to God. There is a remnant today. I know many wonderful, Christian Jews. I don’t know why I say “Christian Jews” since I don’t say Christian Americans or Christian Germans. But we do say this of Israel because of the fact that there is the remnant that trusts Christ in our day. It is not a large remnant, but there is not a very large remnant of Gentiles either. I suppose that the great minority group is that of real believers in Christ.
Paul says in Romans 9:8: “That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.”
That is true today. Again Paul writes in Romans 11:4–5: “But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.” Paul said that in his day there was a remnant in the church. There is a remnant in our day in the church. During the Great Tribulation there will be a remnant, and the number is 144,000.
These are the ones who are going to witness of Christ in the Great Tribulation Period. In Matthew 24:14, speaking of this period, the Lord Jesus said: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
Some will say that the gospel of the kingdom is a different gospel. Of course, it is not. God has never had but one way to save sinners, and that is through the death of Christ. If you had asked Abel when he brought that little lamb to God, “Abel, do you think that little lamb will save you?” he would have said, “No, this little lamb is representing the One who God told my mother was coming from a woman to be the Savior of the world. This little lamb typifies Him.” John the Baptist almost stepped out of character when he said, “… Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The gospel of the kingdom is the gospel of the death and burial and resurrection of Christ, which is going to alert the nation Israel, and many will turn to Christ. These will preach the gospel, but they will have something to add that we have no right to say today. They will say, “And then shall the end come.” In other words, it is not going to be long until He will be back. We have no right to say that Christ will be returning soon, because we know neither the day nor the hour when He shall come.
Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.
Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand.
Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand.
Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand [Rev. 7:5–8].
Here is my translation:
Of the tribe of Judah were sealed twelve thousand; of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand; of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand, of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand; of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand; of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand; of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand; of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand; of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand; of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand; of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand; of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.
Twelve thousand are sealed out of each tribe. The 144,000 are divided by twelve, and one-twelfth is in each tribe, so that we know that John is talking about the children of Israel. I do not see how anyone can spiritualize this and attempt to appropriate it either to themselves or to some group other than the children of Israel. God promised, as we see again and again in the Old Testament, that He would come and establish His kingdom, which we will see is first a thousand-year kingdom, a time of testing, and then moves right into eternity.
We are given here the twelve tribes of Israel. One writer says that there are thirteen times in the Bible that the twelve tribes are listed, and another writer says that they are given eighteen times. I do not know which is accurate, but in every case where the twelve tribes are named, it is always twelve tribes. Sometimes changes are made, and I cannot always determine the reason for the changes, but I know that God had something in mind when He did it.
There are certain peculiarities in this list which I will call to your attention, but I don’t think it is essential to go into detail concerning these twelve tribes. First of all, you will notice that Judah heads the list. The tribe of Reuben should come first, for Reuben was the oldest, but because of his very gross immorality, he lost the first place—but he is still included. The question often arises: When a Christian sins, does he lose his salvation? No, but he may lose his reward. Very frankly, there will be many Christians who are saved but who indulged in sin and will lose their reward. Reuben is a very good example of how God deals, and this principle is set down here. Reuben lost first place, he lost the place of honor, but he did not lose out altogether. He is mentioned here, but he is number two; he should have been number one. Judah was the tribe given preeminence (see Gen. 49:8–10) and was the tribe from which the Lord Jesus came.
We also find that the tribes of Dan and Ephraim are omitted from this list. Both of these tribes were guilty of leading the nation into idolatry.
In history you will find that Dan was the first tribe that fell into idolatry (see Jud. 18:30). The tribe of Dan later on became the headquarters for calf worship whereby “Jeroboam made Israel to sin” (see 1 Kings 12:28–30). That Dan is given top priority in the Millennium (see Ezek. 48) reveals that the grace of God can reach down and meet the needs of any sinner. The tribe of Dan is in the Millennium, but they are not sealed for the purpose of witnessing during the time of the Great Tribulation. I think that this tribe lost out a great deal.
Ephraim was also guilty of idolatry. In Hosea 4:17 we read, “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.” That has reference to the entire northern kingdom of Israel, but remember that Ephraim was the leader there. Also, Ephraim was the tribe which led in the division of the kingdom (see 1 Kings 11:26).
In the list of the 144,000 who will be sealed, Joseph takes the place of Ephraim, and to take the place of Dan is Levi. Levi was the priestly tribe, and they are going to be witnesses in the Great Tribulation Period, which is quite proper.
I trust that we can understand and see that God has now turned again to the nation of Israel. He has not given them up. He said, “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? …” (Hos. 11:8). In other words God said, “I can’t do it,” and God didn’t give them up. They are going to make it through the Great Tribulation Period even though they will lose out as witnesses for God during that period.
The Old Testament is filled with prophecy that God has given to these people that they are to be a nation forever and that they are to be in the land of Israel forever. If you come to the New Testament and write Israel off as having disappeared and that God is through with them, you have to contradict the whole tenor and tone of the Old Testament. I have said that the Book of Revelation is like a great union station or an airport where trains or planes come in from everywhere: all the major themes of prophecy come in to Revelation. Therefore, you would certainly expect Israel to be here in the Book of Revelation—and, lo and behold, here it is.
“Israel” means Israel. If God had wanted to call Israel the church, I think He would have just said “church” because He was able to say “church” when the time came. But now the church is not mentioned anymore, and He is talking about Israel and the 144,000 who are sealed to witness for Him.
The 144,000 are sealed, especially because they are going to witness during this period, and it is going to cost them a great deal. If they were not sealed, they sure wouldn’t be able to make it through. God never leaves Himself without a witness upon this earth.
REDEEMED MULTITUDE OF GENTILES
After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;
And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb [Rev. 7:9–10].
after these things I saw, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, out of every nation and out of tribes, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb arrayed (clothed) in white robes and palm branches in their hands; and they cry with a great voice saying, The salvation to our God, who sitteth on the throne and to the Lamb.
“After these things I saw.” John is seeing as well as hearing these things.
“And behold, a great multitude which no man could number.” Someone will say, “You mean to tell me that men couldn’t count that crowd?” What it says is that no one man could number these—and it doesn’t say anything about a computer. It says that no one man could number this crowd because it is such a large crowd. I wouldn’t dare to venture any guess whatsoever, but the size of this multitude is obviously stupendous. It is not a one-man job to number them.
“Out of every nation and out of tribes, and peoples, and tongues.” These are Gentiles, people from every tribe and nation under the sun. This means that in the Great Tribulation the gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the world. I want to repeat this: the 144,000 witnesses in the Great Tribulation Period are going to do in seven years what the church up to the present has not done in over nineteen hundred years. Do not boast about your missionary program. None of us are reaching very many. But, during the Great Tribulation, there will be a great company of people who will be saved.
It is my own private judgment—I don’t think that Scripture says this anywhere, because nothing has yet to be fulfilled before the Lord removes the church—but it looks to me now as if He is going to let the world hear the gospel before the Rapture of the church. I believe that radio is one of the media that will be used. I think there are other media that will be used: the tape ministry, the printed page, and evangelism. Many evangelists are reaching multitudes of people today. Other radio programs are doing a much bigger job than we are doing, but if you put us all together, we are making quite an impact on this world in which we live.
“Standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” Here is a great company who have come out of the Great Tribulation Period and are rejoicing in their salvation. They are redeemed and have made it through the Great Tribulation Period. Again may I say, the greatest days of God’s salvation are in the future.
It is possible that most of this company were martyred during the Great Tribulation Period, but they were faithful to the end. The Lord Jesus said in the Olivet Discourse, speaking of this same period, “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” (Matt. 24:13). Did they endure to the end because they gritted their teeth, clenched their fists, and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps? No, they didn’t do that at all—they were sealed by the Holy Spirit.
The “white robes” set before us the righteousness of Christ in which they are clothed. We cannot stand before God in our own righteousness because our own righteousness is as filthy rags, and I do not think you are going to wear filthy rags in the presence of God.
“Palm branches!” is literally in the Greek “palm trees.” They are the sign of victory, victory in Christ. This multitude is part of the great triumphal entry that will occur when Christ returns to the earth. The triumphal entry has really never taken place yet. That was actually more like a triumphal exit when He rode into Jerusalem on that little donkey, for He was getting ready to leave the earth, and He was on the way to the cross at that time. Since then, there has been a great company who have come to Him, and in the Great Tribulation there will be another great company. When He returns to the earth, the great company, martyred for Him in the Great Tribulation, will be included in the first resurrection, and they are going to be there. This is a wonderful, glorious picture that is given to us.
And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,
Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen [Rev. 7:11–12].
And all the angels were standing around the throne, and about the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen, blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.
This is a fabulous, fantastic scene of universal worship of God by His creatures. The church is here, the Old Testament saints are here, and the tribulation saints are here. And now the angels join in on it.
There are just one or two things I would like to say about the angels. I do not want to labor the point, and I would not contend with anyone about it, but nowhere in Scripture does it say that angels sing. They are saying this here. However, the important thing to note is that the other companies thank God for their redemption, “Salvation to our God,” but the angels do not mention it. They praise God for His attributes and goodness, but not for salvation. Why? They are sinless creatures, not redeemed sinners. I do not think the angels will be able to sing, but I do believe that Vernon McGee will be able to sing in that day. I cannot do it now, but I sure will be able to sing with that great company.
I hope that this will begin to broaden your vision and your comprehension as to what heaven is going to be. A great many people think that the only ones to be in heaven are their little group, their little church, or their little denomination. Well, my friend, there will be other redeemed people there besides even the church. I think that it will surprise a lot of the saints to discover this when they get to heaven. I wish that we could discover it down here because it would give us a greater love for God and lead us to worship Him more in a very real way, to worship Him in spirit and truth.
One of the elders now wants to bring John up to date on what is taking place:
And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?
And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb [Rev. 7:13–14].
And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, These which are arrayed in the white robes, who are they, and whence came they? And I say unto him, My lord, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
This is a very enlightening passage of Scripture. One of the elders went over to John and said, “John, who are these believers here arrayed in the white robes?” And John said, “My lord, thou knowest.” This is an idiomatic expression, and I think we have one like it in our day. When someone asks us a question and we don’t know the answer, we just sort of lift up our hands and say, “Search me!” which means, “I don’t know!” This is exactly what John is saying here: “You know that I don’t know. You tell me because I don’t know.”
“And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation.” If these people gathered here were the church, John would have known it. John wrote to the believers in his day. He knew about the church, he knew about the body of believers, and he wrote to them about love, that great unifying cement that holds them together. But John doesn’t know who this company is. The elder, who is a representative of the church now in heaven, knows that this company is not the church. It is an altogether different company. It is those who came out of the Great Tribulation. Doesn’t that tell you that the church is not going through the Great Tribulation? This is a special company, out of all tribes and tongues and nations, who have come out of the Great Tribulation.
We live in a day when God makes a division in the human family. One division is between the saved and the lost, of course—that is the great bifurcation of the human family. But if you want a racial division or a group division of the human family, the Word of God has something to say about it: “Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God” (1 Cor. 10:32). Paul says to the Corinthians that there are three groups—the Jews, the Gentiles, and the church of God—and they are not to give offense to any one of these groups. This is one of the divisions that the Scripture makes of the human family. The Jews, Gentiles, and the church of God comprise the division that runs right down through the human family today. In the Great Tribulation, we come to a period when there are but two groups: Jews and Gentiles. Where is the church of God? It went to be with Him. The Lord Jesus said, “… I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself …” (John 14:2–3). The church is with Him in heaven as we move through the Revelation. In 1 Corinthians 12:13 Paul says: “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” God today is calling out of the two divisions, both Jews and Gentiles, a people for His name that are different—the church—and that church will be taken out of the world.
I do not like the impression given today by some—it is a pessimistic viewpoint—that somehow or another God is failing. My friend, God is doing exactly what He said He was going to do: that in this age He would call a people out of this world to Himself. He is doing a much better job at that than you and I think He is. When I was a pastor of a church, I did not think He was doing very much, but I have discovered as our radio ministry has reached out across this land and around the world that there are multitudes who are turning to Christ everywhere. And others are reporting the same thing. God is calling a people out of this world to Himself.
John makes it clear that this group he sees in heaven is different from the church. They came through the Great Tribulation. Let me remind you that it was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself who gave us the term, “great tribulation.” Some may think that some rank, wild-haired fundamentalist thought of this term, but the Lord Jesus Christ is the One who thought of it and designated this period as the Great Tribulation. In Matthew 24:21 He says: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” Both in Matthew and in Revelation, it is expressed in the Greek in a way we cannot express in English. There is an article with the adjective great and an article with tribulation; it is “the tribulation, the great one.” It is given to us like that for emphasis. In other words, this is something that is different; this is something that is indeed unique.
Let me repeat that when John is quizzed by one of the elders, he is unable to identify this great company. John would have known them if this were the church; or if they were Old Testament saints or Israelites, I think John would have known it. This company he does not recognize at all. They are identified as redeemed Gentiles who have come out of the Great Tribulation.
Their robes were white, which speaks of the righteousness of Christ. How did they get that righteousness? It is because Christ shed His blood. The only reason that you and I will be able to stand before God is because Christ paid the penalty for our sins. He died that you and I might live, and that is true of this group here also. It has always been true that God has only one way of saving mankind, and it is by faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:1–4). “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received.” Paul says that this is not new with him. He did not originate it. It was given to him when the Lord Jesus taught him for two years out yonder in the Arabian desert.
Now this is the gospel: “How that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures [according to the Old Testament]; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” The gospel is not God asking you to do something; it is God telling you that He has done something for you. The gospel is not your giving something to God; the gospel is God’s giving something to you. The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. How do you get it? By faith. That is the only way you can receive a gift. Suppose it is Christmastime and you come to me and say, “Dr. McGee, here is a gift for you.” Now what do I have to do to receive it? I could say to you, “I’ll come and mow your lawn for you.” But you would say, “I don’t want you to mow my lawn. This is a gift.” I would insult you if I tried to pay you for your gift. Suppose I offered you the few cents in my pocket in exchange for your gift—that would be an insult. My friend, the thing has gotten all mixed up today. The gospel is what God has done for us. It is His gift.
Again Paul writes in Ephesians 1:7: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.” God has plenty of grace. It does not matter who you are, He can save you. You may think you are a dirty, mean sinner. Well, that is the only kind He saves—we are all that.
We have therefore this great company of Gentiles who are not part of the church. We need to enlarge our conception of the redeemed to the extent that it goes beyond the borders of the church and certainly beyond the borders of your little group or denomination or my little group.
Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.
For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes [Rev. 7:15–17].
Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple (sanctuary); and He that sitteth on the throne shall spread His tabernacle (tent) over them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat (scorching wind): for the Lamb in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them into fountains of waters of life; and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.
“Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple.” We now know for sure that this is not the church, for the church is never identified with the temple. At the end of this book, when the church is in the New Jerusalem, there is no temple there. The church will never have a temple. There is going to be one here on the earth, but there is not one in heaven where the church is. Therefore, this could not be the church.
“And He that sitteth on the throne shall spread His tabernacle (tent) over them.” This is for their protection, you see.
This company has had it; they have been through the Great Tribulation. Most of them, I believe, were martyrs and laid down their lives for Christ. Although we are not specifically told that, they are presented to us as being before the throne of God in heaven. The things that are mentioned now are things they have endured. They are not going to hunger or thirst—they apparently did. They have been out in the burning heat of the sun. They have also been thirsty for spiritual things which they did not have. And they wept, but now God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. They made it through the Great Tribulation because of the blood of the Lamb. This is a wonderful company of folk that is presented to us here.
My friend, the Lord Jesus has other sheep. He told His disciples, and it was hard for them to understand: “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold” … (John 10:16). He could say the same thing to the church today, “I have other sheep that you do not know anything about.” This company of Gentiles are some of the other sheep who will be redeemed but are not a part of the church.
CHAPTER 8
Theme: Opening the seventh seal
In chapter 8 we have the opening of the seventh seal which introduces the seven angels blowing seven trumpets. Four of the trumpets will be dealt with in this chapter. After the parenthetical matter of chapter 7, the sealing of two companies, we now have the opening of the seals resumed. Only the seventh seal remains to be opened. This is the pattern that John sets for the remainder of the Book of Revelation so that we cannot be led astray. There will be series of sevens and, in fact, there are four such series which relate to the Great Tribulation Period. John will give the first six of whatever the series is. Then he will present parenthetical material that contributes to the understanding of that particular series. Finally, the opening of the seventh of the series will introduce the next series of seven, which means that these series are interrelated, tied together, and actually belong to the same period.
There is no reason to get bogged down or to be sensational at this point. To begin with, we have said that everything from chapter 4 on is future—“the things that shall be after these things” (see Rev. 1:19). We are living in the things that are present, the church age, and in one sense these things do not concern us. Many people say, “Oh, it frightens me to study the Book of Revelation!” I will admit that, beginning with the riding of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, these are terrible, terrific judgments that are coming on this earth. They are so tremendous that they boggle the mind just to read about them. But we can at least know where we are: these are things that will take place after the church has left the earth. If you are a child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit to be delivered to Christ when the church goes out of the world before the Great Tribulation Period. This is what is called “the blessed hope” of the church.
These seven trumpets will bring us to the full intensity of the Great Tribulation. The seven seals bring judgments which are the natural results of the activities of sinful man apart from God. The sixth seal brings the judgment of nature. The seven trumpets reveal that God is directly and supernaturally judging a rebellious race.
The seven seals, the seven trumpets, the seven personalities, and the seven vials or bowls of wrath all concern the same period, but from a little different angle. (1) In the seven seals we see the judgment which is the result of man’s willful activity. The judgment of God will be coming upon sinful man. In the first seal we saw the riding of the white horse—a false peace; “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them …” (1 Thess. 5:3). The second seal was the riding of the red horse of war. War comes because it is in the heart of man. A great many people think that if we took all the guns away from people, if there were no arms and no atom bombs, then we would have peace on the earth. My friend, war is in the heart of man, and you have to change the heart of man before you can get rid of war. Frankly, I would have more confidence in a real, born-again Christian who has a gun than an unsaved man who does not have a gun, because if he is unarmed, he can still choke his victim to death. We are seeing that murder is in the human heart. (2) In the seven trumpets, to which we are coming in this chapter, we see the judgment which is the direct activity of God. (3) When we come to the seven personalities, we will see the judgment which is the result of Satan’s fight against God. Satan will be brought out in the open at that time. (4) In the seven bowls of wrath, we will see the final judgment of the Great Tribulation, which is the direct activity of God because of man’s and Satan’s rebellion—God will judge both, by the way.
As we come to this section in which symbols will be used, let us remember that a symbol is a symbol of a fact. We will find that there is a strange and strong similarity between the plagues of Egypt in Moses’ day and the trumpet judgments. It is quite reasonable and logical to conclude that if the plagues of Moses were literal, then the plagues that are coming in the Great Tribulation Period are going to be literal. The symbols that are used are symbols of the reality which is coming. Plain language could not make it clear to our minds how terrible and tragic the Great Tribulation will be. It beggars description, and so God exhausts language and brings in symbols. It is well to keep in mind that this book is a revelation of Jesus Christ. We see Him now in a new role of Judge. The symbols that are used are not hazy and shadowy symbols which can be dissipated into thin air by some specious system of hermeneutics. When symbols are used—and they are used in this book—the key to their meaning is supplied. Scripture will furnish the explanation, and you do not need to draw upon your imagination.
The Book of Revelation is the last book in the Bible because a working knowledge of the sixty-five books preceding it is the basic requirement for an understanding of its vivid language. I get a little irritated when I see a new Christian immediately start teaching a class in the Book of Revelation. Why doesn’t he go back to the beginning and start with Genesis? Take some other book, but do not begin with Revelation. I come to the teaching of Revelation only after having taken nearly five years to go through the rest of the Scriptures. I believe that gives us the right to teach the Book of Revelation; I would not want it otherwise. It was Peter who said, “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation” (2 Pet. 1:20). You do not interpret Revelation by itself; there are sixty-five books before it. The symbols are going to be given to us, but we need to remember that the symbols stand for awful realities.
The opening of the seventh seal introduces the seven trumpets, and that is the way this entire book is built. If the structure of the book is followed, it will prevent you from going off into fanaticism and sensationalism and, as a Christian, it certainly ought to keep you from saying, “The Book of Revelation is so frightful! It terrifies me!” It ought not to terrify you. Actually, it ought to be a comfort to you. I thank God that He is going to judge this world that is running wild today. The way that mankind has blundered and gotten this world into a mess makes it look like it is filled with mad-men. I thank God He is going to judge it, and He is going to judge it rightly. It is very comforting to recognize that.
People often urge me to speak out on my radio broadcast against certain things that are taking place. It is not my business to get on radio and denounce every wrong. My business is to give out just the Word of God, and that is what I am going to do. He is going to straighten this world out someday. I wouldn’t have that job for anything in the world. I am glad it is His job. He is going to straighten out this world, and He is going to move in judgment.
Maybe you don’t like the fact that the gentle Jesus is going to judge. We have already seen that the wrath of the Lamb will be terrifying to those on earth. My friend, when you talk about the gentle Jesus, you had better get acquainted with Him. He died for you, He loves you, and He wants to save you, but if you will not have Him, I tell you, there is waiting ahead of you a terrifying judgment. Someone will say to me, “You are trying to frighten people.” I would like to scare you into heaven if I could, but I know you are too sophisticated and cynical for that. But, my beloved, judgment is coming on this earth. I say, Hallelujah! I am glad that it is coming and that God is not going to let the world go on like it is now. It has gone on long enough.
OPENING OF THE SEVENTH SEAL—INTRODUCTION OF SEVEN TRUMPETS
The first verse of this chapter describes what takes place as the seventh seal is opened.
And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour [Rev. 8:1].
Here is my translation of this verse:
And when (ever) He opened the seventh seal there came to pass a silence in heaven of about a half hour.
“There was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” Many years ago I was speaking at a conference to about three or four hundred young people here in Southern California. I was out on the grounds of the camp, and coming toward me was a group of girls, and in the middle of them there was one boy. It looked like the girls were going to take him apart, and they were making a great deal of noise about it. Finally, they came up to me, and the girls wanted me to hear what this fellow had said. He said to me, “Dr. McGee, did you know that there are not going to be any women in heaven?”
I said, “No, I didn’t know that. Do you have Scripture for it?”
He said, “Yes. The Bible says that there is going to be silence in heaven for the space of half an hour. If there are any women there, there couldn’t be any silence for that long!”
That young man was surrounded by a bunch of girls who were attempting to correct him on that particular interpretation, and frankly I agreed with the girls that that is not the meaning here at all. This verse does not mean that there are not going to be any women in heaven!
I probably did wrong to open this passage on that very light note, because here is a passage that has to do with great solemnity and great seriousness. The Lord Jesus Christ is still in command. He opens the seventh seal, and there is introduced a fanfare of seven trumpets. He directs the action now from heaven. We need to keep that before us through the entire book. Do not lose sight of the fact that Revelation presents Him in His glory as the Judge of all the earth.
It may deceive you to have Him presented as the gentle Jesus who went about doing good—which He did, but we are also going to see the wrath of the Lamb some day. The Lamb is the One of whom John the Baptist said, “… Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Men are not lost because they are sinners; they are lost because they have rejected Jesus who died for them. Even if you go into a lost eternity and have not accepted Christ, He died for you, and you simply made His sacrifice for you of no avail. You have trodden underfoot the blood of Christ when you take that kind of attitude and position toward Him.
This is a very solemn scene. The Lord Jesus Christ orders a halt on all fronts: heaven, hell, and earth. Nothing can move without His permission. He had already ordered the cessation of natural forces on the earth when He ordered the sealing and saving of two definite groups. Now, for a brief moment, there is a lull in judgment activity; there is a heavenly hush. Godet defined it: “This silence is a pause of action.” It is the lull before the storm.
Why is there this strange silence? God’s patience is not exhausted. When the sixth seal was opened and nature responded with a mighty convulsion, brave men weakened for a moment. Christ gave them opportunity to repent. But like the Pharaoh of old who, when the heat was taken off, let his willful heart return to its original intention, many men will go back to their blasphemous conduct when there is a calm. They probably will even rebuke themselves for showing a yellow streak. They will say, “It was only nature reacting. It wasn’t God, after all. Everything can be explained by natural causes.” This, my friend, is the lull before the storm. As someone has said, “The steps of God from mercy to judgment are always slow, reluctant, and measured.” God is reluctant to judge for He is slow to anger. Judgment is His strange work. Isaiah writes: “For the Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act” (Isa. 28:21).
What is strange about God? That He judges, that He is a God of love, judging His creatures. “For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God …” (Ezek. 18:32). This silence marks the transition from grace to judgment. God is waiting. By the way, He is waiting for you today if you have not come to Him. You can come to Him, for He is a gracious Savior.
BLOWING OF THE SEVEN TRUMPETS
Judgment is getting ready to come upon the earth. This is the lull before the storm of judgment which is coming on the earth during this particular period. When I was a boy, my dad built a storm cellar wherever we moved. I spent half of my boyhood, during the spring and early summer, sleeping in the storm cellar. Late one evening my dad and I were standing in the storm cellar doorway. He was watching a storm come up, and he saw that it was not going to hit our little town in southern Oklahoma. It hit one just about ten miles away. We could see the funnel as it let down near that little town. But before that storm hit, there was a certain stillness. The wind had been blowing, the rain had been coming down, there had been a great deal of thunder and lightning, but suddenly all of that stopped, and for a few moments there was a deathlike silence. Then the wind began to blow like I’ve never seen it blow. It was not a funnel-shaped hurricane or a tornado, but just a straight wind. It was all my dad could do to get that storm cellar door down, and I helped him hold onto the chain. The storm broke in all its fury. This is the way the Great Tribulation will break upon the earth, and it is presented to us in this way in the blowing of the trumpets, which is the subject of chapter 8, verse 2, through chapter 11.
ANGEL AT THE ALTAR WITH CENSER OF INCENSE
And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets [Rev. 8:2].
And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and there was given to them seven (war) trumpets.
These “seven angels” are introduced to us as a special group. I believe that Gabriel is in this group because we are told that he stood before God. When he announced the birth of John the Baptist to Zacharias, he said, “… I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God …” (Luke 1:19). The seraphim are also identified as beings who stand before God (see Isa. 6:1–2). However, these seven angels are seemingly a different order from the seraphim as their mission and service are altogether different.
“Seven trumpets” have a special meaning for Israel. I don’t want you to miss this; I consider this all important. Here is where it is essential to have a knowledge of the Old Testament. In the Book of Numbers, Moses was given instructions by God for the making of two silver trumpets. Two was the number of witnesses. The Lord has said on several occasions that in the mouth of two witnesses a matter would be established. These two trumpets were used on the wilderness march in a twofold way. They were used for the calling of the assembly, and they were used to start the procession moving on the wilderness march. “Make thee two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps” (Num. 10:2).
When Israel entered the land, the trumpets were used for two other purposes: “And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm with the trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies. Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; that they may be to you for a memorial before your God: I am the Lord your God” (Num. 10:9–10).
A single trumpet was blown on the wilderness march to assemble the princes: “And if they blow but with one trumpet, then the princes, which are heads of the thousands of Israel, shall gather themselves unto thee” (Num. 10:4).
This single trumpet is, to my judgment, that which corresponds to “the last trump” which Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 15. This trumpet was for the bringing together of a certain group out of Israel. Paul writes: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51–52).
Unfortunately, there are some who assume that “the last trump” of 1 Corinthians 15 is the seventh trumpet of Revelation—there is no relation at all. Listen again to Paul: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first” (1 Thess. 4:16).
The “shout” is the voice of the Lord Jesus. “The voice of the archangel” means that His voice is like that of an archangel. “The trump of God” is still His voice—His voice will sound like a trumpet. We see that from chapter 1, verse 10, where John says that he heard a voice like the sound of a trumpet, and he turned to see the glorified Christ. The glorified Christ is going to call His own out of the earth. When Paul speaks of “the last trump”—“the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised”—he means the call of the Lord Jesus. It is the last call that He makes to the church, and it is therefore called “the last trump.” But the Old Testament type of it is the calling of the princes from out of the children of Israel. One trumpet is blown, and it has no relation to the movement of the children of Israel on the wilderness march.
However, the trumpets did sound an alarm which moved Israel on the wilderness march, and an alarm was sounded to move each division. The tribes were divided into four groups of three tribes each which camped on the four sides of the tabernacle. In addition there were three separate families of Levi who carried the articles of furniture of the tabernacle: Kohath, Gershon, and Merari. Four and three make seven. There were seven blowings of the trumpets to move Israel out. When the first trumpet was blown, the ark moved out with the Kohathites carrying it. Then the tribe of Judah moved out with the two other tribes under the banner of Judah, and so on until they were all on the march. Every man knew his place and stayed in his station. There was no disorder in the camp of Israel whatsoever. (The apostle Paul says that everything is to be done decently and in order in the church. I wish the church were as orderly as Israel was on the wilderness march.) But note particularly that it took seven trumpets to move them out.
The seven trumpets of Revelation will likewise have the positive effect of moving Israel into the land of Palestine. I believe that it will take these seven trumpets to get all of Israel back into that land. This is another reason I do not believe their present return to the land is a fulfillment of prophecy. Rather, it will be fulfilled in the Great Tribulation with the blowing of the seven trumpets as they were on the wilderness march. After the seventh trumpet, Israel is identified for us in chapter 12 as the special object of God’s protection. An understanding of the trumpets, therefore, will prevent us from identifying “the last trump” of the church with the seven trumpets of Revelation.
As the trumpets of Israel were used at the battle of Jericho, so the walls of this world’s opposition to God will crumble and fall during the Great Tribulation. When the Lord Jesus comes, He will put down the last vestige of rebellion against Himself and against God and establish His kingdom here upon this earth. This is a book of triumph and of victory for our God. At the end it has the Hallelujah chorus, and maybe you and I can sing it when we get there!
And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne [Rev. 8:3].
And another angel came and stood over [Gr.: epi] the altar, having a golden censer (bowl); and there was given unto him much incense, that he should add it unto (give it unto) the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
“Another angel” is positively not Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is no longer in the position of intercessor for the church. We saw in chapters 4–5 that He moved away from that position and was given the seven-sealed book. He is in charge of everything that happens from there on in Revelation. He is not moving as one of the actors down on earth’s stage; He is in heaven with the church, and He is not the intercessor. He is now in the place of judgment. He holds the book of the seven seals, and He directs all the activities from the throne. This angel is, as it is stated here, just “another angel.” I do not think the Lord Jesus would be identified as that. Although it is true that in the Old Testament the preincarnate Christ appeared as an angel, I do not believe He will ever appear again as an angel. He will be as He is in the glorified body, and we will see Him as He is someday.
The “golden altar” is the place where prayer is offered. Christ is not in the place of intercession before the golden altar. He is now upon the throne. Incense is likened unto prayer and is a type of prayer. David said in Psalm 141:2, “Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense….”
Incense speaks of the value of Christ’s name and work in prayer. “If you ask in My name” is His injunction. Many today who really believe the Word of God are falling into the habit of ending their prayer by just saying “Amen.” Someone said to me, “It is redundant to say, ‘In Jesus’ name,’ because in your heart you are praying in Jesus’ name.” I agree that to pray in Jesus’ name means more than simply putting on a tag end, “in Jesus’ name.” But I want to say that if you are making a prayer in Jesus’ name, and especially a public prayer, be sure to say that it is in Jesus’ name. I believe that is very important. Here they are offering incense, a sweet smelling incense. You and I are not heard for our much speaking or for our flowery prayer. We are heard when our prayer is made in Jesus’ name.
It is interesting that the incense was given to this angel. Christ didn’t need anything given to Him when He prayed. The prayers of saints which were offered under the fifth seal (see Rev. 6:9–11) are now being answered because of the person and sacrifice of Christ.
And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand [Rev. 8:4].
And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.
Prayer is going to be answered because of Christ.
And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake [Rev. 8:5].
And the angel hath taken (takes) the censer, and filled it with the fire of the altar, and he throws (casts) it upon (into) the earth: and there were (came to pass) thunders, and voices, and lightnings, and an earthquake.
The high priest of Israel took a censer with him as he carried the blood into the Holy of Holies. Here the ritual is reversed, because out of heaven the censer is hurled upon the earth. In other words, the prayers ascended is incense, and now we have the answer coming down. The tribulation saints had prayed, “Oh, God, avenge us!” The people of the earth, having rejected the death of Christ for the judgment of their sins, must now bear the judgment for their own sins. The Great Tribulation is going to get under way.
“Thunders” denotes the approach of the coming storm of God’s judgment.
“Voices” reveals that this is the intelligent direction of God and not the purposeless working of natural forces. God is in charge.
“Lightnings” follow the thunder. This is not a reversal of the natural order. We see the lightning before we hear the thunder due to the fact that light waves move faster than sound waves. Actually, the thunder comes first, but we do not hear it until after we have already seen the lightning.
The “earthquake” is the earth’s response to the severe pressure which will be placed upon it during the judgment of the Great Tribulation Period.
And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound [Rev. 8:6].
And the seven angels having the seven trumpets prepared themselves that they should blow the trumpets.
This is a solemn moment. The half hour of silence is over. The prayers of the saints have been heard. The order is issued to prepare to blow. The angels come to attention, and at the blowing of the trumpets, divine wrath is visited upon rebellious men. The blowing of the trumpets does not introduce symbols or secrets. The plagues here are literal plagues. This method today of evaporating the meaning of Scripture by calling it symbolic is just as bad as denying the inspiration of the Word of God. In other words, it is saying that God doesn’t mean what He says but that He means something else altogether.
FIRST TRUMPET—TREES BURN
The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up [Rev. 8:7].
And the first angel blew the trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mingled in blood, and they were cast into the earth and the third part of the earth was burnt up, and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all the green grass was burnt up.
This is a direct judgment from God. Judgment falls upon plant life, from the grass to the great trees. Every form of botanical life is affected first. Notice, however, that it is only one-third, but it makes a tremendous impact upon the earth. Fire, the great enemy, is the instrument God uses. The Flood was used in the first global judgment; now it is going to be fire. This earth is to be purified by fire. The forests and the prairies covered with grass are partially destroyed by fire. One-third of the earth denotes the wide extent of the damage. “One-third” means not one-fourth or one-half; it means one-third. Plant life was the first to be created, and it is the first to be destroyed. In the record given in Genesis 1:11, God began with the creation of plant life after order had been brought into the physical globe.
This is a literal judgment upon plant life in the same way that the seventh plague of Egypt was literal (see Exod. 9:18–26). I called attention before to the fact that there is a striking similarity between the plagues in Egypt and the trumpet judgments—this is no accident. If you go back to the Book of Exodus, you will see that the plagues are literal—every believer in the Bible has to grant that; then you must also grant that these plagues in Revelation should be taken in the same fashion. I do not know by what flip-flop method of hermeneutics you could interpret one way in one passage and another way in another passage—unless the Scripture makes it clear that you can do such a thing. When hail came down on Egypt, we are told that “… the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field” (Exod. 9:25)—it was 100 percent destruction in Egypt; it will be one-third of the earth.
SECOND TRUMPET—SEAS BECOME BLOOD
And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed [Rev. 8:8–9].
And the second angel sounded (blew the trumpet), and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was thrown (cast) into the sea, and the third of the sea became blood; and there died the third of the creatures which were in the sea, (even) they that have life. And the third of the ships was destroyed.
The sea, which occupies most of the earth’s surface, is next affected by this direct judgment of God. The separation of the land and the sea occurred on the same day in which plant life appeared (see Gen. 1:9–10).
I want you to notice the exact language used here. John does not say that a burning mountain was cast into the sea but rather he indicates that a great mass or force “as it were a great mountain burning with fire was [thrown] cast into the sea”—as it were a great mountain. This careful distinction in the use of language should be noted, especially since it is the common practice to lump together everything in Revelation and call it symbolic. You might think that it gets you out of a lot of trouble, but it gets you out of the frying pan into the fire, by the way.
The mountain represents something as literal and tangible as that which we have in Jeremiah 51:25 where the Lord is talking about Babylon: “Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.”
This literal mass falls into the literal sea, one-third becomes literal blood, and one-third of all the literal living creatures in the literal sea die a literal death. Nothing could be plainer than this. Also, one-third of the literal ships of all literal nations are literally destroyed. If we just let John say what he wants to, he makes it very clear.
There is no use to try to find some symbol. John doesn’t say that this is symbolic. He makes it very clear that a great mass, a force, is put into the ocean. I do not know what this could possibly be, and there are two reasons for that. First of all, John didn’t tell me; he didn’t tell anybody, and therefore, I do not think that anyone has the answer. The second reason is that I don’t expect to be here at that time to be reading the evening papers. The bad news that we get in the papers and on television today will continue, only more so, during the Great Tribulation. I won’t be here to see it. Therefore, this does not concern me too much, other than it is an awful tragedy that is coming on a Christ-rejecting world which actually ridicules the Word of God today. This is something that certainly makes the believer sorrowful in his heart—but it ought to do more than that. It not only ought to affect our hearts; it ought also to affect our wills and our feet to start us moving to get the Word of God out to the world. That is our responsibility, and I believe it is a very solemn responsibility. We cannot keep this judgment from coming on the earth, but we can get the Word of God out and reduce the population that will be left on the earth so that fewer people will go through that terrible time.
THIRD TRUMPET—FRESH WATERS BECOME BITTER
And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter [Rev. 8:10–11].
And the third angel blew the trumpet (sounded), and a great star burning as a torch fell from (out of) heaven, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of the waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood [Gr.: Apsinthos]; and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.
We are living in a world today where a great deal is being said about pollution, and it is a real problem. Man seems to have gotten a head start on the star in polluting all the waters. Personally, I think that man is going to be forced to clean up the water of the world if he is going to be able to exist at all. Self-preservation is considered to be the first law of nature, and man wants to hang on to this little earth; so he’s going to do something about it. In the Great Tribulation, the fresh water is polluted, and the drinking water for mankind is contaminated, that is, one-third of it is.
Those of us who live in Southern California know something of the scarcity of fresh water for drinking and domestic use. I am told that in Los Angeles it costs somewhere around $100 million just to turn on the spigot to get the water here to us. Fresh water is something that is essential for man and beast. I remember the drought of the ’50s in Dallas, Texas. The city’s water supply came from man-made lakes; the lakes dried up, and the supply was exhausted. It was necessary to get water from the Red River, but the oil companies had allowed salt water from their deep wells to drain into the river. Nobody worried about it until they needed the water for drinking. It was so salty, it was barely possible to drink it. Many people traveled to surrounding little towns to get a bottle of water to bring home. These experiences teach man how dependent he is upon fresh water.
When the children of Israel crossed over the Red Sea, they came to Marah where the waters were bitter. Moses was directed to take a tree and cast it into the waters to make them sweet. Here in Revelation, the sweet waters are made bitter by a meteor, a star out of heaven. The tree that Moses put into the water speaks of the cross of Christ.
“Wormwood” is a name used metaphorically in the Old Testament, according to Vincent (Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. 2, p. 506), in the following ways: (1) idolatry of Israel (see Deut. 29:18); (2) calamity and sorrow (see Jer. 9:15; 23:15; Lam. 3:15, 19); and (3) false judgment (see Amos 5:7).
This star is literal and is a meteor containing poison which contaminates one-third of the earth’s fresh water supply. The star’s name suggests that this is a judgment upon man for idolatry and injustice. Calamity and sorrow are the natural compensations that are coming upon man because of this judgment.
FOURTH TRUMPET—SUN, MOON, AND STARS SMITTEN
And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise [Rev. 8:12].
And the fourth angel blew the trumpet (sounded), and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third of the moon, and the third of the stars; in order that a third part of them might be darkened, and the day not shine for the third part of it, and the night in like manner.
Another phase of creation upon which mankind on this earth is solely dependent for light and life is the sun. To a lesser degree, man is dependent on the moon and stars. It was on the fourth day of re-creation that these heavenly bodies appeared. They had been created before, but the light broke through on the fourth day. Now the light is put out, as it were, over a third part of the earth. God let these lights break through, the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night, and they were to be for signs and seasons. The Lord Jesus indicated that in the Great Tribulation there would be special signs in these heavenly bodies: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken” (Matt. 24:29).
The laws of nature are radically altered by these disturbances. There is a definite limitation—only a third part of the light and of the day is affected. The intensity of the light has the wattage reduced by one-third. Talk about an energy shortage! Believe me, my friend, one is coming to this earth someday.
I saw an arresting billboard in Seattle, Washington, when Boeing had shut down many of its plants, laid off several thousand men, and people were beginning to leave town. On this billboard on Highway 5, some wag put this sign: “The last one leaving town, please turn out the lights.” Well, God is getting ready to turn out the lights here on this earth. However, the Lord has made it clear, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Gen. 8:22).
A statement from Robert Govett (The Apocalypse Expounded by Scripture, p. 180) is intensely interesting in this connection, in view of present-day efforts to eliminate the death penalty:
Hence day continues still, though its brightness is diminished. God shows His right to call in question man’s right to the covenant. He has not kept the terms. Blood for blood is not shed by the nations. By this time the command to put the murderer to death is, through a false philanthropy, refused by the world.
This is another angle to the question of capital punishment. These judges with soft heads as well as soft hearts eliminate capital punishment and turn the criminals loose on us in this world today. Man continues to move in that direction, but God says, “I gave you a covenant that you were to protect human life, and you are protecting human life when you execute murderers.” Capital punishment is a deterrent to crime, and any person who says it is not a deterrent to crime must be like an ostrich with his head in the sand. I think that capital punishment will be abolished by Antichrist if it is not done so before.
And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound! [Rev. 8:13].
And I saw and heard one eagle, flying in mid-heaven (the meridian), saying with a great voice [Gr.: phoneµ megale], Woe, we, woe to them dwelling upon the earth, by reason of the remaining voices of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to blow the trumpet (sound).
When the fourth trumpet is blown, the announcement is made of a peculiar intensity of woe and judgment that is coming on the earth. The last three trumpets are separated from the other four; they are “woe” trumpets.
“And I saw and heard one eagle.” Somebody says, “This eagle is talking! Is it a literal eagle?” My friend, if God can make a parrot and a few other birds talk, I do not think He will have any problem at all with an eagle.
It is interesting to note that our Lord used the eagle to speak of His coming: “For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together” (Matt. 24:28)—that is after the great Battle of Armageddon.
CHAPTER 9
Theme: The fifth and sixth trumpets
The last three trumpets are separated from the other four by the fact that they are three woe trumpets. My translation of chapter 8, verse 13, reads, “And I saw and heard one eagle, flying in midheaven, saying with a great voice, Woe, woe, woe to them dwelling upon the earth, by reason of the remaining voices of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to blow the trumpet.” We are coming to a section that is weird and wild; it boggles the mind as we read through this chapter. All kinds of interpretations have been given of this section. But let us get our feet back on the ground, and we will find that the things mentioned here ought not to frighten us. If you are a child of God, you are not going through these things. It is not the “blessed hope” of the church to endure these things. The church will have been taken out of the world by this time, and these are the things which will happen in the Great Tribulation Period to a Christ rejecting world.
These woes mark the deepest darkness and the most painful intensity of the Great Tribulation Period. They are generally associated with the last three and one-half years of the Seventieth Week of Daniel, which is the Great Tribulation Period. These will be the blackest days in human history.
The language used in this section is admittedly the most difficult of interpretation, but this does not preclude our policy of following the literal line, even when the figures adopted are the most vivid and wild. If another interpretation is proper, John will furnish us the key.
FIFTH TRUMPET—FALLEN STAR AND PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS
Here in verse 1 we have a description of the scene as the fifth angel sounds a trumpet and a star falls from heaven.
And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit [Rev 9:1].
And the fifth angel sounded (blew the trumpet), and I saw a star out of heaven fallen into the earth, and there was given to him a key of the long shaft (pit, well) of the abyss.
Notice the proper meaning of “the bottomless pit” is the long shaft (or pit or well) of the abyss.
“I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth.” We have already seen two stars, and we said that they were literal stars, meteors, that fall to the earth. I recall several years ago sitting with my wife on a lanai of a hotel on Waikiki Beach and watching a shower of meteors or shooting stars. Meteors are the shooting stars which we see on a summer night. But here we have a different kind of star because it is called “him” and acts with intelligence. We are talking now about an unusual person. This star is different, therefore, from the stars mentioned at the sounding of the fourth trumpet. This star not only acts with intelligence, but he is given a key which he uses—no inanimate star could do this.
We believe that this star is Satan. Some have identified this star as Antichrist; if this is so, it lends support to the view that Antichrist is Satan incarnate, but I do not accept that. My point is that Antichrist is exactly that: he is everything Christ is not, and he is motivated by Satan. The reasons for interpreting this star as Satan are abundant. The prophet Isaiah writes: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” (Isa. 14:12).
In Luke’s Gospel we read: “And he [Jesus] said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18).
That would be like a fallen star, you see. Also, Paul writes: “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14). These Scriptures confirm the position that Satan is in view here. John will state later that Satan was put out of heaven and cast to the earth (see Rev. 12:7–9). If we have established the fact that the “star” is Satan being cast out of heaven, then what does he do? He goes down and takes the key to the abyss, which apparently means that God is permitting him to do so. A key denotes authority and power, and this is given to him of God; it is the permissive will of God.
“The long shaft of the abyss” means the long shaft leading to the abyss. The abyss is the bottomless pit which will be seen in chapter 20, verse 3. The abyss and hades may be synonymous terms, but the abyss and hell are not the same. Our Lord probably referred to the abyss in Matthew 12:40: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
The Lord speaks here of His descent into the “heart of the earth.” The body of Jesus was not actually buried in the earth—it was put in a new tomb—and it certainly was not in the heart of the earth. Rather, what we have in this language of Matthew is that He went to the abyss, which apparently is hades or sheol. When the Lord Jesus told about the deaths of the rich man and Lazarus (see Luke 16:19–31), He made it quite obvious that hades is in two compartments. The rich man died and went to the place of torment. The poor man died and went into Abraham’s Bosom, or paradise as our Lord called it. The Lord went down there in His death to announce to the saved His victory and that He would be leading them into the presence of God. That is, I believe, what Paul meant when he said that the Lord Jesus “… led captivity captive …” (Eph. 4:8). He went to the abyss to announce that His redemption had been wrought.
It behooves us not to be dogmatic where the Scriptures are silent, but there is the thought that a shaft leads from the surface of the earth to the heart of the earth. I know that may sound very much like I am being superstitious. I do accept this idea, but I would not be dogmatic about it. If you have some advance information and can prove to me that it means something else, I would certainly be glad to accept it.
The Lord now holds the key to the abyss (see Rev. 1:18). Peter tells us the demons are imprisoned there (see 2 Pet. 2:4). In Luke 8:30–31 we read: “And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep [abyss].”
The abyss is a very literal place. The idea that heaven and hell are mythological and that heaven is a beautiful isle of somewhere, a Shangri-la hanging out in space, is not the teaching of the Word of God. The teaching of the Word of God is that heaven is as literal as the place where you live today and that hell is equally as real as the place where you now live.
During the last part of the Great Tribulation, the key to the abyss is given to Satan, and he is given a freedom that he never has had before. I believe this explains why men cannot die during this period. Satan wants to keep them alive; he does not want his army decimated at all.
And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit [Rev. 9:2].
And he opened the long shaft (pit, well) of the abyss, and there came smoke out of the long shaft of the abyss as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened from the smoke of the shaft of the abyss.
Out of the shaft, like a great erupting volcano, will come smoke to cover the entire earth. This is smog of the most vicious type. The literal interpretation of this verse is the correct and most satisfying one.
And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads [Rev. 9:3–4].
And out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth, and power was given to them as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was said to them in order that they should not hurt the grass of the earth nor any green things, nor any tree, but only (except) the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
To me this beggars description. John uses symbolic language which describes creatures so frightful that this is the only way he could speak of them.
These are locusts, but they are of a very unusual character. As Govett remarks (The Apocalypse Expounded by Scripture, pp. 185–186), they are “no common locusts,” and he gives the following reasons:
1. for they eat no vegetable productions;
2. the locusts of the earth have no king (Prov. 30:27); these have;
3. in the plague of Egypt the inspired recorder had said, “Before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such” (Exod. 10:14);
4. yet they are literal creatures resembling the literal animals named: the lion, the horse, the scorpion, the man.
This is a plague of locusts which is as literal as the plague of locusts in Egypt. Joel prophesied of a coming plague of locusts (see Joel 1). Again, a working knowledge of the Old Testament is essential to the understanding of Revelation. The difference between the locusts here and the locusts in Joel is the character of the locusts and the object of their destruction. They sting as scorpions, and their objects are evil men.
And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man [Rev. 9:5].
And it was given to them in order that they should not kill them, but in order that they should be tormented five months; and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when it striketh a man.
The scorpion is shaped like a lobster and lives in damp places. His sting is in his tail; though it is not fatal, it is very painful indeed. This is the picture we are given here. These were mentioned by Joshua when he spoke of the hornet, “And I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you …” (Josh. 24:12). Therefore you can see that believers, living during the Great Tribulation who will be acquainted with the Old Testament, will understand what John is talking about regarding these scorpions.
And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them [Rev. 9:6].
And in those days shall the men seek death, and shall not find it; and they shall earnestly desire to die, and death fleeth from them.
Satan is given the key to this long shaft (which evidently is what is called sheol in the Old Testament and hell [hades] in the New Testament). The shaft leads to the abyss where the spirits of the dead of the ages past have gone. This is where the Lord Jesus went to announce the redemption that He had wrought on the cross. Satan does not want his crowd to die, and it is only his crowd that are attacked by these locusts. Men during this period try to commit suicide and are unable to do it—this reveals something of the awfulness of that day. Satan wants them here because there is a battle between light and darkness that is being waged. There are others who think that maybe it is God who will not let these men die because sinful man must face the consequences of his rebellion—there is no escape. It is not a laughing matter to reject Jesus Christ; it is not a simple thing to ignore Him. People say there are so many important things in this life—and I am willing to grant that many things take second, third, and fourth place—but the most important thing is your decision concerning Jesus Christ.
And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months [Rev. 9:7–10].
And the likenesses of the locusts were like unto horses prepared for war; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as of chariots of many horses rushing into battle. And they had tails like scorpions, and stings; and in their tails was their power to hurt men five months.
I am sure you will agree that this is a frightful, weird, and unnatural description. A little closer examination, however, will reveal a striking similarity to the locusts of Palestine, which I think we need to note. Dr. Vincent makes this comment in his Book on Revelation:
The likeness of a locust to a horse, especially to a horse equipped with armor, is so striking that the insect is named in German Heupferd hay-horse, and in Italian cavaletta little horse.
The faces of locusts resemble the faces of men, and the antennae of the locust are compared to a girl’s hair. Joel compares the teeth of the locust with those of a lion (see Joel 1:6). Many have commented on the weird sound that the locust makes. In his Word Studies in the New Testament, Dr. Vincent quotes Olivier, a French writer:
It is difficult to express the effect produced on us by the sight of the whole atmosphere filled on all sides and to a great height by an innumerable quantity of these insects, whose flight was slow and uniform, and whose noise resembled that of rain.
There are those today who have attempted to liken this description of the locust to the airplane. I remember as a young fellow hearing a preacher who said that since the sting of the locust is in the tail, it compares to the rear gunner on a bomber! Well, that all sounds very good, but we have now passed from the propeller plane to the jet plane and into the missile age. Maybe you would want to compare these locusts to the missile. Seriously, I do not want to compare it to anything that is known today, because this is not the weapon that is used today but the weapon that is going to be used in the Great Tribulation Period—whatever that is going to be. Our weapons today are so frightful that even Russia and the United States (although they are at opposite poles) are willing to sit down and talk, as long as one thinks the other is as strong or stronger than he is.
“Their power was to hurt men five months.” It will be five months of unspeakable agony for those who have been attacked by these unnatural locusts.
And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon [Rev. 9:11].
They have over them (as) king, the angel of the abyss: his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek tongue he hath the name Apollyon.
These locusts are further differentiated from ordinary locusts in that they have a king over them. Proverbs 30:27 says of natural locusts that they have no king. The king or leader of these locusts is probably one of the fallen angels, the chief henchman of Satan, and he is permitted to lead an invasion of earth for the first time. This is something that is going to be rather frightening. His name in Hebrew means “destruction,” and in Greek it means “the destroyer.” This confirms what Daniel told us, that the demon world of the fallen angels is divided into gradations. I think there are generals, majors, lieutenants, sergeants, and buck privates. In Ephesians we find that the angels of God are divided in the same way.
One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter [Rev. 9:12].
The one woe is past; behold there come yet two woes after these things.
The first woe introduced to us the last half of the Great Tribulation Period, and it had a duration of five months. Apparently, the last two woes will cover the remainder of that period. The warning here indicates that worse things are to follow, and the next trumpet reveals that this was not just an idle warning.
SIXTH TRUMPET—ANGELS LOOSED AT RIVER EUPHRATES
And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates [Rev. 9:13–14].
And the sixth angel blew (sounded) the trumpet. And I heard one (a single) voice out of the horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel having the trumpet, loose the four angels which have been bound at the great river Euphrates.
When the sixth angel blew the trumpet, a command came from the horns of the golden altar. That golden altar speaks of prayer; that is what it spoke of in the tabernacle here on earth. This is where the angel offered prayer at the beginning of the blowing of the trumpets (see Rev. 8:3). The sixth angel not only blows the trumpet but is also given a command to loose the four angels bound at the river Euphrates. This angel receives in turn his orders from a voice that was there at the horns of the golden altar. It is the voice of Christ. He has now ripped off the seventh seal which led into the trumpets and which will lead into the seven personalities and the seven bowls of wrath.
The angels who are bound are evidently evil. Why would they be bound if they were not evil? Releasing them turns loose a flood tide of destruction on the earth. They were bound away from the others, I believe, because of the enormity of their crime.
Why were they bound at this particular location at the Euphrates River? Though this is rather difficult to explain, the prominence of this area in Scripture cannot be overlooked. The Garden of Eden was somewhere in this section. The sin of man began here. The first murder was committed here. The first war was fought here. Here was where the Flood began and spread over the earth. Here is where the Tower of Babel was erected. To this area were brought the Israelites of the Babylonian captivity. Babylon was the fountainhead of idolatry. And here is the final surge of sin on the earth during the Great Tribulation Period.
The Euphrates actually marks the division between East and West. It was Kipling who said that East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet. That is true to a certain extent. Perhaps there has been a restraining influence in the past which has kept the hordes of the East from spilling over into the West, but it is going to be broken down. It was Napoleon who made the statement: “China is a sleeping giant, and God pity the generation that wakes her up.” Well, we woke her up, and she is very much alive today. China represents one-fourth of the world’s population. If you take the peoples of the East, of the Orient, beyond the Euphrates River, you have most of the population of the world. Suppose they start moving? My friend, they are going to move someday. From the time of Alexander the Great, the white man has had his day. Colonialism, as far as the white man is concerned, is over now, but communism’s colonialism is still on the march. The dark races are awakening. They have been held back, and apparently these four angels had something to do with holding them back.
Zechariah locates Babylon as the last stand of false religion (see Zech. 5). This is where Satan’s last stand will take place.
And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.
And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them [Rev. 9:15–16].
And the four angels were loosed, who had been prepared for the hour, and day, and month, and year, that they might kill the third of men. And the number of the armies of the cavalry was two ten thousands (myriads) of ten thousands (myriads).
“And the four angels were loosed, who had been prepared for the hour, and day, and month, and year.” You will have to take that literally, my friend, because I do not know how else you would take it. The very hour is marked out.
“That they might kill the third of men.” At the blowing of the sixth trumpet, one-third of the population of mankind will be removed. We have already seen a fourth removed, and now a third is removed. Over one-half of the population of the earth will be destroyed in the Great Tribulation Period. No wonder that the Lord Jesus said, “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved …” (Matt. 24:22).
The size of the army is stupendous. It is numbered at 200 million. China and India and Japan could easily put that many in the field tomorrow. The great population is in the East today. God help the white man, my friend, when these angels are removed—he will not stand a chance.
What is spoken of here in this passage is the wholesale invasion of the earth by the demon world represented in the locusts. Now they are motivated to a world war. Actually, we have never yet had a real world war in which every nation was involved, but that will take place in the Great Tribulation Period. Are these 200 million human beings? I have so far indicated that they could be, but frankly, I believe that what we have here is the invasion by the demon world, which is a further result of Satan’s opening the door of the shaft of the bottomless pit. The following description of these horsemen further confirms this fact.
And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.
By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths [Rev. 9:17–18].
And, thus (after this manner) I saw the horses in the (my) vision, and those that sat on them, have breastplates as of fire (fiery red), and hyacinth, and brimstone; and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths proceed fire, and smoke, and brimstone. By these three plagues was the third of men killed, by the fire, and the smoke, and the brimstone that proceeded out of their mouths.
Many suppose these to be tanks. How do they know that tanks will be used in the Great Tribulation Period? We are talking about a period that is in the future. Modern tanks reveal that this may well be, but I have a notion that they are going to have something more refined and sophisticated in that period.
Notice that the colors are as striking as the horsemen are unnatural. “Fire” is fiery red; “hyacinth” is the same color as the flower—dull, dark blue; “brimstone” is light yellow.
The horse is the animal of war (see Job 39:19–25). The underworld is now making war on mankind. These creatures from the underworld are unnatural. They are probably demons or demon-controlled. We are given a literal description of them. In his book on Revelation, William R. Newell makes this very timely observation, “Believe, and you scarcely need any comment.” The problem with men who come to Revelation and say that it is difficult to understand and impossible to interpret is that they do not believe it. If you simply believe it and read it, it is very clear. Hellish forces will be at work during this period.
These three plagues mentioned here are literal plagues. The fire is literal, the smoke is literal, and the brimstone is literal. The same thing took place at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. I believe this world during the Great Tribulation Period will actually be worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. People talk about homosexuality attaining respectability in our day. Well, it was the accepted life-style in Sodom and Gomorrah, but homosexuals went out of business—God put them out of business. If you think God is going to permit mankind to go into eternity an unnatural creature, you are wrong.
At this point one-third of the population is killed. One-third of nature had already been affected, but mankind had not been touched with a judgment of this magnitude. If the population of the world were 1.5 billion, this would mean that 500 million would be slain. Remember that a fourth part had been slain under the fourth seal. This terrible decimation of the earth’s population seemed incongruous with all of history until the atomic bomb fell upon Hiroshima. Since then men have been using more frightening language than that of Revelation. They now talk of the total decimation of earth’s inhabitants. But the Lord Jesus said that He will not permit it: “… except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved …” (Matt. 24:22)—and the human race would commit suicide if it could.
For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt [Rev. 9:19].
For the power of the horses is in their mouths, and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents, having heads, and by them they hurt.
These are unnatural horses which are able to kill with their mouths. The weirdest feat of all is that, instead of horses’ hair for tails, they have serpents which are also used in destroying mankind.
And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts [Rev. 9:20–21].
And the rest of men who were not killed by these plagues, repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold and silver and copper and stone and wood, which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk. Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.
“Sorceries” is the Greek word pharmakeion, from which we get our English word pharmacy. Pharmacy means “drugs.” What were called drugstores when I was a boy are today called pharmacies. The Great Tribulation will be a period when the use of drugs will not be controlled. Drugs will play a large part in the lives of the unsaved and will serve several purposes. Drugs will enable them to bear the judgments of the Great Tribulation Period. I am sure that many a person will turn to drugs when he is stung or bitten by these unnatural creatures. Although they will not die, they will feel like they are going to die, and as a result, they will take drugs to overcome the pain and help them endure the Great Tribulation.
Drugs will also figure largely in the religion of that day. There will be a regular drug culture and drug religion in the days of the Great Tribulation Period. What we are seeing today is very small in comparison to what it will be then. People will resort to everything that will deaden the pain or lift them out of the trouble of that time. Liquor will certainly be very prominent as it is even now. I want to share with you a statement by Dr. J. A. Seiss from his book (The Apocalypse, p. 106) published about 1906. The reason I mention the date is that it seems like he wrote it yesterday or that maybe he was preparing it for tomorrow’s edition of your local paper. This is his comment on the word sorceries:
We have only to think of the use of alcoholic stimulants, of opium, of tobacco, of the range of cosmetics and medicaments to increase love attractions, of resorts to the pharmacopoeia in connection with sensuality—of the magical agents and treatments alleged to come from the spirit-world for the benefit of people in this—of the thousand impositions in the way of medicines and remedial agents, encouraging mankind to reckless transgression with the hope of easily repairing the damages of nature’s penalties—of the growing prevalence of crime induced by these things, setting loose and stimulating to activity the vilest passions, which are eating out the moral sense of society—for the beginnings of that moral degeneracy to which the seer here alludes as characteristic of the period when the sixth trumpet is sounded.
You would think that he had written that for today, but in his day there was no great drug culture nor were drugs and alcohol as big a problem as they are today. Drugs are used today in practically every modern cult which uses sex as a drawing card.
We are told here that they were guilty not only of sorceries, of indulging in drunkenness and in drugs, but also of fornications which lead to thefts. It is alarming the way that adultery is being practiced in the United States. It is promoted as an evidence of our liberty and of the tremendous advancement of civilization! It is interesting that, instead of playing the requiem, this crowd wants to sing and dance and say that the race is improving.
Sorceries and fornication and robbery are going to be increased and a greater emphasis placed upon them. I believe that the Antichrist will use all three of these to bring mankind into subjection to himself. Mankind will be easily lured in that day. Under the influence of drugs, he will accept anything. One of the reasons that our contemporary nightclubs push liquor is not only for the money that is in it, but it also makes their entertainers acceptable. A very inferior singer or comedian goes over well if you’ve had two cocktails; and if you’ve had three, then he is a star. Drugs and liquor will put Antichrist over. Paul wrote: “Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thess. 2:9–10).
I believe that the gospel will go out to every creature before the Rapture, and certainly each one is going to hear it during the Great Thribulation Period. What Paul describes here will only happen to those who have rejected the Word of God. “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:11–12).
The moment that you reject the gospel and shut your heart to God, you are wide open for the big lie when it comes. This is the reason so many today fall for everything that comes along. Someone has said that those who stand for nothing will fall for anything. This is it exactly: those today who are not standing for the Word of God are easy prey for the cults.
CHAPTER 10
Theme: Interlude between the sixth and seventh trumpets
Chapter 10 is the hiatus, the interlude between the sixth and seventh trumpets. This chapter begins the second of a series of interludes. Between the sixth and seventh seals, there was an interlude as two groups were redeemed and sealed during the Great Tribulation. Here, between the sixth and seventh trumpets, we have an interlude as three personalities are introduced. In this chapter the mighty angel is described, and in the first fourteen verses of chapter 11, the two witnesses are introduced, though not identified.
THE STRONG ANGEL WITH THE LITTLE BOOK
In verse 1 the mighty angel comes from heaven and is introduced.
And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire [Rev. 10:1].
Let me give you my own translation:
And I saw another strong (powerful) angel coming down out of heaven clothed with a cloud, and the rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire.
There has been definite disagreement among outstanding and fundamental Bible expositors as to the identity of the mighty angel. Godet, Vincent, Pettingill, DeHaan, Ironside, Walter Scott, and William Kelly all identify the strong angel as Christ. Newell and others consider him to be just an angel of great power and authority, but not Christ. Dr. John Walvoord takes this viewpoint, and Vernon McGee takes it also. If you go with either crowd, you will be in good company. In the first group are some men I have great respect for and whom I love in the Lord. I have personally known three of those men, and they were my dear friends. If you follow them, it will be all right, and you will be in good company; but if you want to be right, you want to come along with me on this!
There is ample evidence to show that this angel is only a mighty angel. Christ does not appear in Revelation as an angel. It is true that in the Old Testament the preincarnate Christ was seen as the Angel of the Lord. But after He took upon Himself our humanity, after He died and rose again and received a glorified body, we now see Him in the place of great power and glory yonder at God’s right hand. We never see Him as an angel again. When He was here in His humanity, He was not an angel—He was a man. Therefore, He is revealed in the Book of Revelation as the glorified Christ, as the postincarnate Christ. He is exalted to the nth degree. It is well to keep before us constantly that this book is the unveiling of Jesus Christ. New glories of His person and of His power and performance are unfolded in each chapter. He is now the One judging a Christ-rejecting earth.
“And I saw another strong angel.” Another means that it is another of the same kind. The other strong angel to whom we were introduced was back in Revelation 5:2. There was no argument there; it was not Christ. It is the livery of this angel (that is, the way in which he is garbed) which has led some to identify him as Christ. Though all angels are the servants of Christ, in this final book of the Bible, this is evidently the special envoy of Christ, bearing all the credentials of his exalted position. He comes down out of heaven from the presence of Christ, the One who is in the midst of the throne.
He is “clothed with a cloud.” This is his uniform as a special envoy from Christ. The clouds of glory are associated with the second coming of Christ, but the angel described here is not coming in clouds of glory, but he is clothed with a cloud. Furthermore, this is not the second coming of Christ to the earth to establish His kingdom; rather, this angel makes the announcement that He is coming soon. Angels, you recall, announced His first coming, and they will announce His second coming to the earth.
“And the rainbow was upon his head.” This is the cap for his uniform and is a reminder of God’s covenant with man. Although the judgments have come, thick and fast, weird and wild—it beggars language to describe them—this rainbow indicates that God will not send a flood to destroy man again.
“And his face was as the sun.” This is his badge of identification. This is the signature of the glorified Christ (see Rev. 1:16). It does not follow that this one must therefore be the Son of God. Moses’ face shone after he had been in the presence of God (see Exod. 34:29). This angel’s face is shining because he has come out from the presence of Christ. You will recall that the raiment of the angels at the resurrection of Christ also shone (see Luke 24:4). The angel of Revelation 18:1 is a light giver, as the sun and moon, yet no one asserts that he is Christ. Also, I take it that this angel in chapter 10 is not Christ, but he is what it says: an angel, another great, mighty angel.
“And his feet as pillars of fire.” This is still part of his uniform. He has come to make a special and solemn announcementof coming judgment. All of these features of identification are his credentials and connect him to the person of Christ as His special envoy. The Lord Jesus is running everything at this particular point. He is the Judge of all the earth.
And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,
And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices [Rev. 10:2–3].
And he had in his hand a little book opened; and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot upon the earth; and he cried with a great voice as (when) a lion roareth: and when he cried the seven thunders spoke their own voices.
There are several reasons that I believe that this little book or scroll is the seven-sealed book which we have seen before. One reason is simply because it is the only book that has been before us, and it is not identified in any other way than it is called “a little book.” Frankly, a different word is used here for this book instead of the Greek word biblion which is used for the seven-sealed book. But that would not preclude the possibility of its being the same book.
This little book, if it is the same as the seven-sealed book, was originally in the hands of the Father in heaven (see Rev. 5:1). It should be noted how it is first transferred to the nail-pierced hands of God the Son. It was given to the Lord Jesus who was the only One who could open it. The breaking of the seven seals opened the book; and the seven trumpets, six of which have already been blown, are still part of what is in the book. After He removes the seals, the Lord Jesus Christ in turn transfers the book to the angel, who gives it finally to John to eat.
This is the book of the title deed of the earth, and it contains the judgments of the Great Tribulation by which the Lord Jesus is coming to power. The book is now open, and the judgments are on display. This book is the angel’s authority for claiming both the sea and the earth for Christ. He puts one foot on the sea and the other foot upon the earth, and he is claiming both for God. In Leviticus 25:23 the Lord gave instructions to Israel concerning the land He had given them: “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.”
It may be that you think you own a pretty good piece of the real estate of this earth. You hold the title deed. The title has been transferred down through the years to you, and you paid good money for it. You feel it is yours. I say that you are wrong because your title doesn’t go back far enough. Sometime in the past, somebody stole it from the Indians. The Indians got it from somebody else—or maybe they just walked in and occupied vacant property. But to whom does it belong? My friend, your property belongs to God, and no matter who you are, you haven’t paid Him for it. The earth is His and the fulness thereof (see Ps. 24:1).
God not only claims the land, but He claims the sea as well as the land. “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas” (Ps. 8:6–8).
God says, “I own the seas also, as well as the land, and I have given this to you. I put man on the earth.” Man is a tenant on the earth—some of us haven’t paid our rent lately—but we are in a little world that God created. It belongs to Him, and man hasn’t been able to pay Him for it yet.
This angel now claims the earth and the sea for the Lord Jesus Christ. When Columbus landed on an island here in the Western Hemisphere, he got off the ship and went to the shore and planted the flag of Spain, claiming the island in the name of the king and queen of the country that had sent him out. That method has been used from time to time. When men came to unoccupied territory, they claimed it. With the title deed of the earth in his hand, and by placing his right foot on the sea and his left foot upon the earth, in a great voice this angel claims all for Christ. The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of the Lord Jesus Christ through judgment. As Creator and Redeemer, the world belongs to Him.
The book is described here as “a little book” because the time of the Great Tribulation is not going to be long. We have come here to sort of the halfway mark, and we are going to be told that there is not much more time left. There is not much more to write down, and it has to be a little book. We are told in Romans 9:28: “For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.”
The Great Tribulation is really a short time. The Lord Jesus said it was a brief time. Daniel labeled it as seven years, which certainly is not long.
The “seven thunders” is God’s amen to the angel’s claim. Psalm 29:3 says: “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the Lord is upon many waters.”
And in Job 37:5 we read: “God thundereth marvellously with his voice; great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend.”
Dr. Vincent makes this very enlightening comment, “The Jews were accustomed to speak of thunder as ‘the seven voices.’” In Psalm 29, although it is a brief psalm, “the voice of the Lord” occurs seven times. Israel spoke of thunder as being the voice of the Lord, the seven voices of God.
We need to take time to study these things to find out what they mean instead of trying to cut off the corners, trim them down, and make them fit into some system of prophecy. I am reminded of the lady who went into a shoe store, and when the clerk asked her what size she wore, she replied, “I can get a four on, but really five is my size, but since six feels so good on my foot, I always buy a six!” That is just like some systems of biblical interpretation: they trim Scripture down to fit into the system. Let John mean what he is saying. These seven thunders here are the voice of God. I think it is the voice of the Lord Jesus now in heaven, confirming what this angel has claimed because He is going to come to power on this earth.
And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not [Rev. 10:4].
And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write; and I heard a voice from heaven saying, Seal up the things which the seven thunders spoke and write them not.
The seven thunders therefore were intelligible. This confirmation was also a statement. John was a scribe, and he was taking down the visions as they were given to him (see Rev. 1:11). He was about to write what the seven thunders had spoken—he heard it, and they were audible words—but he was forbidden to do so. Since this is a book of revelation, why is there something concealed? This is the only place in the Book of Revelation where anything is sealed—nothing else is. God makes it very clear at the end of the book that He has told everything. He is not holding back anything from man today. At the end, John writes: “And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand” (Rev. 22:10).
Yet this particular message of the seven thunders John is not permitted to write down. This is quite interesting.
If this angel were Christ, John probably would have fallen down and worshiped him. He did so when he saw the glorified Christ in the first chapter of Revelation. Evidently, the reason John did not fall down and worship him was because this is only an angel.
It is a mere assumption to presume to know what the thunders spoke. There are wild speculators who have made ridiculous guesses. Vitringa interpreted the seven thunders as the seven Crusades. Danbuz made them the seven nations which received the Reformation. Elliott believed them to be the pope’s bull against Luther. Several of the cults have presumed to reveal the things which were uttered. The Lord Jesus Christ said to John, “Seal them up. Don’t write this down.” They remain to this day a secret which you don’t know, I don’t know, and no man knows. If we attempt to say what was spoken, in a few years we will find ourselves to be ridiculous. Why not leave it as it is and draw the lesson from it? Although Jesus Christ is being revealed in this Book, there are a great many things that God is not telling us.
And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,
And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer [Rev. 10:5–6].
And the angel whom I saw standing upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his right hand to heaven, and sware by (in) Him that liveth for ever and ever (into the ages of the ages), who created heaven and the things in it, and the sea and the things in it, that there shall be no longer delay.
This angel makes it clear that he could not be Christ, since he takes an oath by the eternal Creator. He “lifted up his right hand to heaven, and sware”—he took an oath by the eternal Creator—“by Him that liveth for ever and ever.” If he were Christ, he would swear by himself. The writer to the Hebrews says: “For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself” (Heb. 6:13). God could not swear by anything else because there is none greater than God. The angel swore by another, not by himself, because he is not God, and therefore he is not the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1–2). We have this statement from the Lord Jesus Himself. “Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). Christ is the Creator. Listen to John 1:3: “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” In Colossians 1:16 we read: “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.” The angel takes an oath in the name of Christ who is in heaven; and as Christ’s representative, he claims it all for Christ.
Notice that in my translation I have changed the last part of verse 6 from “that there should be time no longer” to “that there shall be no longer delay.” Actually, it does not mean that there shall be time no longer. Rather, this is the glad announcement from heaven to God’s saints on earth who are in the midst of all this trouble and who wonder how long it will last. The meaning is that now it will be a very brief time until Christ returns. It is a confirmation of the words of Christ in His Olivet Discourse: “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matt. 24:22). The angel is telling the elect that it is not going to be long. He is saying to them, “Don’t worry. He that endures to the end, the same shall be saved.” Why? Because they are sealed, and they are going to make it through the Great Tribulation Period.
This is likewise in answer to the prayers of the martyrs in Revelation 6:10, and also it is the fulfillment of what we call the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come” (see Matt. 6:10). The kingdom is coming at this point in time in the Book of Revelation but it does not refer to the time I am writing this. I do not know, and no one on earth knows, whether or not Christ is coming soon.
But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets [Rev. 10:7].
But in the days of the sound of the seventh angel, when he is about to blow (sound the trumpet), and the mystery of God is finished, as He gave the glad tidings to His servants, the prophets.
This all takes place when the seventh angel is preparing to blow the trumpet. This would indicate that the seventh trumpet brings us to the conclusion of the Great Tribulation. It is at this time that the mystery of God is finally made clear. Many single facets of this mystery have been given as the total answer, yet it seems that this is greater than any one and is the sum total of all.
There is a mystery concerning the nation Israel, judgment, suffering, injustice, the silence of God, and the coming kingdom. The basic problem is this: Why did God permit evil, and why has He tolerated it for so long? Do you want to know something? I have studied theology for many years, and I know the answers that men give, but God has not handed in His answer yet. He is going to do so someday. There are many things I cannot answer, and I am disturbed that we have some brethren who seem to have all the answers. Candidly, no one has all the answers. As this passage of Scripture indicates, the fact that there is something that we don’t know about because it has been sealed means that God has a whole lot to tell us yet. When we get into His presence, we will find out.
May I say this to you: although I do not know the answer to your problem, I know the One who does. I don’t have the answer to all my questions either, but I put my hand in His, and He says to me, “My child, walk with Me through the dark. It is going to be all right. We are going to come out into the light, and then you will understand.” I suggest that you put your hand into the hand of the One who is your Creator and your Redeemer, very man of very man and very God of very God.
JOHN EATS THE LITTLE BOOK
And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said, Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth [Rev. 10:8].
And the voice which I heard out of heaven, (I heard) it again speaking with me, and saying, Go, take the book which is open in the hand of the angel who standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.
This order comes from Christ in heaven as He is directing every operation recorded in the Book of Revelation. He is in full charge. Revelation is the book that glorifies our wonderful Savior. He is the Judge of all the earth here, and we see Him as God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name above every name. If the voice here is not Christ’s, then He has given the order to the angel to speak from heaven.
John has apparently returned to the earth in spirit, because the little book which was formerly in the hand of God the Father is now transferred to John.
And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.
And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter [Rev. 10:9–10].
And I went away to the angel, saying to him, Give to me the little book, and he said to me, Take, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but in thy mouth it shall be as sweet as honey. And I took the little book out of the hand of the angel, and ate it up. And it was in my mouth as sweet as honey. And when I had eaten it, my belly was made bitter.
John becomes a participant in the great drama which is unfolding before us. He is required to do a very strange thing, one that has a very typical meaning. He eats the little book at the instructions of the angel, and the results are bittersweet. Eating the little book means to receive the Word of God with faith. This is the teaching of the Word of God, for in Jeremiah 15:16 we read: “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.” Jeremiah likens the appropriation of the Word to eating it.
Ezekiel does the same thing: “Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll. And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness” (Ezek. 3:1–3). The “roll” here is not a bread roll, but the scroll of that day. Ezekiel said that he ate it, and it was just like cake. That is what the Word of God is to the believer. In Proverbs 16:24 we are told: “Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.” In Psalm 119, the psalm which glories the Word of God, we find: “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth” (Ps. 119:103).
The part of the Word of God taken by John was judgment. It was sweet because the future is sweet. In Genesis 18:17 we read, “And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do …?” In effect He was saying to Abraham, “We are friends, and I would like to tell you what I am going to do.” It is sweet to know what God is going to do, but when you find out that judgment is coming, it is bitter. John eagerly received the Word of God, but when he saw that more judgment was to follow, it brought travail of soul and sorrow of heart. It was sweet in his mouth and bitter in his digestive system. If you and I can take delight in reading this section of the Word of God and the judgments that are to fall upon the earth, then we need to do a great deal of praying to get the mind of God. It is sweet to know the Book of Revelation and what God intends to do, but when we find out that judgment is coming to the Christ-rejecting world around us, we cannot rejoice in that. The prophecy becomes bitter.
There is another very real application of this. Many folk begin the study of prophecy with enthusiasm, but when they find that it is applicable to their life and that it makes demands on them personally, they lose interest, and it becomes a bitter thing. Many people say, “I don’t want to hear about the Book of Revelation. I don’t like prophecy. It frightens me!” May I say to you that it is supposed to do that, but it should be in your mouth sweet as honey. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who like to study prophecy because of the natural curiosity to know the future, but they will discover that there is nothing in the Word of God that ministers more to a holy life than the thoughtful study of prophecy. “And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself …” (1 John 3:3). To be a student of prophecy and live a dirty life will only lead to abnormality. The reason we hear so much abnormality in the interpretation of prophecy in our day is that the Word of God is not having its way in the hearts and lives of the folk who study it. It is unfortunate that people will get interested in prophecy but not in Christian living.
Years ago after I had recently come to California, I went to see Dr. Gaebelein who was visiting here. He said to me, “How do you like your church in California?” I told him, “It’s wonderful. I enjoy it, but there is something strange out here. [I have since learned that this is true everywhere, but I had not detected it before.] I can teach the Book of Revelation in my church, and it will fill up on Wednesday nights. But if I teach the Epistle to the Romans, I empty the church.” I never shall forget what Dr. Gaebelein said in his broken Prussian accent, “Brother McGee, you are going to find that a great many of the saints are more interested in Antichrist than they are in Christ.” I have discovered that he was accurate.
And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings [Rev. 10:11].
And they say to me, It is necessary for you to prophesy again against peoples and nations and tongues and kings.
You can be sure of one thing, that John was properly integrated. He believed that all nations, all peoples, all tongues, and all colors ought to hear the Word of God. They need to hear it because they need to be warned that judgment is coming. If they go through the Great Tribulation, they will soon recognize that it is not the Millennium—in fact, they will feel as if they have entered hell itself. This is the part that made John sad. This is the reason this little book became bitter to John: he must prophesy against many before Christ comes to His kingdom. Much prophecy is to follow. We are not quite halfway through the Book of Revelation. Prophecy about the nations and peoples is necessarily against them; it is of judgment to come. This new series of prophecies will begin in chapter 12, and it will reveal the fact that there was a great deal more to say.
My friend, the study of prophecy will have a definite effect upon your life: it will either bring you closer to Christ, or it will take you farther from Him.
CHAPTER 11
Theme: Interlude between sixth and seventh trumpets; the seventh trumpet blown
In the first fourteen verses, chapter 11 continues with the interlude between the sixth and seventh trumpets, and in the concluding verses, we have the blowing of the seventh trumpet. In this chapter we learn that forty-two months remain of the Times of the Gentiles and that there are two witnesses who will prophesy for forty-two months. We also have the second woe and then the blowing of the seventh trumpet.
This chapter brings us back to Old Testament ground. The temple, the dealing with time periods, and the distinction which is made between Jews and Gentiles all indicate that we are again under the Old Testament economy. Chronologically, the seventh trumpet brings us to the return of Christ at the end of the Great Tribulation Period.
DATE FOR THE ENDING OF THE “TIMES OF THE GENTILES”
Here we deal with an indication of projected time periods for the close of the Great Tribulation.
And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.
But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months [Rev. 11:1–2].
Let me give you my own translation:
And there was qiven me a reed like a rod, saying, Rise and measure the temple (holy place) of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. And the court which is without the temple cast out [Gr.: ekbale, throw out] and measure it not; for it is given to the nations, and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
We are dealing here with that period that the Lord Jesus spoke of in Luke 21:24, “… and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” A great many people thought that when Israel captured Jerusalem, that was the end of the Time of the Gentiles. My friend, Jerusalem is still trodden down of the Gentiles. All you need to do is to walk down the streets of the old city, and if you see a Jew, you let me know because I did not see any there myself. All other races are there. Non-Jewish religious groups are all over the place; they have built holy places everywhere in the old city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is still trodden down of the Gentiles. But when you get into the Great Tribulation Period and come to the last half of it, the Time of the Gentiles will run out in forty-two months. Forty-two months is one-half of the Great Tribulation Period.
“And there was given me a reed like a rod.” Every time you see the beginning of measurements, in either the Old or New Testament, it indicates that God is beginning to deal with the nation Israel (see Jer. 31:38–39; Zech. 2). This reed is like a rod; a rod is used by a shepherd. In Psalm 2:9 we see that a rod is used for chastisement and judgment: “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” What we are dealing with here is a measurement of time given for the Time of the Gentiles, after which judgment will come upon them. The rod is also for comfort: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me” (Ps. 23:4). Therefore, we have both judgment and solace in this chapter.
“The temple of God” is limited to the Holy Place (notice that “holy place” is the literal rendering) and the Holy of Holies. The temple of God places us back on Old Testament ground, for there is no temple given to the church. The church is a temple of the Holy Spirit today; that is, believers (not a building) are the temple of the Holy Spirit: “In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph. 2:21–22).
“The altar” refers to the golden altar of prayer since the altar for burnt offering was not in the temple proper but in the outer court.
Even the worshipers are to be measured. John is told to rise and measure, not only the Holy Place and the altar, but also “them that worship therein.” God does count the number of those who worship Him.
“And the court which is without the temple cast out [Gr.: ekbale, throw out] and measure it not.” This excludes all that does not belong to the temple proper. The altar of burnt offering (and also the brazen laver) would be outside the temple. Since this altar was a picture of the cross of Christ, it would seem that the implication is that the gospel of the cross of Christ will still be available to all mankind during the intensity of this brief crisis. It is not to be measured, and it will still be available.
“For it is given to the nations [that is, the Gentiles]” declares that although this period still belongs to the Gentiles, their dominion is limited to forty-two months. As we have said, this confirms the words of the Lord Jesus in Luke 21:24.
“Forty and two months” is the three and one-half year period identified with the last half of the Great Tribulation Period. We find this repeated in Revelation 13:5: “And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.” This is the last half of the reign of Antichrist here upon this earth. This period is mentioned again in chapter 12, verse 14: “And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.” “A time, times [dual], and half a time” means three and one-half years.
Daniel adopts this unit of measurement for this period: “And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time” (Dan. 7:25). “A time and times and the dividing of time”—again, this means three and one-half years. “And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days” (Dan. 12:11). Twelve hundred and ninety days is three and one-half years. We have yet another reference in Daniel which says: “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate” (Dan. 9:27). Here the Great Tribulation is divided into two equal parts. This “week” of Daniel is seven years, and this seven-year period is the Seventieth Week of Daniel, or the Great Tribulation Period.
DURATION OF THE PROPHESYING OF THE TWO WITNESSES
And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth [Rev. 11:3].
And I will give to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand, two hundred and three score [60] days, clothed in sackcloth.
There is a great deal of difference of opinion as to the identity of the two witnesses. They are introduced to us without any suggestion as to who they are. Godet makes this comment: “They are one of the most startling features of the book.” If the identity of these two was essential for the understanding of this book, I think there would have been some indication given about their persons. It is always in these areas that the sensational preachers concentrate. They can tell you what the seven thunders said (John was told not to write it down, and he didn’t), and they can tell you the names of these two witnesses. Those who have espoused the historical view of Revelation have named such men as John Huss, Pope Sylvester, Waldenson, and the two Testaments. You can see that you could come up with almost anything from that viewpoint. Men who hold the futurist view—which is the view I hold—are not in complete agreement as to who they are. Seiss and Govett say that they are Enoch and Elijah. Govett (The Apocalypse Expounded by Scripture, p. 225) says that The Gospel of Nicodemus contains the following statement:
I am Enoch who pleased God, and was translated by him. And this is Elijah the Tishbite. We are also to live to the end of the age: but then we are about to be sent by God to resist Antichrist, and be slain by him, and to rise after three days, and to be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord.
Dean Alford, Walter Scott, and Donald Grey Barnhouse state that they are Moses and Elijah. William Newell does a very smart thing—he does not even attempt to identify them. There is also the possibility that they are two unknown witnesses—that is, they have had no previous existence, and they have not yet appeared on the scene.
That they are human witnesses seems certain from the description given of them. Two is the required number of witnesses according to the Law: “At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death” (Deut. 17:6).
The Lord Jesus said the same thing relative to the church: “But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established” (Matt. 18:16). Scripture has always required two witnesses to bear testimony to anything before it was to be heard. Therefore, we can definitely say that these witnesses are human beings and that there are two of them. These are the two things we know for sure.
It seems to me to be almost certain that Elijah is one of them, since it was predicted that he would return. “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Mal. 4:5). It is also recorded in Matthew’s Gospel: “And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things” (Matt. 17:11). It would seem that we can say with a certain degree of assurance that Elijah is one of the witnesses. It is said in verse 4 that these two witnesses are two lampstands standing before “the God of the earth.” This was a favorite expression of Elijah who walked out onto the pages of Scripture, saying, “… As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand …” (1 Kings 17:1). These witnesses are two lampstands; they are lights in the world. The presence of Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration further suggests this, but it would necessitate the second witness being Moses, which is more difficult to sustain, and after all, the Mount of Transfiguration is not the only point of similarity.
I would like to make a suggestion about which I will not be dogmatic nor will I argue. My suggestion is that John the Baptist is the second witness. He was the forerunner of Christ at His first coming. He was similar to Elijah in manner and message. I am sure that those two fellows would get along with each other. Both knew what it was to oppose the forces of darkness and to stand alone for God against impossible odds. They surely have had good training in the past. John the Baptist would be the witness of the New Testament, as Elijah would be the witness of the Old Testament. John the Baptist actually was not part of the church, the bride of Christ. He very candidly said that he was a friend of the Bridegroom. He wasn’t a bride; he was a friend of the Bridegroom.
It seems unlikely that Enoch would be one of the witnesses since he was a Gentile. The very fact that he did not die does not qualify him for the office for, by the time you come to the Great Tribulation period, the church has already been translated, and some of them were translated without dying.
Let us say with some assurance that Elijah is one of the witnesses. As to who the other one is, your guess is as good as mine.
“And they shall prophecy a thousand, two hundred and threescore days.” The significant feature about the two witnesses is not their identity but the time they appear. Is this during the first half or the last half of the Great Tribulation? The first half seems to fit the text more accurately because they testify until the Beast appears, and then they are martyred.
“Clothed in sackcloth” is the garb better suited to the period of the Law than of grace. It is becoming both to Elijah and to John the Baptist.
These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and denvoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed [Rev. 11:4–5].
These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone wishes to hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies; and if anyone wishes to hurt them, thus must he be killed.
Everything here is associated with the Old Testament. The two olive trees immediately suggest the vision in Zechariah 4. There the lampstands are two individuals, Joshua and Zerubbabel, who were enabled by the Holy Spirit to stand against insurmountable difficulties. The explanation is found in the words, “… Not by might, nor by power [or, not by brain, nor by brawn], but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 4:6). The Holy Spirit will be present during the Great Tribulation Period.
These two witnesses are lights before the powers of darkness. These men are accorded miraculous power to bring fire down from heaven—they are filled with the Holy Spirit. Here again, the suggestion is strongly in favor of Elijah (see 1 Kings 18:38; 2 Kings 1:10). Also, John made an announcement about One baptizing with fire (see Matt. 3:11).
These two witnesses are immortal and immune to all attacks until their mission is completed. My friend, it is encouraging to know that all of God’s men are immortal until He has accomplished His purpose through them. This is one reason that I have had a weak and feeble faith through several cancer surgeries and other physical problems. I will be honest with you, there were times when I wondered if I would make it through or not. But I prayed to God and asked other people to pray that I might be enabled to finish the taping of our five-year “Thru the Bible” radio broadcasts—and He has answered that prayer. That all of God’s men are immortal until God is through with them is a wonderful, comforting thought for today. And when He is through with you, He will remove you from the earth.
These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will [Rev. 11:6].
These have the authority [Gr.: exousian—power] to shut up the heaven, that the rain may not wet during the days of their prophecy; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague, as often as they wish.
These two witnesses are granted unlimited authority. They control rainfall on the earth, and they are able to turn the water into blood. This certainly reminds us of both Elijah and Moses. This is the verse that has caused certain outstanding men to decide that Elijah, who was the man that stopped the rain, and Moses, who was the one who brought the plagues upon Egypt, will be the two. They may have good ground for that, but anything you say about these two witnesses is speculation.
“And to smite the eartht”—they are given the same power Christ will have when He returns (see Rev. 19:15).
“With every plague” suggests the plagues Moses imposed on Egypt, but the plagues here are greater in number as the territory is more vast.
“As often as they wish” reveals the confidence God places in these faithful servants. God cannot trust you and me like this. He cannot trust some of us with money; certainly He wasn’t able to trust me with very much. He does not trust us with power, and this is the reason that He removes men from office after a period of time—time is always on His side—because He cannot trust men with power. It is a good thing that many of us do not have it.
And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them [Rev. 11:7].
And when they shall have finished their testimony, the wild beast that cometh up out of the abyss, shall make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them.
The witnesses will finish their testimony. In the midst of the week, the Antichrist, who is the Beast, the Man of Sin who is moving to power, will bring back first the Roman Empire. Then, when he gets the whole world under his control, he will not hesitate to overcome and destroy these two witnesses. At that time he will be permitted to do so. This is the temporary victory of darkness over light, evil over righteousness, hell over heaven, and Satan over God, because God is going to let Satan loose during this period.
These witnesses live up to their name. Martus is the Greek word for “witness”; we get our English word martyr from that.
And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified [Rev. 11:8].
And their dead bodies (carcasses) shall lie upon the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
These men are not given even a decent burial. This reveals the crude, cold barbarism of the last days which will be covered with but a thin veneer of culture. There is a strange resemblance to the sadistic curiosity which placed two dead men, Lenin and Stalin, on display in Red Square in Moscow. They have removed Stalin, but at this writing Lenin is still there, and I understand that that body is beginning to deteriorate.
The word used for bodies (carcasses) denotes the contempt and hatred the world will have for the two witnesses. They are treated as dead animals.
“The great city” is Jerusalem. It is likened unto Sodom by Isaiah (see Isa. 1:10). It is called Egypt because the world has entered into every fiber of its life—social and political. It is conclusively identified as Jerusalem by the sad designation, “where also their Lord was crucified.”
And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves [Rev. 11:9].
And out of the peoples, and tribes, and tongues, and nations do some gaze upon their dead bodies (carcasses) three days and one half and shall not permit their dead bodies (carcasses) to be put in a tomb.
After Christ was crucified, even Pilate permitted His friends to take down the body and give it a respectable burial, but not so with the two witnesses. The world will be startled to hear they are dead. Some will be skeptical. Apparently, this future generation will have something that corresponds to a television camera, and a satellite will carry the picture all over the world, so that people everywhere will be able to look upon the features of these men for three and one-half days. The morbid curiosity of a godless society will relish the opportunity of gazing with awe upon these dead bodies. This is the worst indignity that a depraved world could vent upon the men who denounced them and their wicked ways. Perhaps the witnesses had predicted their resurrection. We are not told that, but they might have. To prevent the possibility of another empty tomb, there was no burial. They will decide to just leave the bodies out there and keep the camera on them. I think all the television networks will have their cameras trained on these dead men. Three and one-half days they are lying there.
And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth [Rev. 11:10].
And the dwellers upon the earth rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented (vexed) the dwellers on the earth.
The death of the two witnesses is an occasion for high carnival on the earth. The world engages in a modern Christmas and Mardi Gras, both rolled into one. The world has adopted the philosophy, “Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Dr. Newell describes it like this: “Now comes the real revelation of the heart of man: glee, horrid, insane, inhuman, hellish, ghoulish glee!”
“And shall send gifts one to another” indicates a lovely occasion on the surface, but this is the Devil’s Christmas. The modern celebration of Christmas gets farther and farther from the birth of Christ and closer and closer to paganism. The day will come when it will be anti-Christian—it is almost that now. Here is the celebration of what Antichrist has done instead of the celebration of the coming of Christ to Bethlehem.
Then something happens—
And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them [Rev. 11:11].
And after the three days and a half the breath (spirit) of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them that beheld them.
While the world is celebrating in jubilation the death of these witnesses and while the television cameras are focused upon them, the witnesses will stand on their feet. And all of the networks will regret that they had their cameras pointed to them, because they will not really want to give the news as it is. The scriptural word for resurrection is used here—the Greek word histeme—“they stood upon their feet.” These witnesses are among the tribulation saints who have part in the first resurrection (see Rev. 20:4–6). Any news like this would be a scoop, but I am sure that all of the networks will have their cameras on it. By that time they may well have some new gadget which will make television, as we know it, look very much antiquated and out of place.
And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them [Rev. 11:12].
And they heard a great voice out of heaven saying to them, Come up here, and they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies beheld them.
They are caught up into heaven. We have the resurrection of the two witnesses in verse 11; we have the ascension of the two witnesses in verse 12. The cloud of glory is associated with the ascension and the coming of Christ also.
DOOM OF THE SECOND WOE—GREAT EARTHQUAKE
We have had the blowing of the sixth trumpet, and we are in that interval or lull between the sixth and seventh trumpets. These are woe trumpets, and the second woe is connected with the sixth trumpet—it is a great earthquake.
And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven [Rev. 11:13).
And in that hour there came to pass a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell, and 7000 names of men were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were afraid, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
This number of the slain was to be added to those already slain. A fourth of the population of the world was slain at first, and then a third of the population of the world—totaling over one-half—and now seven thousand more are killed. It is little wonder that the Lord Jesus said, “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved …” (Matt. 24:22).
The earthquake seems to be limited to the city of Jerusalem, just as it was when Christ rose from the dead (see Matt. 28:2), and also at His crucifixion (see Matt. 27:51–52).
“Seven thousand names of men were killed in the earthquake.” This is an idiom to indicate that they were men of prominence. They were the ones who had gone along with Antichrist, men whose names got into the headlines when Antichrist came to power.
The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly [Rev. 11:14].
This ends the second woe. The third woe begins shortly, though not immediately. The third woe is not the blowing of the seventh trumpet which will come next, as that leads us beyond the Great Tribulation into the Millennium. The seventh trumpet likewise opens up to us the seven personalities of chapters 12 and 13. The third woe begins when Satan, one of the personalities, is cast down to earth, and we will come to that in chapter 12, verse 12.
SEVENTH TRUMPET—END OF GREAT TRIBULATION AND OPENING OF TEMPLE IN HEAVEN
In the middle of all the woes and judgments of the Great Tribulation Period, this is inserted for the encouragement of the believers who will be left on the earth, those who were sealed. They are apt to get very much discouraged after several years, although the total length of the Great Tribulation is but seven years and the intensity of it breaks in the last half of that period. The Great Tribulation does not seem long to read about, but I have found seven days in the hospital to be the most trying experience of life. I thought those days would never end; so you do need a little encouragement as you go along.
And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.
And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth [Rev. 11:15–18].
And the seventh angel blew the trumpet; and there followed (came to pass) great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdom of the world (cosmos) is become (the kingdom) of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign unto the ages of the ages (for ever and ever). And the twenty-four elders, sitting before God on their thrones, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, saying, We give thanks to you, O Lord God the Almighty, who art and who wast; because thou hast taken thy great power and didst reign. And the nations were angry (wroth), and thy wrath came, and the time (period) of the dead to be judged, and to give the reward to your servants the prophets and to the saints and to them that fear thy name, the small and great; and to destroy those who destroy (corrupt, the destroyers of) the earth.
The blowing of the seventh trumpet is of utmost significance, and it is of special relevance in the understanding of the remainder of this book. In the program of God, it brings us chronologically to the breathtaking entrance of eternity where the mystery of God is finally unraveled. It brings us in God’s program as far as chapter 21 where eternity begins. The broad outline of events which are significant to God is given to us here by the Holy Spirit. This section is a summary, a syllabus, or a capsule synopsis of events up to the door of eternity. The following list will help focus these events in our minds:
1. “Great voices in heaven” follow the blowing of the seventh trumpet. At the opening of the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven. The contrast should be noted, because here the blowing of the seventh trumpet reveals God’s program and clears up the mystery of God. All of God’s created intelligences can see the end now and are jubilant in anticipation of the termination of evil being so close at hand. It is a time of joy for them.
2. “The kingdom of the world (cosmos) is become (the kingdom) of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign unto the ages of the ages (for ever and ever).” It is not kingdoms (plural) but kingdom (singular) which denotes the fact that the kingdoms of this world are at present under Satan, to whom there is no distinction of nations, no East or West, no Iron Curtain—all are his; both sides are included in his domain. A great many people think that Satan is controlling Russia but that the Lord is controlling the United States and angels are hovering over the capitol at Washington, D. C. May I say that those angels may not be God’s angels who are hovering over Washington today—it certainly doesn’t look like they are. Actually, all of the kingdoms of this world are Satan’s. It is therefore called the kingdom—not kingdoms—of the world. It is the totality of a civilization and society of which men boast of self-improvement but which becomes more godless and wicked each day. It is a condemned civilization that is moving toward judgment.
It is going to become the kingdom “of our Lord, and of His Christ.” Satan’s kingdom is going to be subdued someday, but not by some little saccharine-sweet talk on brotherhood and love. It is going to be delivered to the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is going to rule. We are told in Scripture: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us” (Ps. 2:2–3). Rebellion broke out against the Lord and His Christ (Messiah, Anointed) at the arrest of Jesus. The early church understood that this was the condition of the world, for they quoted Psalm 2 when persecution broke out in the early church (see Acts 4:23–26). We read in Psalm 2:9: “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” In Revelation 19 we are going to see the details of what is given here in this section. The Lord Jesus is coming to put down rebellion. The seventh trumpet is moving along, step by step, toward eternity.
3. “And the twenty-four elders, sitting before God on their thrones, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, saying, We give thanks to you, O Lord God the Almighty, who art and who wast; because thou hast taken thy great power and didst reign.” This revelation causes the church in heaven to worship and celebrate the coming of Christ to the earth. This will be the answer to our prayer, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).
4. “The nations were angry (wroth)” reveals the fact that the stubborn rebellion of man will continue right down to the very end. Right down to the wire, the stubborn heart of man is in rebellion against God. This old nature, this carnal nature that you and I have, is not obedient to God. My friend, you cannot make this old nature obey God. This is exactly what Paul says: “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7). The human family could not bring this old nature under control; that is the reason God is going to get rid of it someday.
5. The nations were angry because “thy wrath came.” They had been fed all this putrid pabulum we hear today about the fact that God never intends to punish sin and that man is getting better and better every day—while, actually, all the time he is getting worse and worse.
6. “And the time (period) of the dead to be judged” brings us to the Great White Throne judgment of the lost dead (see Rev. 20:11–15).
7. “And to give the reward to your servants the prophets and to the saints and to them that fear thy name, the small and great.” The church has, already gone into His presence, and the believers there have already been rewarded as indicated by the crowns we have seen on the heads of the elders. This refers now to Old Testament saints and tribulation saints, who are included in the first resurrection, but at a different time. They are now going to be rewarded as the kingdom begins.
8. “And to destroy those who destroy (corrupt, the destroyers of) the earth.” We believe that this refers to both man and Satan. Man is a destroyer as well as Satan. Peter warns us of Satan: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).
The next verse brings us to the glad gate of eternity:
And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail [Rev. 11:19].
And the sanctuary (temple) of God in heaven was opened, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His sanctuary (temple), and there followed lightnings, and voices, and thunders, and an earthquake, and great hail.
When we see the church again, it will be in the New Jerusalem, and we are told definitely that there is no temple there. Here there is a temple in heaven. The temple which Moses made was made after the pattern in heaven. “And the sanctuary (temple) of God in heaven was opened” means that God is dealing now with Israel.
“Was opened” indicates worship and access to God. All of this points to the nation Israel, for the church has no temple. The measuring of the temple on earth and the opening of the temple in heaven declare the prominence of Israel in this section. The next chapter will substantiate this.
“And the ark of His covenant was seen in His sanctuary (temple)” reminds us that we are dealing with a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God. He is going to keep the covenant He has made with Israel, and He will make a New Covenant with them at this time—that is, the Law will be written in their hearts instead of on cold tablets of stone (see Jer. 31:31–34; Heb. 8:8–13).
“Lightnings, and voices, and thunders, and an earthquake, and great hail” speak of judgment yet to come.
CHAPTER 12
Theme: Seven performers during the Great Tribulation
The theme of this chapter is the final conflict between Israel and Satan after he is cast out of heaven. Seven performers are introduced to us (see chs. 12–13) by the blowing of this seventh trumpet during the Great Tribulation Period. Although the seventh trumpet brings us through the Great Tribulation and the Millennium to the very threshold of eternity, a great deal of detail was omitted. Beginning with chapter 12, this will be compensated for in the presentation of seven prominent personages who play a dominant part in the Great Tribulation Period. After that, we will have the pouring out of the seven bowls of wrath and then the final destruction of commercial Babylon and religious Babylon.
The prominence of the nation Israel is brought before us. It was suggested in the previous chapter with the measuring of the temple on earth and the opening of the temple in heaven. The last verse of chapter 11 is actually the opening to this chapter.
These seven personages are representatives of persons, both natural and supernatural, physical and spiritual, rulers and nations. The identification and clarification of these are essential for a proper understanding of the Revelation.
THE WOMAN—ISRAEL
As we take up the very first one of these personalities, it will illustrate this point. We come now to the crux of the interpretation of the entire Book of Revelation which revolves about this first personality. An outstanding and very intellectual minister years ago made the statement: “If you tell me your interpretation of the woman in the twelfth chapter of Revelation, then I’ll tell you your interpretation of prophecy.” At the time, I thought he was foolish, but I have come to agree with him. I believe that the identification of this woman is the key to the understanding of the Book of Revelation.
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered [Rev. 12:1–2].
Let me give you my translation:
And a great sign was seen in heaven: a woman arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was with child, and travailing in birth, and being tormented to be delivered.
The important thing here is: “Who is the woman?” You are acquainted with the interpretation of the Roman church that she represents the Virgin Mary. There are Protestant interpreters who have been as far wrong as that. Today most of them follow the method of Rome and interpret the woman as the church of all ages. Practically all denominational literature follows this line.
There have been several female founders of cults who could not resist the temptation of seeing themselves pictured in this woman. Joanna Southcott said that she herself was the woman in chapter 12 and that in October, 1814, she would have the man child. She never did, but she had 200,000 followers. We have had in the United States several founders of cults and religions who thought they were this woman. In Southern California, we even had a few female preachers who got the idea they might be the woman, but they weren’t. We can dismiss all these claims, unless we want to forsake all intelligent approach to the interpretation of Scripture.
The identifying marks of the woman are the sun, moon, and stars. These belong to Israel as seen in Joseph’s dream: “And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?” (Gen. 37:9–10). Old Jacob interpreted the sun, moon, and stars to mean himself, Rachel, and Joseph’s brothers. And they did bow down before Joseph before things were over with (although Rachel had died by that time).
The woman is a sign in heaven, although her career is here on earth. She is not a literal woman; she is a symbol. The career of the woman corresponds to that of Israel, for it is Israel that gave birth to Christ, who is the Child.
At Christmastime we all use Isaiah 9:6 and other verses concerning the birth of Christ. This verse does concern the birth of Christ, but it does not concern us at all; rather, it concerns the nation Israel. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6). Who is referred to here when Isaiah says, “Unto us”? The church? No; it’s the nation Israel. It is quite obvious that Isaiah is speaking to the nation Israel, and he is speaking not relative to a Savior but to a Governor, a Ruler, a King, One who was to come and rule over them. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” It is interesting that as a child He was born in His humanity; but as a Son from eternity, He was given. “And the government shall be upon his shoulder”—we are not talking now about the Savior but about the One who is coming as King. We will see that happen in the Book of Revelation. “And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” There will not be any peace until He comes. When the rulers of this world say, “… Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them …” (1 Thess. 5:3). They were having a big peace conference in Holland when World War I broke out, and most of the delegates almost got fired upon before they got home! When men say, “Peace and safety,” it is idle talk, because man is working at peace from the wrong end. It is the human heart that is wrong, and only Jesus will bring peace. He is the Prince of Peace. Isaiah is talking to Israel when he says, “Unto us a child is born,” and that is the figure that John picks up here in Revelation.
The writer to the Hebrews says, “For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda …” (Heb. 7:14). Paul writes in Romans: “Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen” (Rom. 9:4–5). Paul is talking about Israel. He begins by asking the question: “Who are Israelites?” The answer just happens to be: “And of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came.” The woman at the well was accurate when she identified the Lord Jesus as a Jew: “… How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? …” (John 4:9, italics mine). We read in Micah 5:2–3: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel.” Notice that He will be born in Bethlehem, but He comes out of eternity.
“Travailing in birth” is a figure associated with Israel: “Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children” (Isa. 66:7–8). Israel will go through the Great Tribulation after Christ was born in Bethlehem—“before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child,” meaning Christ.
Therefore, we identify the woman as the nation Israel. No one woman who has ever lived, including the Virgin Mary, fits into this. It is the nation Israel and certainly not the church of all ages. If we just keep our bearings here and not lose our heads, we know that this is the Great Tribulation Period and that the church has already gone to heaven. This woman is not the church of all ages.
“Being tormented.” Certainly Israel has suffered satanic anti-Semitism from the time of the birth of Christ to the present, in fact, even since before that day, because Satan knew that Christ would come from this nation.
THE RED DRAGON—SATAN
We now have introduced to us another character, and this character is really not a delightful one at all. This is the red dragon. This is not a comic-strip characterization, for there is nothing funny about him. This is very solemn and serious.
And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born [Rev. 12:3–4].
And there was seen another sign in heaven, and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and on his head seven diadems (kingly crowns). And his tail draweth the third of the stars of heaven, and he did cast [aorist tense] them into the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman about to be delivered, that when she was delivered he might devour her child.
“And there was seen another sign in heaven.” Notice that these are signs that are given to us; they are not literal. I told you that if John is giving you a symbol, he will make it clear that it is a symbol.
The red dragon is clearly identified as Satan in verse 9: “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” We can identify this character without speculating at all.
In this second sign, the true character of Satan is revealed with all the wrappings removed:
1. He is called “great” because of his vast power. He controls the nations of the world and offered them to the Lord Jesus if He would worship him (see Matt. 4:8–9). Worship of himself is Satan’s ultimate goal. The kingdoms of this world are his, and, he controls them today. In that day it was Rome, but he has controlled every nation.
2. He is called “red” because of the fact that he was a murderer from the beginning (see John 8:44). He has no regard for human life. I do not understand why so many serve him. Why is it that alcohol finally kills its victims? It is the worst killer there is today. It is because Satan is back of it, my friend, and he has no regard for human life at all.
3. He is called a “dragon” because of the viciousness of his character. He was originally created Lucifer, son of the morning (see Ezek. 28:12–19), but he is now the epitome of evil and the depth of degradation. He is the most dangerous being in all of God’s creation. He is my enemy, and he is your enemy if you are a child of God.
The reason that the Beast in chapter 13 is similar to the dragon is because both the restored Roman Empire and Antichrist are empowered and controlled by Satan. Rome, through the instrumentality of both Herod and Pilate, sought to destroy the child of the woman.
“Seven heads” suggests the perfection of wisdom which characterized the creation of Satan who was originally the “covering cherub.” Ezekiel 28:12 speaks of how he was at his origin: “… full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.” This reveals two of the fallacies that the world has concerning Satan. This world thinks he is ugly, but may I say to you, he was created “perfect in beauty.” If you could see him, you would not see the foul creature that is often pictured for us by the world. Sometimes he is pictured as having horns, cloven feet, and a forked tail. That is the “great god” Pan that the Greeks and Romans worshiped. That is not Satan, although Satan is back of that worship, also. I have seen the ruins of the temple at Pergamum and of other temples to Pan in at least a dozen cities. It is not strange that men are worshiping him; when they will not have God, they certainly will take him. But Satan is smart, he’s clever, and he’s wise. You and I are no match for him at all. We will be overcome if we try to stand in our own strength against him. He is not only beautiful, he is also full of wisdom. This is the way he is presented in Scripture.
“Ten horns” suggests the final division of the Roman Empire, which is dominated by Satan and which is his final effort to rule the world. The crowns are on the horns, not on the heads, since it is delegated power from Satan. The crowns represent kingly authority and rulership.
“The third of the stars of heaven” indicates the vast extent of the rebellion in heaven when one third of the angelic host followed Satan to their own destruction. Daniel makes reference to this in an admittedly difficult passage (see Dan. 8:10; Jude 6).
The dragon hates the Man Child because it was predicted from the beginning that the child would be the undoing of Satan. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shalt bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15).
THE CHILD OF THE WOMAN—JESUS CHRIST
And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days [Rev. 12:5–6].
And she was delivered of a son, a man child, who is to shepherd (rule) all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up unto God and His throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of (from) God, that there they may nourish her a thousand two hundred and sixty (1260) days.
The “man child” is Christ. He is easily identified here. I hope that you will not fall into the error of equating the Child with the church, although many have done that.
“Who is to shepherd (rule) all the nations with a rod of iron” is a clear-cut reference to Christ. “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps. 2:9). In Acts 4 the persecuted Christians quoted Psalm 2, identifying the One to rule with a rod of iron as the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ will come to put down all enmity, all opposition, all rebellion on the earth. How will He do it? He will break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. If this peace crowd would only come up with a plan that would work, it would not be necessary to put down rebellion with a bit of violence. But there is no other way to put it down. How do you think Jesus Christ is going to come to power in a rebellious world? Suppose He was suddenly to appear at the capital of any nation in the world. Do you think they are prepared to surrender to Him and turn their authority over to Him? This includes my own country. Is the United States prepared to yield to Jesus Christ? If you say, “Yes,” I will have to ask, “Why don’t they?” They could yield to Him today. My friend, the world is in rebellion against Him. Maybe you are one of the peace crowd. You don’t like the shedding of blood, you just hate violence and war—don’t we all?—but this is the only way that rebellion can be put down. The Lord Jesus Christ is going to rule.
“And her child was caught up unto God and His throne.” This is a reference to the ascension of Christ. In the Gospels the emphasis is on the death of Christ. In the Epistles the emphasis is upon the resurrection of Christ. In the Book of Revelation the emphasis is upon the ascension of Christ. Protestantism, and even fundamentalism, has ignored the ascension of Christ, and this is one reason we have not had a great enough emphasis upon the present ministry of Christ. “And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:9–11).
The Book of Revelation is the unveiling of the ascended Christ, the glorified Christ, the Christ who is coming in glory. The Book of the Revelation rests upon the fact of the Ascension. He is the One who has been opening the seals which have brought to pass everything that has happened since then. We are told in Hebrews 12:2: “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” A great many have the impression that this means He is twiddling His thumbs, but that is because they do not know Revelation. He is not sitting up there doing nothing. He is going to do a great deal because of His ascension into heaven, and He has a present ministry today with the church.
“And she was delivered of a son, a man child.” I believe this settles the identity of the woman. Israel is clearly the one from whom Christ came. While the church came from Jesus Christ, He, according to the flesh, came from Israel. Again let me quote Paul: “Who are Israelites…. of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came …” (Rom. 9:4–5). We are told in Galatians 4:4–5: “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” “Made under the law”—what law? It is the Mosaic Law which was given to Israel. He came “made [or, born] under the law” because He was an Israelite. Again in Galatians we read: “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). Before the nation came into existence, God said to Abraham, “I am going to make you a great nation, and through that nation I am sending a seed”—not many, but one, and that One is Christ. We have already looked at Isaiah 9:6 which says, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given….” “Us” does not mean the United States, although some seem to think so! “Unto us” means Israel. Isaiah was an Israelite and was speaking to that nation. He was not speaking either to the church or to the Gentiles, but to Israel.
“And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of (from) God.” During the intense part of the Great Tribulation Period, this remnant of Israel will be protected by God. There are those who dogmatically say that Israel will go to the rock-hewn city of Petra and will be preserved there because no enemy can get in. But in our day an enemy now comes from above and drops down bombs. The last place I would want to be when bombs start falling is within that rock-hewn city of Petra. To make that dogmatic statement alongside clear-cut prophecies is certainly to deceive people. This is not a clear-cut prophecy, and I do not know where the place will be. It does not hurt us preachers to say we don’t know something when we don’t know. To my judgment it is tragic to be so dogmatic about that which is not revealed. If you want to make such a statement about a speculative Scripture, I will not object if you will say, “This is my judgment,” or, “I think this is the way it will be.”
MICHAEL, THE ARCHANGEL, WARS WITH THE DRAGON
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him [Rev. 12:7–9].
And there arose war in heaven, Michael and his angels going forth to war with the dragon. And the dragon warred and his angels, and they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, the one called (the) Devil, and the Satan, he that deceiveth the whole (inhabited) world; he was cast down to the earth, and his angels with him were cast down.
We have here a startling revelation: “And there arose war in heaven.” The United Nations could not do anything about this war any more than they could about any other war that has taken place since they came into existence. It is difficult to imagine that there is war in heaven, but Satan still has access to heaven and, as long as he does, there will be this problem.
We are told in the Book of Job that Satan came with the sons of God to appear before God (see Job 1–2). He apparently had as much right there as they did. He had been created the highest creation. We also read in Zechariah 3:1–2: “And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said unto Satan, the Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” Satan has access to God, and he is able to carry on a communication with God. Luke 22:31 tells us: “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.” I do not think that Satan sent a Western Union telegram to God or that he telephoned Him. He was able to come into the presence of God, and he requested that he might test this man Simon Peter—and he was granted that permission.
“Michael” is the archangel. We are told this in the Book of Jude: “Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee” (Jude 9). Evidently there are other archangels, but Michael has a peculiar ministry with the nation Israel. Daniel 10:13 tells us: “But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.” Michael is “one of the chief princes.” Although there are probably other archangels, Michael and Gabriel are the only ones whose names are given in Scripture. Again in Daniel we read: “But I will shew thee that which is noted in the scripture of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince” (Dan. 10:21).
“Michael your prince”—since the Lord is talking to Daniel, this refers to Daniel’s people, the nation Israel. This is made clear in Daniel 12:1: “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” At that time, we are told, there will be a time of trouble, the Great Tribulation. Michael will again step out and drive Satan out of heaven, because he happens to be the prince who watches over the nation Israel. This is a tremendous thing, and it beggars description.
There will be a fierce struggle, a war. Satan is not going to retire easily, but Michael and his angels will prevail, and Satan and his angels will be thrown out of heaven. The Lord Jesus referred to this in Luke 10:18, “And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.”
There is no mistaking this creature who is called the great dragon, for he is marked out with great detail. His fingerprints are put down here in the Revelation. Because God knew that a great percentage of the preachers of this century would teach that Satan does not exist, He makes it so you cannot miss him. If your enemy can get you to think he does not exist, he will have a tremendous advantage over you, and he will be able to get a crack at you that will sweep you off your feet. Satan moved in afresh and anew during my generation simply because my generation did not believe in him. Now we are getting an overdose of him, and he has been made a weird and wild thing. But, actually, he is not an ugly creature, by any means; he is an angel of light,
Notice how he is identified here:
1. He is called “the old serpent.” This takes us back to the Garden of Eden. Our Lord said, “… He was a murderer from the beginning …” (John 8:44). The words old and beginning are akin, according to Vincent. Satan is that old serpent, the one who was at the beginning in the Garden of Eden.
2. He is called “Devil,” a name which comes from the Greek diabolos, meaning “slanderer or accuser.” He is so labeled in verse 10: “the accuser of our brethren.” This is the reason believers need an Advocate with the Father. You and I have an enemy today who is not only causing us problems down here, but you would be surprised what he says about you and me in heaven! There is nothing that you do or say or think which he does not turn in against you up yonder. But God already knows about it, and I like to beat Satan to the draw and confess it before he gets up there to bring the accusation against me. The Lord Jesus is our Advocate. “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).
It would be wonderful if I did not sin, but I do. Thank God that we have an Advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous is up there to defend us. He has been kept busy ever since I have been in this world, and I have a notion He’s been pretty busy defending you, too. Don’t think He is up there sitting idly by. He is our Defender, our Advocate. The Devil is a slanderer; he is a liar from the beginning. He is the origin of all lies today. Where does the gossip that goes on in some of our churches originate? It originates in the pit of hell, my friend. That is the last place from which anything ought to be shipped into the church!
3. He is also called “Satan,” which means “adversary.” He is the awful adversary of God and of every one of God’s children. We are told: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). I have received a great many letters from people who have been delivered out of cults and “isms” through the study of the Word of God. One man wrote: “I was in a cult. I wrote you the letter I did [and it was a mean one!] to try to trap you, to try to trick you. I thought I was right and you were wrong. When I began to study the Word of God, I came to realize how Satan had me trapped.” Satan has a lot of folk trapped today, even church members. We need to recognize that he is our enemy. That does not mean we ought to go overboard and just dwell on Satan and demons. It certainly is true that there is a new and fresh manifestation of him today that was not here a generation ago. But keep your eye on Jesus Christ, for He is your place of deliverance, and He is up yonder to help you.
4. Finally, he is called “he that deceiveth the whole (inhabited) world.” During the Great Tribulation, Satan will be able to totally deceive men—today he deceives only partially. Satan deceives men relative to God and the Word of God. He caused Eve to distrust God: “Has God said you should not eat of that tree? You just can’t trust Him, can you?”(see Gen. 3:1–4). Satan deceives man relative to man. Satan makes out mankind better than he is, yet he despises us. He builds us up and tells us we could become gods—how wonderful that would be (see Gen. 3:5). Satan deceives man relative to the world, the flesh, and the Devil. You and I think we are big enough to overcome the world, the flesh, and the Devil, but we are not big enough to overcome any one of them. The world is too big for us, and it will certainly draw us away from the Lord. Satan deceives man relative to the gospel. He does not mind a man going to church or even joining a dozen churches, but he does not want that man to be saved. “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:4).
Someone has said, “Satan is to be dreaded as a lion; more to be dreaded as a serpent; and most to be dreaded as an angel.” That is where he traps multitudes today.
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time [Rev. 12:10–12].
And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority [Gr.: exousia] of His Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, the one accusing them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe for the earth and for the sea; because the devil is gone down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he has but a short time.
“And I heard.” This reminds us that John is still the spectator and auditor of these events. He does not want us to forget that, because it is very important.
When Satan has been cast out of heaven, it will cause great rejoicing among the redeemed who are in heaven. “A great voice in heaven” seems to refer to the Old Testament saints or to the tribulation saints who have been martyred up to this point (see Rev. 6:9–10), for they mention their brethren on the earth: “for the accuser of our brethren is cast down.”
The first great demonstration of power to be exerted against evil after the death and resurrection of Christ is the casting out of Satan from heaven. That is the beginning of the movement that will lead to the Lord Jesus taking over the reins of government down here. When Christ died on the cross, He paved the way for Satan’s being cast out of heaven. Listen to the language in Colossians: “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross” (Col. 2:14). The Lord Jesus made it possible for man to be saved by His death. God canceled our debt of sin by nailing it to the cross of Christ. Christ made full payment. Paul goes on to say: “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:15). I personally believe that this began when He ascended into heaven and took that great company of saints with Him. He led captivity captive and took them into the presence of God. Those were the Old Testament saints, and I think they are in this group who are now saying that salvation is come.
This opens the way for the coming of four great, blood-bought, heavenly freedoms. We talk about four freedoms down here which have not yet come to pass, but here are four freedoms that are going to come to pass when Christ comes.
1. “The salvation”—its consummation is in the person of Christ. Our salvation will not be consummated until we are in His presence: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). This will be true when He comes to the earth. I believe this verse speaks of His visible return to the earth.
2. “The power.” The way nations have handled power has been tragic. This has been true of every great nation. Some nations have been able to make war and, like a great prairie fire, they have spread across another nation, destroying cities and killing people. The nations have abused power, but it will be wonderful when Christ takes the power and controls this earth.
3. “And the kingdom of our God” is going to be established on the earth. Not until then will there be peace and righteousness and freedom on this earth. In this land of the free and home of the brave, there are not many brave left, and I don’t know that there are many free who are left either. It will be wonderful when His kingdom comes on this earth. This very statement reveals that the kingdom was not established at the first coming of Christ.
4. “And the authority (Gr.: exousia) of His Christ” shows that Christ has not yet taken over the governmental authority of this world. He is not building a kingdom; He is not establishing His kingdom today. Wait until He starts moving. All of these judgments are in preparation for His return to this earth, giving men a warning and an opportunity to turn to Him—and multitudes will do so. There is always a note of grace in the judgment of God.
“The one accusing them before our God day and night” reveals that this is part of the present strategy of Satan which attempts to thwart Christ’s purpose with His church today and with the tribulation saints tomorrow. This necessitates Christ’s present ministry as Advocate for us.
Victory for the accused saints comes through three avenues which are mentioned to us in this section:
1. “The blood of the Lamb.” There is wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb. Don’t you forget that. Let us not minimize that. The many references to the blood of the Lamb necessitate its being on display in heaven. This is not a crude conception; rather, the crudity is in our sins which made it necessary for Him to shed His blood. If you and I get any victory, it will be because He shed His blood for us. We will never, never be able to lead “the victorious life.” The most defeated people I have ever met have been people who are supposedly living “the victorious life.” All of them look anemic to me. They look to me like they are fugitives from a blood bank. They are shallow and sallow looking, and they need a blood transfusion. They don’t live a victorious life—Christ does! If any of us overcome, it will be through the blood of the Lamb.
2. “The word of their testimony” reveals that they were true martyrs. Those who are Christ’s cannot deny Him. “But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 10:33). There is something that is strengthening in giving a testimony. Don’t misunderstand me—some of the testimonies given today are pretty shallow. Some of them are given by those who ought not to be giving a testimony, because the people close to them know their shoddy living, and it makes them rather cynical and skeptical. The place to give a testimony is not at a nice, well-fed church banquet where all the saints say amen to everything you say. If you have a life to back it up, the place to give your testimony is out yonder in the world, when you are up against that godless, blaspheming crowd. Let them know that you belong to Christ and that you are in Christ. There is something strengthening in that. There is something that makes a man stand tall when he can give a testimony like that. I know of a man in business who is a big, double-fisted fellow. He is an executive in a very hard-hitting concern, and there are a lot of blaspheming folk around him. When he hears someone blaspheming, in a very quiet manner, he will say to that person, “I’d like to tell you what Jesus Christ means to me.” The Lord Jesus says, “If you deny Me before men, I’ll deny you before My Father in heaven” (see Matt. 10:33). These are the true martyrs. The Greek word martus means “witness.” These are the ones who witness for Him.
3. “They loved not their life even unto death.” This is an exalted plane to come to, where you and I make the Lord Jesus the first love in our life and put love of self down in second, third, fourth, or some other place. Surely we ought to have respect for ourselves, and there ought to be a dignity about us, but let’s put Him first. When we put Him first, we will not have any problem living for Him down here. The great problem today is not the set of rules you may be living by; it is what is behind the rules. Here is what you need behind them: the blood of the Lamb, the word of your testimony, and love for Him above everything else. Love is the very basis of service. The Lord said to Simon Peter, “Do you love me?” When Simon Peter finally could say that he did, although on a weak plane, the Lord Jesus said, “I am going to use you. You are going to feed My sheep” (see John 21:15–17). Peter preached the first sermon in the church and probably saw more people saved per capita of those then living than any other time in the history of the world.
There are two radical reactions to the casting out of Satan from heaven. There is rejoicing in heaven, for this awesome, treacherous, dangerous, and deadly serpent is out forever. Then there is woe on the earth. This is the third woe that extends through the pouring out of the seven bowls of wrath. The only consolation for the earth is that Satan’s sojourn on earth is brief—forty-two months. There is an intensification of tribulation during this period.
THE DRAGON PERSECUTES THE WOMAN
And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.
And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent [Rev. 12:13–14].
This is the last wave of anti-Semitism that will roll over the world, and it is the worst, because Satan is cast down to the earth and knows that his time is short. He hates Israel because Christ came from this nation according to the flesh. This is the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, and this is the reason I cannot rejoice in the present return of Israel to that land. Some people seem to think they are going back for the Millennium. They are not—they are going back for the Great Tribulation Period if they are going back for any purpose at all, according to the Word of God.
“Two wings of a great eagle” are given to her that she might fly into the wilderness. There are those who see in this the airplane that will take Israel to their hiding place, and they always pick the rock-hewn city of Petra as being that place. I do not know how an airplane would land in that place, but that is the problem of those who give that explanation.
“Two wings of a great eagle” is not something that is unusual or peculiar to the people of Israel, but it is reminiscent of the grace of God in His past deliverance of Israel from Egypt. He said to them: “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself” (Exod. 19:4). They had not come out of Egypt by their own effort or their own ability. They came out because God brought them out, and eagles’ wings became a symbol to them. Here again in the Great Tribulation, the Israelites cannot deliver themselves, and no one is interested in delivering them. But God will get them out on eagles wings by His grace.
“Into the wilderness, into her place.” Scripture does not say that the rock-hewn city of Petra will be that place. It could be, but we just simply do not know. This “wilderness” has been variously identified—Petra is not the only place. Some say that it is the wilderness of the peoples of the world; that is, that there will be another worldwide scattering of Israel. Since Christ said, “… flee into the mountains” (Matt. 24:16), we believe it to be a literal wilderness, possibly that same one in which Israel spent forty years under Moses. This time it will be forty-two months, for that is the meaning of “a time, and times, and half a time.” The important thing is not the place but the fact that God will protect them by His grace.
“Where she is nourished” reminds us that in the past God sustained them with manna from heaven and water from the rock. He will nourish them again in possibly the same way.
And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.
And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth [Rev. 12:15–16].
And the serpent cast out of his mouth after the woman water as a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the stream. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
In view of the fact that the wilderness is literal, the water also could be literal. God had delivered Israel out of the water, both at the beginning of the wilderness march at the Red Sea and then again at the end of the wilderness march at the Jordan River. However, the floods of water could be armies flowing like a river upon them. This figure of speech has been used by Isaiah (see Isa. 8:7–8).
In Ezekiel’s picture of the last days, the king of the north is seen marching on Israel. Satan will use every means to destroy the people. How will he be stopped? No nation is there to stop him. But God is there, and He will destroy him with natural forces when he invades Palestine: “And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone” (Ezek. 38:22). This gives us an indication of what John is talking about here in Revelation.
THE REMNANT OF ISRAEL
And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ [Rev. 12:17].
And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and he went away to make war with the rest of her seed, that keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus.
“The rest of her seed” may refer to the remnant who is God’s witness in this period—the 144,000 who have been sealed. They are evidently witnessing throughout the world. These “keep the commandments of God,” which places them back under the Law. This precludes the possibility of the witnesses being the church.
All anti-Semitism is Satan inspired and will finally culminate in Satan’s making a supreme effort to destroy the nation of Israel. From the brickyards of Pharaoh’s Egypt, Haman’s gallows, Herod’s cruel edict, through Hitler’s purge, and to the world of the Great Tribulation, Satan has led the attack against these people because of the man child—Jesus Christ.
CHAPTER 13
Theme: Wild beast out of the sea and earth
Seven personages are introduced to us by the seventh trumpet, five of whom we met in chapter 12: the woman, or Israel; the red dragon, Satan; the child of the woman, Christ; Michael, the archangel, and the remnant of Israel, that is, the 144,000 who were sealed of God and who are going to make it through the Great Tribulation. In chapter 13 the final two personages are brought before us. One is the wild Beast out of the sea; he is both a political power and a person. The other is the wild Beast out of the earth; he is a religious leader. Here is where the action is when we come to these personages. Here is revealed to us the great warfare that is going on between light and darkness, between God and Satan. It is manifested now as we draw to the end of the age during the Great Tribulation Period.
These two Beasts are presented to us as wild beast—that is the literal translation. It is bad enough to be a beast, but to be a wild beast compounds the injury. There is much disagreement among reputable Bible expositors as to the identity of the Beasts. Some consider the first Beast to be a person, while others treat him as the last form of the Roman Empire. Some treat the second Beast as the Man of Sin, while others consider him merely as the prophet, or the John-the-Baptist type, for the first Beast. These difficulties arise because it is impossible to separate a king from his kingdom. A dictator must have a realm over which he rules, or he is no dictator. Though it is difficult to distinguish the two, it seems that the first Beast is the Antichrist, the ruler over the restored Roman Empire. In Revelation 16:10 it speaks of “the throne of the wild beast.” I would judge from this that there is somebody to sit on that throne, and that is the Beast who is presented here—but he would not be the Beast if he did not have the empire. After determining the identity of the first Beast, it is not really difficult to identify the second. He is a man, the false prophet, the religious leader, who leads in the worship of the first Beast—and he is Antichrist also.
There is another view being held today that Antichrist is the denial of the person of Christ rather than an actual person. In other words, Antichrist is false doctrine rather than a person yet to be revealed. The explanation, I believe, is found in the meaning of the preposition anti, which has two usages. The first meaning of anti is “over against.” Its second meaning is “instead of” or “in place of.” It has both meanings in Scripture. In both his first and second epistles, John mentions the Antichrist. He is the only one who uses that designation. We can see both of these characteristics in Antichrist; he is the one who is against Christ and the one who imitates Christ—Antichrist is both.
In his first epistle John writes: “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time” (1 John 2:18). “Little children, it is the last time.” John said that nineteen hundred years ago. We have been in the last time a long time! Note here that John not only says there is going to be an Antichrist, but that already in his day there were many antichrists. What was the thing which identified an antichrist? “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22). Antichrist denies the deity of Christ. He is against Christ. He is the enemy of Christ on the earth.
In the fourth chapter of his first epistle, John tells us some additional facts concerning Antichrist. “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world…. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:1, 3). In other words, any person or any group or any book that denies the deity of Christ is antichrist. I consider the rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, to be antichrist. It is against the Jesus Christ of the Bible. Also, any minister who denies the deity of Christ is antichrist—he is against Christ.
In John’s second epistle we read: “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist” (2 John 7). Antichrist is a deceiver—he pretends to be Christ, and he is not. The Lord Jesus Christ said, “There are going to be many who will come in My name, saying, ‘I am Christ.’ You are to test them because not every spirit is of God.” We need to test the spirits today. My friend, you need to start by testing your little group or the cult in which you are interested. Instead of being super-duper saints, they may actually be following an antichrist. Our Lord warned of such in the Olivet Discourse: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matt. 24:24). There will arise false Christs who will be able to perform miracles; this second Beast is really a miracle worker—he is an antichrist.
Therefore, the first Beast is political Antichrist, and the second Beast is religious Antichrist. Even the Devil cannot put it all together in one person. I believe there are two persons, these two Beasts, who are Antichrist.
WILD BEAST OUT OF THE SEA—DESCRIPTION, A POLITICAL POWER AND A PERSON
The first verse of this chapter introduces the Beast from the sea.
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy [Rev. 13:1].
Let me give you my translation:
And he stood on the sand of the sea; and I saw a (wild) beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns ten diadems, and upon his heads names of blasphemy.
My translation reads, “And he stood on the sand of the sea,” but the Authorized Version reads, “And I stood upon the sand of the sea,” as if it were John. The better manuscripts today show the subject of the sentence to be he. Who is he? Whom were we last talking about in the previous chapter? He is the same person, and that, of course, is Satan.
“And I saw a (wild) beast coming up out of the sea.” Who brings him out of the sea? Satan brings him out of the sea. In Scripture the sea is a picture of the nations of the world, of mankind, like the restless sea.
“Having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns ten diadems, and upon his heads names of blasphemy.” This Beast really boggles the mind. If I were to meet him in the dark, I know for sure that he and I would be going in the same direction, only I would be lots farther down the road than he would be!
The dragon (Satan) stands on the sands of the sea, and it is he who brings the wild Beast out of the sea and dominates him. This is Satan’s masterpiece. The first Beast is a person who heads up the old Roman Empire. Rome simply fell apart, and this is the only one who will ever be able to put it together again.
God is apparently taking His hands off this earth for awhile and turning it over to Satan. I believe this is poetic justice. God must let Satan demonstrate that, when he is given full sway, he will not be able to produce. Otherwise, Satan would always be able to say to God from the lake of fire, “You never gave me a chance. If You would have taken Your hands off and let me alone, I would have been able to accomplish my purpose and establish a second kingdom.” But God is going to let Satan have his way so that he will not be able to say that.
An understanding of the prophecy of Daniel is very important to the understanding of the Revelation. This wild Beast is similar in description to the fourth beast, that nondescript beast, in the seventh chapter of Daniel. There it represents the prophetic history of the Roman Empire, down to “the little horn” and his destruction. That fourth beast looked like it became dormant for a little while, and then out of one of its seven heads there came up ten horns, out of which came a little horn. The little horn put together three of the horns and was able to take the other seven.
At the time of the writing of John, much of the prophecy of Daniel had been fulfilled. The first three beasts—Babylon, the lion; Media-Persia, the bear; and Graeco-Macedonia, the panther—had all been fulfilled. When Daniel gave it, it was prophecy, but it was fulfilled by John’s time. Therefore, John centers on the fourth beast and upon the little horn because the fourth beast, the Roman Empire, had appeared. John was living in the time of the Roman Empire, having been exiled to the Isle of Patmos by the Roman emperor, Domitian. Already, signs of weakness and decay were visible in the empire, and John was spectator to that which was still future in Daniel’s day. However, in the Book of Revelation the emphasis is upon the rule of the little horn of Daniel 7, and the little horn is set before us as a wild Beast, for he is now ruling and controlling the restored Roman Empire in John’s prophecy. The little horn of Daniel 7 and the wild Beast of Revelation 13 are identical. You can see that an understanding of Daniel 7 would be basic to understanding this passage.
The wild Beast is the Man of Sin and Antichrist, the final world dictator. The last verse of this chapter confirms this view. “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six” (v. 18). We are dealing with the man who is the world dictator at the end.
There has been a great deal of excitement in our day (and I am included in the group that is excited) about the current existence of the Common Market in Europe. Throughout history, there have been many who have attempted to put Europe back together again. Charlemagne attempted it and failed. I think that the Roman Catholic church attempted it in the Holy Roman Empire and certainly did not succeed. The Holy Roman Empire was centered in Vienna, Austria, which makes it a very interesting place to visit today. Franz Josef was the last of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire who tried to put Europe together, but he was the worst flop of all. His son apparently either was murdered or committed suicide, and that ended the Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm, Hitler, and Mussolini all attempted it. But God has not been ready yet, and He will not let that one appear until the time of the Great Tribulation. To me the Common Market is interesting, not because we are seeing prophecy fulfilled, but because we are seeing the stage set which reveals that prophecy can be fulfilled. Down through the centuries, many have said that it is impossible to get Europe together. It is impossible until God is ready—and Satan is going to supply the man. The Common Market is just an interesting instrument—that’s all.
The ten horns with ten diadems speak of the tenfold division of the Roman Empire in the time of the Great Tribulation. The horns are the ten kings who rule over this tenfold division. This interpretation is confirmed by Revelation 17:12.
The little horn comes to power by first putting down three of these rulers, and afterward he dominates the other seven and thus becomes the world dictator.
The seven heads are not so easily identified. They are interpreted in Revelation 17:9–10 as seven kings. These do not reign contemporaneously as the ten horns do, but they appear in chronological order. Some have interpreted them as representing certain Roman emperors, such as Domitian who was then ruling. Others interpret these seven heads as the forms of government through which the Roman Empire passed. They had kings, councils, dictators, decemvirs, military tribunes, and emperors. The third view is that the seven heads could represent seven great nations of antiquity which blasphemed God: Rome, Greece, Media-Persia, Chaldea, Egypt, and Assyria. The kingdom of the Beast which is yet to come would be the seventh. Another likely view is that the seven heads correspond to the seven heads of the dragon which denote exceptional wisdom. Satan energizes the Man of Sin, the last dictator. I cannot be dogmatic about any one of these views and do not feel that it is crucial to do so.
All seven heads are guilty of blasphemy. Blasphemy manifests itself in two ways according to Govett: (1) making oneself equal with God, that is, usurping His place, and (2) slandering and taking God’s name in vain. The emperors of Rome were guilty of the first form. They made themselves equal with God; there was emperor worship in the Roman Empire. The Pharisees were guilty of the latter when they blasphemed the Holy Spirit. The Beast here is guilty of both forms.
And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority [Rev. 13:2].
And the wild beast which I saw was like unto a panther, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority.
This is really a weird-looking creature! He has never been seen on land or sea or in the air. Without doubt, this is a real spectacle.
John notes that he is a composite Beast. We can begin now to formulate some very definite facts concerning Antichrist. He combines the characteristics of the other beasts representing kingdoms which Daniel saw in his vision of Daniel 7. Consulting that passage and my commentary on the Book of Daniel might be helpful to you at this point.
(a) “And the wild beast which I saw was like unto a panther.” The outward appearance of the Beast was like a panther: “After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it” (Dan. 7:6). Panther and leopard are the same Greek word; I prefer the word panther. This was the Graeco-Macedonian Empire. Greece was noted for its brilliance and its advancement in the arts and sciences. It was noted for its philosophy, its architecture, and its marvelous literature. The Greek language itself is a wonderful language. The empire of the Beast will have all the outward culture which was the glory of Greece.
(b) “And his feet were as the feet of a bear” reminds us of the second beast of Daniel: “And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh” (Dan. 7:5). This was Media-Persia, noted for its pagan splendor as it paddled and waddled over the earth like a Gargantua. The empire of the Beast will have all the pagan splendor and wealth that Media-Persia had.
(c) “And his mouth as the mouth of a lion” reminds us of the first beast of Daniel: “The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it” (Dan. 7:4). This was Babylonian autocracy. When Nebuchadnezzar ordered the death of his wise men and then later on the fiery furnace for the three Hebrew children, there was none to question his authority. He was the head of gold; he was an autocrat. Though the Man of Sin will be one of the toes of the image that Daniel saw, composed partly of clay and partly of iron, he will rule with the autocracy and dictatorial authority of Nebuchadnezzar.
This final world dictator comes to his zenith under the domination of Satan. The source of his power is found in Satan who raises him up, empowers and energizes him for the dastardly dictatorial job he will do. He is the closest to an incarnation of Satan that appears in Scripture. Luke said that Satan had entered into Judas Iscariot (see Luke 22:3). Christ used similar language when He spoke to Simon Peter in Matthew 16:23. Is the Man of Sin the incarnation of Satan? I think we can say that he is. Certainly Satan has entered into him. Paul wrote: “Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thess. 2:9–10).
WILD BEAST, DEATH-DEALING STROKE
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast [Rev. 13:3].
And I saw one of his heads as though it had been slain unto death; and his stroke of death was healed; and the whole (inhabited) earth wondered after the beast.
This verse, together with chapter 17, verse 8, has led many to the view that Satan actually raises the Beast from the dead. “The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is” (Rev. 17:8).
Because of these two Scriptures, there are many who have taken the position that the Beast is actually raised from the dead by Sa tan. This cannot be because Satan does not have power to raise the dead; that power has not been given to him at all. The Lord Jesus Christ is the only One who can raise the dead. The Gospel of John records these words spoken by our Lord: “For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will…. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live…. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:21, 25, 28–29). Only the Lord Jesus can raise the dead—Satan cannot. Therefore, I take it that the restoration is a false, a fake resurrection.
Those who take the view that Satan raises the Beast from the dead interpret the Beast as a man only. That the early church, for the most part, held to this view is indisputable. They disagreed as to the identity of the Beast. Some thought he was Judas Iscariot. Others identified him as Nero. Even Augustine, in his day, wrote:
What means the declaration, that the mystery of iniquity doth already work? Some suppose it to be spoken of the Roman Emperor, and therefore Paul did not speak in plain words, although he always expected that what he said would be understood as applying to Nero, whose doings already appeared like those of Antichrist. Hence it was that some suspected that he would rise from the dead as Antichrist [J. A. Seiss, The Apocalypse, Lectures on the Book of Revelation, p. 398, footnote].
There are others who take the view that the Beast here refers to the Roman Empire and that the imperial form of government, under which Rome fell, will be restored in a startling manner. I believe this will happen, but I do not think it is a resurrection, for Rome never died; Rome fell apart. Rome is like Humpty-Dumpty:
Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall;
Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall;
All the King’s horses, and all the King’s men
Could not put Humpty-Dumpty together again.
But Antichrist can and will put Humpty-Dumpty together again, and it will be a marvelous thing. The Roman Empire has not truly died; it lives on in the nations of Europe today.
I think that both of these views do have something to commend them, while both views have serious objections. There can be no real resurrection of an evil man before the Great White Throne judgment. And, at that time, only Christ can raise the dead. Christ will raise the dead who stand before the Great White Throne (see Rev. 20:11–15). We have already considered John 5:28–29: “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” Only Christ can raise the dead—both saved and lost. Satan has no power to raise the dead. He is not a life-giver. He is a devil, a destroyer, a death-dealer.
The Roman Empire is to be revitalized and made to cohere in a miraculous manner under the world dictator, the Beast, yet verse 3 seems to demand a more adequate explanation than this.
I believe the Beast is a man who will exhibit a counterfeit and imitation resurrection. This will be the great delusion, the big lie of the Great Tribulation Period. We are told that God will give them over to believe the big lie (see 2 Thess. 2:11), and this is part of the big lie. They will not accept the resurrection of Christ, but they sure are going to fake the resurrection of Antichrist.
“And his stroke of death was healed” shows the blasphemous imitation of the death and resurrection of Christ. The challenge in that day will be: “What has Christ done that Anti-christ has not done?” Nobody can duplicate the resurrection of Christ; they might imitate it, but they cannot duplicate it. Yet Antichrist is going to imitate it in a way that will fool the world—it is the big lie. Believers say, “Christ is risen!” The boast of unbelievers in that day will be: “So is Antichrist!” The Roman Empire will spring back into existence under the cruel hand of a man who faked a resurrection, and a gullible world who rejected Christ will finally be taken in by this forgery.
We begin now to get a composite picture of the Antichrist. The rider on the white horse (see Rev. 6) brought a false peace to the world. In the recorded history of man, he has engaged in fifteen hundred wars and has signed some eight thousand peace treaties. Yet in his entire history, he has enjoyed only between two and three hundred years of true peace. Certainly G. K. Chesterton was accurate when he said, “One of the paradoxes of this age is that this is the age of Pacifism, but not the age of Peace.” The Antichrist comes in on a false platform of bringing peace to the world. How many times in the United States have we elected a president on the platform that he would bring peace, only to find that he took us right into a war? We have been a warlike nation. We are not very peaceful.
Arnold Toynbee, an English historian, said this in 1953:
By forcing on mankind more and more lethal weapons, and at the same time making the world more and more interdependent economically, technology has brought mankind to such a degree of distress that we are ripe for deifying any new caesar who might succeed in bringing the world unity and peace.
That is all Antichrist will need to offer the world when he comes. He will say, “I am going to give you peace,” and the people will say “Hallelujah!” and put him into office. That is the way we do it in the United States where we are supposed to be a very cultured, educated, sophisticated, and civilized nation. The world will put Antichrist into power.
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen made this remarkable statement:
The Antichrist will come disguised as the great humanitarian. He will talk peace, prosperity, and plenty, not as a means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. He will explain guilt away psychologically, make men shrink in shame if their fellowmen say they are not broad-minded and liberal. He will spread the lie that men will never be better until they make society better.
This is one statement made by Bishop Sheen which I’ll agree with one hundred percent.
WILD BEAST, DEITY ASSUMED
And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? [Rev. 13:4].
And they worshipped the dragon, because he gave his authority unto the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? and who is able to make war with him?
This is the supreme moment for Satan. He wants to be worshiped, and the whole world is going to worship him during this period. My friend, if the Spirit of God took His hand off this world today and off you and me, I am afraid that many of us would be in the position of backsliders; and if Antichrist appeared, we would follow him like a little faithful dog follows his master.
“And they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast?” What a parody on the worship of the true God. They say, “Look, we are worshiping something more wonderful than the God of the Bible!”
And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months [Rev. 13:5].
And there was given to him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and there was given to him authority to continue (to work) forty and two months.
The only good news here is that Antichrist will be reigning like this for only forty-two months, or three and one-half years.
“A mouth speaking great things” means he is a big-mouthed fellow. Daniel also mentions this concerning him. He is really going to be a big talker; he will promise anything. This is one reason you ought to be careful listening to anyone on radio or television today, including this poor preacher or any politician or educator or newsman. We need to test everything that we hear. Antichrist is going to have charisma. He is going to be able to talk himself into the good graces of this Christ-rejecting world.
WILD BEAST, DEFYING GOD
And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven [Rev. 13:6].
And he opened his mouth for blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle and those which dwell (tabernacle) in heaven.
This is the dreadful limit to which the Beast goes in blasphemy, He is against Christ and His church which are in heaven. Thank God that the church is no longer on the earth! I do not see how anyone who studies Revelation can believe that the church is going to go through this period of the Great Tribulation.
And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world [Rev. 13:7–8].
And it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them: and there was given to him authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation. And all that dwell on the earth shall worship him, every one whose name hath not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that hath been slain.
“And it was given unto him to make war with the saints.” The saints (there will be saints during the Tribulation Period, although they are not, of course, the church) will be overcome by the brutal Beast. In the will of God many believers, both Jew and Gentile, will suffer martyrdom.
“And all that dwell on the earth shall worship him, every one whose name hath not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that hath been slain.” Spurgeon used to say something like this: “I am glad that my name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life before I got here, because if God had waited until I got here, He never would have chosen me.” That is true of all the saints, both in the church age and in the Great Tribulation Period.
This will be the darkest hour in the history of the world; and the church, thank God, will not be here. I am thankful I am not going through the Great Tribulation Period. I will not be under Antichrist; I am under Christ. I am not looking for Antichrist; I am looking for Christ to come.
WILD BEAST, DEFIANCE DENIED TO ANYONE
If any man have an ear, let him hear.
He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints [Rev. 13:9–10].
If any man hath an ear, let him hear. If any one is for captivity (bring together captives) into captivity he goeth (away): if any man shall kill with the sword, with the sword must he be killed. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
This is without doubt one of the most awe-inspiring statements in the Word of God. “If any man” is a thrice-repeated invitation to the ear of anyone to hear the Word of God at any time, in any age. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). “If any man hath an ear, let him hear.” Here again is the wedding of free will and election. “If any man”—any man means any man. “If any man hath an ear”—does not everybody have ears? Yes, but there are some people who do not hear although they have ears. There are people who simply do not listen at all—they do not hear.
I had a neighbor who was retired, and his wife was a very wonderful person, but she talked a great deal. When he would go outside to work, he would remove his hearing aid from his ear. He did it, I discovered, for a purpose. He was pruning a tree one day when his wife came out of the house and talked a blue streak to him for about five minutes. All of a sudden she noticed that he did not have his hearing aid on. She said, “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said!” He just kept on sawing, and she turned around and went back into the house. That was exactly what he wanted! He was out there to prune the tree and not to carry on a conversation.
There are a great many people who do not have a hearing aid to hear the Word of God—they don’t want to hear it. I would like to make it possible for every person in this country to study the Word of God with us through our radio Bible studies. But I do not have the wildest dream that everybody in the country is going to be studying the Word of God. I know that it will be only those who have an ear, an ear to hear the Word of God. “Any man”—that’s free will; that “hath an ear” is election; and this is the way God weds these two truths together.
“He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.” What John is saying here is not for you and me—at least, I hope it is not for you; I know it is not for me—because, beginning with chapter 4, Revelation is dealing with future things which are beyond the church. The church (meaning all born-again believers in this age) will no longer be on earth. John is speaking to God’s saints who will be in the world at that time. Remember that during the Tribulation the Antichrist will be the world dictator. Men are not going to buy or sell without his permission. They will not be able to travel without his permission. He will rule the world as no one has ever ruled in the past. God is saying to those who are His own, “Don’t resist him.” To begin with, it would not do you any good. The second thing is that this is “the patience and the faith of the saints” of that time. If you are in the world during the Great Tribulation, then you are going to have to bear with patience and faith the awful trials that will be coming even upon God’s children.
God will apparently withdraw from the world, and He will turn it over to Satan. Today the Holy Spirit is in the world, and He curtails, He smothers, resistance. He is holding back evil, although it may not look that way. Just think what it will be like when He is removed from that office and when evil men are permitted to have their day. Satan will have full sway. As we have said before, this actually is poetic justice. The Devil and his minions of evil and lost mankind will never be able to say to God, “You never gave us a chance. If You had just given us a chance, we would have been able to work things out.” God is going to give them a chance for a brief period. If it was not for just a brief period, there would be no flesh left on the earth, as the Lord Jesus said (see Matt. 24:22).
THE WILD BEAST OUT OF THE EARTH—DESCRIPTION, A RELIGIOUS LEADER
The first Beast is a political leader, a political power and a person, and his power will become worldwide. We come now to the second wild Beast, the one who comes out of the earth and is a religious leader.
And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon [Rev. 13:11].
And I saw another wild beast coming up out of the earth and he had two horns like a lamb, and he was speaking as a dragon.
This wild Beast is easier to identify than was the first. After you establish who the first Beast is it is not too much trouble to identify the second. The first Beast comes out of the sea, and the second one comes out of the earth. What is the difference? The sea represents the peoples of the world. The great mob of mankind today is like the surging and restless sea—that has always been true. The earth from which this second Beast arises is symbolic of Palestine, and it is naturally assumed that the second Beast comes from Israel. He is a messiah, and Israel would not accept him unless he had come from their land and was one of them.
“And he had two horns like a lamb.” This suggests his imitation of Christ. The first Beast is opposed to Christ—he is Antichrist. The second Beast imitates Christ. He also is Antichrist (considering anti, meaning “in stead of”); he poses as Christ. He has two horns like a lamb, but he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He imitates the “… Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), only this pseudolamb does not subtract sin; he adds and multiplies it in the world. He does not come to do his own will, but the will of the first Beast. He is a counterfeit Christ. He will do a lot of talking about loving everyone, but underneath he is a dangerous Beast, just as the first one was, deceiving the whole world.
The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 7:15: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” This second Beast is the epitome of all false prophets, and he is an Antichrist. It takes two men to fulfill the position that Christ fulfills—and of course, they do not fulfill it. But Satan needs two men to attempt even an imitation of Him.
Again, the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 24:24: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” The false prophet is sort of a “John the Baptist” to the first Beast. Some have identified him as King Saul or Judas, which is mere assumption and cannot be proved.
WILD BEAST, DELEGATED AUTHORITY
And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed [Rev. 13:12].
And he exerciseth all the authority of the first wild beast in his presence. And he maketh the earth and the dwellers therein to worship the first wild beast, whose wound of death was healed.
The second wild Beast has a delegated authority from the first wild Beast, which actually makes him subservient to him, but he is also on a par with him—he has the same power.
This second wild Beast leads in a movement to exterminate the harlot of Revelation 17, which is the false church that will go into the Great Tribulation Period. John does not even dignify that church by calling it a church; it is called a harlot. The true church, which has now left the earth, is called the bride of Christ. But here you have the last vestige of an apostate church with all of its humanism. The false prophet will offer the world something new to worship—the first wild Beast, the willful king, the Man of Sin, the last world dictator (see Dan. 11:36–39; Matt. 24:24; 2 Thess. 2:3–10). Here is presented to us this terrible second Beast who will exalt the first Beast to the place of worship.
“Whose wound of death was healed” reveals that both the first and the second Beasts are healers and miracle workers. This is the big lie, the “strong delusion” that is going to come to the world.
And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live [Rev. 13:13–14].
And he doeth great signs, that he should even make fire to come down out of heaven into the earth in the sight of men. And he deceiveth the dwellers on the earth through [Gr.: dial] the signs which it was given him to do in the presence of the wild beast; saying to the dwellers on the earth that they should make an image [Gr.: eikon] to the beast who hath the stroke of the sword and lived.
This false prophet is a worker of signs and miracles (see Matt. 24:24). Our Lord warned against this false prophet. His deception is that he apes Elijah in bringing down fire from heaven. He is a combination of Jannes and Jambres: “Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods” (Exod. 7:11–12). In other words, they were clever magicians, and I believe they had satanic power. This Beast in the end time will also have satanic power.
We read in Matthew 3:11: “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.” John the Baptist specifically said he had nothing to do with fire, but this false prophet is going to imitate Elijah.
The false prophet plays with fire until he is cast into the lake of fire (see Rev. 19:20). The world is taken in by this deception, with the exception of God’s elect, those who are His—they cannot be deceived.
The false prophet shows his hand by causing to be made an image of the man of sin. The Greek word for image is eikon, which means “likeness.” The big production is a likeness of the first Beast that emphasizes the wound of death that was healed. It is interesting to note that the Lord Jesus did not permit anything connected with His physical appearance to survive. But the likeness of the Antichrist will evidently be placed in the temple at Jerusalem, and I believe it is the abomination of desolation to which our Lord referred: “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)” (Matt. 24:15). This is the abomination of desolation that is to appear, and although we cannot be dogmatic, we believe it will be this image of Antichrist, the first wild Beast.
WILD BEAST, DELUSION PERPETRATED ON THE WORLD
And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name [Rev. 13:15–17].
And it was given to him to give breath [Gr.: pneuma] to the image of the wild beast, that the image of the wild beast should both speak, and cause that as many as should not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the slave, that there be given them a mark on their right hand or upon their forehead; and that no one should be able to buy or to sell, except the one having the mark, even the name of the beast or the number of his name.
“And it was given to him to give breath (the Greek word is pneuma) to the image of the wild beast.” This is going to be a different kind of idol. Isaiah and all the prophets mention the fact that idols cannot speak. Paul also mentions it. But here is an idol that will speak. I think they will call all the scientists of the world to look at this image. The scientists will give a report that they cannot understand it, they cannot explain it, and that it is a miracle. This is something that will cause the whole world to turn and worship the Beast.
He is now wedding religion and business, for you will have to have the mark of the Beast to do business. In John’s day soldiers were branded by their commanders, slaves were branded by their masters, and those attached to certain pagan temples were branded by the mark of the god or goddess whom they served. Ptolemy Philopater had all Jews in Alexandria marked with the ivy leaf, which was the symbol of Dionysus. In our day a newspaper columnist who wrote an article entitled, “Living by the Numbers,” deplored the fact that we have to carry so many different cards in our wallets and concluded with this paragraph:
It would simplify matters if the government would assign each of us a single all-purpose number, which we could have tattooed across the forehead to spare us the trouble of carrying all these cards.
Don’t misunderstand me. This is not the fulfillment of prophecy, but it sure shows how prophecy can come to pass. What is the mark of the Beast? It is not given us to know. We are not told, but that has not kept many expositors from telling us what it is!
WILD BEAST, DESIGNATION
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six [Rev. 13:18].
Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast; for it is the number of man; and his number is six hundred and sixty and six.
“Here is wisdom” seems to be a rather ironical declaration when we consider the maze of speculation that has been accumulated through the centuries on this verse.
In the Greek there is a very beautiful arrangement of this number.
A numerical value is attached to each letter to be sure, but we must let it stand there, for the visible number of the Beast and its meaning await the day of his manifestation. And I do not believe he has yet been manifested. This number has made a nice little jigsaw puzzle for a lot of people to play at, but, my friend, you will not know who he is until you get to the Great Tribulation Period.
I would suggest that we not waste our time trying to identify a person by this number. Instead, we need to present Jesus Christ that we might reduce the population of those who have to go through the Great Tribulation Period and who will therefore know what the number of the Beast is.
I am not anxious to know the number of the Beast, and I am thankful I will not have to live in that period. I am very thankful today that I know Jesus Christ as my Savior. Instead of spending time with Antichrist, I want to know Christ. I can say with Paul: “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Phil. 3:10).
The only positive and important item for us today is that the first Beast is a man. This teaches me not to trust man. “Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit” (Jer. 17:5–8).
The passage in Revelation does not interest me a bit as to what the number of the Beast is or who he is or anything about him, but it makes me want to know Jesus Christ more, because my plan is to be with Him—not because of who I am or what I have done, but because Jesus Christ died for me on the cross, and by His grace I will go into His presence.
CHAPTER 14
Theme: Looking to the end of the Great Tribulation
This chapter contains several events. It is an interlude in which we see the Lamb on Mount Zion, hear the proclamation of the everlasting gospel, the pronouncement of judgment upon Babylon and on those who receive the mark of the Beast, then the praise for those who die in the Lord, and the preview of Armageddon.
The chapter before us constitutes an hiatus in the series of seven performers. It is obvious that this interlude could not be fitted in between the sixth and seventh performers who are the two wild Beasts. Of course, they had to be considered together, as they are like Siamese twins, and the continuity between them could not be broken. Therefore, this interlude follows the seventh performer in recognition of the logical sequence of this book, which is not a hodgepodge of visions but unfolds in a logical, chronological, and mathematical order.
There are certain performers called to our attention in this chapter (others beside the seven whom we have seen previously) in order to give us a full-orbed view of the spectacular events of the previous two chapters. As we have seen, this is the darkest day and the most horrible hour in the history of the world. It is truly hell’s holiday. Every thoughtful mind must inevitably ask the question, “How did God’s people fare during this period? Could they remain faithful to the Lord through to the end with the overwhelming odds against them?” The answer is found in this chapter before us.
The Shepherd who began with 144,000 sheep is now identified with them as the Lamb. And notice that He doesn’t have 143,999 sheep; He has 144,000 sheep—He did not lose one! He redeemed them, He sealed them, and He kept them, for He is the Great Shepherd of the sheep. These sheep are of a different fold from the one we are in today, and the Good Shepherd brought them through the Great Tribulation. That is the picture before us as we open this chapter. It is encouraging to know that the Lamb—not the two Beasts—is going to have the last word. And He is not a lamb that speaks like a dragon; He is the Lord Jesus Himself. And since He is going to have the final word, Babylon will fall—the great political capital, the great commercial capital, and the great religious capital of the world during the Great Tribulation Period. And the followers of the Beast will be judged.
Although many of Christ’s own will become martyrs during the Tribulation, they will not lose; they will win! Again I say with Calvin that I would rather be on the side that seems to be losing today but will win finally than to be on the side that seems to be winning today but is going to lose eternally. I’m glad to be on the winning side. Christ will reward those who will be martyred for Him.
In chapter 19 we will see the Lamb returning to the earth. The morning is coming. The darkness will fade away, and the Sun of Righteousness will arise with healing in His wings.
PICTURE OF THE LAMB WITH 144,000
And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads [Rev. 14:1].
“I saw” indicates that John is still the spectator to these events. The reel continues to roll, and the story continues to unfold.
The “Lamb” is the Lord Jesus Christ, as we have seen in chapters 5–7 and 12–13.
“Mount Sion” is at Jerusalem. There is no use trying to locate this at any other place than at Jerusalem in the land of Israel.
This verse pictures a placid, pastoral scene which opens the millennial kingdom here upon this earth. The Lord Jesus is going to reign from Jerusalem. God Himself called it the city of the great King. And in Psalm 2:6 He says this: “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” It is the Father’s intention to place the Lord Jesus upon the throne of David in Jerusalem, and specifically at Mount Sion.
“An hundred forty and four thousand” I believe to be the ones who were sealed back in chapter 7, although I recognize that there are some problems connected with this view. They came through the Great Tribulation like the three Hebrew children came through the fiery furnace.
Notice that the Lamb is standing with them on Mount Sion. Although He is in His person the Lamb, He is also the Shepherd. Remember that He started out with 144,000 and that He came through the Great Tribulation with 144,000. He didn’t lose one.
My friend, in our day when the pressures of Satan bear us down, the living, victorious Christ is available to us. Oh, that you and I might come to know Him better and that He might occupy a greater place in our lives day by day. I am convinced in my own experience that the Lord Jesus Christ in person is the answer. When I see plaques with the motto: “Jesus is the Answer,” I always say that it depends on what the question is. But certainly He is the answer to problems for which men are trying to work out solutions by some little method. They will tell you that if you follow their little legal system, you can solve the problems of your personal life, your home, your work, and your church. I doubt that there ever was a day in which there was so much teaching in all of these areas, and yet there is less victorious living in the daily experience of believers. What is the real problem today? We don’t need a method; we need Christ. We need to know Him in a meaningful way. We need to draw closer to Him. By the way, when was the last time that you told Him that you loved Him? He has said that He loves you, and you ought to tell Him that in return.
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:
And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth [Rev. 14:2–3].
“I heard.” John is not only a spectator but is also an auditor to this scene.
The 144,000 join the heavenly chorus in the Millennium. My friend, have you ever heard a choir of 144,000 voices? Well, up to this time earth has been out of tune with heaven, but here the rule of Satan is over, and the earth and heaven are in tune. What Browning said about God’s being in His heaven and all’s right with the world is going to be true when we get to the Millennium. All’s wrong with the world right now, but in that day all will be right. The 144,000 learn the new song and join the harmony of heaven.
“I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps.” God has put His harpers in heaven while the 144,000 are on earth, on Mount Sion (that is a long way from the instruments). Having been a pastor for many years, I have heard many harpers—harping about this or that, but these are a different kind of harper. The harpers I have listened to were not musical, I can assure you. But these heavenly harpers are going to make beautiful music.
“The hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth” means that they have been purchased to enter the Millennium on earth. They are not taken to heaven. Remember that this is a picture of the Millennium on earth, and these will live on the earth. The unsaved are not going to live on the earth.
“And no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.” No one can sing praises to God but the redeemed. I wish that truth could be gotten over to a great many song leaders in this day in which we live. I understand their desire to hear everybody in the congregation sing, but when they have a mixed audience of saved and unsaved people, they should not ask the unsaved to sing the songs of redemption. Don’t ask them to sing:
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
“Amazing Grace” —John Newton
If an unsaved person sings that, you have made him a liar. Just let the redeemed sing. The psalmist wrote: “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy” (Ps. 107:1–2). My friend, no one but the redeemed are going to say God is good. This is the reason we need a say-so Christianity in our day. We need to say that God is good.
But in this millennial scene, heaven and earth are brought into marvelous harmony. What a contrast this is to chapter 13 where earth is in rebellion against heaven under the Beasts. Here all is tranquility under the Lamb.
These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.
And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God [Rev. 14:4–5].
These are they that were not defiled (be smirched) with women; for they are virgins [Gr.: parthenoi]. These are they that follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were purchased from among men, to be the firstfruits unto God and unto the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no lie: they are without blemish.
“Were not defiled with women; for they are virgins.” What does that mean? To be frank with you, it used to puzzle me. It can have a literal or spiritual meaning, and I think it includes both. The Great Tribulation is a period of unparalleled suffering. The 144,000 have been through that period. The abnormal times demanded an abnormal state. That was the reason they were unmarried. When I was a boy, I remember a young fellow who went to war during World War I. He was engaged to a girl, but he never came home. I know other boys who married right before they left, and they fathered children that they never saw. That was wartime. And many girls said that they wished they had not married during that time. Well, during the Tribulation Period the times are going to be so frightful that it will be wise not to get married. You may remember that the prophet Jeremiah also lived in a critical period, the time of the Babylonian captivity. Because of the dark days, God forbade him to marry: “The word of the Lord came also unto me, saying, Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place. For thus saith the Lord concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bare them, and concerning their fathers that begat them in this land; They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall he as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth” (Jer. 16:1–4).
Our Lord Jesus mentioned those who would be mothers during the Great Tribulation: “And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!” (Matt. 24:19).
You and I are living in a day when marriage is honorable and even encouraged. However, God’s injunction to Noah to multiply and replenish the earth is hardly the Scripture to apply to a world faced with a population explosion and at a time when believers can see the approach of the end of the age.
During the Great Tribulation there will be an exaggerated emphasis upon sex, and obviously immorality will prevail. The 144,000 will have kept themselves aloof from the sins of the Great Tribulation.
Now, considering adultery in the spiritual sense, in the Old Testament idolatry was classified as spiritual fornication. The classic example is in Ezekiel 16 where we find God’s severe indictment against Israel for fornication and adultery—which was idolatry. The 144,000 will also have kept themselves from the worship of the Beast and his image during the Great Tribulation.
Therefore, the comment, “These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins,” is probably referring to chastity in both the literal sense and the spiritual sense. And this makes good sense, by the way.
“Firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb” has definite reference to the nation Israel. “For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? For if the firstfruits be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches” (Rom. 11:15–16). So Israel is described as the firstfruits, especially the 144,000. I believe that they will occupy a unique place in the millennial kingdom. They evidently will be the vanguard with the Lamb when He returns to set up the kingdom, as we will see in chapter 19.
“In their mouth was found no lie” means that they did not participate in the big lie of the Beast when he used lying wonders. They didn’t fall for his lie. Remember that the Lord Jesus said that if it were possible to deceive the very elect, they would be deceived. But they will not be deceived.
“They are without blemish.” Are they without blemish because they have been purified by the Great Tribulation? No. They are without blemish because they are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And, friend, that’s the way I am going to heaven, also. I’m not going to heaven because I think I am good, because I know that I am not good. And don’t look down your nose at me, because you are not good either. Both of us are sinners saved by the grace of God.
PROCLAMATION OF THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL
And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters [Rev. 14:6–7].
And I saw another angel flying in mid heaven, having an eternal gospel (good tidings) to proclaim unto (over) them that dwell (sit) on the earth, and unto (over) every nation and tribe and tongue and people; and he saith with a great voice, Fear God and give Him glory, for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made the heaven and the earth and sea and fountains of water.
“Another angel” denotes another radical change in protocol of God’s communication with the earth. This angel is the first in a parade of six “another” angels mentioned in verses 8–9, 15, and 17–18.
During our age the gospel has been committed to men, and they alone are the messengers of it. Angels would like to give the message of the gospel, but they have not been permitted to do so. At the beginning of the Great Tribulation men are the messengers of God, as the 144,000 reveal. Even the two witnesses with supernatural power could not stand up against Satan, but were removed from the satanic scene of earth. Angels as well as men were the messengers of the Old Testament—“… the word spoken by angels was stedfast …” (Heb. 2:2). The times are so intense in the Great Tribulation Period that only angels can get the messages of God through to the world. Angels are indestructible.
“Flying in mid heaven” was a ridiculous statement a few years ago, and some of the critics of the Bible laughed at such a thing. It is no longer a ridiculous statement to a generation that has been treated to television via satellite. Worldwide television is a practical reality so that we don’t have to wait for the evening news to learn what is happening in Israel or England or Japan, we can see it just as it is happening. And the angel whom John mentions “flying in mid heaven” will serve as a broadcasting station to the entire world.
“An eternal gospel.” The question naturally arises, How is this the gospel, since the word gospel means “good news?” Is this angel bringing good news? Yes, it is good news to those who are God’s children, but it is bad news for the unbelievers.
“Fear God” is the message of this “eternal gospel.” That is the message. The writer of the Proverbs said that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. In effect, the angel is saying to God’s people, “Get wise, get smart, because you need to fear God. God saved you by His grace, but He is going to judge this earth.” This is God’s final call before the return of Christ in judgment.
PRONOUNCEMENT OF JUDGMENT ON BABYLON
In this chapter God is bringing before us those who will appear again in the Book of Revelation, but He is giving us now more or less of a program which He is going to follow.
And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication [Rev. 14:8].
And another angel, a second, followed saying, Fell, fell is Babylon the great, that hath made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
There is a book entitled The Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop, which you ought to read. It is especially pertinent in these days in which you and I live. It reveals that Babylon has been Satan’s headquarters from the very beginning. Babylon is the place where idolatry began. Semiramis was the wife of Nimrod; some scholars think that she was his mother and that she married her own son. She was queen of Babel, which later became Babylon, and she devised a nice little story (beginning a whole system of idolatry) in which she came out of an egg in the Euphrates River—she cracked the shell and stepped out fully grown. The worship of Semiramis introduced the female principle in the deity. This reveals that Babylon was the fountainhead of false religions.
“Fell, fell is Babylon.” This second angel runs ahead and announces that which is yet to come as though it had already taken place. In the original Greek, “fell” is in the prophetic aorist tense. In other words, God’s prophetic word is so sure that He speaks as though the event had already taken place. It is just as sure as if it were history already.
The city of Babylon will evidently be rebuilt during the Great Tribulation Period. If you have my book on Isaiah, you will see that I deal with the probability in chapter 13. I believe that ancient Babylon will be rebuilt, though not at the same location, and that judgment upon it, which is predicted in the Book of Isaiah, is yet to come.
The idolatry of Babylon is a divine intoxication which will fascinate the entire world. This is the reason we are seeing so much experimentation in our day with Satan worship, exorcism, and all the cults which are definitely satanic. Notice what the Old Testament prophets have said about it: “Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad” (Jer. 51:7). If you could get away far enough and look back at this earth, I am of the opinion that you would be disappointed in mankind and in the nations of the world. Then in the prophecy of Isaiah we read: “And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible” (Isa. 13:11). This brings down the wrath of God upon the world (see Jer. 25:15–26). “And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah” (Isa. 13:19).
This is a judgment on Babylon that we are going to see: judgment upon religious Babylon in chapter 17 of Revelation and upon commercial Babylon in chapter 18.
PRONOUNCEMENT OF JUDGMENT ON THOSE WHO RECEIVE THE MARK OF THE BEAST
It is probably true that those who live through all or most of the Great Tribulation do so because they had received the mark of the Beast. However, part of the Great Tribulation is not caused by Satan’s being released but by Christ’s judgment upon this earth. He will move personally and directly in putting down the rebellion against Him here on this earth.
And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus [Rev. 14:9–12].
And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a great voice, If any man worshippeth the beast and his image, and receiveth a mark on his forehead, or upon his hand, he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mingled unmixed in the cup of His anger; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment goeth up for ever and ever (unto the ages of the ages); and they have no rest day and night, they that worship the wild beast and his image, and whoso receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints, who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
He is speaking to a group of people who “keep the commandments of God,” the Old Testament law. Scripture tells us that sacrifices will be brought during the Great Tribulation and even into the Millennium.
This section makes it crystal clear that no one can assume a neutral position during this intense period under the Beast. Even today we see Christian businessmen who are capitulating to the ethics of the hour. In chapter 13 we saw that the awful alternative for refusing to receive the mark of the Beast was starvation. On the other hand, the person who receives the mark brings down upon his head the wrath of God.
“He also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.” If you believe that the church is going through the Great Tribulation, you also believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to subject His own to the mingled, unmixed cup of His anger. I simply cannot believe that Christ would do this to the church which He has redeemed.
“The wine of the wrath of God” is a figure adopted from the Old Testament. In Psalm 75:8 we read: “For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.” The Old Testament prophets picked up that theme. They saw the cup of wrath filling up to the brim. God was patient and let man go on and on in his sin, but when the cup of wrath was filled, then God would press it to the lips of a godless society. Rebellious men kept building this thing up until judgment had to break.
“Tormented with fire and brimstone.” Now let me say that if this is not literal fire and brimstone, whatever it is must be worse than fire and brimstone. If it is a symbol, remember that a symbol is used to give a faint representation of the real. It is rather like the essence of something. There is the essence of pepper and the essence of perfume. Essence is the faint odor that is left in the bottle after the substance is gone. A symbol is an essence or just a faint copy of the real thing, and the reality can be much worse than the symbol indicates. But remember, the brimstone of Sodom was quite literal. That is a fact you should mull over in your mind if you want to reject a literal hell.
You will notice in this passage that hell is visible to Christ and the holy angels. It does not say that hell is visible to the twenty-four elders. Are we to assume from that that the church does not know what is taking place on the earth? I am inclined to believe that the church will not see what is taking place on the earth during the Great Tribulation Period, but certainly Christ and the holy angels will see it.
All that God’s own can do during this period is to be patient and wait for the coming of Christ. Our Lord said: “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” (Matt. 24:13). Why will he endure? He will endure because he has been sealed by the Spirit of God, and he is clothed in the righteousness of Christ. He is able to overcome by the blood of the Lamb. Our Lord said, “In your patience possess ye your souls?” (Luke 21:19). All they can do is wait out the storm, and that is what they will do during the Great Tribulation.
PRAISE FOR THOSE WHO DIE IN THE LORD
Here again is a verse that is taken to a funeral in our day, and certainly to use it at a funeral completely robs it of its application. This verse refers only to the Great Tribulation Period:
And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them [Rev. 14:13].
And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, said the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors (sorrows), for their works follow with them.
Apparently many of God’s tribulation saints, both of the 144,000 and of the untold number of Gentiles that will be saved during that time, are going to lay down their lives for Christ. They will be martyred. During the time of the Great Tribulation, it will be better to die than to live. At that time this verse will give comfort and assurance. They will have rest from their sorrows, and their works will follow them, and the Lord will reward them.
As I have said, this is not a verse for God’s saints in comfortable, affluent America, as I see it. For most of us it is unnatural to want to die. I feel as Paul expressed it: “For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith; That your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again” (Phil. 1:23–26).
Personally, I would like to stay down here for quite a few more years and teach the Word of God. I am in no hurry to get to heaven. This old story illustrates my viewpoint: A boy in my southland years ago went to church on a Sunday night. The preacher asked, “How many of you want to go to heaven?” Everybody but this boy put up his hand. The preacher looked at him and asked, “Son, don’t you want to go to heaven?” “Sure,” the boy answered, “but I thought you were getting up a load for tonight!”
Well, I don’t want to be on that load leaving tonight either. I’m going there ultimately, but I would like to live and serve as long as possible. For me it would be unnatural to want to die, but in the Great Tribulation it will be a different story. They will just be waiting in patience and in sorrow. If they are martyred, it will be a wonderful thing. “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.” He is going to reward them for their faithfulness to Himself.
You can see that this verse is not appropriate for a funeral, especially for a wealthy man who has been living in clover all of his life. In Texas I heard it used at a rich man’s funeral, a man who had been brought up in a home of wealth. He had never known what it was to lift his little finger in actual work. He just toyed around with a ranch and lost money on it—he had so much money, he had to get rid of it some way. Yet the preacher applied this verse to him! That is a terrible abuse of the Word of God. Death is going to be precious to the people in the Great Tribulation but not for the saints of our society in which everything is geared to comfort.
“For their works follow with them” reveals that they will be rewarded for their faithfulness, patience, and works in this period. God does not save anyone for his works, but He does reward us for our works. Our works (good or bad) are like tin cans tied to a dog’s tail; we cannot get away from them. They will follow us to the bema seat of Christ.
PREVIEW OF ARMAGEDDON
And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle [Rev. 14:14].
“I looked, and behold” emphasizes the fact that John is not only a hearer but a spectator.
“A white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man” is evidently the Lord Jesus Christ. The cloud is a mark of identification: “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matt. 24:30). I think that the “clouds” are the shekinah cloud, which is “the sign” in heaven.
“On his head a golden crown” further confirms this One as the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the hero of the Book of Revelation, my friend, and you need this book to get a true picture of Him. He is seen as King—not as Prophet or Priest. His office as King is always connected with His return to the earth.
“A sharp sickle” establishes this and speaks of the judgment of the wicked. Dr. Newell calls attention to something that is quite interesting: he notes that the word sickle occurs only twelve times in the Scriptures, of which seven are in the verses of this section. Also, the word sharp occurs seven times in the Revelation, and four times in this chapter.
And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped [Rev. 14:15–16].
And another angel came out of the temple, crying in a great voice to the One seated on the cloud. Send forth thy sickle, and reap; for the hour is come to reap; for the harvest of the earth was dried. And He that sat on the cloud cast his sickle upon the earth; and the earth was reaped.
“Send forth thy sickle, and reap” refers to the judgment of men on the earth. “As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 13:40–42). In Matthew the “harvest” has so long been identified with Christian witnessing, and believers have been urged to pray for laborers for the harvest, that it is difficult for the average Christian to fit this scene into the true context of Scripture. Actually, believers are not urged to harvest today; they are urged to sow, to sow the Word of God.
“… a sower went forth to sow” (Matt. 13:3) is a picture of Christendom today. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of Man. He is the sower and the seed is the Word of God and the field is the world. He is flinging out the seed into the world. There is going to be a harvest someday, but that will come at the end of the age. You and I are not in the harvesting business today. Our business is to sow the seed. That is the reason I do not worry about results. I worry a great deal about the source. I want to do my best in giving out the Word of God. Why? Because sowing seed is my business. I am not really concerned about the number of folk who claim to have been converted through my ministry I just sow the seed. Christ is the One who is going to have the harvest, and the harvest is the judgment at the end of the age. This is the picture given to us here in the Revelation.
Note God’s instructions to His Son in the Old Testament: “I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps. 2:7–9). Did this take place at the Lord’s first coming? No. This is no missionary text. When, then, will it take place? It will take place at Christ’s second coming to earth. At that time He will come in judgment.
“For the hour is come to reap” is in conformity to the words of Jesus, “… the harvest is the end of the world …” (Matt. 13:39). The time will come to reap, so let’s sow the seed today, and let’s not be so everlastingly busy trying to get somebody’s hand up and have that one come forward to receive Christ as Savior. Let’s make sure that we give out the Word of God, and the Spirit of God will take care of the results.
The time of harvest is set before us in the Old Testament: “Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision” (Joel 3:13–14).
And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.
And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe [Rev. 14:17–18].
And another angel came out from the sanctuary which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, he that hath (having) power over the fire, and he called with a great voice to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Send forth thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
“The sanctuary which is in heaven” identifies this with the Old Testament, not with the church.
The “sharp sickle” indicates judgment. “Her grapes are fully ripe” conveys the thought of their being dry like raisins. This is a change of metaphor for the war of Armageddon, and this is the picture Isaiah gives: “Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winevat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth” (Isa. 63:1–6).
This vivid picture is not of Christ at His first coming but of Christ when He returns in judgment. In Isaiah’s day men would get into the winepress barefooted to tread out the grapes. The red juice would spurt out of the ripe grapes and stain their garments. The picture in this verse is of spectators seeing that there is blood on our Lord’s beautiful garments as though He had trodden the winepress. When Christ came the first time, He shed His blood for them, but they have rejected it. Now He is trodding down the wicked, and it is their blood that is shed. He will gather them, as we will see in Revelation 16:16, “into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” It is not a single battle but a war—the war of Armageddon (Heb.: Har-Megiddon).
Notice in this passage from Isaiah’s prophecy that He is seen treading the winepress alone. It is positively terrifying. Little wonder that the men of this earth will cry to the rocks to fall upon them and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. This will be the sad end of that civilization which at the Tower of Babel demonstrated an active rebellion against God, a rebellion which has been mounting like a mighty crescendo ever since and will break in all of its fury during the Great Tribulation Period. As we will see when we come to chapter 19, when Christ comes He will put down that rebellion against God in order to establish His kingdom here upon the earth. He will (in the language of Psalm 2) “break them with a rod of iron” and “dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
You see, the “gentle Jesus” who wouldn’t swat a fly, whom we have heard so much about, is just not the Jesus of the Word of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, but He is also the Judge of all the world. If you do not accept His blood shed for you, then if the Great Tribulation Period comes during your lifetime, your blood will be shed.
My feeling is that no careful study of the Word of God would lead any person of reasonable intelligence to believe that the church is going through this awful period. Folk who want to push the church into the Great Tribulation seem to think that it will be no more unpleasant than a trip to the dentist to get a tooth pulled. Such a trip is not pleasant; no one enjoys having a tooth pulled, but it can he endured. My friend, if that is in your thinking, you just haven’t seen what the Tribulation really will be. Isaiah gives us another picture of it: “Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood…. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea” (Isa. 34:1–3, 6).
What a picture this is! The precious blood of the Lamb having been rejected, the blood of those who defied God and followed and worshiped the Beast bathes the earth. It is frightful. As a ripe grape is mashed and the juice flies in every direction, so will little man fall into the vat of God’s judgment. This is Armageddon—the mount of slaughter.
And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs [Rev. 14:19–20].
And the angel cast his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the winepress, the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and there came out blood from the winepress, even unto the bridles of the horses, as far as a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
“Without the city” means outside of Jerusalem.
“Unto the bridles of the horses” means about four feet deep.
“A thousand and six hundred furlongs” is about 185 miles, and that is the distance from Dan to Beer-sheba. All of Palestine is the scene of this final war which ends in what is called Armageddon. It is a campaign beginning, about the middle of the Great Tribulation and is concluded by the personal return of Christ to the earth. Psalm 45:3–7 is an Old Testament prediction of this: “Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; whereby the people fall under thee. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” Psalm 45 is a messianic psalm.
Let me make it clear that I make no apology for these scenes of judgment. God has not asked me to apologize for His Word. He has told me to give it out. We need to face up to the facts:
1. Sin is an awful thing.
2. Sin is in the world.
3. You and I are sinners. The only remedy for sin is the redemption Christ offered when He shed His blood on the cross and paid the penalty for our sins.
4. You and I merit the judgment of God. Our only escape is to accept the work of Christ for us on Calvary’s cross. The Bible asks a question that even God cannot answer: “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? …” (Heb. 2:3). Escape what? Escape judgment—the Tribulation is judgment. The way out is to accept Christ. Call it an escape mechanism if you want to; but, my friend, when the house is on fire, I’ll go out a window or any other way that is an escape. This judgment must inevitably come on Christ-rejectors. Mankind has rejected Him, trodden under foot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant as an unholy thing. If God is just (and He is) there will be judgment. The generation of today needs to hear this. Instead of being given this, they are offered endless little methods of living the Christian life. My friend, there is nothing that will straighten out your life like knowing that our God is a holy God, that the Lord Jesus Christ is righteous, and that He is not going to tolerate sin in your life.
And this same concept should be taught to our children. I am heartened to see that some psychologists are returning to this position. My friend, the problem with your little Willie is that he is a mean little brat and should be turned across your knee and spanked instead of being treated as a cross between a piece of Dresden china and an orchid. As someone has well said, the board of education should be applied to the seat of learning.
Before we leave this chapter, I would like to draw your attention again to the viewpoint which is abroad concerning the church’s going through the Great Tribulation Period. I have an article from a magazine that presents this viewpoint. The author of the article is a layman, and yet he has the audacity to write the following:
There is a shallow Christianity moving across our land. Those who do not have deep roots in Christ shrink from the idea that God would test His people with the Tribulation, or that He would use suffering to help the church make herself ready as a Bride for Christ. Very clearly, though, suffering is the pathway to glory. We are called to it. Why? “Because Christ also suffered, leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps.” As a result of this thinking, I no longer teach Christians they will not have to go through the Tribulation. Maybe they won’t, but I can do more for them by preparing them to face testing in His name than by teaching them that the Lord is going to rapture them out of the hour of trial.
In his article this layman also says, “There is a tremendous growth in that person who puts on the whole armor of God, that he may be able to withstand in the evil day.” My friend, I want you to know that the Great Tribulation is not called the “evil day.” It is called the great day of God’s wrath. That is how the Tribulation is described in the Bible. I don’t know how anyone could read and study the Book of Revelation and believe that going through the Great Tribulation would purify the church or that the bride has to make herself ready! What do you think Christ did when He died on the cross? He made us ready there. We can never become worthy to enter into the presence of God. We are going to enter His presence “in Christ,” and you can’t add anything to that. You can’t equate the hour of trial with the great day of the wrath of God that is going to come on this earth. The church will be delivered from that. The Book of Revelation has made that clear. The 144,000 have already been identified for us as Israelites, and even the tribes are identified for us, so there is no way in the world of saying that this group is the church; nor is that great company “which no man could number” the church, the bride of Christ (see Rev. 7:9).
We have seen that God was able to keep the 144,000 during the Great Tribulation. So it is not a question of whether God can keep the church in the Great Tribulation Period. Of course, He can keep the church if that is His will and plan. But, according to the Word of God, this is not His will and plan. The Lord Jesus said, “I am going to keep you from that hour that is coming on this earth,” from that terrible time of testing that is coming. I would like to put it like this: The church is not going through the Great Tribulation Period, but we are going through the little tribulation. All of us have troubles and trials, and I don’t know of a Christian who doesn’t have problems and difficulties. It seems like the more spiritually mature the saint of God is, the more he suffers. This is the method God uses to develop His children. We never become wonderful saints of God. We are just His little children, immature and undeveloped. When we come into His presence, we will be accepted because of what Christ has done for us, not because we have endured the Great Tribulation.
Another point to consider is that most of the church has already missed the Great Tribulation. For over nineteen hundred years believers have been going into the presence of Christ through the doorway of death. I hope you don’t believe that God is going to send them back to earth so they can go through the Great Tribulation Period! At best there will be only a small percentage of believers who are still alive when the time of tribulation comes upon the earth. The great majority of the church has already missed the Great Tribulation.
I have always had the impression that the folk who believe that the church will go through the Great Tribulation feel that our crowd needs it, and specifically that I need it, that I deserve to go through it. Well, I agree that I do deserve it, and I also deserve hell. But I’m not going to hell because Christ bore it for me, and I have trusted in Him. Neither am I going through the Great Tribulation. Why? Because Christ died for me, and He saves me by His grace. Isn’t the One who says that He is rich in grace able to deliver me out of the Great Tribulation?
It is true that God allows us to go through the little tribulation of this life. After having cancer and several major operations, I feel as if I have been through the little tribulation period. And it is by this method that God refines us and purifies us. A preacher friend said to me recently, “I can tell a difference in your ministry since you have gone through those illnesses.” I trust that he is correct in that. I know God allowed it for a purpose.
When I read the article by the brother who thinks the church should go through the Great Tribulation, I wondered if he had ever really suffered for Christ. A preacher friend of mine who holds this view was discussing it as we were having lunch together one day. As he was eating a T-bone steak, he talked as nonchalantly about the Great Tribulation as if it would not be any worse than the church wading through a river or enduring a very hot summer or experiencing an energy shortage. He apparently did not think of it as being the terrible time which is depicted in the Book of Revelation. Is God misrepresenting the facts to us? Is He just trying to scare us?
Well, my friend, there are places in this book where God uses symbols. Do you know why He uses symbols? He doesn’t do it in order to evaporate the facts so that we can dismiss them, but because the reality which the symbol represents is lots worse than the symbol. Many of the things which John tries to describe to us beggar description. Even God cannot communicate some of them to us—not because He is not able, but because we are dull of hearing, as He has told us. We don’t always understand. I am afraid that a great many folk just do not realize that the Great Tribulation is a terrible thing, and it is miraculous that the 144,000 will come through it. He won’t lose one of them. Why? Because they will be big, strong, robust fellows? No. They will overcome by the blood of the Lamb. That’s how they will do it.
CHAPTER 15
Theme: Preparation for final judgment of the Great Tribulation
In this chapter we have another sign in heaven, seven angels with the seven last plagues. Chapters 15 and 16 belong together because in them we have the pouring out of the seven mixing bowls of wrath. I imagine that you thought the worst was over, but the worst is yet to come. We have already seen the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven personalities. Now the coming seven bowls of wrath are the worst of all. Chapter 15, besides being the shortest chapter in Revelation, is the preface to the final series of judgments which come on the earth during the Great Tribulation. These judgments are the most intense and devastating of any that have preceded them.
The purpose of the Great Tribulation is judgment. It is not for the purifying of the church! It is to give Satan his final opportunity. God is going to remove the church before this time of tribulation because of His marvelous, infinite grace. If you are willing to accept His grace, then you can escape the Great Tribulation. Believe me, the bowls of wrath are not the “blessed hope” for which believers are looking. No, we are “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). If we will grow in love with Him, we will not consider the judgments of the Great Tribulation terrifying. You don’t have to stick your head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich and refuse to read the Book of Revelation. My friend, if you are trusting Christ, you won’t be going through it. But you need to know what the unsaved will have to go through, and that might make you a zealous witness for Christ in these difficult days.
Someone said of Dwight L. Moody that in his day he looked into the faces of more people than any man who ever lived and that he reduced the population of hell by two million. We hear a lot of talk about reducing the population explosion of this earth. Well, hell has had a population explosion for many years, and I would like to help reduce that.
Before these angels begin to pour out their bowls of wrath, there may be the question still in the minds of some if any believers were able to stand up against the Antichrist. If that question has not been answered to the satisfaction of the reader, it is answered here. There will be those who will be enabled to stand.
First of all, we will see the preparation for the final judgment of the Great Tribulation.
TRIBULATION SAINTS IN HEAVEN WORSHIP GOD
In the first four verses we see that the tribulation saints in heaven worship God because He is holy and just. This is another interlude.
And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God [Rev. 15:1].
And I saw another sign in (the) heaven, great and wonderful, seven angels having seven plagues, which are the last, for in them (was) finished the wrath of God.
This will bring us to the end of the Great Tribulation Period. I don’t know about you, but I will be glad to get to the end of it. And then we will see the coming of Christ to the earth.
“And I saw” assures us that John is still a spectator to these events. He is attending the dress rehearsal of the last act of man’s little day upon the earth.
“Another sign” connects this chapter with Revelation 12:1, the first sign, which, in the opening of chapter 12, was Israel. These seven angels of wrath are connected with the judgments to follow until Christ comes (see ch. 19). From chapter 12 to the return of Christ is a series of events which are mutually related. This does not mean that there is a chronological order but rather a logical order of retracing the same events with added detail. This method is the personal signature of the Holy Spirit, seen first in Genesis 1–2. In Genesis 1 we are given the account of the Creation, the seven days describing God’s handiwork. In chapter 2 the Holy Spirit lifted out the account of the creation of man and went over it again, adding details. It is known as the law of recapitulation, and it runs all the way through the Scriptures. For another example, we have the giving of the Mosaic Law in Exodus and then in Deuteronomy the interpretation of the Law with forty years of experience in the wilderness and a great deal of detail added. Also, when we come to the New Testament, we find not one, not two, but four gospel records because it takes four to give the many sides of the glorious person of Christ who came to earth over nineteen hundred years ago.
Satan, having been cast into the earth, brings down his wrath upon the remnant of Israel. Also, he makes a final thrust for world domination through the two Beasts. Then God makes a final display of His wrath and concludes earth’s sordid tragedy of sin. “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (Ps. 110:1).
“Was finished” in the Greek language is in the prophetic aorist tense, which considers an event in the future as already accomplished.
“The wrath of God” marks the final judgment of the Great Tribulation. God has been slow to anger, but here ends His longsuffering. Judgment in the final stages of the Day of Wrath proceeds from God, not from Satan or the wild Beast. It comes directly from the throne of God. God will judge.
And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God [Rev. 15:2].
And I saw as it were a glassy sea mingled with fire, and them that came off victorious from the wild beast, and from his image, and from the number of his name, standing by (on the shore of) the glassy sea, having harps of God.
“A glassy sea mingled with fire” represents the frightful persecution by the Beast during the Great Tribulation Period. This is the period of time, as we have seen, where no man could buy or sell unless he had the mark of the Beast. It is going to be very difficult to get things to eat in that day. That is the reason the Lord Jesus, speaking of this period in His Olivet Discourse, said that whoever would give a cup of cold water in His name would not lose his reward. You see, anyone in that day who would give even a cup of cold water to one of the 144,000 would put his life in jeopardy because the Beast would put him to death for harboring what he would classify as a criminal.
Those will be very difficult days. Again I ask the question: Will anyone make it through the Great Tribulation? No, they won’t unless they are sealed. Although multitudes will be martyred during this period—and I think that a great many of the 144,000 will lay down their lives for Jesus—they will be faithful to Him until death. As we have seen, all of the 144,000 will be with the Lamb on Mount Zion.
“And them that came off victorious”—here are the tribulation saints who have come through the fires of persecution on the earth and yet have not lost their song. They have the harps of God, and in the next couple of verses we will see that they are able to sing, and they do sing.
How about us today, Christian friend? We are not in the Great Tribulation now and never will be, but even in these days are you having trouble keeping from your heart just a little root of bitterness? We are warned against this in Hebrews 12:15 because it is so easy for it to happen. Maybe this has no application to you, but it does have application to me. When I was in my teens, I came to know the Lord and at seventeen or eighteen made my decision to study for the ministry. I expected the Christians to support me in my decision. One wealthy family in Nashville actually turned against me. I was dating their daughter at the time, and they didn’t want a poor preacher in the family. A teenage boy feels these things most keenly, I guess, but even to this day I have to fight that little root of bitterness against that class of people who treated me so badly at that time. Now that wasn’t tribulation at all. It was a heartbreak, but it was not a Great Tribulation by any means.
What about that little root of bitterness? Are you having a problem with it? I meet people, Christian people, who have let that little root of bitterness spoil their lives to the point that it actually causes them to deteriorate in their Christian life and testimony. I know of a lovely Christian family back East. Something happened that caused them to become very bitter towards another family, and they refused to let it go. That root of bitterness has entered into their lives. I have seen the family sitting in church on Sunday without a smile on one of the faces. Bitterness can ruin your Christian life. We need to pray, in the face of life’s circumstances, that there will be no root of bitterness within us.
It is remarkable to see that these tribulation saints who have lived through the horror of the Great Tribulation have kept their song!
Let me share a poem on prayer with you. It was sent to me by one of our radio listeners.
Unanswered yet? Faith cannot be unanswered.
Her feet were firmly planted on the rock.
Amid the wildest storm she stands undaunted
Nor quails before the loudest thunder shock.
She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer
And cries, It shall be done sometime, somewhere.
Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say ungranted.
Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done.
The work began when your first prayer was uttered,
And God will finish what He has begun.
If you will keep the incense burning there,
His glory you will see, sometime, somewhere.
“Sometime, Somewhere”
—Ophelia Guyon Browning
My friend, in this life which you and I are living down here, a little bitterness will come in. What will we do about it? We need to pray. In fact, we need to pray about this more than anything else. If these saints can come through the Great Tribulation and still sing, you and I certainly ought to have a song in our hearts regardless of our circumstances.
The psalmist wrote, “For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Ps. 30:5). I have learned over the years that God will never let anyone cross your pathway, not even an enemy, unless it will teach you a lesson. He permits it for a purpose, for the development of your character. We need to be in prayer that we not fall into the trap of Satan and lose the joy of our salvation.
And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.
Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest [Rev. 15:3–4].
And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and wonderful are thy works, Lord God, the Almighty; righteous and true are thy ways, thou King of the ages (nations). Who shall not fear, Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou only art holy; for all the nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy righteous acts were made manifest.
If you want to learn “the song of Moses,” you will find it in Exodus 15:1–21 and Deuteronomy 32:1–43. Both songs speak of God’s deliverance, salvation, and faithfulness. “The song of the Lamb” is the ascription of praise to Christ as the Redeemer. We have seen that in Revelation 5:9–12.
Again let me call your attention to the fact that the Book of Revelation is Christocentric, that is, Christ-centered. Don’t let the four horsemen carry you away, or don’t be distracted by the blowing of the trumpets or by the seven performers. And don’t let your interest center on these bowls of wrath. Let’s keep our eyes centered on Christ. He is in charge; He is the Lord. In this book we have the unveiling of Jesus Christ in His holiness, in His power, and in His glory. The Man Christ Jesus is wonderful! He is the One who can put His hand in the hand of God and who can put His other hand in the hand of man and bring them together. He can do this because He is God.
“King of the ages” has two other renderings, King of saints and King of the nations. Any rendering indicates that Christ will be the object of universal worship and acknowledgment. There will be no place where He will not be worshiped.
“Who shall not fear, Lord, and glorify thy name?” In our day there is very little reverential fear of God, even among believers. We have been caught up in this love attitude, and I don’t think we should lose sight of the fact that God is love. But God is also light, which means He is holy. God is moving in on churches and dealing with Christians as I have never seen Him do before. I am one Christian who can testify to that. If you are God’s child, you had better not do as you please. If you think God would mind sending you a little trouble, you are wrong. God is to be feared. Our God is a holy God.
“Nations shall come and worship before thee.” The day will come when nations will come and worship before the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not true of nations today. That little prayer breakfast in Washington is a pretty sorry substitute for universal worship of God. One man used that prayer breakfast as an argument that we are living in a Christian nation. What nonsense! We are not living in a Christian nation, but there will come a day when every nation will worship Him. This knowledge should cause us to take heart as we see our own nation moving in the wrong direction. The day will come when God will remove the rebellious men and leave only those who will worship Him.
In Psalm 2:8 we read, “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen [nations] for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” The nations are going to be His. And in Isaiah 11:9: “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” In that day there will be no need for our Thru the Bible study because all men are going to have a knowledge of God. In Jeremiah 23:5 we are told, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.”
It is true that our country has been through awful travail, but we have been so engrossed in our own problems that our hearts have grown weary from all the scandal. Other nations, however, have had this same problem. Today it is nauseating to see the immorality, the godlessness, and the injustice in the world. If I weren’t a Christian, I would be one of the most radical persons you have ever met. As a child of God, I can see what is happening in the world, but I know I cannot remedy one thing. But Christ is going to reign someday, and He is going to execute judgment and justice in the earth. Thank God for that! I get so tired of politicians telling me that they represent me in Washington and that they are going to do what I want them to do—when all the time they are doing everything they can for their own interests. With rare exceptions, this is equally true of each political party. In the face of gross immorality and gross injustice, what can we do? Well, all of us who are God’s children need to pray for our country and rejoice that there is coming One who will execute justice and judgment upon the earth.
In Philippians 2:9–11 we read this: “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Those who are in hell will not acknowledge Him as their Redeemer, but they are going to acknowledge that He is the boss, He is running the universe, and it belongs to Him. And they are going to acknowledge the glory of God—they will have to do that.
“For thy righteous acts were made manifest.” This testimony, coming from witnesses of this period, is inexpressibly impressive and should settle in the minds of believers the fact that God is right in all that He does. What God is doing may not look right to you, but if you don’t think God is doing the right thing, you are wrong, not God. We need to adjust our attitudes and our thinking. Notice the testimony of the Psalms: “Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins” (Ps. 7:9). “For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright” (Ps. 11:7). “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever…. He poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness, where there is no way…. The righteous shall see it, and rejoice: and all iniquity shall stop her mouth” (Ps. 107:1, 40, 42). This will happen when God takes charge.
TABERNACLE OPENED IN HEAVEN FOR ANGELS WITH SEVEN BOWLS
At this point the temple of the tabernacle is opened in heaven in order that seven angels, having seven golden bowls, might proceed forth.
And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened:
And the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles [Rev. 15:5–6].
And after these things I saw, and the sanctuary (temple) of the tabernacle [Gr.: skenes] of the testimony (witness) in (the) heaven was opened; and there came out from the temple (the) seven angels, having the seven plagues, clothed in linen (precious stone) pure and white, and girt about the breast with golden girdles.
The “temple” is referred to fifteen times in the Book of Revelation. Its prominence cannot be ignored. In the first part of Revelation, through chapter 3, the church is the subject and there is no mention of a temple. Beginning with chapter 4 the scene shifts to heaven, and we see the temple in heaven; also there is a temple on earth patterned after the one in heaven. There is no temple in the New Jerusalem where the church is going. Why? Because the church is not identified with a temple. This fact makes it abundantly clear that, beginning with chapter 4, God is dealing with people who have had a temple, and only to Israel had God given a temple, patterned after the one in heaven. In this instance, the reference is specifically to the tabernacle (skenes) and the Holy of Holies in which the ark of the testimony was kept. In the ark were the tables of stone. Both the tabernacle and the tables of stone were duplicates of originals in heaven. “And look that thou make them after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount” (Exod. 25:40). “It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these” (Heb. 9:23).
The originals are referred to in Revelation 11:19: “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.” The action of God here is based on the violation of His covenant with Israel—the broken Law. God is righteous in what He is about to do. He will judge, then He will carry out His covenant with Israel.
The prominence of angels in this book is again called to our attention by the appearance of angels at this point. Previously, seven angels blew on seven trumpets. Here is the new series of seven angels who have the seven plagues of the seven bowls of wrath. The departure of the angels from the temple demonstrates that they depart from the throne of mercy, and now God acts in justice instead of in mercy.
“Clothed in linen.” The angels are clothed in linen—another meaning is clothed with precious stones. It is an enigmatic expression due to a variant reading in the text. Were they clothed in linen or a stone? The intention, it seems, is to describe their garments as studded and set with precious stones. Though their garments identify them in a priestly activity, they forsake that work of mercy for plagues of judgment.
The “golden girdles” reveal the angels in the livery of Christ, who no longer is exercising a priestly function but is seen here judging the world.
And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled [Rev. 15:7–8].
And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls, full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever. And the sanctuary (temple) was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no one was able to enter into the sanctuary (temple), till the seven plagues of the seven angels should be finished.
“Seven angels seven golden vials.” Again let me call your attention to the repetition of the number seven. I sometimes hear it said that seven is the number of perfection, which is not exactly accurate. It is the number of completeness, and sometimes completeness is perfection. For example, in six days God created heaven and earth and rested on the seventh day—not only because it was complete, but because it was perfect. But here in the Revelation the series of sevens denote a completion. My feeling is that we have a complete history of the church in the seven churches, and that we have a complete Great Tribulation Period in each one of the series of sevens; in other words, each covers it all. First, in the seven seals we see a broad outline, then, as we read along in the prophecy, we see that God zeroes in and focuses on the last three and a half years.
“Bowls (vials), full of the wrath of God.” Notice, they are not filled with the love of God but with God’s wrath.
“The sanctuary (temple) was filled with smoke from the glory of God.” The very fact that this section continues to deal with the temple ought to indicate to anyone who is knowledgeable that the church is not involved. Neither the temple nor the tabernacle had anything to do with the church. They present marvelous pictures of Christ which have spiritual applications for us today, but that does not mean that the church should build a temple or a tabernacle. Rather, this section refers to Israel, a people who had a tabernacle and a temple. A great many are reluctant to admit this fact because they dismiss Israel from the plan and purpose of God at the beginning of the New Testament. As you can see, the New Testament by no means dismisses Israel!
The “seven golden bowls” represent the final part of the Great Tribulation Period. I think that “bowl” better describes the container than “vials”—a vial makes me think of a little test tube that is used in a laboratory. Bowls were used in the service of the temple. For example, a bowl of blood was taken by the high priest one day each year into the Holy of Holies. And that bowl of blood spoke of redemption for sin.
These seven angels with priestly garments, having departed from the temple proper, are no longer engaged in a service of mercy but are beginning a strange ministry of pouring out bowls of wrath on a Christ-rejecting world. A world that has rejected the blood of Christ must bear the judgment for sin. This judgment is not the result of man’s or Satan’s enmity. It is the direct action of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have seen the gentle Jesus, and now we see the wrath of the Lamb. You never think of a little lamb as being angry. A lion can roar, but not a little lamb. The wrath of the Lamb is going to startle the world someday.
The prophets of the Old Testament used the figure of the cup of iniquity and wrath filling up and spoke of God’s patience in waiting for it to fill. Then, when it is full, God moves in judgment.
These seven angels with seven golden bowls make it clear that the judgments of the bowls proceed from God and are not the result of man’s mistakes or of Satan’s enmity. These judgments are the direct action of God.
CHAPTER 16
Theme: Pouring out the seven bowls
The seven angels pouring out the seven bowls of God’s wrath upon the earth is the theme of this chapter. Also, it includes the interlude between the sixth and seventh bowls. Chapter 15 was the prelude to this chapter and is organically connected with it.
It is worth repeating that the bowls of wrath contain the direct judgment of God upon the world; they do not proceed from either man’s misdoings or Satan’s machinations. They are poured out during the reign of the Beast. They cover a very brief period of time, comparatively speaking.
There is a definite similarity between the judgments in this chapter and God’s judgments upon Egypt through Moses.
PREPARATION FOR FINAL JUDGMENT OF THE GREAT TRIBULATION
The first verse of this chapter speaks of the message the great voice gives the seven angels.
And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth [Rev. 16:1].
As usual, I’ll give the literal translation of the Greek text throughout this chapter.
And I heard a great voice out of the sanctuary (temple) saying to the seven angels, Go and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God into the earth.
Let me remind you that the Lord Jesus Christ is still in full charge. Remember that way back in chapter 5 the Lord Jesus was the only One found worthy to open the seven-sealed book, and His opening of the seals ushered in this entire series of sevens. He is in command to the end of this book. He is the One who is marching to victory. The power and the glory and the majesty belong to Him. This is His judgment upon a Christ-rejecting world. The Father has committed all judgment unto Him. Christ is the One who gives the command that sends out these seven angels with the final judgments. There is no longer a delay, no longer an interval or intermission. The hour has come. The order is given, and the seven angels execute the command.
It is difficult for man, even Christians, to believe that God is going to pour out His wrath on a rebellious and God-hating world and destroy this civilization. But, my friend, everything you see today is under the judgment of God.
When Mrs. McGee and I first came to Southern California, we almost thought that we had entered the Millennium. Those were the good old days before the great population came, before we had smog and heavy traffic. I still love California, but it is not like it was then. Every Monday we would take the day off and go to see some of the sights. We would drive to the beach, to the mountains, or to the desert. One evening as we were driving down Wilshire Boulevard, a very attractive street, all around us we could see liquor signs and the world of glamour designed to satiate the demands of the flesh. I was reminded of what the Lord Jesus said to the apostles when they came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple, how beautiful they were. He said to them, “See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matt. 24:2). They were amazed that He would make a statement like that. And I said to my wife, “All of this beauty and glamour that we are seeing is going to pass away. It is under the judgment of God. It all is going up in smoke someday.” Believe me, we need to make our investments in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. Perhaps you are saying, “But I have gilt-edged investments and bonds in a safety deposit box.” Yes, but you are still going to lose them because you are going to leave them. You are going to release your hand in death. You are going to turn them loose and move out.
This world in which we are living is under the judgment of God. It is hard for even believers to accept that fact. After almost a century of insipid preaching from America’s pulpits, the average man believes that God is all sweetness and light and would not discipline or punish anyone. Well, this Book of Revelation tells a different story!
POURING OUT OF THE FIRST BOWL
And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image [Rev. 16:2].
And the first went and poured out his bowl into the earth; and it became ( there broke out) a noisome and grievous sore upon the men that had the mark of the wild beast, and that worshipped his image.
Vincent writes in his Word Studies in the New Testament, “Each angel, as his turn comes, withdraws from the heavenly scene.” In other words, the angel leaves the place of the mercy seat in heaven and executes judgment. He leaves heaven and pours a judgment bowl of wrath upon the earth.
The first bowl of judgment is quite interesting. It looks as though God is engaged in germ warfare upon the followers of Antichrist. Scripture states that the life of the flesh is in the blood, and also death is in the blood. These putrifying sores are worse than leprosy or cancer. As man discovers a remedy for one disease, another that is more frightful appears. These are judgments of God by which He reveals physically what man is morally—utterly corrupt.
The first bowl of wrath compares to the sixth plague in Egypt and is the same type of sore or “boil” (see Exod. 9:8–12). It is interesting to note that Moses predicted coming judgment upon Israel similar to this. It has not as yet been fulfilled. This prediction is found in the Book of Deuteronomy: “But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee” (Deut. 28:15). Now here is a list of them: “The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed” (Deut. 28:27). These diseases are incurable, according to Deuteronomy 28:35: “The Lord shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head.” These are predictions of Moses.
Now here in the Book of Revelation, the “noisome and grievous sore” is for those who received the mark of the Beast. As we have already seen, those who did not receive the mark have been in a bad way also. They have not been able to buy or sell. If a man has a starving family, I’m not going to blame him for breaking into a market to get food for them. It has been a desperate time for those who have refused the mark. But now, at the end of the Great Tribulation, those who have the mark and have enjoyed all the privileges it brought are going to be judged by God.
May I add a personal comment here: I have always felt that my first bout with cancer was a judgment from God. I still feel the same way today. The fact that God healed me is a sign that He forgave me, and He has given me my greatest ministry since then. I am rejoicing in that. But during the Great Tribulation, God’s judgment of this terrible sore—which is probably worse than cancer—does not cause men to turn to God.
POURING OUT OF THE SECOND BOWL
And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man; and every living soul died in the sea [Rev. 16:3].
This plague is more severe than that of the second trumpet, where only one-third of the sea became blood. Here it is the total sea, and the blood is that of a dead man!
Blood is the token of life. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood …” (Lev. 17:11). The sea is a great reservoir of life. It is teeming with life, and the salty water is a cathartic for the filth of the earth. However, in this plague, blood is the token of death; the sea becomes a grave of death instead of a womb of life. The cool sea breezes become a stench from the carcasses floating on the surface of the bloody water and lining the shore. Commerce is paralyzed. Human beings died like flies. The first plague in Egypt was the turning of the waters of the Nile River into blood (see Exod. 7:20–25). There is a striking similarity here.
I wonder if we realize how much we are dependent upon God today? The light company, the gas company, the water company send us bills, but where did they get the light, the gas, and the water? It is obvious that these companies have something to do with getting these things to us, but God was the One who created the light and the gas and the water. Has God ever sent you a bill for the sunshine, for the water you drink, and the air you breathe? Have you paid Him? He has not sent His bill, and you would not be able to pay it if He did. God, who has been so gracious to a Christ-rejecting world, will at last judge all the earth. The angels pour out the bowls in the day of God’s wrath.
POURING OUT OF THE THIRD BOWL
And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments [Rev. 16:4–7].
And the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the fountains of the waters and it became (there came) blood. And I heard the angel of the waters saying, Righteous art thou, who art and who wast, The Holy One, because thou didst judge these things. For they shed the blood of saints and prophets, and blood didst thou give them to drink; they are worthy. And I heard the altar saying, Yea, the Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
This plague, similar to that of the third trumpet, again is more severe. There, only one-third of the fresh water was affected, and here the total water supply of the earth will be cut off. This means destruction of human life on an unparalleled plane.
“The angel of the waters” is the superintendent of God’s water department here on earth. This reveals another ministry of angels as it affects creation. They are in charge of the different physical departments of the universe. We have seen four angels who control the winds. This angel, who knows the whole story, now declares that God is right and holy in this act of judgment.
My friend, whatever God does is righteous and holy. If you don’t agree with Him, it is too bad. You are wrong, not God. Imagine a little man standing up and saying, concerning the Creator, “I don’t think He is doing right.” I have a question for the person who would make a statement like that: “What are you going to do about it? In fact, what can you do about it?” If you are not in agreement with God, you had better get in agreement with Him. God is righteous in everything He does.
“They shed the blood of saints and prophets, and blood didst thou give them to drink.” This is poetic justice with a vengeance. Those who take the sword will perish by the sword, and the shedding of blood leads to the shedding of blood. These who are being judged had made martyrs of God’s people, and now God is forcing them to drink blood for the righteous blood they spilled.
“The altar saying” evidently refers back to the saints under the altar who had been praying for justice to be done: “And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled” (Rev. 6:9–11). Here their prayer is answered. God was a long time getting to it, but now the time is come for answering their prayer.
POURING OUT OF THE FOURTH BOWL
And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory [Rev. 16:8–9]
Our Lord predicted signs in the sun during the Great Tribulation: “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring” (Luke 21:25).
The Old Testament had a great deal to say about judgment during the Great Tribulation Period due to the excessive heat of the sun: “They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust” (Deut. 32:24).
Also the prophet Isaiah speaks of this: “Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left” (Isa. 24:6). Also—“Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart” (Isa. 42:25).
Back in the prophecy of Malachi we are told: “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch” (Mal. 4:1).
To accomplish this, all that the Lord would have to do is to remove one or two blankets of atmosphere. Or He would need only to pull the earth a little closer to the sun—not much—and we would not be able to survive. It is this frightful period that Isaiah had in view when he wrote that the earth would be decimated. And our Lord said, “… Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved …” (Matt. 24:22).
Nevertheless, His own are preserved; “The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night” (Ps. 121:6). Though this promise is quite meaningless to us today, it will be a great comfort to the believer during the Great Tribulation.
“And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God.” In spite of all of this, instead of turning to God for mercy, they blaspheme His name. This reveals that the human heart is incurably wicked. No amount of punishment will purify it and change it. By the same token, the Great Tribulation is not for the purification of the church. Nowhere is it stated that the saints are being purified by the Great Tribulation. Rather, it is a judgement upon the earth.
POURING OUT OF THE FIFTH BOWL
And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,
And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds [Rev. 16:10–11].
And the fifth poured out his bowl upon the throne of the wild beast; and his kingdom was darkened, and they chewed their tongues from their pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores; and they repented not of their works.
“The throne of the wild beast” makes it clear that the first Beast of chapter 13 is a man. He also represents a kingdom, as you cannot have a king without a kingdom.
“His kingdom was darkened” indicates a strange darkness which might be called black light. We are familiar with that in our day. It will be a frightening thing. As the sun’s wattage is increased, it grows darker instead of lighter. The heat will be greater, but the light will be less. Note the similarity to the darkness of Egypt during the ninth plague (Exod. 10:21–22).
The Old Testament prophets had a great deal to say about this coming darkness: “For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee” (Isa. 60:2). “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations…. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come” (Joel 2:1–2, 31).
In addition to these two prophets, Nahum mentions it, Amos mentions it, and Zephaniah mentions it. Now the apostle John is merely saying, “This Great Tribulation Period is where these prophecies fit into the program of God.” And our Lord Himself confirmed it when He said, “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light” (Mark 13:24).
“They chewed their tongues from their pain.” Just think of the intensity of the suffering that is caused by these bowl judgments! But they don’t turn men from their wickedness.
There are two self-evident facts at this point: (1) God is righteous in pouring out the bowls of wrath. Let’s remember that. Jesus is the judge. He is in charge of handing out the punishment. (2) Yet mankind is not led to repentance through this suffering. The apostle Paul predicted this: “Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Rom. 2:4–5). And here it is—the righteous judgment of God. And man continues to harden his heart and refuses to repent.
POURING OUT OF THE SIXTH BOWL
And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared [Rev. 16:12].
And the sixth poured out his bowl upon the great river, the river Euphrates; and the water was dried up, that the way might be ready for the kings that come from the sunrising.
The Euphrates is called “the great river” in the Bible just as the Mediterranean Sea is called “the great sea.” The prominence of the Euphrates River in the Word of God should not be overlooked. First mentioned in Genesis 2, it is designated over twenty-five times in the Bible. In the verse before us it is seen in connection with the sixth plague. As it was prominent in the first state of man on the earth, so it is featured in his last state—that of the Great Tribulation. It was the cradle of man’s civilization and obviously will be the grave of man’s civilization. It was a border between east and west, eighteen hundred miles long, over half of it navigable. It was wide and deep, which made it difficult for an army to pass over it.
Abraham was called a Hebrew, and some interpret that as meaning he came from the other side of the Euphrates. The Euphrates was the eastern border of the land God promised to Abraham. “In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates” (Gen. 15:18). It also became the eastern border of the Roman Empire.
The Euphrates River will be miraculously dried up, thus erasing the border between East and West, so that the kings of the sunrising might come to the Battle of Armageddon. In the past Tamerlane came out of the East and swept across those plains with a tremendous horde, and Genghis Khan did the same thing. Those were just little previews of what is going to happen in the last days. After the Euphrates River is gone, the great hordes in the East that have never moved west will come in a great crusade to Palestine. The bulk of the world population is in the East, and having only a smattering of the gospel, they will choose Antichrist. The picture is frightful. Can anyone doubt, with the hundreds of millions pouring into Palestine, that the blood will be as deep as the horses’ bridles?
INTERLUDE: KINGS OF INHABITED EARTH PROCEED TO HAR-MAGEDON
Now between the sixth and seventh bowls of wrath is this interlude. (As I have pointed out, there is interlude, an hiatus, between the sixth and seventh features of each series of seven—with the exception of the seven performers.) It is a break for the filling in of details.
And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty [Rev. 16:13–14].
And I saw (coming) out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the wild beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, as it were frogs. For they are spirits of demons, working signs; which go forth upon the kings of the whole inhabited earth, to gather them together to the war of the great day of the God, the Almighty.
This is Armageddon (more correctly spelled Har-Magedon). It is not to be a single battle but a war, the war of Armageddon.
It will be triggered, I believe, by the coming down of Russia from the north sometime around the middle of the Tribulation Period. The campaign extends the length of Palestine to the Valley of Jehoshaphat and the mountains of Edom. It will continue for approximately three and one half years. It will be concluded by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven to establish His kingdom. The Sun of Righteousness will arise with healing in His wings.
Here we are introduced to the trinity of hell—Satan, Antichrist, and the False Prophet. They act in unison in forcing the nations of the world to march against Israel in an attempt to destroy God’s purposes on earth. God gave certain promises to Abraham and to those who would come after him. He made certain covenants with the Hebrew people, and those covenants are going to stand, just like John 3:16 stands for believers today.
I want to say carefully and kindly that there is a system of theology abroad today that passes as conservative, but it takes the position that God is through with the nation Israel, that all of God’s covenants with Israel are negated, that God does not intend to make good any of His promises to Israel—yet there are literally hundreds of them in the Old Testament. This theological system simply spiritualizes these promises, and the proponents do so with no scriptural grounds whatsoever. Origen, one of the early church fathers who came from North Africa, started this method of spiritualizing instead of liberalizing the Scriptures. We need to remember that the Bible is a literal book. It is the purpose of Satan to destroy God’s covenants with Israel, and that is the reason Satan moves in and brings the whole world against this little nation. This will happen during the Great Tribulation.
As the study of prophecy develops, it is my conviction that this spiritualization of prophecy, although presently accepted, by, a great many expositors, will become a heresy in the church. I may not be around to see it, but just remember that McGee said it would happen.
Now let’s look at the tremendous scene before us.
“As it were frogs.” The question is: Will they be literal frogs? Well, they were literal in Egypt, and they could be literal in this case, but I am willing to accept them as a symbol. Perhaps you are saying, “Wait a minute, McGee, I thought you didn’t accept a symbol unless it was clearly a symbol.” Yes, that is right, and notice that John says, “as it were frogs”; he doesn’t say they were frogs. It seems to me that John is always very careful to give us an accurate picture of what he sees.
J. A. Seiss, in his book, The Apocalypse, Lectures on the Book of Revelation, comments on the frogs in a vivid manner:
They are spirits; they are “unclean spirits;” they are “demon spirits;” they are sent forth into activity by the Dragon Trinity; they are the elect agents to awaken the world to the attempt to abolish God from the earth; and they are frog-like in that they come forth out of the pestiferous quagmires of the universe, do their work amid the world’s evening shadows, and creep, and croak, and fill the ears of the nations with their noisy demonstrations, till they set all the kings and armies of the whole earth in enthusiastic commotion for the final crushing out of the Lamb and all His powers. As in chapter 9, the seven Spirits of God and of Christ went forth into all the earth to make up and gather together into one holy fellowship the great congregation of the sanctified: so these spirits of hell go forth upon the kings and potentates of the world, to make up and gather together the grand army of the Devil’s worshippers.
In our own day we have seen that the news media can become a propaganda agent to carry out the purposes of men who are in the background. The news media can brainwash the public. This is exactly what the trinity of evil will do. They will brainwash the nations of the world into marching against Israel.
The Lord Jesus is the only One who can stop this. Israel’s help does not come from the north or the south or the east or the west—that’s where their trouble is coming from. Their help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Behold, I come as a thief Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame [Rev. 16:15].
“Behold, I come as a thief.” Christ will never come as a thief to the church: “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief” (1 Thess. 5:4, italics mine). A thief is someone you shut out; you don’t welcome him. You don’t put a note on the door when you leave your house which says, “Mr. Thief, I left the back door open for you. The silver is on the third shelf; help yourself.” You never welcome a thief. You lock him out. Christ does not come as a thief to His church which is looking for Him. “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
The Lord Jesus Christ does come as a thief to the world at the end of the Great Tribulation, as the verse before us indicates. As we saw at the beginning of the Revelation, the whole earth will mourn because of Him. They don’t want Him to come. They would like to shut Him out from ever returning to the earth.
“Blessed is he that … keepeth his garments.” What garments are these? Edersheim sheds light on this phrase by explaining that the captain of the temple made his rounds during the night to see if the guards were awake and alert. If one was found asleep, he was either beaten or his garments set on fire. I suppose it could be paraphrased, “Don’t lose your shirt. Be sure that you are clothed with the righteousness of Christ.”
And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon [Rev. 16:16].
This is the only occurrence of the word Armageddon in Scripture, although there are many references to it. It means “Mount of Megiddo.” It is a compound word made up of the Hebrew words Har, meaning “mountain,” and Megiddo, which is a mount in the plain of Esdraelon. I have been there several times. It is one of the most fertile valleys I have ever seen. I guess it is the most fertile valley in the world today. It is a place where many battles have been fought in the past. Vincent cites Clarke’s Travels regarding Megiddo in the plain of Esdraelon:
… Which has been a chosen place for encampment in every contest carried on in Palestine from the days of Nabuchodonozor king of Assyria, unto the disastrous march of Napoleon Bonaparte from Egypt into Syria. Jews, Gentiles, Saracens, Christian crusaders, and anti-Christian Frenchmen; Egyptians, Persians, Druses, Turks, and Arabs, warriors of every nation that is under heaven, have pitched their tents on the plain of Esdraelon, and have beheld the banners of their nation wet with the dews of Tabor and Hermon.
“He gathered them together.” The “he” is possibly God Himself. Although Satan, Antichrist, and the False Prophet act in unison to force the nations of the world to march against Israel, they nevertheless fulfill the Word of God.
POURING OUT OF THE SEVENTH BOWL
And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great [Rev. 16:17–18].
And the seventh poured out his bowl upon the air; and a great voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were lightnings, and voices and thunders; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since there were men upon the earth, so great an earthquake, so mighty.
“The seventh poured out his bowl upon the air.” This is the last series of seven judgments before the coming of Christ, and this is the seventh and last of the last seven. In other words, we are right at the end of the Great Tribulation here. At this point the only One who could deliver these people and set up a righteous kingdom on earth and bring peace to the world is the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us keep our eyes on Christ through this. He is the judge now.
“Upon the air” means in space, with no specific geographical location. The Lord Jesus Christ controls space. He is getting ready to come through space.
“The temple” has been mentioned again and again and again. It has been mentioned with the bowls of wrath, the trumpets, and the seals; in fact, it has been mentioned with each series of judgments. However, the temple has been mentioned with the bowls of wrath six times—more than with all the other judgments combined—and this is the last reference to it. There is no temple in the New Jerusalem, so this obviously has no reference to the church. Whether we like it or not, Israel will go through the Great Tribulation Period. We know that the remnant, all 144,000 of them, will make it through; that is, they will be faithful until death. And I do not know how many more there will be. We do know that a great company of Gentiles were sealed and that they are going to make it through the Great Tribulation also.
Again let me repeat that the church is not a part of this scene. The church is not going through the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. God has two ways of saving people in the Great Tribulation Period: first, saving them out of it by taking them out of the world, as He took Enoch before the judgment of the Flood; second, by saving them in it, as He preserved the life of Noah during the Flood. God will definitely save people during the days of the Great Tribulation, but the church will not be a part of that, for it will have been taken from the earth before the Tribulation begins.
“A great voice came out of the temple, from the throne.” That voice is not identified for us, but I personally believe that it is the voice of none other than the Son of God. His message is recorded: “It is done.” This is the second time we have heard Him say this. When He was hanging upon the cross, He said, “It is finished”—in Greek it is one word: Tetelestai, “It is done” At that point in history redemption was wrought and salvation was finished for man. There is nothing man can contribute to his salvation; he must simply receive it by faith. You can have a finished redemption; but if you won’t accept it, there will be a judgment. For those who have refused God’s salvation, there is nothing they can do to escape the judgment of God. It is done. No wonder the writer to the Hebrews wrote: “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him” (Heb. 2:3). Christ is the judge, and the judgment of the Great Tribulation is now concluded. “It is done” is His announcement, and there is nothing ahead but judgment, the Great White Throne judgment.
Lightnings, voices, and thunders were the solemn announcement in the beginning of the Great Tribulation that judgment was impending. “And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God” (Rev. 4:5). Now again at the conclusion of the Tribulation are voices and thunders and lightnings.
“There was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth.” The Word of God makes it very clear that here at the end of the Great Tribulation Period there is to be a horrendous earthquake which probably will shake the entire world.
And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great [Rev. 16:19–21].
And the great city became (divided) into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and Babylon the great was remembered before God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the indignation of His wrath. And every island fled away, and mountains were not found. And great hail, as it were a talent weight, comes down out of heaven upon men: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof is exceeding great.
This concludes the Great Tribulation Period. There is a great earthquake, and it divides the “great city,” which is Jerusalem. The earthquake divides this city into three parts. Although the center of the earthquake is in Jerusalem, it is not confined to Jerusalem, because we are told that “the cities of the nations fell.” This tells us something of the extent and the vast destruction of the earthquake.
“Babylon” is mentioned specifically again. It was mentioned in chapter 14, verse 8, which says, “And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” The next two chapters give us the details concerning Babylon.
“Every island fled away” reveals that even the islands are shifted from one place to another by the earthquake.
The final act of judgment is the hailstorm. The size of the hailstones is enormous—“a talent weight.” The Greek talent was fifty-six pounds, and the Jewish talent was one hundred fourteen pounds. In Texas I can remember seeing hailstones as big as baseballs, but this beats the Texas story altogether. A very interesting hailstorm is recorded during the time of Joshua: “And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword” (Josh. 10:11).
According to the historian Josephus, the Roman catapults threw stones the weight of a talent, into Jerusalem in a.d. 70 when Titus leveled the city.
The miraculous hailstorm ends the Great Tribulation Period.
CHAPTER 17
Theme: The apostate church in the Great Tribulation
In chapters 17–18 we see the judgment of the two Babylons. We will first see the apostate church in the Great Tribulation in chapter 17, and then we will see not only religious Babylon but also commercial Babylon in chapter 18.
So many great issues are brought to a crisis in the Great Tribulation that it is difficult to keep them separated, and many fine expositors disagree on details. We have already noted this as we have gone through this Book of Revelation. Although we agree with the system of interpretation, we do disagree on details.
This fact should not be disturbing to believers, as many details will not be clarified until the world enters the Great Tribulation Period and actually faces the climax to each crisis.
This is especially evident relative to the two Babylons in chapters 17–18. The questions are: “Are there two Babylons, and are they in two different geographical locations? Are they representative of two systems? Are they two literal cities, or are they the same?” The answers to these questions will become more apparent as our redemption draws near. It appears at the present time, in my judgment, that two distinct cities are in view.
Here in chapter 17 it is mystery Babylon, the cosmic church, the apostate church. The church of Thyatira, described in chapter 2, verses 18–29, which permitted Jezebel to teach, will become the apostate church of the Great Tribulation. It will attain the goal of the present-day apostates of all the great systems of the world: Romanism, Protestantism, pagan religions, cults and “isms.” Even in our so-called independent Bible churches there will be those who are not believers, and during the Tribulation they will join this great organization that may call itself a church but is not. The Bible calls it a harlot. There couldn’t be a worse label than that! This is ecumenical ecclesiasticism of the one-world church. The location of this system could be in Rome. Rome, the city built on seven hills, is probably the city in mind here. However, Geneva, where the World Council of Churches has its headquarters, is also included, and other places, such as Los Angeles—if I know Los Angeles, and I think I do—can also make a healthy contribution to it!
It is called mystery Babylon because of its origin. At the Tower of Babel man attempted to rally against God. Under Nimrod, Babylon became the origin of all false religion. Now the dream of Nimrod will be realized in the first half of the Great Tribulation Period, for the cosmic church dominates the wild Beast. The church that should have been the bride of Christ is a harlot here. This church is guilty of spiritual fornication, selling herself to the world for hire. This is the church that says, “I am rich and increased with goods, and I have need of nothing.”
Looking back at the study of the seven churches, in chapters 3–4 of the Book of Revelation, I pointed out that the church in Philadelphia represented the church that would be raptured before the time of the Tribulation Period. He said to that church, “I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation” (Rev. 3:10). That “hour” is the Great Tribulation, and we have been in that “hour” a long time in our study of this Book of Revelation.
The true church will not go through the Great Tribulation; it will be raptured before the Tribulation begins. Let’s be specific: who will be raptured? Not certain denominations and not just individual churches, but His church, a collective term meaning all true believers, those who are in Christ. That is the group that will be taken out at the Rapture, and the rest of the church members will be left here on this earth to go through the Great Tribulation. As Dr. George Gill used to say, some churches will meet the Sunday after the Rapture and will not miss a member. But let’s clearly understand that they are not true believers. They are not part of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. He never calls them His church; He calls it a harlot! It is a pseudo-religious system, which controls the wild Beast during the first half of the Great Tribulation, yet it is hated by him. During the last half of the Tribulation, the Beast destroys the harlot in order to set up his own religion. J. Dwight Pentecost in his book, Things To Come, (p. 368) gives this comment concerning the harlot system:
The Beast, who was dominated by the harlot system (Rev. 17:3), rises against her and destroys her and her system completely. Without doubt the harlot system was in competition with the religious worship of the Beast, promoted by the False Prophet, and her destruction is brought about so that the Beast may be the sole object of false worship as he claims to be God.
Babylon is to be rebuilt, as we have seen in Isaiah and Jeremiah, and here in chapters 17–18 we see it destroyed. Ecclesiastical Babylon will be destroyed by the wild Beast.
Ecclesiastical Babylon is destroyed by the wild Beast.
Commercial Babylon is destroyed by the return of Christ.
Ecclesiastical Babylon is hated by the Beast.
Commercial Babylon is loved by the world.
Ecclesiastical Babylon is destroyed at the beginning of the last three and one-half years of the Great Tribulation.
Commercial Babylon is destroyed at the end of the last three and one-half years of the Great Tribulation—that is, at the very end. Zechariah 5:5–11 also has something interesting to say in this connection.
GREAT HARLOT RIDING THE WILD BEAST
I do not have words to describe how frightful this picture is. The harlot is the false church, as we have said. And the wild Beast is the restored Roman Empire, which will be brought back together by Antichrist with the assistance, I believe, of the false church.
And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:
With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication [Rev. 17:1–2].
As usual, I’ll give my own literal translation of the Greek text throughout the chapter.
And there came one of the (7) seven angels that had the (7) seven bowls, and spake with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the judgment of the great harlot that sitteth upon many waters; with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and they that dwell in the earth were made drunken with the wine of her fornication.
“The great harlot” is that part of the church that will remain after the true church has been raptured. It will be composed of those who have never trusted Christ as Savior; they have never been in the body of Christ. This is the group that enters the Great Tribulation.
We are told certain things about her. She “sitteth upon many waters.” According to verse 15, which we will see later, the “waters” refer to great masses of people and nations. The harlot will pretty much control the world.
“The kings of the earth committed fornication,” show that there is an unholy alliance between church and state during that period.
My friend, the movement in our day of bringing all religions together certainly falls into the pattern of this false church which is to appear—and Scripture doesn’t even dignify it by the name of church, although I am sure it will call itself that. I believe that this movement is more dangerous to our own country than is any foreign political system and that it is more dangerous than the so-called new morality. I believe that it is more dangerous than any other movement. It will become a powerbloc that will dazzle the unthinking mob. It will bring the world under the influence of the wild Beast out of the sea and the wild Beast out of the earth. They will use the apostate church to control the masses, and the church will yield to this arrangement for political preferment and power.
You see, when you reject the genuine, you are wide open for the spurious. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians that when someone rejects the love of the truth that they might be saved, they will believe the big lie.
“The judgment of the great harlot.” God’s cup of judgment will be pressed to the lips of the harlot. And who is going to destroy her? The Beast himself will destroy her. You see, the Antichrist and the False Prophet will not want her around after she has served their purpose. Antichrist wants to be worshiped, and he doesn’t want any competition from the church.
So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns [Rev. 17:3].
And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored wild beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
“He carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness.” Remember that John was on the Isle of Patmos in the Spirit for the vision of the glorified Christ and His message to the churches. At that time John was caught up to heaven. From then on the scene shifts from heaven to earth. However, here we are told again that John was in the Spirit. Did he need a fresh anointing of the Spirit for this vision? I rather think so. Is the wilderness literal? Remember that this chapter is a vision where symbols are used. Around both Babylon and Rome there is a literal wilderness. This is a matter of recorded history. Babylon was to become a wilderness, and in this connection read Isaiah 47–48 and Jeremiah 50–51. Outside of Rome the wilderness is called the campagna. I believe that the wilderness mentioned in this verse is literal but also that it is a sign of the chaotic condition of the world brought about by the religious confusion of Babylon.
John saw a woman “sitting upon a scarlet-colored wild beast.” This is a frightful and frightening scene. The wild Beast has previously been identified as the Antichrist ruling over the restored Roman Empire. The woman is identified for us in verse 18: “And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” The woman is a city, and the city is Rome, the religious capital of the world. She is religious Rome, which at that time will have inherited all the religions of the world. You see, all true believers will have left the world scene at the time of the Rapture. This includes all true believers, and I have discovered that there are many true believers in Romanism and in liberal churches and even in some very weird religious systems. All genuine believers, regardless of where they have gone to church, will be raptured. This will leave a church on earth that is totally apostate. Rather than being “the bride of Christ,” God calls it a harlot.
The city is further identified in verse 9: “And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.” Rome was the city set on seven hills and was known as such to both pagan and Christian writers. Horace wrote, “The gods, who look with favour on the seven hills….” Ovid added, “But Rome looks around on the whole globe from her seven mountains, the seat of empire and abode of the gods.” Augustine wrote, “Babylon is a former Rome, and Rome is a later Babylon.” In these verses the city of Rome is assuredly in view. The woman, the harlot represents a religious system that will be revealed during the first part of the Great Tribulation Period after the true church has been removed from the earth. And this religious system, as the symbol given to us indicates, dominates and rides the Roman Empire at the beginning of the Great Tribulation Period.
“Full of names of blasphemy” reveals how far religion will have departed from the living Christ.
And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH [Rev. 17:4–5].
And the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and gilded with gold, and precious stone and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, even the unclean things of her fornication, and upon her forehead a name written MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
“Clothed in purple and scarlet.” Purple was the predominant color of Roman imperialism. Every senator and consul wore a purple stripe as a badge of his position, and the emperor’s robes were purple. Scarlet is the color adopted by Roman Catholicism.
“Gilded with gold” shows the beauty of the outward display, but, like the Pharisees, it is within “full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness.”
“Precious stone and pearls!” are pretty cold, though they may be genuine, and are a sordid imitation of genuine heartfelt religion. The Lord Jesus said, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess” (Matt. 23:25).
“A golden cup full of abominations!” is the religious intoxication of the anti-church (not Antichrist) and a pseudoreligion, counterfeit Christianity, a fake and false gospel, and a sham and spurious system. This is the cup which makes the world drunk. “Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad” (Jer. 51:7).
“Upon her forehead a name written” is a startling revelation of the character of this woman. She does not wear a crown but rather the mark of her profession. It is of interest to see that Seneca, in addressing a wanton priestess, said, “Thy name hung from thy forehead.” “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” is the disgraceful title for the “church” which should belong to Christ as a bride.
Now I know that we live in a day of changing morality, but I am a little old-fashioned, and I still think that the Word of God is right, in its values. I think that the finest thing in the world is a woman and that God has made her that way. When she marries, she is brought into a relationship in which she can give to a man that which puts him in orbit. It is my firm conviction that the thing our civilization has done for a woman has not been to liberate her but to enslave her so that she has become more of a sex symbol than ever before. Instead of taking her rightful place where she can lift a man to the heights, she is characterized as the one who pulls him down to the depths. And the lowest picture you can have is that of a harlot. You may not like it, but that is how the Word of God sees it.
“MYSTERY BABYLON.” The true church is a mystery in that it was not revealed in the Old Testament (see Eph. 3:1–9). The anti-church, designated here as a harlot, is a mystery in that it was not revealed until John wrote Revelation 17. Let me say again that when the true church left the earth at the time of the Rapture, the phonies, those who were only church members, entered the Great Tribulation Period, and the system continued—not now a church, but a harlot. Paul had written of the mystery of iniquity: “For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now hinders will hinder until he be taken out of the way” (2 Thess. 2:7). The anti-church is the antithesis of the true church, which is the virgin bride of Christ, and it is the consummation of the working of “the mystery of iniquity.” It is “MYSTERY BABYLON” because it is given this designation just as Jerusalem is called Sodom.
Babylon is the fountainhead for all false religion; therefore she is “THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” This is, by far, Scripture’s more expressive and vivid picture of awful and abominable sin. Sex and false religions are related, you may be sure of that. I believe that many young people are really missing it in marriage when they do not stand at the marriage altar in the presence of God presenting themselves to each other, having kept their bodies for the marriage. That was God’s ideal and still is.
Have you noticed that this “MYSTERY BABYLON” is called the “MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS”? The mother of harlots—not singular but plural. In our day the ecumenical church has faced a lot of problems. It seems that they have recognized psychological differences in people and that it is impossible to water down theologies and practices to suit everyone. So each group will come into this great world ecumenical system but retain some of its peculiarities. For example, those who want to immerse will immerse. Those who want to sprinkle will sprinkle. Those who want elaborate ritual will have it, and those who want no ritual will have that. You see, there is going to be more than the mother harlot—there will be a whole lot of harlots, a regular brothel.
And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns [Rev. 17:6–7].
And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered with a great wonder. And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou wonder? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the wild beast that is carrying her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
“Drunken with the blood of the saints.” The harlot not only makes others drunk, but she is intoxicated by her acts of persecution. While it is true that the church will not go through the Great Tribulation, as we near the end of this age of grace, believers can expect some tribulation. It is my experience and that of other Christian leaders that today it is becoming increasingly difficult to stand for the Word of God and for the things of Christ.
“The saints” probably refer to Old Testament saints, and “the martyrs of Jesus” refer to New Testament saints. This indicates that “BABYLON” is more than just Romanism. Rather, it is an amalgam of all religions. All true believers were caught up at the Rapture, and Babylon is the residue of what is left.
Babylon is a composite religious system which includes Protestantism, Romanism, cults—the whole lot which was not raptured, you see. It is confusion compounded and is the fountainhead of all religious error and idolatry. Babylon in the Old Testament persecuted God’s people and was the enemy of God. It was Babylon that put the three Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace because they would not worship an image.
When John saw the vision of the woman, he says that he “wondered with a great wonder.” This is the first time that John has had his mind boggled. We have had our minds boggled before, but this really throws John. The angel asks why he should wonder when he (the angel) was present to explain the mystery of the woman.
The emphasis here is on the Roman Empire aspect of the wild Beast rather than on the Antichrist aspect. We should note that.
The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space [Rev. 17:8–10].
The wild beast which thou sawest was and is not; and is about to come up out of the abyss, and to go (goeth) into perdition. And those dwelling on the earth shall wonder, whose names are not written upon the book of life from the foundation of the world (cosmos), when they behold the wild beast because it was, and is not, and shall come (be present). Here is the mind having wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings; the five have fallen (fell), the one is, the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a little while.
The wild Beast “was” speaks of the past history of the Roman Empire. “Is not” refers to the present condition of the fragmented Empire. The Roman Empire is not dead. It has fallen apart into the nations of Europe today. “Is about to come up out of the abyss” speaks of the reactivation of the Roman Empire by Satan.
As I have indicated before, many have attempted to put the Roman Empire back together again but have never been successful. Charlemagne tried it, Napoleon tried it, Hitler tried it, Mussolini tried it, and at the time I am writing this, the United Nations is trying it, but they, too, are failing. The wild Beast, who is the Antichrist, will be the one who puts the Roman Empire back together again.
“Shall … go into perdition” speaks of the destruction of the Roman Empire by the coming of Christ. The reappearance of the Roman Empire in its great power will win the admiration of the peoples of the world who are not redeemed. They will respect and worship the Antichrist for his brilliant coup d’etat. God’s saints will have the mind of the Spirit and will understand and not be spiritually stupid: “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things…. 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” (1 John 2:20, 27).
“And there are seven kings” is taken by some (including Newell and Govett, who are excellent commentators on Revelation) to mean individual rulers. Govett gives the following list:
1. Julius Caesar—assassinated
2. Tiberius—poisoned or smothered
3. Caligula—assassinated
4. Claudius—poisoned
5. Nero—committed suicide
“The one is” refers to Domitian who was living in John’s day, who was also assassinated.
“The other is not yet come” refers to the Antichrist. Other expositors (as Scofield and Walter Scott) consider these seven as the different forms of government through which Rome passed. These are listed as kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, and military tribunes. “The one is” refers to the sixth or imperial form of government set up by Julius Caesar and under which John was banished by Domitian. The seventh and last, though it has not yet appeared, will be satanic in form
Regardless of the interpretation adopted, the end in view is the same—the Antichrist rules over the reactivated Roman Empire.
And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful [Rev. 17:11–14].
And the beast that was, and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven, and is going into perdition. And the ten horns that thou sawest are ten kings, who (of the kind which) have received no kingdom as yet; but they receive authority as kings, with the wild beast, for one hour. These have one mind, and they give (over) their power and authority unto the beast. These shall war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings; and those with Him (shall overcome), called and chosen and faithful.
At times the wild Beast signifies, generally, the Roman Empire, but also it signifies the last or eighth head; that is, the individual emperor who is Antichrist. Now here the Anti-christ is designated. He is the “little horn” in the vision that God gave to the prophet Daniel. The “little horn” puts down three other horns—that is, three kings—when he comes to power. “I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things…. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings” (Dan. 7:8, 24). In my book, Delving Through Daniel, I go into detail on this “little horn.”
“The beast that was” refers to the past history of the Roman Empire under the emperors.
“And is not” refers to the end of Imperial Rome with its global empire, which came to an end sometime between the third and fifth centuries.
“Is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven” identifies the Antichrist with the return to the imperial form of the restored Roman Empire. He is the “little horn” of Daniel, chapter 7. He is not one of the ten horns, but he is separate from them. He is an eighth head in this seven, yet he is one of the seven since he restores the last form of government to Rome. Now that will confuse you, I know, but that is exactly what is being said here in Revelation.
“The ten horns” are the same as the ten horns of Daniel 7:7. These ten kings will reign with the Antichrist but will be subservient to him. They willingly or unwillingly give over their authority to the Antichrist and become his puppets.
And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.
For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth [Rev. 17:15–18].
And he saith to me, The waters which thou sawest where the harlot sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes (mobs), and nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which thou sawest, and the beast, these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolated and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her (down) with fire. For God did put into their hearts to do His mind, and to come to one mind, and to give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman whom thou sawest is the great city, which hath a kingdom over the kings of the earth.
“The waters” are explained to be the many ethnological groups as well as the nations of the world. This figure is in harmony with that used in the Old Testament. You can check that out with Isaiah 8:7 and Psalm 18. The position of the harlot reveals that she is ruling over them for only a brief time.
“The ten horns” are ten kings (as told us in verse 12) who rule over the different divisions of the Roman Empire. They in turn give over to the Beast their kingdoms. This solidifies the Roman Empire and enables the Beast to lift himself up as a world dictator.
For a time the Beast (Antichrist) is willing to share his place of exaltation with the harlot, since she has also sought to advance his cause while dividing his glory. This he hates, and the ten kings are one with him in this. The Antichrist not only breaks his covenant with Israel, but he also breaks his relationship with the apostate church. This hatred against the apostate church is so violent that the reaction is described as the cannibalistic picking of her bones, then burning them with fire! This great hatred destroys the false church. This is what happens to the false church. It has no victory. It never comes into the presence of Christ. It is not raptured. Finally it is destroyed by the Antichrist.
In doing this the Antichrist and his ten allies are fulfilling the Word of God and carrying out His will as did the Assyrian (as predicted in Isaiah 10:5–19) and just as surely as Caesar Augustus did when he signed the tax bill that moved Mary and Joseph down to Bethlehem so Scripture could be fulfilled.
By eliminating the apostate church, the way is cleared for the worship of Antichrist, as advocated by the False Prophet.
“The woman” is a religious system, as we have seen. Also, I believe she is further identified as a city, the city of Rome.
This is the frightful but just end of the apostate church. However, it does not improve the situation. Rather it introduces the darkest period for religion in the history of the world. The reign and religion of Antichrist is the darkest hour earth will know, and yet it is the inevitable end of the distrust which began in the Garden of Eden when man failed to believe God. It was given new impetus at the Tower of Babel, which was a rallying place for those against God. And finally it climaxed in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ when man rejected the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Having rejected the truth, the only alternative left for man is to believe the big lie, the strong delusion. History will culminate in the catastrophic coming of Christ to this earth, as we shall see in chapter 19. This is the just retribution of error and evil.
My friend, you as a Christian should have thankfulness in your heart, knowing you will be spared from the Great Tribulation, but also you should have a real concern for your loved ones who may be facing this frightful period that lies ahead.
CHAPTER 18
Theme: Political and commercial Babylon judged
In the chapter before us we see the judgment of commercial Babylon and the reaction of both earth and heaven to it.
In chapters 17–18 two Babylons are brought before us. The Babylon of chapter 17 is ecclesiastical. The Babylon of chapter 18 is economic. The first is religious—the apostate church which entered the Great Tribulation Period. The second is political and commercial. The commercial center is loved by the kings of the earth; and the apostate church is hated by the kings of the earth, as we saw in chapter 17. The apostate church is destroyed by the kings of the earth. When Christ returns, political Babylon will be destroyed by the judgment of God. Obviously, mystery Babylon, the apostate church, is destroyed first in the midst of the Great Tribulation, while commercial Babylon will be destroyed at the second coming of Christ. These two Babylons are not one and the same city. I personally believe that mystery Babylon is Rome and that, when it goes down in the midst of the Great Tribulation, the religious center shifts to Jerusalem because it is at Jerusalem that the False Prophet will put up his image of the Antichrist to be worshiped. Commercial Babylon is ancient Babylon, rebuilt as the commercial capital of the world. This city is the final capital of the political power of the Beast.
A few years ago it seemed rather farfetched that the power could reach back into the Mideast, but since then we have experienced a shortage of energy, and when they cut off the oil supply, the whole world feels it. They wield tremendous power. The wealth of the world is moving into that particular area because of the price of oil. It could well become the great commercial capital of the world. And this great commercial center, which will be Babylon rebuilt, will be destroyed at the second coming of Christ.
Sometime ago a Jew challenged the Israeli minister of tourism by saying, “How does it come about that all the countries surrounding Israel have oil, but Israel doesn’t?” His reply was this: “God gave the Arabs oil and the Jews the Bible. Do you want to exchange with them? God forbid. The oil will run out quick enough, but the Bible will last forever.”
There had been some disagreement among conservative expositors about whether or not ancient Babylon will be rebuilt. Candidly, for many years I took the position that it would not be rebuilt. However, I believe now that it will be rebuilt. Isaiah 13:19–22 speaks of the fact that ancient Babylon is to be rebuilt and destroyed, and this destruction is what is mentioned in chapter 18 of Revelation, which is before us. Actually, I don’t think it could be rebuilt on the same spot because the Euphrates River has moved about fourteen miles from the ancient city.
There are views of the destruction of Babylon which are diametrically opposed to each other. The viewpoint and perspective are highly important. (1) The reaction of men of business and politics is one of great anguish. To them it is the depth of tragedy. It means the total bankruptcy of big business. (2) The second reaction is that of heaven. It is one of joy that the holiness and justice of God is vindicated. It means the end of man’s sinful career on earth. This will bring to an end the Great Tribulation Period.
ANNOUNCEMENT AND FALL OF COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL BABYLON
Chapter 18 begins with “another angel” who comes down from heaven with a message.
And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory [Rev. 18:1].
As usual, I’ll give my literal translation of the Greek text throughout this chapter.
After these things I saw another angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
Again we have this very interesting statement, “after these things” (Gr.: meta tauta). After what things? After the series of sevens and after the judgment of religious Babylon come these things. Progress has definitely been made—through the seven seals, the seven trumpets, the seven personages, and the seven bowls of wrath—and we are advancing to the end of the Great Tribulation. In fact, this brings us to the end of the Great Tribulation.
John says, “I saw.” He is still a spectator. He saw “another angel,” which takes us back to chapter 14 where a series of six angels is mentioned, each with the sole identification of “another angel.” This angel is a divine, supernatural messenger of God, but faceless and nameless. He has great authority (power), which indicates that he has a superior rank to the other “another angel,” and he is bringing an important message.
“The earth was lightened with his glory” seems to further signify the prestige of this angel (cf. Ezek. 43:2).
And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird [Rev. 18:2].
And he shouted with a mighty voice, saying, Fell, fell is Babylon the great, and became a habitation of demons, and a prison (hold, cage) of every unclean spirit, and a prison (hold, cage) of every unclean and hated bird.
The preliminary announcement of the fall of Babylon was made in Revelation 14:8: “And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” The angel here is greater in authority than the one who made that first announcement.
In the words, “Fell, fell is Babylon … and became,” the tense in the Greek is prophetic aorist which speaks of coming events as if they have already transpired. When God says something is going to happen, you can speak about it as though it had already happened, because it is going to happen. It is just that sure. In God’s plan and program it is just as though it had already taken place because He knows the end from the beginning. Babylon, this great commercial center of the world, is going to be destroyed.
“A habitation of demons, and a cage of every unclean spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hated bird.” This indicates that Babylon is where demons of the spirit world and unclean birds of the physical world will be incarcerated during the Millennium. The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah confirm this (see Isa. 13:19–22; Jer. 50:38–40). These prophecies find a final fulfillment in the destruction of literal Babylon here in Revelation 18. If this is true, there is no prophecy which forbids Babylon from being rebuilt. Babylon is the headquarters of demons and has been the place of rebellion down through the years.
For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies [Rev. 18:3].
For by the wine of the wrath of her fornication all the nations have drunk (or are fallen); and the kings of the earth committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth waxed rich by the power of her wantonnesss.
“Have drunk” (or are fallen) are the two permitted renderings—both have good manuscript authority. Both are true. The normal rendering is “have drunk.” This is God’s judgment on big business which denies God’s authority. This is the unholy alliance of government and business. We have seen some of this in our day and, frankly, it smells to high heaven.
The word for merchants means “those who travel.” It is not those who produce goods or manufacture goods, but those who are brokers, engaging in business for a big profit. Business is a sacred cow that nothing must harm or hinder. This is true today, of course. Man uses business as the biggest excuse for having no time for God, yet these same men must finally stand before God. God will judge godless commercialism. Big business is in for it, I can assure you of that. In fact, it has had a rough time in our day.
And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues [Rev. 18:4].
And I heard another voice out of heaven, saying, Come forth out of her, my people, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
This verse reveals that God’s people are going to be in the world to the very end (it is not speaking of the church which has already been removed before the Great Tribulation began), but God will have His people on earth during the Tribulation. The question has always been: Will they be able to make it through? That is, will they remain faithful to Christ? Yes, they do make it through. Remember that God started with 144,000, and the number that will make it through the Tribulation is 144,000. This is like the parable the Lord Jesus told about the shepherd who started out with one hundred sheep and one of them got away. But he didn’t end up with ninety-nine; he ended up with one hundred, because he went out and got that little sheep that was lost.
The One who is speaking in this verse is none other than the Son of God, and He is calling His people out of Babylon before the judgment comes. It is a physical separation with a corollary in the experience of Lot in Sodom. As Lot was warned to get out of Sodom to escape the deluge of fire (see Gen. 19), so these people of God are warned. God’s Word tells us, “When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice; (For the Lord thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them” (Deut. 4:30–31).
Such was also God’s warning to Israel in Jeremiah 51:5–6, 45 and in Isaiah 48:20. The warning is twofold: (1) They are to have no fellowship with the sins of Babylon and (2) they are to flee before judgment falls.
I think this has a pertinent application for us today. It should be a warning to us, not that God will fail to save His own from this hour, but that He wants us to be separate, not indulging the old nature, but walking by the Spirit. If we will not deal with sin in our own lives here and now by confessing and forsaking it, He will deal with it. Either He will judge sin now, or it will meet us at the judgment seat of Christ. God gives us the opportunity of judging our sin today: “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world” (1 Cor. 11:31–32).
How can we judge our own sin? First John 1:9 has the answer: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” To “confess” means to say the same thing that God says about it. It means to take God’s viewpoint and say, “God, I agree with You. What I did was sin.” It is so easy to make excuses for our own sin. We say that ours is not really sin—of course, if our neighbors do it, it is sin. But until you and I are willing to call our sin sin, we haven’t confessed it at all. If we refuse to judge ourselves, we will be judged at the judgment seat of Christ. The sins of some folk will not be settled until they stand before the judgment seat of Christ. I hope to get all of my accounts straightened out down here. Just because God may not take us to the woodshed immediately does not mean that He is letting us get by without punishment. He doesn’t spank the Devil’s children, but if you are His child, judgment will come to you.
For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities [Rev. 18:5].
Babylon has a long history of accumulated sins, and God has the record. It is one of the oldest cities in the history of mankind and is probably mentioned more than any other city in the Bible, with the exception of Jerusalem. Finally judgment breaks like a flood upon this city and its system. The judgment of God may be delayed, but it is sure. It may seem to us that the unbeliever is getting by with sin, but God’s judgment is coming.
Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double [Rev. 18:6].
Render unto her even as she also rendered, and double unto her the double according to her works; in the cup which she mingled, mingle unto her double.
This is poetic justice (see Obad. 15). The cup of iniquity is being filled to the brim; when the last drop is poured in, it is pressed to the lips of those who committed iniquity. My friend, this is just—read Psalm 137. God is right and just in what He does.
How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow [Rev. 18:7].
How much soever she glorified herself, and waxed wanton (lived in luxury), so much give her of torment and mourning; for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall in no wise see mourning.
You see, the prosperity of Babylon blinded her to the judgment of God. Trading was active on the stock market, and everyone bought blue chip issues right up to the moment of judgment. Luxury, arrogance, pride, sin, and self-deception characterized the spirit of this godless city. World peace was in sight, and optimism was the spirit of the day. Only the prophets of gloom issued a warning, and they were classified as “squares,” as was Noah (and as Vernon McGee is today).
Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her [Rev. 18:8].
This calls to our attention the suddennesss of destruction and that it will be by “fire.” So great is her grief that “mourning” is counted a plague along with “death” and “famine.” Death, mourning, and famine are the three horsemen who ride roughshod over Babylon. The destruction is total and final. In the Scriptures this is the first city of prominence, but its long, eventful and sinful history ends with the judgment of God upon her.
“For strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.” It is God who destroys this city because He alone is able to do it. He does this, we believe, at the return of Christ. Notice this as Isaiah predicts it: “Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winevat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come” (Isa. 63:1–4).
In His second coming Christ is seen coming from Edom with blood-sprinkled garments. It is my belief that He has come by way of Babylon, and He has executed judgment upon that wicked city. We will see Christ’s second coming in the following chapter.
Next we will see the reaction to the destruction of this great center. There will be anguish in the world, and we will see who attends her funeral. Also there will be the anticipation of joy in heaven because of the judgment of Babylon. These are the two diametrically opposite viewpoints. It will be bad for one crowd and good for the other crowd.
ANGUISH IN THE WORLD BECAUSE OF BABYLON’S JUDGEMENT
And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come [Rev. 18:9–10].
And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived deliciously (in luxury) with her, shall weep and wail over her, when they look upon the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
In that day Babylon will dominate and rule the world. The capital of Antichrist will be Babylon, and he will have the first total dictatorship. The world will become an awful place. In that day everything will center in Babylon. The stock market will be read from Babylon—not New York. Babylon instead of Paris will set the styles for the world. A play, to be successful, will have to be a success in Babylon, not London. Everything in that city will be in rebellion against almighty God, and it centers in Antichrist.
No one dreamed that this great city would be judged. Yet by the time the sun goes down, Babylon is nothing but smoldering ruins. When the news goes out, the world is stunned, and then begins the wail. The whole world will howl when Babylon goes down. I imagine that, if you were on the moon, you would have to tune down your earphones because the howl would be so loud!
In chapter 17 we saw that the kings of the earth hated religious Babylon and that Antichrist got rid of it in order that he might be worshiped without any competition in the area of religion. And the kings of the earth joined in her destruction.
In contrast to this, here in chapter 18 we see that the kings of the earth love commercial Babylon because of the revenue she brought to their coffers. In fact, it is called here fornication—you can’t find a better word for it than that! All the lobbyists were in Babylon, not Washington, D.C. They were representing all the great corporations in the world. But the kings desert Babylon like rats leaving a sinking ship; their mourning is both pathetic and contemptible. They eulogize her with panegyrics of praise, but there is a hopelessness in their anguish. They marvel at the sudden destruction of that which they thought was gilt-edged security. The judgment came in the space of one hour, reminding us of the sudden devastation caused by atomic explosions. This is a frightful picture presented to us, and it is the final conflagration and catastrophic judgment that will bring Christ to the earth to set up His kingdom.
And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:
The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,
And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.
And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.
The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,
And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!
For in one hour so great riches is come to nought [Rev. 18:11–17a].
As you read these verses, did you feel as if you might be window-shopping down the main street of some of our great cities? In our store windows we see all these things in our day. These are the products of an affluent society, and these things were available to the Roman Empire in John’s day. Babylon will make these luxury items necessities, just as we think these items are necessities today. You will not find a cotton dress or a pair of overalls anywhere in this list.
I remember when glazed bitreous terra cotta bathtubs first were introduced in this country. (Incidentally, it was opposed by the doctors in our land. They said that if you took a bath every day, it would shorten your life. They felt a bath once a week or once a month was enough.) In those days the bathtub was a luxury that many folk couldn’t afford. But now, when we go to a hotel or motel, my wife looks to see if there is a tub and I look to see if there is a shower, and generally both are present. We live in a luxury age. Most of what we call necessities are actually luxuries.
Let’s look at these items, using my literal translation. We will take them up separately:
“And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no man buyeth their merchandise (cargo) any more: merchandise (cargo) of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and pearls.” Talk about a depression—they are having one! No one buys their merchandise or cargo anymore. In Babylon there is merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls. You see, we are in the jewelry department here.
Then we move from the jewelry department to the ladies’ ready-to-wear: “… and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet.”
Then to the luxury gift department: “… and all thyine (citron) wood, and every vessel of ivory, and every vessel made of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble.”
We move on to the spice and cosmetic department: “… and cinnamon, and spice (amomum), and odours, and ointment, and frankincense.” They have a great deal of spray deodorant, you see—probably the kind that works twenty-four hours a day.
Now we go to the liquor department and the pastry center: “and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat.” This is the food of the rich; barley is the food of the poor. The wealthy were eating gourmet food and enjoying luxury until Babylon went down.
We move on to the meat department where you can get porterhouse steaks, lamb chops and filet mignon—“and cattle, and sheep.”
The merchandise covers every phase of business. The articles are for a society accustomed to the better things of the material universe. Even men were bought and sold, including their souls. I think this is becoming more and more true today where great corporations have men on the payroll who are bound there almost like slaves. Right now there is many a woman selling her soul. “And merchandise of horses, and chariots, and slaves (bodies), and souls of men.”
“The merchants of these things who grew rich by her, shall stand afar off because of the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas.” The Greek word for “alas” doesn’t need to be translated to get its meaning. It is ouai, ouai! The very sound of the word is a form of wail. The merchants of the earth sit before their TV screens and cry, “Ouai, ouai!” for in one hour wealth so great is laid desolate.
We always have been able to find a parallel in the Old Testament. Do we have anything that corresponds to this in the past? Yes, Ezekiel predicted the judgment of Tyre, the capital of the Phoenicians. Tyre was to the ancient world what New York City is to us today and what Babylon will be to the future (see Ezek. 26–27).
And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!
And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate [Rev. 18:17b–19].
And every shipmaster and every one that sails anywhere (traveler) and sailors, and those who live by seafaring stood afar off. And cried out when they looked upon the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like the great city? And they cast dust upon their heads, and cried, weeping and mourning, saying, Woe, woe [Gr.: ouai, ouai], the great city wherein all that had their ships in the sea were made rich by reason of her costly expenditure! for in one hour is she made desolate.
The third delegation of mourners is composed of those who are engaged in transportation, the great public carriers. They had become rich by transporting the merchandise of Babylon, just as the Phoenicians had done in the ancient world. Now there is no more business. They mourn because of the depression. All went up in smoke in a moment. They, like the others, marvel at the sudden destruction.
All of this has an application for us. How do we see the luxury of this world? Do we see it as it really is? Can we use it without getting it into our hearts? How would you feel if the luxuries in your life which you have come to consider necessities suddenly went up in smoke?
Today we speak about spirituality and spiritual things. Even in our Christian organizations there is almost an overweening zeal to get people to give, especially the wealthy people. Recently some wealthy persons threatened to withdraw their support from my radio ministry if I did not do a certain thing. I did not listen to their threats. It seems to me that we have paid too much attention to this world today. The world is passing away, and the things you see at your fingertips are also passing away.
The great cities of the world are passing away. Los Angeles is a wonderful city, and I have enjoyed this city because I have lived in Southern California for many years, but it is passing away. God is going to judge Los Angeles. But the question is: Would it break your heart if you saw the things of this world go up in smoke? Or is your heart in heaven, fixed on Christ? It does make a lot of difference.
ANTICIPATION OF JOY IN HEAVEN BECAUSE OF BABYLON’S JUDGMENT
Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her [Rev. 18:20].
Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye saints, and ye apostles, and ye prophets; for God hath judged your judgment on her.
The viewpoint of heaven is entirely different. It is no funeral procession there. Rather, it is the celebration of an anticipated event. The saints prayed for it; the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New Testament predicted it. Now all is fulfilled and there is joy because God has exonerated His name. Judgment has come upon these things. Just what is your heart fixed on today? It will make a lot of difference in that day because you will either be with the mourners or you will be with the rejoicers.
And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon he thrown down, and shall be found no more at all [Re 18:21].
And one strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with a mighty rush (fall) shall Babylon, the mighty city, be cast down, and shall be found no more at all.
Even heaven calls our attention to the violence, the suddenness, and the complete annihilation of Babylon. Like a stone that makes a big splash and then disappears beneath the waves will Babylon come to an end.
And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee;
And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived [Rev. 18:22–23].
Again, using my translation: “And the voice of harpers and minstrels and flute-players and trumpeters shall be heard no more at all in thee.” You see, rock music will go out of style then—and I thank God for that!
“And no craftsman, of whatsoever craft shall be found any more at all in thee.” All the factories will close down.
“And the light of a lamp shall shine no more at all in thee.” All the neon lights on Broadway will go out.
“And the voice of the bridegroom and the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee.” It’s all over—no more marrying and giving in marriage here.
“For thy merchants were the princes of the earth; for with thy sorcery were all the nations deceived.” I believe that more and more we are going to see sorcery, magic, and demonism. Satanism will increase more and more as we draw near the end of the age. It will be Satan who is going to deceive and blind people, just as he blinds many in our day.
Popular music comes to an end in Babylon. Jazz and rock ’n’ roll cease in the destruction. Classical music will be stilled, also.
The crafts that have been prostituted to the service of the Antichrist will end. The wheels of the factories will never turn again. The bright lights of the cities will go out forever. It is interesting to note the beginning of all these things as recorded in Genesis 4:16–22. Also, social life and family life shall end. The great tycoons of big business will disappear. This city deceived the world with the worship of Antichrist—this is the strong delusion.
And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth [Rev. 18:24).
God’s people got rough treatment in this city and God judged it. This is Satan’s city, and he was a murderer from the beginning. Babylon was a city that murdered; its final crime was the slaying of God’s people.
As we contemplate the destruction of Babylon, we think of other great cities and civilizations of the past which have fallen. One of the most widely read books of all time is The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire written by Edward Gibbon in 1788. In it he gives five basic reasons why that great civilization withered and died:
1. The undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis for human society.
2. Higher and higher taxes; the spending of public money for free bread and circuses for the populace.
3. The mad craze for pleasure; sports be coming every year more exciting, more brutal, more immoral.
4. The building of great armaments when the real enemy was within—the decay of individual responsibility.
5. The decay of religion; faith fading into mere form, losing touch with life, losing power to guide the people.
The oft-heard warning that history repeats itself has an ominous meaning in the light of the above. We can already see these five things at work in our contemporary culture in this country. The same things will bring Babylon down at the end. They destroy the nation and the home and the individual.
Thank God, the sad story of man’s sin will come to an end.
This chapter brings to a conclusion the frightful period which was labeled by the Lord Jesus Christ the Great Tribulation. In the next chapter we will see Him coming to the earth to bring to an end this dark, doleful, and disastrous period.
This is the negative aspect to His coming. The positive side is the dawning of the Day of the Lord, called the Millennium or thousand years in chapter 20.
Now let’s take a final look at the Great Tribulation Period with its catastrophic and cataclysmic events taking place in rapid succession like a machine gun firing.
The total period is seven years. It is the “seventieth week” of Daniel’s prophecy. In the Old Testament Daniel divided it, and in the New Testament John divided it into two separate and equal periods of three and one half years each.
However, after the church leaves this earth, the Antichrist comes to power as world dictator on a platform of peace, prosperity, and fame. During the first part of the Tribulation he will bring about radical changes that seem to benefit mankind. He will bring in a false peace. All government and religion are to be controlled by him. When that time comes, there will be one world, one religion, and one everything. The world will believe that they are entering the Millennium and that the world will become a Utopia. This is part of the big lie of that period. The true church, the body of Christ, will be removed from the earth before the Tribulation begins. It will become the bride of Christ, and we will see this bride shortly—near the end of this book.
Israel will once again become God’s witness on earth—144,000 strong, sealed by the Spirit of God. And they will witness here upon the earth. Also, there will be a great company of Gentiles that will be sealed.
Somewhere near the middle of the seven year period the king of the north, and I believe it will be Russia, will move against Israel. God will judge Russia just as He judged Sodom and Gomorrah. If you want to see that picture, you will find it in Ezekiel 38. This opens the floodgates of war. The Antichrist now begins to move, and the deception, I think, will become apparent to a great many folk. Restless mankind, under the control of Satan, begins to march. The world begins to fall apart, like a pear that is too ripe. The Man of Sin, the Antichrist, breaks his covenant with the nation Israel.
The Mideast will become the center of world activity during this period. Babylon will be the political and economic capital of the world, and Jerusalem (also called Babylon) will be the religious capital. The Antichrist will begin in Rome, and the False Prophet will begin in Jerusalem. Antichrist, when he comes to power, will rebuild Babylon. The apostate church will be destroyed by Antichrist and by the kings of the earth who will be subservient to him.
Ancient Babylon on the Euphrates River will become the political and economic center of the world. If a small nation in the Mideast can turn off the spigot to stop the flow of oil and thereby bring the world to its knees, what will it be when ancient Babylon in that very area becomes again the world center?
New York City will then be a whistle stop on the Toonerville Trolley or not even worth the legendary string of glass beads. Los Angeles will return to an adobe village and no longer will be the city of angels but a dwelling place of demons—it appears as if they are already beginning to move in. London and other great cities of the world will become mere villages with muddy streets. Judgments from God will fall swiftly and suddenly on a God-rejecting and blaspheming world. At one fell swoop one-fourth of the population of the world will be destroyed, and at another time one-third will be blotted out. Nature will be afflicted—the grass and trees of the earth, the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens. One disaster after another will fall on the earth, but the heart of man will still be unrepentant. In fact, he will defy and blaspheme the God of heaven.
Then armies will march toward Israel. For three and one-half years the war will rage. It is not the Battle of Armageddon but the war of Armageddon. Millions of men will march at that time in that land. They will be engaged in a conflict there, but they will be destroyed. There will be blood up to the bridles of the horses—about three feet deep! That is no exaggeration.
Into this horrible arena of chaos—the chaos of man’s making and of Satan’s scheming—comes the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Yes, the King is coming to the earth but, before all of this can take place, His church must be removed from the earth and go to be with Him. Then the church will return to the earth with Him when He comes to establish His kingdom. The church is not looking for the fulfillment of any of these things which we have looked at from chapter 4 through chapter 18. The church is looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
We do not know the day when Christ will return. We do not even know the period in which He will return. It may be soon. It could be today. On the other hand, He may not return for a hundred years or even several hundred years. No one can say with certainty when the Lord will return for His church. Anyone who sets a date for the Lord’s appearing is entirely out of order. Anyone who claims to know when the Lord will return has information that is not in the Word of God.
The best that can be said today is that everything that is happening is significant. We live in a great period in the history of the world, but all we can say for sure is that our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.
The late Dr. Bill Anderson of Dallas, Texas, used to say, “God is getting the stage all set. It looks like He is coming soon. But if He is not planning to come now, and since it would take a lot of doing to get the world in this position again, if I were the Lord, I would just come on now and take the church out of the world.”
Well, we hope He will come now, but all we know is that the terrors of the Tribulation will take place after the church has been removed at the Rapture. We have been given no signs by which to gauge the time of His return, but we do see the setting of the stage. And we see some very significant things happening in our day. Obviously, Western Europe is looking for a man strong enough to put the Roman Empire back together. And Antichrist is coming. They may not know it, but they are waiting for him. Also, we see a great power in the north Russia. Egypt is alive again. China was a sleeping giant that we woke up, and from that great population center they are going to come marching out one of these days. Then the crowning scene of the setting of the stage is Israel, which is back in her land. Everything is in position, the church could be raptured at any moment, and the Tribulation could begin. But it may not. We do not know the day or the hour.
CHAPTER 19
Theme: Marriage of the Lamb and return of Christ in judgment
Now we come to the thrilling events that concern us. In chapter 19 we turn the page to that which marks a drastic change in the tone of Revelation. The destruction of Babylon, the capital of the Beast’s kingdom, marked the end of the Great Tribulation. The somber gives way to the song. The transfer is from darkness to light, from the inky blackness of night to a white light, from dreary days of judgment to bright days of blessing. This chapter makes a definite bifurcation in the Book of Revelation and ushers in the greatest event for this earth—the second coming of Christ to the earth to establish His kingdom. It is the bridge between the Great Tribulation and the millennial kingdom that He will establish upon this earth. Great and significant events are recorded here. The two central features are the marriage supper of the Lamb and the return of Christ to the earth. One follows the other.
The hallelujahs open this chapter and the opening of hell concludes it. Two great suppers are recorded in this chapter: the marriage supper of the Lamb and the cannibalistic feast of carrion after the last part of the war of Armageddon.
FOUR HALLELUJAHS
As chapter 19 opens, the voices of heaven become one chorus.
And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God [Rev. 19:1].
As usual, I will give my translation of the literal Greek text throughout this chapter.
After these things I heard as it were a great voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, Hallelujah; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God.
“After these things” (Gr.:meta tauta) is an expression we first bumped into when John gave the division of the Book of Revelation in chapter 1, verse 19—literally, “the things that shall be after these things.” After what things? After the church things. Chapter 4 opened with meta tauta, and we have been meta tautaing ever since. There is a chronological progression, a sequence of events. Now we will see what will take place after the Great Tribulation. It is recorded in this chapter: the coming of Christ to the earth. He is the only One who can end the Tribulation. And so this is the last occurrence of the expression meta tauta.
“A great voice of a great multitude.” In the worship scenes of chapters 5–7 we saw the elders, the church, and the uncounted numbers of angels and created intelligences all worshiping God. Now a great number of tribulation saints has been added to the chorus, and they are going to sing. This is something quite marvelous. This is the first time they have been able to utter the great note of praise of the Old Testament—Hallelujah! This word occurs four times in the first six verses. This is its only occurrence in the New Testament. It is reserved for the final victory. It is interesting to note that hallelujah occurs frequently in the Book of Psalms. It means “praise the Lord.” It appears in frequent succession in Psalms 146–150. In fact, Psalm 150 is a mighty crescendo of praise. Hallelujah is a fitting note of praise at this juncture in the Book of Revelation. The Great Tribulation is over. Jesus is coming. The church is to be united with Christ in marriage. Hallelujah! Let’s sing it, my friend! Every year I love to hear Handel’s Messiah being sung, but regardless of what choir sings it, they don’t even touch the rim of the great Hallelujah of this future day. Psalm 104:35 puts it this way: “Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Praise … the Lord”—that is, Hallelujah! Hallelujah because God is coming to judge, and the wicked are going to be removed from the earth. Hallelujah is an expletive of praise as the final phase of salvation is coming to pass. This is something that Paul talked about in Romans 8:18–23: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”
My friend, this is that great day which is coming. The earth will be released from the bondage of sin. In the meantime it groans. Go down to the seashore and listen to the waves. One summer I slept by the Atlantic Ocean in a place at Virginia Beach. Every night I was put to sleep by the breaking of the waves on the shore. But the waves were sobbing, as it were, sobbing out their sorrow. Go up in the mountains and listen at night to the wind going through the pine trees. There is not a soprano in all of those pine trees, nor is there a redwood that can sing soprano. Their sounds are all subdued, quiet groans as they await the coming of that great day upon the earth.
And we groan. I don’t know about you, but I groan. When I was a young man and built my home in Southern California, I used to come bounding down the stairs. Now when I come down the stairs, I groan with every step. My wife says, “You ought not to groan.” I tell her that groaning is scriptural. We groan within these bodies, as the Scripture says. I’m all for groaning while we are here. But one day the groaning will be changed to hallelujahs, and that is what John is talking about here.
For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.
And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever and ever.
And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia [Rev. 19:2–4].
For true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great harlot who (formerly) corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And the second time they said, Hallelujah. And her smoke goeth up for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God that sitteth on the throne, saying, Amen; Hallelujah.
It is interesting to note that at the conclusion of all these judgments, those in heaven, who have more perfect knowledge than you and I have, are able to say that God’s judgments are true and right. If you don’t think what God is doing is right, it is because you, not God, are wrong. Your thinking is incomplete, of course, as mine is. God will be righteous in judging the great harlot. This is interesting because when we read about the judgment of the great harlot, representing the apostate church which went into the Tribulation, it says that the kings of the earth and the Antichrist destroyed the harlot. Yet here we are told that it was God who judged it. You see, God uses different instruments, and He will even use the Devil to accomplish His purpose. Those in heaven are saying, “True and righteous are his judgments,” because the apostate church deserved to be destroyed; it had made martyrs of many of God’s children.
In these verses we find a picture of the church in heaven saying, “Hallelujah.” They say it twice. Why? As long as the imposter of the true church, the great harlot, is on the earth, the marriage of the Lamb will not take place in heaven. The anti-church is disposed of first, which makes way for the marriage of the Lamb. I assume that the marriage of the Lamb takes place in heaven sometime during the midst of the Tribulation which is going on upon the earth.
“He hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.” You see, believers are forbidden to avenge themselves. It is true that some of us try to do it, but the moment we do so, we forsake the walk of faith. In Romans 12:19 God says to us: “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” God will take care of vengeance for you. If we have been injured, and many of us have been, we want to hit back. That is natural; it is the old nature striking out. However, we are to turn that department over to God. He doesn’t intend to let anyone get away with wrong. Vengeance is His. And He will bring judgment on this apostate system.
The twenty-four elders for the first time sing Hallelujah. The elders we believe to be the church (see Rev. 4). This is the last time the elders appear as such, for the figure changes now, and the church is to become the bride of Christ. The word church means “called out.” Here on the earth we are the church, the called-out ones, but after we leave the earth we are the bride.
And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great.
And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth [Rev. 19:5–6].
And a voice came forth from the throne, saying, Give praise to our God, all ye his servants, ye that fear him, the small and the great. And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as it were the voice of many waters, and as it were the voice of mighty thunders, saying, Hallelujah; for the Lord our God, the Almighty reigneth.
“A voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God.” Notice that the call to praise comes directly from the throne of God, because the Lord Jesus Christ is preparing to take control of this world. This is truly the “Hallelujah Chorus” and the most profound paean of praise in the entire Word of God. It takes us all the way back to that covenant which God made with David in which He promised that He would raise One upon David’s throne who would rule the world. In 2 Samuel 7:16 we read: “And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.”
But before Christ returns to the earth, there is going to be a wedding, and you and I, as believers, will be part of it.
BRIDE OF THE LAMB AND MARRIAGE SUPPER
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints [Rev. 19:7–8].
Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
This will be the most thrilling experience that believers will ever have. The church—that is, the body of believers all the way from Pentecost to the Rapture—will be presented now to Christ as a bride for a marriage. The marriage takes place in heaven, and this is a heavenly scene throughout.
In Ephesians 5 the apostle Paul speaks about the husband and wife relationship when both are believers. By the way, he is speaking of those who are filled with the Spirit and of the relationships that flow from it. You cannot have a Christian home without a Spirit-filled husband and a Spirit-filled wife. In fact, I do not believe you can know what real love is until both marriage partners are believers. Notice Paul’s instructions: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25–27). This is the picture of the relationship of Christ and the church.
We are living in a day of “new” morality. Our contemporary society is drenched with sex. This generation knows a great deal about sex. I watched a young couple in Palm Springs one day, and I felt sorry for the boy and the girl. They were necking like nobody’s business, right in public. I thought to myself, What do they really know about love? Why, they know nothing about what it means for a man to love a woman and a woman to love a man. I am afraid there are many Christians who don’t know much about love either. Husbands, do you remember the first time you looked at your wife? Do you remember when you were joined in marriage and she became yours? Wasn’t that a thrilling moment for you? Wives, do you remember when you first looked at that ugly old boy you married and thought he was so handsome? When he put his arms around you, wasn’t that a thrilling moment? Well, Ephesians 5:25–27 is a picture of that day when Christ is going to draw us to Himself, cleansed and purified. Young lady and young man, that is the reason in this day of “new” morality that you should bring purity to your marriage. God have mercy on some of you fellows who are married to second-hand girls. Don’t get them at the second-hand store; get them brand new. It is much better that way.
“The marriage of the Lamb is come.” Marriage is a marvelous picture of the joining together of Christ and the church. Notice that the Old Testament saints are not included—only the believers during the church age are included. Even John the Baptist designated himself as only a friend of the Bridegroom. He said, “He that hath the bride is the bridegroom …” (John 3:29). The bride occupies a unique relationship with Christ. You see, Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. Remember what He said in His High Priestly Prayer: “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:23–26).
The thing that is so wonderful is that we are going to know Christ—really know Him—for the first time.
“The fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.” The wedding gown of the church is the righteous acts of the saints. This is a difficult concept to accept, because it is impossible for us to stand before Christ in our own righteousness. Paul wrote of this: “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil. 3:9). You see, by faith we can trust Christ—not only for the forgiveness of sins but for the impartation to us of His own righteousness. Then why does John say that the wedding garment is the righteous acts of the saints? Well, the wedding gown will be used only once, but we will be clothed in the righteousness of Christ throughout eternity. We as believers will appear before the judgment seat of Christ, not to be judged for our sins in reference to salvation, but for rewards. Through the ages believers have been performing righteous acts which have been accumulating to adorn the wedding gown. By the way, what are you doing to adorn that wedding gown? What are you doing for the Lord today?
Again let me quote Paul: “Now if any man build upon this foundation [which is Christ] gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward” (1 Cor. 3:12–14). Gold, silver, and precious stones will survive the fire; wood, hay, and stubble will go up in smoke. Therefore the good works are the wedding garment of the church. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).
After the wedding, the wedding dress is laid aside. We have already seen that the elders placed their crowns at the feet of the Lamb, proclaiming that He alone is worthy. The church will reveal His glory: “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7). We will be on display—sinners saved from hell, if you please, in heaven now. We have no right to heaven and would not go there except for the righteousness of Christ and the fact that we belong to Him. The relationship of Christ and the church is intimate, it is different, and it is delightful. No other creatures will enjoy such sweetness.
And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy [Rev. 19:9–10].
And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they that are bidden (invited) to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true words of God. And I fell down before his feet to worship him. And he saith unto me, See thou do it not; I am a fellow servant with thee and with thy brethren that hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Hear me carefully now: the marriage of the Lamb will take place in heaven, but the marriage supper will take place upon the earth. The picture of this is in Matthew 25:1–13, which is the parable of the ten virgins. You see, the virgins were not the bride. Christ has only one bride, and that is the church. The Bridegroom will return to the earth for the marriage supper. He will return not only to judge the earth but to have the marriage supper, which the ten virgins are expecting to attend.
Another picture of this same scene is given in Psalm 45. In this psalm Christ is seen coming as king. We are not told who she is, but the queen is there: “Kings’ daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir” (Ps. 45:9). I believe this is a symbol or a type of the church.
Guests are present: “And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift; even the rich among the people shall entreat thy favour” (Ps. 45:12). The marriage supper will take place on earth. Both Israelites and Gentiles who enter the Millennium are the invited guests. The marriage supper is evidently the Millennium. You talk about a long supper—this is going to be a long one! At the end of the Millennium the church is still seen as the bride. Imagine a honeymoon which lasts one thousand years! Yet that is only the beginning. What joy! What ecstasy! The angel puts God’s seal on this scene: “These are the true words of God.”
After acting as a scribe for this scene, John feels compelled to worship the angelic messenger. However, he is restrained from doing so. The angel is but a creature. Only God is to be worshiped. What a rebuke to Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet who wanted to be worshiped. And there are many folk in our day who have that same desire.
After the marriage of the Lamb in heaven, the next great event is the return of Christ to the earth. My friend, the King is coming! But He will not come until after the church has been raptured and after the earth has undergone the Great Tribulation. Now when He comes to the earth, His bride will be with Him, and their marriage supper will be here upon the earth, as we have seen. Oh, my friend, what a glorious day is ahead of us! If we could only get our eyes off the muck and mire of this earth and onto that which is eternal!
RETURN OF CHRIST AS KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS
And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself [Rev. 19:11–12].
And I saw the heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he that sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness doth he judge and make war. Now his eyes a flame of fire, and upon his head many diadems; having a name written which none knew but himself.
What a thrilling scene this is! Just to read it makes goose pimples come out all over me. This is the great climactic event toward which all things in this world are moving today. It is the coming of Christ to the earth.
Let me take a moment to remind you where this fits into the picture. From chapters 4–18 we were in the midst of the Great Tribulation Period, a frightful period. It ends by the coming of Christ to this earth to establish His kingdom.
In the past there has been a very naïve notion relative to the future, which is still held by some folk who are not students of the Bible. It is this: One of these days Jesus is going to come, and all the dead will be raised. The good guys will be on one side and the bad guys on the other. Christ will make the division so that one will enter heaven, the other hell, and eternity begins. May I say again that this is a very naïve notion.
You cannot read the Word of God without being conscious of the fact that He has a plan and program for this earth and that He is following it very carefully. The program, as we have outlined it, reveals that Christ’s return to the earth takes place at the end of the Great Tribulation Period, right before the establishment of His kingdom.
The contrast to His first coming is stupendous. It is absolutely remarkable.
At the time of Christ’s first coming, as George Macdonald put it:
They all were looking for a King
To slay their foes and lift them high;
Thou cam’st, a little baby thing
That made a woman cry.
That is the way He entered the world the first time. He was meek and lowly. He was the Savior who died for sinners. Now in the verses before us we see Him coming in His great glory. His coming will be the final manifestation of the wrath of God upon a sinful world. The rebellion of Satan, demons, and men is contained, put down, and judged. He puts down all unrighteousness before He establishes His kingdom in righteousness.
Heaven is opened in chapter 4, verse 1, to let John, as a representative of the church, enter heaven where he sees the elders, that is, the church, already there. And here in chapter 19 heaven opens to let Christ exit. The white horse on which He rides is the animal of warfare. When Jesus was on earth, He rode into Jerusalem upon a little donkey which, though an animal of kings, denoted peace, not war.
He is called “Faithful” because He has come to execute the long-time program of God. Remember that the scoffer said, “Where is the sign of His coming?” There is no sign at this point—He is here. He has made good. He is Faithful. He is the only One you and I can trust and rest upon.
He is called “True” for He is inherently true. He is not one who just tells the truth, although He does that; He is the bureau of standards of truth. He is the yardstick of truth. He is the Truth. How wonderful it is to have Someone in whom to trust in this day when everything we hear is slanted and used as propaganda.
He has come to “judge and make war”—not to die on a cross again.
“Now his eyes a flame of fire.” Back in chapter 1, verse 14, His eyes were as a flame, as He walked among the churches, judging them. But now there is a difference—“his eyes a flame of fire” because He has come to judge the earth and put down its unrighteousness.
“Upon his head many diadems” indicates that He will be the sole ruler of this earth. And His rulership is going to be a dictatorship, I can assure you of that. My friend, if you don’t love Jesus Christ—if He is not your Savior—and you live to enter this period of His return to the earth, it is going to be a most uncomfortable period for you because Christ is going to be a dictator. A chicken won’t peep, a rooster won’t crow, and a man will not move without His permission. He is the King of kings and He is the Lord of lords.
“And he had a name written, that no man knew.” What is this name that no one knew but Himself? He is given four names here which correspond to the Gospels:
1. “King of kings” corresponds to the Gospel of Matthew, since Matthew presents Christ as the King.
2. “Faithful and True” corresponds to the Gospel of Mark where He is presented as the Servant of God. The important thing about a servant is not his genealogy but his trustworthiness. Is he faithful and truthful? Those are the qualities that are important.
3. “Word of God” repeats what He is called in the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word…. And the Word was made flesh…” (John 1:1, 14).
4. What is the name that no one knows? Well, I have a suggestion. Perhaps it corresponds to Luke’s gospel in which He is presented as Jesus, the Son of Man. In our day there is a great familiarity with that name, both in swearing and in blaspheming and in being overly free and presumptuous with Him. But, my friend, that is a name which you and I are going to probe throughout eternity. He is Jesus, the Son of Man. Do you really know Jesus? Well, no man knoweth the Son but the Father, and here we learn that when He comes, He has a name that no man really knows but Himself.
The apostle Paul, not at the beginning but at the end of his ministry, before his execution, said, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Phil. 3:10, italics mine). No one knows the Son but the Father. My friend, learning to know Him is one of the things that is going to make heaven heaven. He is so wonderful that it is going to take the rest of eternity to really know Him. The folk we meet down here are not very exciting folk when we get to know them, are they? But the more we know Jesus, the more exciting He will be.
In John 14:7, 9, we read: “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him [that is, in the Person of the Son]…. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?”
Then again in that High Priestly Prayer that Christ prayed: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). When we come to Christ and receive Him as our Savior from sin, we have started to school. When we begin to know Him, we are in kindergarten. Let me make more or less of a confession. Since I have retired from the pastorate, I have set before me a goal: I want to know Jesus better than I do now. I get up every morning and look out the window—I did this morning and in Southern California it is foggy—but I say, “Lord, thank You for bringing me to another day. I love You. I love You, Lord Jesus, but, oh, You seem to be so far away at times. I want to know You. May the Spirit of God make You real to me.” The name Jesus—oh, what it means, and what a person He is!
One more thing I would like to say about this subject: not only will we come to know the Lord better throughout eternity, we are also going to get to know one another better. I really don’t think we know each other as we should. I find, at times, that I am greatly misunderstood. I make certain statements on the radio, and then I receive letters that almost shock me. It is difficult to understand how I could have been that misunderstood. But in heaven we are going to know as we are known. I think that will be good. Also, we will know ourselves. And we are going to know our loved ones. One summer when I tried to recuperate from an illness by resting, it enabled me to sit on my patio with my wife and get acquainted with her. It was quite wonderful. I discovered the sacrifices that she has made and her faithfulness down through the years. And I think I am really going to get acquainted with her in heaven. My friend, how glorious heaven is going to be! Even in this earthly life down here we find that when we grow in our love for Christ, we also grow in our love for each other.
Now notice the further description of Christ at His coming:
And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS [Rev. 19:13–16].
And he is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with blood: and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and pure. And out of his mouth proceedeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God the All-ruler. And he hath on his garment and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
Notice that His garment is sprinkled with blood and that He is treading the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of God. This picture takes us back to Isaiah 63:1–6, which we have quoted previously.
Obviously, this refers not to Christ’s first coming but to His second coming as described here in chapter 19.
“And he shall rule them with a rod of iron” takes us back to Psalm 2: “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee [from the dead]. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. [He didn’t get them at His first coming; how will He get them now?] Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps. 2:6–9).
The fury of His wrath at His second coming is in sharp contrast to His gentleness at His first coming. However, in both is revealed the “wrath of the Lamb.”
“The armies … in heaven” are evidently the legions of angels that do His bidding.
THE WAR OF ARMAGEDDON
Now we come to the end of the war of Armageddon, and this concludes the final battle:
And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;
That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great [Rev. 19:17–18].
If there is one passage of Scripture which is revolting to read, this is it. You will notice that God included it at the end of His Word to remind us how revolting and nauseating to Him are the deeds of the flesh. Men who live in the flesh will have their flesh destroyed. This is an invitation at the end of the Battle of Armageddon to the carrion-eating fowl to a banquet on earth where they will have A-1, blue-ribbon flesh to eat—kings and the mighty men of the earth. My friend, it is frightful to rebel against God because He is going to judge you someday. This scene reveals the heart of man and how dreadful that heart really is.
HELL OPENED
Now for the very first time hell is completely opened up:
And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.
And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh [Rev. 19:19–21].
And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together to make war against him that sat upon the horse and against his army. And the beast [Antichrist] was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought the signs in his sight, wherewith he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshipped his image: they two were cast alive into the lake of fire that burneth with brimstone; and the rest were killed with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, even the sword which came forth out of his mouth; and all the birds were filled with their flesh.
What a frightful picture this is. The Beast and the False Prophet defy God right up to the very last. They dare to make war with the Son of God! Surely “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh” at the utter futility of their efforts. It is preposterous that there is such a rebellion of man against God. The outcome is inevitable. The two arch-rebels and tyrants, the Antichrist and the False Prophet, have the questionable distinction of being the first two who are cast into hell. Even the Devil hasn’t been put there yet.
The question arises: Is the “lake of fire” literal? Well, let me give you something to think about because I am going to come back to this subject when we get to chapter 20. If hell is not literal, it depicts that which is worse than a literal fire of brimstone.
“The sword which came forth out of his mouth.” What is that sword? An amillennial friend of mine asked me laughingly, “You don’t believe that there is going to be a literal sword coming out of the mouth of Jesus, do you?” I told him that I would consider it to be literal if the Word of God had not made it clear that His Word is like a sword: “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). “And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17). “But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked” (Isa. 11:4). Do you notice how clearly this symbol is explained by Scripture? The “sword”that comes from the mouth of Jesus is His Word. It was His Word that created this universe. It is the Word of God which will save you. And it will be the Word of God that will destroy the wicked at the end of this age.
CHAPTER 20
Theme: The Millennium
In the twentieth chapter we are dealing with the Millennium in relationship to Christ, Satan, man, the tribulation saints, the resurrections, the earth, and the Great White Throne. Unfortunately, a great many men in the past have thought that chapter 20 is not very important because the Millennium, the thousand-year period, is mentioned only here in Scripture, and therefore, they have practically dismissed this chapter altogether. It is true that the Millennium is mentioned only in this chapter, and it is mentioned as “a thousand years.” Let’s not argue about semantics. Millennium comes from the Latin word that means “one thousand.” Millennium means a thousand years any way you slice it. You can call a person who believes in the Millennium a chiliast, and chiliasm is the way the early church spoke of it, because in the Greek chiliasm means “a thousand” also. I hope we understand that millennialism, chiliasm, and the thousand-year reign of Christ all refer to the same thing.
Chapter 20 is the division point for the three main schools of eschatology:
Postmillennialism assumed that Christ would come at the conclusion of the one thousand years. Man would bring in the kingdom by the preaching of the gospel. This was an optimistic view which prevailed at the turn of the century. At that time it looked like there might be a great worldwide turning to Christ and the world would be converted. This viewpoint has become obsolete as it could not weather the first half of the twentieth century, which produced two world wars, a global depression, the rise of communism, and the atom bomb with which worldwide destruction is imminent.
Amillennialism has become popular only in recent years and has largely supplanted postmillennialism. The addition of the prefix a-simply negates the belief in the Millennium. Amillennialism holds out no false optimism and has, for the most part, emphasized the coming of Christ. Its chief weakness is that it spiritualizes the thousand years, as it does all the Book of Revelation. It fits the Millennium into the present age. Dr. B. B. Warfield’s interpretation is that the Millennium is going on in heaven while the Tribulation is going on down here on the earth. My belief is that in heaven they have a millennium, not just for a thousand years, but from eternity to eternity. Most amillennialists fit the Millennium into the present age, and all the events recorded in Revelation are somehow fitted into the facts of history like pieces are fitted into a crazy quilt. Frankly, I think that the results of this viewpoint are about the same: you come up with a crazy quilt.
Premillennialism, on the contrary, takes chapter 20 at face value, as it does all of the Book of Revelation, applying the literalist interpretation unless the context instructs otherwise. Let me cite the example we gave from chapter 19 where it says that, when the Lord Jesus comes, out of His mouth goes a sharp two-edged sword (see Rev. 19:15). Does this mean that a literal sword goes out of His mouth? I believe that Scripture makes it very clear that the sword is the Word of God. Paul writes, “And take … the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17). With that kind of instruction, I do not see how we can misunderstand what John is talking about, but you must have a scriptural reason for your interpretation. You cannot spiritualize Scripture on any basis you choose, although that is the present custom and the popular method today. In the premillennialist interpretation, the one thousand years are treated as one thousand years, and Christ comes at the beginning of the Millennium. Chapter 20 makes it clear that there can be no Millennium until Christ comes.
In the first nine verses of this chapter, we have the word for a thousand years repeated six times. It must be pretty important to put that kind of emphasis on it. The early church believed in what was known as chiliasm, the belief in the literal thousand-year reign of Christ. Those who rejected that position were considered to be in a state of heresy. Later on there came in the teaching that the thousand years would be established by the church. The church would produce a perfect world, and then Jesus would come and find everything in apple-pie order. But that is not the way this section of Scripture presents it. He is coming in judgment, and if everything were in apple-pie order, there would be no need to put down rebellion and to judge and make war.
It has not been too long ago that men actually believed that the church was going to build the kingdom down here on this earth. Back in 1883 a commentator, Justin A. Smith, made this statement:
But upon the other hand, what a tremendous force is the Christianity of today when all is said. Is it conceivable that this auspicious power, which is so rapidly taking possession of the wide earth, can dwindle into the imbecility which some millennarians appear to predict for it?
Those of us who are premillennialists would be called a bunch of pessimists back in 1883 because we are predicting that the world is going to get worse and that there will be apostasy in the church. This man did not believe that, for he goes on to say:
It has been said that in twenty-five years more, if the present rate of progress continues, India will become as thoroughly Christian as Great Britain is today. There will be thirty millions of Christians in China, and Japan will be as fully Christianized as America is now. The old systems, they tell us, are honey-combed through and through by Christian influence. It looks as if a day may soon come when these systems, struck by vigorous blows, will fall in a tremendous collapse. Meantime, every weapon formed against Christianity breaks in the hand that holds it. Already, the Lord’s right hand hath gotten Him victory.
But look at Great Britain today, for example—it is as bad off as India is. They talked bravely in those days, but they do not talk that way today.
In the book The Problem of Evil, the author made this statement:
The civilization of Europe, or to call it by its true name which derives from its origin, the Christian civilization, is visibly making the conquest of the world. Its triumph is only a matter of time. No one doubts it.
There are quite a few who doubt it today. In fact, the so-called European civilization, or Christian civilization, is going down the drink and has largely disappeared already.
These men belittle the twentieth chapter of Revelation. I consider Dr. B. B. Warfield to be the greatest scholar that this century has produced, and I was educated under his system, but he says that there is no reference to such an age as a millennium here on this earth it “save in so obscure a portion as Revelation 20.” He pays no attention to all of the Old Testament where God made a covenant that He would establish this kingdom on the earth through One in David’s line.
Dr. Rothe many years ago said:
Our key does not open. The right key is lost. Until we are put in possession of it again, our exposition will never succeed. The system of biblical ideas is not that of our school at all.
In speaking with a student who had read a premillennial book and was enthusiastically telling him about it, Dr. R. L. Dabney, an honored theologian of the South in the past, said, “Probably you are right. I never looked into the subject.” He was a great scholar but was honestly admitting that he had never studied prophecy!
The late Dr. Charles Hodge, who wrote two ponderous tomes on theology (and that was the theology I studied when I was in school), very frankly said that eschatology wasn’t his bag—only he didn’t use that expression:
The subject cannot be adequately discussed without taking a survey of all the prophetic teaching of the Scriptures, both of the Old Testament and the New. This task cannot be satisfactorily accomplished by anyone who has not made the study of the prophecies a specialty. The author, knowing that he has no such qualifications for the work, proposes to confine himself in a great measure to a historical survey of the different schemes of interpreting the scriptural prophecies relating to the subject.
Today all that has changed. There is a lively interest in prophecy, but I wish there were more who were as honest as Dr. Hodge was and would say, “I really haven’t studied the subject as I should have.” Unfortunately, a great many men are speaking on the subject of prophecy who have not actually studied it. This is a very important and vital subject. I do not claim to have any special qualifications for it at all, although I have studied it for forty years and have given a great deal of attention to it, even in the years past when it was largely ignored. But I think it is dangerous today that many are edging up to this matter of setting dates for the rapture of the church. I believe that the Rapture is absolutely a dateless event. It may be tomorrow, but it may not be tomorrow. We need to recognize that we are living in a period in which we are not given dates, but we are seeing the setting of a stage. I do not know what God has in mind for the future, but I do know that He sure has things in position.
I think it is obvious that I am premillennial and also pretribulational, and the reason is that I believe this is what John is teaching here. If you disagree with me and accept one of these other positions, you are in good company. Some of the finest men I have known hold a different viewpoint from mine, but if you want to be right, you will want to go along with me, of course!
First of all, there can be no Millennium until Satan is removed from the earthly scene. You could not have an ideal state down here as long as Satan is running loose.
In the second place, the curse of sin must be removed from the physical earth before a Millennium can be established. Scripture prophesies that the desert will blossom like a rose. If you live along the coast in California, the desert blossoms like a rose, but in eastern California, the desert is not blossoming like a rose. The curse of sin has not yet been removed from this earth.
In the third place, the resurrection of the Old Testament saints must take place at the beginning of the thousand years. If they were raised before the Great Tribulation, they would have to stand around and wait for the Millennium. There is no need for them to do that, and the Lord is not going to raise them until the Tribulation is over. Daniel makes this very clear: “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:1–2). This is talking about Israel. Following the Great Tribulation Period will be the resurrection of the Old Testament saints (see Isa. 25:8–9). Only Christ will raise the dead (see John 5:21, 25, 28–29), so He must come for that purpose.
In the fourth place, the tribulation saints are included in the resurrection of the Old Testament saints, and they reign with Christ during the Millennium.
Finally, the Millennium is the final testing of man under ideal conditions. This is the answer to those who say there is nothing wrong in man which circumstances and conditions cannot change. Man is an incurable, an incorrigible sinner. Even at the end of the Millennium, he is still in rebellion against God. The rebellion in the human heart and the depraved nature of man are impossible for any man to comprehend. If you and I could see ourselves as God sees us, we could not stand ourselves. But we think we are pretty good and that we are very nice people—do we not? The Millennium is the final testing of mankind before the beginning of the eternal state.
The Millennium is God’s answer to the prayer, “Thy kingdom come.” When we pray the prayer which we mistakenly call the Lord’s Prayer, we say, “Thy kingdom come … in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). That is the kingdom which He is going to establish here on earth, and it is called the Millennium. This is the kingdom which was promised to David (see 2 Sam. 7:12–17; 23:5). God took an oath relative to its establishment (see Ps. 89:34–37). This is the kingdom predicted in the psalms and in the prophets (see Ps. 2; 45; 110; Isa. 2:1–5; 11:1–9; 60; 61:3–62; 66; Jer. 23:3–8; 32:37–44; Ezek. 40–48; Dan. 2:44–45; 7:13–14; 12:2–3; Mic. 4:1–8; Zech. 12:10–14:21). All of the prophets spoke of this kingdom, the minor prophets as well as the major prophets—not one of them missed it. These are but a few of the manifold Scriptures that speak of the theocratic kingdom which was the great theme of all the prophets in the Old Testament. This is the kingdom, the theocratic kingdom, that is coming here upon this earth.
SATAN BOUND ONE THOUSAND YEARS
The opening verses of chapter 20 describe what is to precede the Millennium.
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season [Rev. 20:1–3].
Let me give you my translation of these verses:
And I saw an angel coming down out of the heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and locked and sealed (it) over, that he should deceive the nations no longer, until the thousand years should be finished: after that he must be loosed for a little time.
You will notice that the thousand years are mentioned two times in verses 1–3; they are mentioned a total of six times in the twentieth chapter. It is true that the Millennium is mentioned only in one chapter, but God mentions it six times. How many times does He have to say a thing before it becomes true? He mentions it more than He mentions some other things that people emphasize and think are important just because they occur once or twice in Scripture. Six times the thousand years are mentioned, and here it is in relationship to Satan.
There are some expositors who separate this section from the Millennium, classifying it as the closing scene of the Day of Wrath. This view takes the edge from the sharp distinction that there will be on earth at the removal of Satan. His incarceration and total absence from the earth change conditions from darkness to light. He is the god of this age; he is the prince of the power of the air, and his power and influence in the world are enormous—beyond the calculations of any computer. His withdrawal makes way for the Millennium, for with him loose, there can be no Millennium. Therefore, we see that Satan’s relationship to the Millennium is this: he must be removed from the earth’s scene before it can take place. Men talk about bringing peace on this earth, about producing prosperity, and all that sort of thing. The world system will finally be headed up in the Antichrist, and he will not be able to accomplish peace and prosperity, although for a while it will look as if he will. But as long as Satan is abroad in this world, you cannot have a Utopia down here. You cannot have an ideal situation with him loose.
“An angel…. laid hold on the dragon”—Satan’s great power is reduced, for an ordinary angel becomes his jailor and leads him away captive (see Jude 9; Rev. 12:7–9).
“The abyss” is a better description of the prison than is “the bottomless pit.” In either case, it is not the lake of fire, which we shall see in verse 10.
“After that he must be loosed for a little time” is one of the imponderable statements of Scripture. Why is Satan loosed after God once had him put in the abyss in chains? Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer’s answer to this question is significant: “If you will tell me why God let him loose in the first place, I’ll tell you why God let him loose in the second place.” Why did God let him loose? God has a great purpose in it. This is the great problem of evil: Why has God permitted it? Well, I believe that God is working out a tremendous program which is the mystery of God that is yet to be revealed to us. It is going to be revealed someday, and all He is asking us to do is to walk with Him by faith. We need to trust God and know that whatever He is doing is right.
I remember one time when my dad took me with him on a trip in his horse and buggy. A storm came up out there in west Texas and, being just a boy, I was frightened. The wind was blowing up a real storm, and we were getting wet. I never shall forget that my dad put his arm around me and said, “Son, you can trust me.” I just snuggled right up to him and trusted him, and we got through the storm. My earthly father gone—he died when I was fourteen. I didn’t have my earthly father very long, but I have had a heavenly Father now for a great many years whom I trust through the storms of this life. In all these problems that come up, I wish I had the answers to give you, but I don’t—so let’s both trust Him.
I once read a book on the problem of evil. When I finished the book, we still had the problem of evil—the author did not solve it. It took him about two hundred pages to say what I can say in one sentence: I do not know the answer to the problem of evil. But, my friend, we will get the answer someday if we walk by faith.
God had Satan incarcerated for one thousand years because there could not be a Millennium without that.
SAINTS OF THE GREAT TRIBULATION REIGN WITH CHRIST ONE THOUSAND YEARS
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years [Rev. 20:4–6].
And I saw thrones and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and (I saw) the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the Word of God; and whosoever worshipped not the wild beast neither his image, and received not the mark upon their forehead, or upon their hand. And they lived again and reigned with Christ one thousand years. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; over these the second death hath no authority [Gr.: exousian], but they shall be priests of God and of the Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
Many are going to die for Christ in the Great Tribulation Period, but they will live again and reign with Christ one thousand years. The tribulation saints are going to trade in three and one-half years for one thousand years. I would say they are getting a pretty good deal. Those three and one-half years will be rugged and terrible, but the thousand years are going to be wonderful—imagine living and reigning with Christ upon this earth!
This prophecy is like any other prophecy in Scripture: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation” (2 Pet. 1:20). That is, you cannot just lift out a verse of Scripture and base doctrine on it; you need to have the corroboration of other Scriptures. When this passage here is treated as a dignified statement of literal facts, it becomes reasonable, and it fits into the entire program of prophecy which we have been following. Any attempt to reduce it to the lowest common denominator of fanciful and figurative symbols makes the passage an absurdity. To spiritualize this passage is to disembowel all Scripture of vital meaning, making the interpretation of Scripture a reductio ad absurdum.
The thrones are literal; the martyrs are literal; Jesus is literal; the Word of God is literal; the Beast is literal; the image is literal; the mark of the Beast is literal; their foreheads and their hands are literal; and the thousand years are literal. It is all literal. A thousand years means a thousand years. If God meant that it was eternal, I think He would have said so. If He meant it was five hundred years, He would have said so. Cannot God say what He means? Of course He can, and when He says a thousand years, He means a thousand years.
The Greek word for “resurrection” is anastasei, which means “to stand up, a bodily resurrection.” It is rather difficult for a spirit to stand up, and those who spiritualize this section are at a loss to explain just how a spirit stands up! This is the same word used by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 for the resurrection of Christ and believers.
“And I saw thrones and they sat upon them” is the one statement that is not entirely clear. Who are “they”? It is my judgment that they must be the total number of those who have part in the first resurrection, which includes the saved of all ages.
The first resurrection began with the resurrection of Christ. Then it is followed by the resurrection (at the Rapture) of His church sometime more than nineteen hundred years later—but before the Great Tribulation (see Rev. 4). At the end of the Great Tribulation is the resurrection of both the tribulation saints (“the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the Word of God; and whosoever worshipped not the wild beast”) and the Old Testament saints (see Dan. 12:1–2). The diagram above gives the resurrection as a parade. Christ, the firstfruits of resurrection, leads the parade.
It is a rather simple and naïve notion to think that somehow or another the world is going to end, Jesus will come, the dead will be raised, He will put the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other, they will move into eternity, and that is it. My friend, God follows a very definite program; He always has, and He moves intelligently.
The tribulation saints and the Old Testament saints will evidently reign on this earth with Christ. I believe that David will be His vicegerent. The church, which is the bride of Christ, will reside in the New Jerusalem where she reigns with Him from that exalted place and, I believe, over a great deal of God’s creation. Christ will commute from the New Jerusalem to the old Jerusalem on this earth. And I suppose that the church also will travel back and forth between its heavenly home and the earth.
Multitudes of both Israel and the Gentiles will enter the kingdom in natural bodies, not having died. These are the ones, together with those who are born during the Millennium, who are tested during this millennial period. As Christ in a glorified body mingled with His apostles and followers, so the church in glorified bodies will mingle with the multitudes in their natural bodies here on the earth. In glorified bodies, the church will be able to move out into space. That will be the first time I will do any space traveling, I can assure you of that. Gravitation will not be able to grab me by the seat of my pants and pull me back to the earth in that day.
“They shall be priests of God” refers to the entire nation of Israel. This was God’s original purpose for Israel: “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel” (Exod. 19:6). Abraham was a priest in his family. Levi was the priestly tribe, with the family of Aaron serving as high priest. In the theocratic kingdom here on this earth, the entire nation of Israel will be priests.
In Scripture there is more prophecy concerning the Millennium than of any other period. The kingdom was the theme of the Old Testament prophets. I do not know how else you would interpret it. In our day we hear very little about the minor prophets. There is a great silence, a great vacuum and void, when it comes to the teaching of the minor prophets, yet all of them look forward to the Millennium, that kingdom which is coming on the earth.
SATAN LOOSED AFTER ONE THOUSAND YEARS
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them [Rev. 20:7–9].
And when the thousand years are ended Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners (quarters) of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up over the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down out of heaven, and devoured them.
Although the entire Book of Revelation deals with last things, especially do these last few chapters. Here is the last rebellion of Satan and man against God. The Millennium is a time of testing of man under ideal conditions, as this passage demonstrates. As soon as Satan is released, a great company, who have been under the personal reign of Christ under ideal circumstances, goes over to Satan. From where did such a company come is a worthy question. The answer lies in the fact that not only do multitudes enter the Millennium, but multitudes also are born during the Millennium (see Isa. 11:6; 65:20). This will be the time of the earth’s greatest population explosion. Disease will be eliminated. Since the curse of sin will be removed from the physical earth, it will produce enough foodstuffs to feed its greatest population. The human heart alone remains unchanged under these circumstances, and many will turn their backs on God and will go after Satan. This seems unbelievable, but what about today? Satan is doing pretty well in our day.
This rebellion following the Millennium reveals how terrible the heart of man is. Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). You and I do not know how vile we really are. We just cannot bring our old nature into subjection to God. “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7). These folk will live under ideal conditions during Christ’s thousand-year reign, and I think they will get a little tired of it. When He reigns, He is really going to be a dictator—you had better stay in line or else. But they do not like staying in line; therefore, when the opportunity is offered to them to rebel, they rebel. The nations of the earth again will come under the spell of Satan and will plot a rebellion.
Because the rebellion is labeled “Gog and Magog,” many Bible students identify it with the Gog and Magog of Ezekiel 38–39. This is not possible at all, for the conflicts described are not parallel as to time, place, or participants—only the names are the same. The invasion from the north by Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38–39 breaks the false peace of the Antichrist and causes him to show his hand in the midst of the Great Tribulation. That rebellion of the godless forces from the north will have made such an impression on mankind that after one thousand years, that last rebellion of man bears the same label—Gog and Magog.
We have passed through a similar situation in this century. World War I was so devastating that when war again broke out in Europe, involving many of the same nations and even more, it was also labeled a World War, but it was differentiated by the number two. We have World War I, World War II, and people today are predicting World War III.
I can use a further illustration from my personal life. In my family there were so many Johns on both sides of the family that my mother decided I should be J. Vernon McGee. My “J” stands for John, but I have never been called John. An uncle, two grandfathers, and my dad were all named John. So you will understand why I bear the name of J. Vernon—I had to be separated from that crowd. Just because we had a similarity of names does not mean that we were all the same person.
The war in Ezekiel 38–39 relates to Gog and Magog I, and the reference here in Revelation 20:8 is to Gog and Magog II. Although the names are the same, this is a different war, the last rebellion of Satan. Just because the two events involve the same names does not mean they are the same.
In verse 9 there is the dropping of the last “atomic bomb.” The phrase, “from God,” is actually not in the best texts. It simply means that natural forces which destroyed Gog and Magog I will destroy Gog and Magog II.
This last resistance and rebellion against God is as foolish and futile as man’s first rebellion in the Garden of Eden. Here it is not the beginning but the ending of man’s disobedience to God. It is the finality of man’s rebellion. Nothing remains now but the final judgment.
SATAN CAST INTO THE LAKE OF FIRE AND BRIMSTONE
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever [Rev. 20:10].
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the wild beast and the false prophet; and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
This is a most solemn statement, and it is rejected by this lovey-dovey age in which we live. However, it is a relief to God’s child to know that the enemy—both his and God’s—will at last be brought to permanent justice. There is nothing here to satisfy the curiosity or the sadistic taste. The fact is stated in a reverent reticence which is awe-inspiring. If man had written this, having said this much, he could not have restrained himself from saying more. In what Sir Robert Anderson calls “the wild utterances of prophecy mongers,” we see that men do not hesitate to go farther than does the Word of God. The Word of God is very restrained—very little is said about this subject of hell, or even of heaven.
There are several facts here that contradict popular notions. First of all, the Devil is not in hell today. He is the prince of the power of the air. He is the one who controls this world to a large extent. God has limited him in our day, of course, but in the Great Tribulation Period, he will have full rein for a while.
In the second place, the Devil is not the first to be cast into hell. The wild Beast and the False Prophet will precede him by one thousand years.
Finally, hell is described as a lake of fire and brimstone. The Lord Jesus is the One who gave the most solemn description of hell. Consider these Scriptures: “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41). “But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12).
This ought to make anyone stop and think: How can hell be outer darkness and also a literal fire? Jesus Christ also said: “And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 13:42). “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:44). In my thinking, fire is the best symbol that could be used of the reality that hell is. For instance, how are sins that men have committed in the spirit to be punished in the body? I believe that to be in outer darkness and the abyss is to be separated from God and to look back upon a life which has been misspent in this world. Can you think of any fire that would be hotter than for a man in hell to hear the voice of his son saying, “Dad, I followed you down here”? This is a solemn thing. A man asked Dr. Bill Anderson, “Suppose we get over there and find out that what you preach about hell is not true at all?” Dr. Anderson replied, “Then I will just have to apologize and say that I must have misunderstood the Lord. But suppose we get over there and find that it is true? What then?” My friend, it is true; this is the Word of God that we are looking at. We love John 3:16, but what do we think about this?
Fire is a very weak symbol of the reality of what it means to be lost, to be separated from God for eternity. You cannot reduce these descriptions to something less than the reality, because a symbol is always a poor representative of the real thing. Nor can you dissolve this into the thin air of make-believe. The reality far exceeds the description, and human language is beggarly in trying to depict the awful reality. Hell is a place; it is also a state. It is a place of conscious torment. This is the language of the Word of God—you cannot escape it.
SETTING OF GREAT WHITE THRONE WHERE LOST ARE JUDGED
And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them [Rev. 20:11].
The Great White Throne is what men mistakenly call the general judgment. It is general only in the sense that all the lost of all ages are raised to be judged here. All who are saved have been raised in the first resurrection. Even the tribulation saints had part in the first resurrection. This is the second resurrection in which the lost are raised to be given an equitable, fair, and just evaluation of their works in respect to their salvation.
A man on his deathbed said to me, “Preacher, you just don’t need to talk to me about the future. I’ll take my chances. I believe God is going to be just and righteous and let me present my works.”
I told him, “You are right. He is just and righteous, and He will let you present your works. That is what He says He is going to do. But I have news for you: At that judgment nobody is saved, because you cannot be saved by your works. When you stand in the white light of the righteous presence of God, your little works will seem so puny that they won’t amount to anything at all.”
The other day our little grandson brought to his grandmother some flowers that he had picked. I want to tell you, they were a sad looking bunch of flowers. With great pride he gave them to his grandmother, and his grandmother patted him on the head and thanked him for the lovely flowers. As I looked at that scene, I could not help but smile, but I also immediately recognized how solemn it is going to be when a lot of these goody-goody boys stand with their little, bitty bouquets in the presence of a Christ whom they have rejected. They expect that He will be like a grandmother who will pat them on the head and say, “What a smart boy you were!” My friend, this is solemn, and this is serious. You need Him as Savior in order to stand in His presence; you need to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. Don’t you know that without this we are sinners and we are lost?
We like to compare ourselves with other people: “I’m as good as the Joneses down the street.” Sure you are, but you ought to know about the Joneses! It was Samuel Johnson who said, “Every man knows that of himself which he dares not tell his dearest friend.” You know yourself, don’t you? You know things that you have covered up and smothered that you would not reveal for anything in the world. The Lord Jesus is going to bring them out at this judgment; while you are presenting your little bouquet, He is going to tell you about yourself. My friend, you need a Savior today.
This is the Great White Throne, and the holiness of this throne is revealed in the reaction of heaven and earth to it: “from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away.” Of this, John F. Walvoord, in his book The Revelation of Jesus Christ, comments:
The most natural interpretation of the fact that earth and heaven flee away is that the present earth and heaven are destroyed and will be replaced by the new heaven and new earth. This is also confirmed by the additional statement in 21:1 where John sees a new heaven and a new earth replacing the first heaven and the first earth which have passed away.
The One seated on the throne is the Lord Jesus Christ: “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son…. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:22, 26–29).
What is the work of God? It is to “… believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:29). Those who have done good are they who have accepted Christ, and they come forth unto the resurrection of life—that is the first resurrection. They who have done evil come forth unto the resurrection of damnation and condemnation—that is the Great White Throne judgment.
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works [Rev. 20:12–13].
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne; and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them; and they were judged every one according to their works.
Yes, my friend, you will be able to get a fair trial there. Your life is on tape, and Christ happens to have the tape. When He plays it back, you will be able to listen to it, and it is not going to sound good to you, by any means. Are you willing to stand before God and have Him play the tape of your life? I think He will have it on a television screen so that you can watch it, too. Do you think your life can stand the test? I do not know about you, but I could not make it. Thank God for His grace—“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8).
The dead are classified as the small and the great. They are all lost, for evidently none have their names written in the Book of Life. They had never turned to God for salvation. The Lord Jesus said that in His generation “… ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” (John 5:40). These folk standing before His throne had not come.
These are books which record the works of all individuals. God keeps the tapes, and He will play them at the right time. There will be a lot of politicians who will have their tapes played in that day, and there will be a lot of public figures—even preachers—who will have their tapes played in that day, and they are not going to be happy about it. If you are saved, you are not going to stand before this judgment. Your works are to be judged as a child of God at the judgment seat of Christ, which will be for the purpose of rewards (see 2 Cor. 5:10). The Great White Throne judgment is the judgment of the lost. Multitudes want to be judged according to their works. This is their opportunity. The judgment is just, but no one is saved by works.
“And the sea gave up the dead that were in it.” Multitudes who have gone to a watery grave in which the chemicals of their bodies have been dissolved in the waters of the sea will be raised. God will have no problem with this. After all, they are only atoms. He just has to put them together again. He did it once; He can do it again. The graves on earth will give up their bodies; and hades, the place where the spirits of the lost go, will disgorge for this judgment.
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire [Rev. 20:14–15].
And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death even the lake of fire. And if any were not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.
You will notice that in my translation I have changed “death and hell were cast into the lake of fire” to “death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.” Sheol or hades (translated hell in the New Testament) is the place of the unseen dead and is divided into two compartments: paradise and the place of torment (see Luke 16:19–31). Paradise was emptied when Christ took the Old Testament believers with Him at His ascension. “Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things)” (Eph. 4:8–10). Christ did two things: He gave gifts to men down here, but He also took with Him to heaven those Old Testament saints who had died and were in the place called paradise. But the place of torment will deliver up the lost at the judgment at the Great White Throne. All who stand at this judgment are lost, and we are told that they are cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death. The Lord also called it “outer darkness.” We believe that this is symbolic of something worse than literal fire or outer darkness. It is eternal separation from God, for death means separation.
“Death,” the great final enemy of man, is finally removed from the scene. No longer will it be said, “In Adam all die” (see 1 Cor. 15:22). Death is personified in this case, for it is man’s great enemy. In the Old Testament we read: “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes” (Hos. 13:14).
And Paul writes: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death…. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Cor. 15:26, 55).
“Hades,” the prison of lost souls, is likewise cast into the lake of fire. The lost are no longer in hades but in the lake of fire. This is where Satan, the wild Beast, the False Prophet, and their minions were consigned. If man will not accept the life of God, he must accept the only other alternative: eternal association with Satan. God never created man to be put in this place, but there is no other place for him. Hell was created for the Devil and his angels. I take it that it is a place where God never goes. The second death means eternal and absolute separation from God.
CHAPTER 21
Theme: Entrance into eternity; eternity unveiled
Eternity is unveiled in chapter 21—a new heaven, a new earth, a New Jerusalem, a new era, and the eternal abode of the Lamb’s bride where we will be new creations in Christ Jesus without the old nature that manifests itself so much today. Adopting a popular aphorism of the day, it can truly be said that this chapter is “out of this world.” This chapter hasn’t anything to do with the earth (except for the first few verses). In it we see the eternal abode of the church. What really is heaven? There is a lot of sticky, sentimental stuff said about heaven, and we get quite weepy when we talk about heaven. However, heaven is a place, a very definite place. You will have an address there. Your name will be put on you so that in eternity, when you wander around into outer space and get lost, some angel will bring you home—and you will have a home.
As the long vista of eternity is before us in this chapter, we move not only from time to eternity, but to a new creation. A new heaven, a new earth, and a New Jerusalem greet us. The redeemed have previously received glorified bodies like Christ’s. All things have become new. A new universe suggests new methods and approaches to life. New laws will regulate the new universe. The entire lifestyle will change. Here are some of the changes that are suggested in chapters 21–22:
1. There will be the total absence of sin and temptation and testing in the new creation. This in itself makes a radical difference.
2. The New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, does not mean another satellite for the earth, but rather the earth and all of the new creation with all of the galactic systems will revolve about the New Jerusalem, because it is the dwelling place of God and of Christ.
3. The law of gravity, as we know it, will be radically revised. There will be traffic between the New Jerusalem and the earth. The church will have already left the earth, and its dwelling place is the New Jerusalem. I believe that we will have entirely different bodies, and the law of gravity will not affect us; that is, the law of gravity of this earth or of any other planet.
4. There will be no sun to give light, for God Himself will supply it directly to the universe. There will be the absence, therefore, of night. There is no night there because we just do not need that time to rest since we will have new bodies. I am looking forward to that, by the way.
5. There will no longer be any sea on the earth. The sea occupies most of the earth’s surface today; approximately three-fourths of the total surface is water. This denotes a revolution in life upon the earth. Just think of the parking space we will be able to have! There will be no fish to eat. Apparently man will be a vegetarian during the Millennium and throughout eternity, as he was in the Garden of Eden. Fruit is the only diet of eternal man (see Rev. 22:2).
6. The presence of Christ and God, together with the throne of God made visible, ushers in a new day for man—the new creation.
NEW HEAVEN, NEW EARTH, NEW JERUSALEM
John describes the passing of the heaven and earth we know in the opening verse of chapter 21.
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea [Rev. 21:1].
As usual, I’ll follow the Authorized Version with my own literal translation of the Greek text.
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth passed away: and the sea is no more.
“And I saw” is the oft repeated statement of John to remind us that he was a spectator to all of these scenes. He was a witness to the panoramic final scene which ushers in eternity.
The Scripture clearly teaches that this present order of creation is to pass away in order to make room for a new heaven and a new earth. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away …” (Matt. 24:35). The old creation was made for the first Adam. Christ, the Last Adam, has a new creation for His new creatures. “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind” (Isa. 65:17). “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain” (Isa. 66:22).
God had promised Abraham a land forever and David a throne forever. Daniel prophesied of “… a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed …” (Dan. 2:44). The new earth will see the total fulfillment of these prophecies. Consider the faith of the Old Testament worthies: “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city” (Heb. 11:13–16). “Heavenly” does not mean they are going to heaven, but that heaven is coming to this earth. This is what we mean when we pray the so-called Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come … in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).
“Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Pet. 3:13). In his second epistle Peter declares plainly that the present earth on which we live will be destroyed by fire: “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire, against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men…. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness!” (2 Pet. 3:7, 10–11).
The chief characteristic of the new earth, as we have suggested, is the absence of the sea. This would automatically change the climate, the atmosphere, and the living conditions. It is impossible for the human mind to comprehend the great transformations which will take place in a new creation. The sea in the past has been a barrier and also a border for mankind, which in some cases has been good and in others bad. Also, the sea was an instrument of judgment at the time of the Flood. However, by the disappearance of the sea, the population on the earth can be doubled again and again because of the increase of the land surface.
And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband [Rev. 21:2].
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
This is the part which should interest us. I believe that the New Jerusalem is where those of us who are children of God are going to live. When you talk about going to heaven, what do you think about it? To most people it is just “a beautiful isle of somewhere.” However, it is a definite place. It is a city called the New Jerusalem. It is a planet within itself. Very candidly, very little is said in Scripture about heaven—but here it is, and that is the reason this ought to be important to us.
“I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.” This New Jerusalem should not be identified with the old Jerusalem, the earthly Jerusalem down here.
I cannot think of a lovelier description than this: “made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.” It has been my privilege in my many years in the pastorate to have married several hundred couples. I have never seen an ugly bride—they are always lovely. At the wedding ceremony, after the solos have been sung, the preacher walks in followed by the bridegroom and the best man. Nobody pays any attention to the bridegroom except his mama. She smiles at him and thinks he’s wonderful, but nobody else looks at him. In a minute here comes the bride-to-be and, I tell you, everybody stands up and looks at her. I have never yet seen an ugly bride. On occasion when I would return from a wedding which my wife did not attend, she would always ask me, “Was the bride beautiful?” And I would always answer, “Yes. I’ve never seen an ugly one.” Don’t think I am just a doting old man when I say that. I have seen some brides before they got married or after the wedding, and I have wondered if she were the same girl who had come down the aisle. God gives to them at that time a radiance and a beauty. That is a thrilling moment for the bridegroom to look down the aisle and see the one whom he is going to make his own—she will belong to him. It seems that for that moment God transforms every girl into a lovely bride. I think the reason He does it is that the New Jerusalem where we are going to live is like the bride adorned for her husband. What a picture we have here!
The New Jerusalem is the habitation, the eternal home that is prepared for the church. The Lord Jesus said: “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2–3). You could not have a more lovely or more appropriate picture given. We have seen in Revelation 19:7–8 that ushering in the millennial period, actually before Christ returned to the earth, was the marriage of the Lamb, and the bride was the church.
This passage is the fulfillment of what Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word” (Eph. 5:25–26).
At the judgment seat of Christ, there will be the straightening out and the judging of believers. Everything that is wrong will have to be corrected. All sin will be dealt with there. Rewards will be given out. And He is going to do something else—He is going to cleanse the church with the Word. The Word of God is a mighty cleansing agent. “That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that if should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27).
This is the picture we are getting here in chapter 21. The holy city, the New Jerusalem, is coming down from God out of heaven, adorned as a bride for her husband. The marriage took place before the Millennium, and the Millennium is now over. This has sure been a long honeymoon, hasn’t it? I think it is one that will go on into eternity.
Paul continues to talk about this marvelous relationship between Christ and the church, comparing it to human marriage down here. “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:28–32). This idea is a mystery that is now being opened to us. The marriage relationship is the most beautiful and wonderful relationship. It is the oldest ceremony that God has instituted for man. It goes right back into the Garden of Eden, to the very beginning, and it is all-important. It is such a profound mystery that, even with all these marriage counselors and all the books they have written, I do not really think they have touched the fringe of how wonderful marriage could be for believers.
By the way, Paul is talking here to believers who are filled with the Spirit. All of these instructions are for Spirit-filled believers. They are not given to the lost world at all, and they are not given to the average believer. At the beginning of this section, Paul says, “… be filled with the [Holy] Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). That is the only commandment in Scripture in which you are required to do something about the Holy Spirit.
We find here something that is difficult to understand, but it gives us another insight into marriage. The wife is the same flesh as the man. How can that be? Have you ever seen a beautiful child that looked like the mother and had a mean disposition like the father? That is where they come together; that is where they are one flesh. But it is deeper than that. When a man loves his wife, he actually loves himself. This is true of the wife also. When she loves her husband, she is actually loving herself You cannot have it any more intimate than that.
When I injure my foot, I do not ignore it. I do all I can to care for it. I go to the doctor and if necessary have it put into a cast. It may not be very pretty, and I might like to leave my foot at home, but it is part of me. Likewise, my wife is part of me. She is my flesh. We are the same flesh. This is difficult to understand, but that is how intimate it is. This takes us back to the time of creation: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:23–25). They were naked, and they knew each other. It was an intimate and a very personal relationship. After a couple gets married, when they have their first fight, the wife often turns over in bed, and he is in a huff and maybe goes to the sofa and lies there. Then they wonder why there is disintegration in their marriage relationship. When your foot gets sick, you don’t ignore it. You don’t get angry with it. You don’t kick with it. If you do, you are in deeper trouble. The thing that you are to do with the flesh is to do everything to doctor it and try to get it well again. This is the reason that young couples ought never to have a squabble without sitting down and talking things over. I think the wife ought to be very frank with her husband and tell him everything—how she feels, how he offends her, and what she thinks is wrong. And he ought to do the same thing. You see, they are the same flesh; they are one. They have been brought together in this very intimate, this very wonderful relationship in which a man leaves his family—his father, his mother, and his brothers and sisters. He has now been joined to a woman, and they are one flesh. They have started a new creation, if you please, and that is what the marriage relation should be. How wonderful it is to see a family where the man and his wife have no barrier between them. She knows him like a book, and he knows her like a book. They simply know each other, and they love each other. Until that kind of relationship is established, my friend, you are going to have trouble in the marriage, because God made us that way. Marriage is more than an arrangement to live together and to sleep together. When a man chooses a wife and a wife accepts her husband, they must understand that they are one flesh—and you would not hurt yourself, your own flesh, intentionally for anything in the world.
“This is a great mystery,” Paul says, “… but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:32). In heaven we are going to be like Him. John writes, “… it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall he like him…” (1 John 3:2). We are going to have glorified flesh like He has. We are going to be one with Him. We are part of His body, and we are going to be joined to Him. He said, “… I go to prepare a place for you…. that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2–3). How glorious that we can be with Him throughout eternity! As far as I know, no other creatures, including the angels of heaven, are going to have this personal and intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That is going to be the most glorious day! We are going to celebrate throughout eternity the very fact that we are with Him and that we have been joined to Him.
NEW ERA
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away [Rev. 21:3–4].
And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold the tabernacle [Gr.: skene, tent] of God (is) with men, and He shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God; and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying nor pain, any more; the first things are passed away.
“Behold the tabernacle [tent] of God is with men.” What is the tent? We are told by John in John 1:14, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt [pitched His tent] among us…” That flesh was crucified on the cross, and He was raised in a glorified body. We, too, are going to have glorified bodies, and we are going to live with Him in the New Jerusalem. The golden street is not really important. What difference does it make what kind of asphalt you walk on? It is important to know the psychological and spiritual values that will be there.
“They shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.” Certain things that definitely are prominent today are going to be removed: “God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.” A columnist years ago wrote: “For every light that burns on Broadway, there is a broken heart.” Several times my wife and I have driven up into the Hollywood hills and have looked down on that blanket of light which is Hollywood. I have said to my wife, “For every light down there, there is a broken heart.” There is many a sad and lonely person in this world, but in the New Jerusalem there are not going to be any more tears.
“And death shall be no more”—that is going to be a very marvelous improvement. Since you began reading this chapter, a number of funeral processions have taken place. People are dying all the time. There is a continual march to the cemetery. This earth is nothing in the world but a cemetery. I once knew an engineer who in the early days had a great deal to do with the planning and plotting of the great freeways which crisscross this country today. I asked him, “Is it going over the mountains or down through the valleys or crossing the rivers that is the biggest problem for you?” He replied, “The big problem is missing the cemeteries.” This earth is a great cemetery today, but all of that is going to end. There will be no burying ground in the New Jerusalem. The undertaker will be out of business. Even the doctors are going to be out of business, because there is not going to be any crying, “neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”
And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful [Rev. 21:5].
And He that sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He saith, Write, for these words are faithful and true.
He is going to make all things new! This is more meaningful to me than anything else. I do not know about you, but I have never really been satisfied with this life. I have found myself frustrated, I have found myself hemmed in, and I have never been able to accomplish all that I have wanted to accomplish. I’ve never been the man I’ve wanted to be. I’ve never been the husband I’ve wanted to be. I’ve never been the father I’ve wanted to be. And I’ve never preached the sermon I’ve wanted to preach. I just do not seem to have arrived. All accomplishments seem to have a blot on them.
But He says to me, as He says to you, “I am going to make all things new. You are going to be able to start over again.” I am waiting for that day when all things are going to be new and I can start over. Have you ever stopped to think about the potential of starting out all new again, of learning all over again, and never ceasing but going on into eternity? Oh, the potential and capability of man! Yonder at the Tower of Babel, God said, “I had better go down there, or nothing will be withheld from man” (see Gen. 11:5–7). It was very foolish for some scientists and preachers to say that man could not go to the moon; I think he is going farther than that. Man is a clever being which God has made. Death ends his potential down here, but with eternity ahead of him, oh, the prospects a saved man has!
We see here the glorious prospect of all things made new. We can start over, and there will never be an end to our growth. Remember that of Christ it is said, “Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end” (see Isa. 9:7). There is constant growth and development. Just think of the prospect of that for the future. Someday I am going to know something; today I don’t, but I will then.
And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son [Rev. 21:6–7].
And He said unto me, They are come to pass. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit these things; and I will be God unto him, and he shall be the son to Me.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” This identifies the speaker as the Lord Jesus Christ, as He was identified like this in the first chapter of this book.
Believers in their new bodies will thirst after God and the things of God, and they will be satisfied: “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” In Matthew 5:6 the Lord Jesus said: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”
All believers are overcomers because of faith: “He that overcometh shall inherit these things.” “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4).
“I will be God unto him, and he shall be the son to Me.” All the sons of God became sons through faith in Christ: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12).
They “inherit all things” because this was promised to the sons of God: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Rom. 8:16–17).
“The son to Me” is in the Greek moi ho huios. This is a very unusual expression. Vincent calls attention to the fact that this is the only place in John’s writings where a believer is said to be a son (huios) in relationship with God. (In other passages another Greek word is used rather than huios.) God is the One who says “my son,” and He says it here. Believers in the church are one of the peoples of God, but they are more. They are the sons of God in a unique and glorious fashion. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death [Rev. 21:8].
But for the fearful, and unbelieving, and defiled with abominations, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part (shall be) in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
There are several amazing features about this verse. First of all, the creation of the new heavens and a new earth did not affect the status of the lake of fire and of the lost. They are going into eternity just that way.
In the second place, there is no possibility of sin, which made man become fearful, unbelieving, liars, murderers, and all the rest, ever breaking over the barriers into the new heavens and the new earth. Sin and its potential are forever shut out of the new creation.
Finally, the lake of fire is eternal, for it is the second death, and there is no third resurrection. It is eternal separation from God, and there is nothing as fearful and frightful as that.
NEW JERUSALEM, DESCRIPTION OF THE ETERNAL ABODE OF THE BRIDE
The appearance of this city is the quintessence of beauty, refined loveliness, and uncontrolled joy. Lofty language describes her merits, and descriptive vocabulary is exhausted in painting her portrait. The contemplation of her coming glory is a spiritual tonic for those who grow weary on the pilgrim journey down here.
The New Jerusalem is really a postmillennial city, for she does not come into view until the end of the Millennium and the beginning of eternity. This city was evidently in the mind of Christ when He said, “I go to prepare a place for you” (see John 14:2), but the curtain does not rise upon the scene of the heavenly city until earth’s drama has reached a satisfactory conclusion. Earth’s sorrow is not hushed until the endless ages begin.
The New Jerusalem will be to eternity what the earthly Jerusalem is to the Millennium. The earthly Jerusalem does not pass away, but it takes second place in eternity. Righteousness reigns in Jerusalem; it will dwell in the New Jerusalem. Imperfection and rebellion exist even in the earthly Jerusalem during the Millennium; perfection and the absence of sin will identify the heavenly city. Just as a king’s queen is of more importance than the place of his government, thus the New Jerusalem transcends the city of earth. This will cast no reflection on the earthly city, nor will it cause her inward pain. She can say in the spirit of John the Baptist, “She that hath the bridegroom is the bride” (see John 3:29).
The New Jerusalem is the eternal abode of the church. The New Jerusalem is the home of the church, the hometown of the church. This is a city toward which the church is journeying as she pitches her tent in that direction. We are now to look at this new home by reading the architect’s blueprint in this twenty-first chapter.
And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife [Rev. 21:9].
And there came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls, who were laden with the seven last plagues; and he spoke with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
What follows in verses 9–21 is a description of the city. We have seen the psychological or spiritual aspects of it that are wonderful, but this physical description is also worth contemplating.
We must pause here to consider the relationship of the city to the citizens—the city proper to the church. Certainly we are not to infer that the empty city without the citizens is the bride. The citizens are identified with the city in chapter 22, verses 3, 6, 19. Those outside are identified here in verse 8 as disfranchised. Although a distinction between the bride and the city needs to be maintained, it is the intent of the writer to consider them together.
This passage is a description of the adornments which reveal something of the love and worth that the Bridegroom has conferred upon His bride.
And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God [Rev. 21:10].
And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.
Certainly this city has no counterpart among earth’s cities which are built upon an earthly foundation and are built up from that base. This city comes down out of heaven. She originates in heaven, and the Lord Jesus is the builder. Although the city comes down out of heaven, there is no suggestion that she comes down to the earth. The earthly city never goes to heaven, and the heavenly city never comes to earth. Just how far down the city descends is a matter of speculation.
This has led to extreme views in interpreting the New Jerusalem. At the very beginning, Ebionism, one of the first heresies, went to the extreme of applying this whole passage concerning the New Jerusalem to the earthly Jerusalem. The Gnostics, another early heresy, went to the other extremity in spiritualizing the passage to make it refer to heaven. Many modern “isms” apply the New Jerusalem to themselves and set it up on earth at the geographical location of their choice. Liberal theologians and amillennarians have left the city in heaven, in spite of the scriptural statement that it comes down “out of heaven.” Two facts are evident from this passage: (1) It comes down out of heaven, and (2) it is not stated that it comes to the earth. This passage of Scripture leaves the city hanging in midair. This is the dilemma that many seek to avoid, but why not leave the city in midair? Is anything incongruous about a civilization out yonder in space on a new planet? The New Jerusalem will either become another satellite to the earth or, what is more probable and what I think is true, the earth will become a satellite to the New Jerusalem as well as the rest of the new creation. This chapter indicates that the city will be the center of all things. All activity and glory will revolve about this city. God will be there, it will be His headquarters, and His universe is theocentric (God-centered). The New Jerusalem is therefore worthy to merit such a preeminent position for eternity.
Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal [Rev. 21:11].
Having the glory of God: her light was like unto a stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone, shining like crystal.
Paul instructs the believers to “… rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:2). This hope will be realized in the holy city. Man in sin has never witnessed the revelation of the glory of God. The experience of Israel in the wilderness taught them that each time there was a rebellion in the camp, the glory of God appeared in judgment. The manifestation of God’s glory strikes terror to a sinful heart, but what glorious anticipation to be able to behold His glory when standing clothed in the righteousness of Christ!
Two wonderful facts make this city the manifestation of the fullness of God’s glory. (1) The presence of God makes the city the source of glory for the universe. Every blessing radiates from the city. (2) The presence of the saints does not forbid the manifestation of the glory of God. Sin caused God to remove His glory from man’s presence, but in this city all that is past. Redeemed man dwelling with God in a city “having the glory of God” is the grand goal which is worthy of God. This city reveals the high purpose of God in the church, which is to bring “many sons unto glory” (see Heb. 2:10).
The word translated “light” (phoster) is the Greek word for source of light. The city is a light giver. It does not reflect light as does the moon, nor does it generate light by physical combustion like the sun, but it originates light and is the source of light. The presence of God and Christ gives explanation to this, as He declared, “… I am the light of the world” (John 9:5). God is light.
The whole city is like a precious gem. This gem is likened unto a jasper stone. The modern jasper is a multicolored quartz stone. The stone referred to here cannot be that, for this stone is not opaque. “Jasper” is a transliteration of the word iaspis, which is of Semitic origin. Moffatt suggests that iaspis could mean the modern opal, diamond, or topaz.
The stone is transparent and gleaming, which suggests one of these stones, most likely the diamond. The diamond seems to fit the description better than any other stone known to man. The similarity of the Hebrew word for crystal in Ezekiel 1:22 to the Hebrew word for “ice” helps to strengthen this view. The New Jerusalem is a diamond in a gold mounting. This city is the engagement ring of the bride; in fact, it is the wedding ring. It is the symbol of the betrothal and wedding of the church to Christ.
THE GATES OF THE CITY
And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:
On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates [Rev. 21:12–13].
Having a wall great and high; having twelve (large) gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: on the east (day spring) were three gates; and on the north three gates; and on the south three gates; and on the west three gates.
There are twelve gates to the city, three gates on each side. On each gate is the name of one of the tribes of Israel. This is very striking and suggests immediately the order in which the children of Israel camped about the tabernacle in the wilderness wanderings. The tribe of Levi was the priesthood and served in the tabernacle proper. The New Jerusalem is a temple or tabernacle in one sense, for God is there dwelling with man. The bride constitutes the priesthood who serve Him constantly. They serve as such in the city and dwell there as Levi did about the tabernacle.
Everything in eternity will face in toward this city, for God is there. The children of Israel on earth will enjoy the same relationship to the city that they did toward the wilderness tabernacle and later the city temple. This city will be a tabernacle to Israel. The children of Israel will be among the multitudes who come into this city to worship in eternity. They will come from the earth to bring their worship and glory. They will not dwell in the city anymore than they dwelt in the tabernacle of old. Those who actually dwell there will be the priests, who are the bride. The bride occupies the closer place to God in eternity, and the bride, like John in the Upper Room, reclines upon His breast. “Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? …” (Song 8:5). She is the bride, and she has come up from the wilderness which is this present world. But the twelve tribes of Israel will come up to the celestial city to worship, three tribes coming up on each of the four sides. They will then return back to the earth after a period of worship, but the bride will dwell in the New Jerusalem.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CITY
And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb [Rev. 21:14].
This city has twelve foundations, and the names of the twelve apostles are upon them. The church today is “… built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Eph. 2:20). When Christ returned to heaven, He committed the keys into the keeping of the apostles. On the human level, the church was in the hands of these twelve men. The Book of Acts gives the order: “The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen” (Acts 1:1–2). I do not believe that Matthias is the apostle who succeeded Judas. I personally believe it was Paul. Simon Peter held that meeting to elect Matthias before the Holy Spirit came, and I do not think he was in the will of God when he did so. You never hear Matthias mentioned again, but you surely hear of Paul the apostle, and I think he is the one whom God chose to succeed Judas, making Paul the twelfth apostle.
To these twelve apostles were committed all the writings of the church. These men preached the first sermons, they organized the first churches, and they were among the first martyrs. It is not honoring to Scripture to attempt to minimize the importance of the twelve apostles. In a real sense they were the foundation of the church. To them the church shall eternally be grateful. This is not to rob Christ of His place, for He is “the chief corner stone,” but the church is built upon the foundation which the apostles laid.
THE SIZE AND SHAPE OF THE CITY
And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof.
And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal [Rev. 21:15–16].
The shape of this city is really difficult to describe, due largely to our inability to translate our concepts from a universe of time to the new creation of eternity. The measurements of the city have given rise to all sorts of conceptions as to the size and shape of the city. First of all, let us examine the size of the city. Twelve thousand furlongs is given as the measurement of each side and the height of it. It is twelve thousand stadia in the text, which means about fifteen hundred miles. This figure is corroborated by Dr. Seiss, Dr. Walter Scott, and others. The amplitude of the city is astounding when first considered but is commensurate with the importance of the city. Certainly God as Creator can never be accused of stinting, economizing, or doing things that reveal littleness. When you go down to the beach, you notice that He has put plenty of sand there and plenty of water in the ocean. He has made many mountains and He has put rocks everywhere. With a lavish hand, He has garnished the heavens with stellar bodies. When He does something, He certainly does it in abundance. This city bears the trademark of its Maker. The Lord Jesus, the Carpenter of Nazareth, is the One who built this city.
Now consider with me the shape of the city. “The city lieth foursquare” is the simple declaration of Scripture. That would seem to indicate that the city is a cube with fifteen hundred miles on a side. Dr. Seiss sees it as a cube. Dr. Harry Ironside sees it as a pyramid. Still others interpret these measurements in as many geometric figures as can be conceived. However, it is difficult for us to conceive of either a cube or a pyramid projected out in space. We are accustomed to thinking of a sphere (that is a ball-shaped object) hanging in space, because that is the general shape of the heavenly bodies. As far as we know, there are none out there that are square like a cube or like a pyramid. Cubes and pyramids are appropriate for earth’s buildings, but they are as impractical for space as spheres are impractical for earthly buildings. Yet it is definitely stated that the city is foursquare.
The difficulty resolves when we think of the city as a cube within a crystal-clear sphere. What we are given are the inside measurements. I think of it as a big plastic ball with a cube inside, having all eight of its corners touching the sphere. As this involves mathematics, which I could not figure out, I asked both a mathematician and an engineer involved in the space program to determine what the circumference of the sphere would be. They both came up with the same answer. To enclose a cube measuring 1,500 miles on each side, the circumference of the sphere would be about 8,164 miles. The diameter of the moon is about 2,160 miles, and that of the New Jerusalem sphere is about 2,600 miles. Thus, the New Jerusalem will be somewhat larger than the moon, and it will be a sphere like the other heavenly bodies. I personally believe that this is the picture that is given to us here.
My thinking is that we will live inside this sphere, not on the outside. Here on earth, we live on the outside, and that presents a few difficulties. The Lord had to make the law of gravity to hold us on the earth, or we would be flying out into space. We walk on the outside here, but I think that we will walk on the inside of the New Jerusalem.
THE WALL OF THE CITY
And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.
And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass [Rev. 21:17–18].
The wall of the city is for protection. A walled city is a safe city. The New Jerusalem is safe, and those who dwell therein dwell in safety. The heavenly Salem will enjoy the fruits of safety and peace. Made up of those who found peace with God on earth, she will experience the fullness of peace throughout eternity. The walls are a sign that this city has achieved the full meaning of her name—peace.
The walls are 144 cubits in height or about 216 feet. Herodotus gives the estimation for the walls of ancient Babylon as 50 cubits thick and 200 cubits high. Those walls were built to make the city impregnable. The great height of the walls of the New Jerusalem are but commensurate with the great size of the city. Beauty, rather than protection, is the motive in design. It is a wall with jasper built into it and is generally designated as a jasper wall. The hardest of substances and the most beautiful gem constitute the exterior of the city.
THE STONES OF FIRE IN THE FOUNDATION
And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;
The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst [Rev. 21:19–20].
The twelve foundations of the city not only have the names of the twelve apostles, but they are twelve different precious stones. The most beautiful and costly articles known to man are precious stones. These stones express in human terms the magnificence of the city. The superlative degree of gems is used to convey something of the glory of the city to those who now “… see through a glass, darkly …” (1 Cor. 12:11). We are going to see through it clearly someday.
A close examination of these twelve stones in the foundation reveals a polychromed paragon of beauty; varied hues and tints form a galaxy of rainbow colors. The stones are enumerated as follows:
1. Jasper (Gr: iaspis)—its color is clear. As mentioned before, this is probably the diamond. It is crystal clear, a reflector of light and color. Dr. Seiss, in speaking of the New Jerusalem, describes it “as clean, and pure, and bright as a transparent icicle in the sunshine.”
2. Sapphire (Gr.: sappheiros)—its color is blue. This stone occurs in Exodus 24:10 as the foundation of God, “… and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.” Moffatt describes it as a blue stone. Pliny describes it as opaque with gold specks, to which Petrie agrees.
3. Chalcedony (Gr.: chalkedon)—its color is greenish. It is an agate. Pliny describes it as “a variety of emerald gathered on a mountain in Chalcedon.” Robertson says, “Possibly a green silicate of copper.”
4. Emerald (Gr.: smaragdos)—its color is green. Robertson describes it as a green stone.
5. Sardonyx (Gr.: sardonux)—its color is red. Robertson describes it as white with layers of red.
6. Sardius (Gr.: sardios)—its color is fiery red. Pliny says that it is the red stone from Sardis. Swete says that it is fiery red.
7. Chrysolyte (Gr.: chrusolithos)—its color is golden yellow. Moffatt assigns it a golden hue. Robertson says it is a golden color like our topaz.
8. Beryl (Gr.: berullos)—its color is green. It is like the emerald, says Robertson. Pliny says it is sea green.
9. Topaz (Gr.: topazion)—its color is greenish yellow. Robertson calls it a golden greenish stone.
10. Chrysoprasus (Gr.: chrusoprasos)—its color is gold-green. A golden leek, “a leek colored gem,” says Robertson. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia describes it as sea green.
11. Jacinth (Gr.: huakinthi)—its color is violet. It is the color of the hyacinth. Pliny gives the color as violet.
12. Amethyst (Gr.: amethustos)—its color is purple. Although the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia lists it as a ruby, Robertson gives the color as purple.
The foundations of the New Jerusalem are constructed of the flashing brilliance of rich and costly gems. On the inside is Jesus who, when He was here, was the Light of the World. There He will be the Light of the Universe. Astronauts tell us that in space the colors almost entirely are gray and black—but wait until you see the New Jerusalem. It is going to light up God’s new heavens and new earth as they have never been lighted before. I think it is going to be the most breathtaking sight that you have ever seen. This New Jerusalem is a planet which comes down right out of heaven. Everything is going to revolve around it, and the light will come from there. It truly will be the Jesus Christ Light and Power Company then. The light will shine out in all these brilliant and beautiful colors.
Color is described to us today as dissected light. If you pass a ray of light through a prism, it is broken up into three primary colors: red, blue, and yellow. From these three primary colors come all colors and shades of colors. Light is a requirement for color. Where there is no light, there is no color. Objects of color reveal color to the eye because of their ability to absorb or to reject light rays. A red stone absorbs all the color rays except red; it rejects or throws back to the eye the red ray, which gives it the color of red.
The New Jerusalem is a city of light and a city of color. God is light, and He is there. The city is described as a jasper stone as clear as crystal. All of this color will be coming out and flooding God’s universe. The jasper stone is a sphere, and the city, the New Jerusalem, is within. The light shining from within through the jasper stone, acting as a prism, would give every color and shade of color in the rainbow—colors that you and I have not even thought of yet, The New Jerusalem is, I believe, a new planet, and it is inside a crystal ball. The presence of the primary colors suggests that every shade and tint is reflected from this city. A rainbow that appears after a summer shower gives only a faint impression of the beauty in the coloring of the city of light. Oh, what a glorious place this is!
THE CITY AND STREET OF GOLD
And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass [Rev. 21:21].
Notice that verse 18 also says, “and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.” We were told at the beginning of this description that this city is transparent. This is the thing that gave me the lead and the key to believe that we will live on the inside and that everything is transparent. This would mean that the light shines from the inside out and goes through these many different-colored stones. Many colors which our natural eyes cannot see today we will be able to see with the new body that we shall have at that time.
We are also told here that the street is pure gold. Personally, I do not care about the asphalt of the place, but there are two things here that impress me. (1) It is not streets (plural) but street (singular)—this is not a city with many streets. (2) And it is “transparent”—even the street is transparent; it is gold, but transparent gold.
This leads me again to insist that what we are looking at is the inside of a globe. You could not have cities like we have today without having streets. You would certainly have a traffic jam with just one street. The New Jerusalem has just one street, which would begin at the four gates; it would start around the circle of the globe, go all the way to the top, and then circle and come back down. One would be the entrance and the other the exit. There is just one street, and my viewpoint lends itself to the idea that there is one street. The fact that it is transparent gold means that the light can shine out. There will be nothing to hinder the light, not even the street.
NEW RELATIONSHIP—GOD DWELLING WITH MAN
And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof [Rev. 21:22–23].
God lights the new creation directly by His presence. After the entrance of sin into the old creation, God withdrew His presence, and “darkness covered the face of the deep” (see Gen 1:2). Then God made use of the physical lights in His universe. He put them up like we put up street lights or lights in our homes. However, in the new creation sin is removed, and He again becomes the source of light. Today the Lord Jesus Christ is the Light of the World in a spiritual sense: “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12).
In the new creation He is the direct physical as well as the spiritual light. In the tabernacle there was the golden lampstand, which is one of the finest pictures of Christ. In the New Jerusalem He is the golden lampstand. The nations of the world will enter the Holy City as the priests entered the Holy Place in the tabernacle for the purpose of worship. The nations of the earth, as well as Israel, will come to the New Jerusalem as the high priest of old entered the Holy of Holies. Instead of the blood being brought, the Lamb is there in person. What a picture we have here!
The temple, which supplanted the tabernacle back in the nation Israel, was an earthly enclosure for the shekinah glory. It was a testimony to the presence of God and the presence of sin. Where sin existed, God could be approached only by the ritual of the temple. However, in the New Jerusalem sin is no longer a reality but is like a hideous nightmare, even locked out of the closet of memory. The actual presence of God with the redeemed eliminates the necessity for a temple, although the whole city may be thought of as a temple. Some have called attention to the fact that the New Jerusalem is the same shape as the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle and temple where God dwelt: a perfect cube. That is no accident, by the way. In the city of light God is present, and sin is absent; therefore, an edifice of a material substance is no longer necessary, The physical temple was a poor substitute for the presence of God. The New Jerusalem possesses the genuine article—God in person. It is probably the first place where God will make a personal appearance before man. What a glorious prospect this is!
New Jerusalem will be independent of the sun and moon for light and life. What a contrast to the earth, which is utterly dependent upon the sun and the moon. It may be that the sun and moon will even be dependent upon the celestial city for power to transmit light, since the One who is the source of light and life will dwell within the city. Neither will light be furnished by the New Jerusalem Light and Power Company. The One who is light will be there, and the effulgence of His glory will be manifested in the New Jerusalem unhindered.
NEW CENTER OF THE NEW CREATION
And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it [Rev. 21:24].
And the nations shall walk amidst the light thereof: and the kings of the earth bring their glory into it.
“And the nations shall walk amidst the light thereof.” It does not say they will live there, but that they will walk in the light of it. In other words, the New Jerusalem (instead of the sun and the moon) will give light unto the earth.
“And the kings of the earth bring their glory into it.” This is my reason for saying that there will be a great deal of traffic commuting back and forth between the New Jerusalem and this earth down here. Not only will Israel come up there to worship, but the nations of the world which have entered eternity will also come up. It will not be their permanent abode, but they will come up there to worship. I believe that the church will be the priests at that time. We are told that we are a priesthood of believers.
And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there [Rev. 21:25].
And the gates thereof shall in no wise be shut by day (for there shall be no night there).
It is nonsense to say that the gates will not be shut at night because there is no night. Therefore, he says that they will not be shut by day. In other words, they are going to throw away the key because there will be no danger. In John’s day, a walled city had gates for the purpose of protection. When the gate of a city was closed, it meant that an enemy was on the outside and that they were trying to keep him there.
And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.
And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life [Rev. 21:26–27].
And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it: and there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie: but only they that are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
God has apparently accomplished His original purpose with man—fellowship. He now has a creature who is a free moral agent and who chooses to worship and serve Him eternally.
There can be no night, since the Lamb is the light, and He is eternally present.
The gates are not for protection, and they are never closed. Rather, they are the badge or coat of arms of the bride. Notice that these gates are of pearl. The pearl of great price has been purchased at a great price. In the parable (see Matt. 13:45–46) that the Lord Jesus gave, the pearl is not Christ whom the sinner buys. What is a sinner to pay for Christ?—he hasn’t anything that he can pay. It is the other way around. The merchant man who bought that pearl was the Lord Jesus Christ, and the pearl is the bride. It is interesting that a pearl is formed by a grain of sand that gets into the body of a little oyster or mollusk of some kind, and that little marine creature begins to put around that grain a secretion that before long makes the pearl. The pearl of great price is margarites in the Greek, and if the church has a name, it is Margaret. The Lord Jesus Christ paid a great price to buy this pearl. This pearl was formed from His side. Someone has said, “I got into the heart of Christ through a spear wound.” He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities. The church will be for the display of His grace throughout eternity to the absolute myriads of God’s created intelligences. “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus”(Eph. 2:7).
In other words, in eternity you and I will be there on display. They will look at Vernon McGee and say: “Do you see that fellow? He deserved hell, and the Lord Jesus Christ died for him and paid a tremendous price. He trusted Christ; that is all he had to offer. Now look what the Lord Jesus has done for him. He has made him fit for heaven and made him acceptable in the beloved.”
The church will be the fairest jewel of all when He makes up His jewels (see Mal. 3:17–18). When He makes up His jewels, the church is going to be on display. This is the reason that the New Jerusalem will be the center of the new heavens and the new earth.
The Lamb’s Book of Life contains the names of the redeemed of all ages. No one who was not redeemed by the blood of Christ will ever be permitted to enter the portals of the New Jerusalem. There is a great gulf fixed between the saved and the lost.
The greatest joy that will capture the heart of the redeemed will be that of abiding in the presence of Christ for eternity. “That where I am, there ye may be also” is what He said in John 14:3. This is heaven, my friend, to be with Him. Revelation is all about Jesus Christ—He is the centerpiece of God’s universe.
Our attention has already been directed to the fact that a redeemed remnant of Israel makes regular visits to the city of God. In verse 24 another group is identified who come into the city to bring their glory and honor. These are the redeemed gentile nations which will occupy the earth together with Israel for eternity. These nations, like Israel, do not belong to the church, for they are redeemed after the church is removed from the earth (or before the church came into existence). They come as visitors to the city. They come as worshipers. In Hebrews 12:22 we are told there is also present an innumerable company of angels who evidently constitute the servant class. The city is cosmopolitan in character. All nationalities meet there, and the created intelligences of God walk the street of the New Jerusalem.
Among the multitudes, there is not one who will bring defilement or sin. How superior is this city to even the Garden of Eden where the lie of Satan made an entrance for sin. No lie or liar will ever enter the portals of the heavenly Jerusalem. All dwellers and all tourists are not only redeemed from sin but have also lost their taste for sin. They come through the gates which are never closed. The enjoyment of this glorious city is not restricted to the church, although they are the only ones who dwell there.
Jerusalem, the golden, with milk and honey blest!
Beneath thy contemplation sink heart and voice oppressed;
I know not, O I know not what joys await me there;
What radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare.
“Jerusalem the Golden” —Bernard of Cluny
What a picture and how inadequately I have dealt with it. Oh, if only you and I both could be lifted up so that we might get a glimpse of the glory of that city and of the glory of the One who is its chief adornment, even the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the glorious prospect and privilege of being with Him throughout eternity. There is nothing to compare to it!
CHAPTER 22
Theme: River of the Water of Life, the Tree of Life; the promise of Christ’s return; the final invitation
This chapter brings us to the final scenes of this great book of scenic wonders. It likewise brings us to the end of the Word of God. God gives us His final words here, and because they are last words, they have a greater significance. We are brought to the end of man’s journey. The path has been rugged. Many questions remain unanswered, many problems remain unsolved, but man enters into eternity in fellowship again with God, and there all will be answered.
The Bible opens with God on the scene: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). It concludes with Him on the scene and in full control of His own. He suffered, He paid a price, and He died—but the victory and the glory are His, and He is satisfied. Isaiah 53:11 puts it like this: “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.”
RIVER OF THE WATER OF LIFE AND THE TREE OF LIFE
Chapter 22 opens with a beautiful description of the New Jerusalem.
And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations [Rev. 22:1–2].
As usual I’ll give my own literal translation of the Greek text throughout this chapter.
And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street thereof. And on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Up to this chapter, the New Jerusalem seems to be all mineral and no vegetable. Its appearance is as the dazzling display of a fabulous jewelry store; we wonder if there is no soft grass to sit upon, no green trees to enjoy, and no water to drink or food to eat. However, here are introduced the elements which add a rich softness to this city of elaborate beauty.
There was a river in the first Eden which branched into four rivers. Although there was abundance of water, it is not called the water of life. Eden was a garden of trees among which was the Tree of Life. God kept the way open for man by the shedding of blood (see Gen. 3:24). In the New Jerusalem there is a river of the Water of Life, and the throne of God is its living fountain supplying an abundance of water.
“The tree of life” is a fruit tree, bearing twelve kinds of fruits each month. There is a continuous supply in abundance and variety. In eternity man will eat and drink. That is a great relief to many of us, I am sure. The menu is varied but is restricted to fruits, as it was in the Garden of Eden: “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so” (Gen. 1:29–30).
There is a tendency to spiritualize this passage in Revelation and compare it to the fruit of the Spirit. I have no objection to that and would rather take that viewpoint myself, provided we hold to the literal interpretation, which I think you can do through this section. Although it does seem highly symbolic, I think we are dealing with that which is quite literal, for we are still talking about heaven.
Even the leaves of the tree are beneficial—they have a medicinal value. Why healing is needed in a perfect universe is a very good question and a difficult problem to solve. Perhaps it is a sort of first-aid kit which demonstrates the old adage, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” I personally believe that the bodies of the earth dwellers in eternity will be different from the bodies of the believers in the church who are to be like Christ (that is, their bodies will be like His). The bodies of the earth dwellers may need renewing from time to time. This may be the reason that they come up to the New Jerusalem—not only to worship, but also to be renewed physically and spiritually. At least the prevention is there.
However, the possibility of sin entering simply is not there.
And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:
And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.
And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever [Rev. 22:3–5].
And there shall be no curse anymore: and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein: and His servants shall do Him service: and they shall see His face; and His name shall be on their foreheads. And there shall be night no more; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
The first creation was blighted by the curse of sin, and this old earth on which you and I live today bears many scar marks of the curse of sin. The new creation will never be marred by sin. Sin will never be permitted to enter even potentially. It was potentially in the Garden of Eden in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The very presence of God and the Lamb will be adequate to prevent it. It was during the absence of God in the Garden of Eden that the tempter came to our first parents.
The throne of God and the Lamb are in New Jerusalem. It is general headquarters for God the Father and God the Son. The notable absence of any reference to the Holy Spirit does need some explanation. You see, in the first creation the Holy Spirit came to renovate and renew the blighted earth: “The Spirit of God brooded over the face of the waters” (see Gen. 1:2). He is the instrument today of regeneration in the hearts and lives of sinners. There will be no need of His work in the new creation in this connection; therefore the silence of God at this point is eloquent.
“His servants shall do Him service” reveals that heaven is not a place of unoccupied idleness but a place of ceaseless activity. It will not be necessary to rest in order to give the body an opportunity to recuperate. The word for “service” is a peculiar one. In his Word Studies in the New Testament Dr. Vincent says, “It came to be used by the Jews in a very special sense, to denote the service rendered to Jehovah by the Israelites as His peculiar people.” We read this in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “Then verify the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary…. Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God” (Heb. 9:1, 6). It will be a peculiar service to God that you and I will perform in eternity. What it is, I do not know. He may give us charge of universes. There will be ceaseless activity since there is no night. Man will at last fulfill his destiny and satisfy the desires of his heart.
Man will at last see His face. This was the supreme desire voiced by Moses in the Old Testament and Philip in the New Testament. It is the highest objective for living. What divine satisfaction!
“His name shall be in their foreheads.” Each person will bear the name of Christ. Each will be like Him, yet without disturbing his own peculiar personality. I have always said this facetiously, but it could be true: If He will, I want God to let me teach the Bible in heaven. I want to attend the classes which Paul teaches, and then I would like to teach those people who were members of the churches I served on the earth but who would not attend the midweek Bible studies. I have asked to teach them for one million years and, I tell you, won’t think it is heaven for that first million years! I am really going to work them and make them catch up. Whether that will be true or not, I don’t know, but I do say that we are all going to be busy there.
Our attention in this section is called to the direct lighting of the new creation. There will be no light holders such as the sun or light reflectors such as the moon. God lights the universe by His presence, for God is light.
It is in eternity that the bride will reign with Christ. Who knows but what He will give to each saint a world or a solar system or a galactic system to operate. Remember that Adam was given dominion over the old creation on this earth.
PROMISE OF THE RETURN OF CHRIST
And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done.
Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book [Rev. 22:6–7].
And he said unto me, These words are faithful and true: and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show unto His servants the things which must shortly come to pass. And behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy of this book.
The important thing to note is that when He says, “And behold, I come quickly,” He means rapidly. This is repeated again in verse 12 and verse 20. It is repeated three times here at the end: “Behold, I come quickly”—not shortly or immediately or even soon. These events that we have been looking at in Revelation, beginning with chapter 4, take place in a period of not more than seven years, and most of them are confined to the last three and one-half years. The encouragement here is that the Lord Jesus says that it will not be a long period: “I am coming shortly. I will soon be there.” But that means when we get to this period. We are not exactly accurate when we speak of “the soon coming of Christ.” I have said that many times myself, but I do not think it is an accurate term, and it gives the wrong impression.
The Lord Jesus puts His own seal upon this book: “These words are faithful and true” means that no man is to trifle with them by spiritualizing them or reducing them to meaningless symbols. Our Lord is talking about reality. At the beginning of this book, there was a blessing pronounced upon those who read and hear and keep these words. In conclusion, the Lord Jesus repeats the blessing upon those who keep these words. This is a book not to merely satisfy the curiosity of the natural man but to live and act upon.
And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.
Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.
And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.
He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still [Rev. 22:8–11].
And I John am he that heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel that showed me these things. And he saith unto me, See (thou do it) not: I am a fellow servant with thee and with thy brethren the prophets, and with them that keep the words of this book: worship God. And he saith unto me, Seal not up the words of the prophecy of this book; for the time is at hand. He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still; and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him do righteousness still: and he that is holy let him be made holy still.
Notice John’s final and oft-repeated statement that he was both auditor and spectator to the scenes in this book. This is the method that was put down at the very opening of the book. It is the first television program, for John both saw and heard.
John was so impressed that his natural reaction was to fall down and worship the angel. The simplicity and meekness of the angel are impressive. Though the angels were created above man, this angel identifies himself as a fellow servant with John and the other prophets. He was merely a messenger to communicate God’s Word to man, and he directs all worship to God. Christ is the centerpiece of the Book of Revelation—don’t lose sight of Him.
“Seal not up the words of the prophecy of this book.” Daniel was told to seal up the words of his prophecy because of the long interval before the fulfillment of it (see Dan. 12:4). In fact, we in the twentieth century have not come to the Seventieth Week of Daniel yet. In contrast, the prophecy given to John was even then in process of being fulfilled. For nineteen hundred years, the church has been passing through the time periods of the seven churches given in chapters 2–3.
“He that is unrighteous … he that is filthy”—probably the most frightful condition of the lost is revealed here, even more so than at the Great White Throne judgment of chapter 20. The sinful condition of the lost is a permanent and eternal thing, although it is not static, for the suggestion is that the unrighteous will increasingly become more unrighteous: “he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still.” The condition of the lost gets worse until each becomes a monster of sin. This thought is frightful!
On the other hand, neither is the condition of the servant of God static. They will continue to grow in righteousness and holiness. Heaven is not static. Even in the Millennium “of the increase of His kingdom there shall be no end.” What a glorious and engaging prospect this should be for the child of God! We shall have all eternity to grow in knowledge.
And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star [Rev. 22:12–16].
Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to render to each man according as his work is. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are they that wash their robes, in order that theirs shall be authority over the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city. Without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie. I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright, the morning star.
The church should know this program of God. Either the angel is bearing a very personal word from Jesus, or else the Lord is breaking through and saying it personally. Our Lord promises that He is coming again. That is His personal declaration. No believer can doubt or deny this all-important and personal promise of the Lord Jesus.
He will personally reward each believer individually—those in the church at the Rapture as well as those of Israel and the Gentiles at His return to set up His kingdom at the Millennium.
It is little wonder that Paul could write: “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus?” (Phil. 3:10–14).
Again the Lord Jesus asserts His deity: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” He said this at the beginning of Revelation, and He concludes with it.
Only blood-washed believers have authority over the Tree of Life and access to the Holy City (see Eph. 1:7–12).
“Dogs” come off rather badly in Scripture. This perhaps does not mean that there will be no dogs in heaven, but because dogs were scavengers in the ancient world they were considered unclean and impure. Also, “dogs” was the designation for Gentiles (see Matt. 15:21–28) and Paul’s label for Judaizers (see Phil. 3:2).
Apparently the Lord Jesus had sent His angel with this very personal message. “I Jesus”—He takes the name of His saviorhood, the name He received when He took upon Himself humanity, and the name that no man knows but He Himself. You and I are going to spend eternity just centering on Him and His person. My friend, if you are not interested in Jesus today, I do not know why you would want to go to heaven. That is all we are going to talk about up there; we are going to talk about Him.
He is called “the root and the offspring of David,” which connects Him with the Old Testament. But He is “the bright and morning star” to the church. Have you noticed that the bright and morning star always appears at the darkest time of the night? Its appearance indicates that the sun will be coming up shortly. The Old Testament ended with the promise that “the Sun of righteousness will arise with healing in his wings”—that is the Old Testament hope (see Mal. 4:2). But to us, He is the Bright and Morning Star who will come at a very dark moment.
FINAL INVITATION AND WARNING
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book [Rev. 22:17–19].
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he that heareth, let him say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him come: he that will, let him take the water of life freely. I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto them, God shall add the plagues which are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book.
The bride is the church. This is a twofold invitation—an invitation to Christ to come and an invitation to sinners to come to Christ before He returns. The Holy Spirit is in the world today, and He joins in the prayer of the church which says, “Lord Jesus, come, come.”
The Holy Spirit is performing His work in the world today in converting and convicting men. He works through the Word and through the church which proclaims His Word. The invitation to men is to come and to take the Water of Life: “Ho, every one that thristeth, come ye to the waters … without money and without price” (Isa. 55:1). The Lord Jesus stood and said, “… If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink” (John 7:37). That is the invitation that goes out today. If you are tired of drinking at the cesspools of this world, He invites you to come, What an invitation this is to come to Him!
FINAL PROMISE AND PRAYER
He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen [Rev. 22:20–21].
He who testifieth these things saith, Yea: I come quickly. Amen: Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.
“Yea: I come quickly”—not soon, but when these things begin to come to pass, He is even then at the door.
“Come, Lord Jesus” is the heart cry of every true believer.
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” The Old Testament ends with a curse; the New Testament ends with a benediction of grace upon the believers. Grace is offered to all, but if any man (regardless of his merit) refuses the offer which is extended, he must bear the judgment pronounced in this book.
Grace is still offered to man. It is God’s method of saving sinners.
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
—John Newton
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Recommended for Further Study)
Barnhouse, Donald Grey. Revelation, an Expository Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Zondervan Publishing House, 1971.
Criswell, W. A. Expository Sermons on Revelation. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1966.
Epp, Theodore H. Practical Studies in Revelation. Lincoln, Nebraska: Back to the Bible Broadcast, 1969.
Gaebelein, Arno C. The Revelation. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, 1915.
Hoyt, Herman A. The Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Winona Lake, Indiana: Brethren Missionary Herald, 1966.
Ironside, H. A. Lectures on the Book of Revelation. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, 1960. (Especially good for young converts.)
Larkin, Clarence. The Book of Revelation. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Published by the Author, 1919. (Includes fine charts.)
Lindsey, Hal. There’s a New World Coming. Santa Ana, California: Vision House Publishers, 1973.
McGee, J. Vernon. Reveling Through Revelation. 2 vols. Pasadena, California: Thru the Bible Books, 1962.
Newell, William R. The Book of Revelation. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1935.
Phillips, John. Exploring Revelation. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1974.
Ryrie, Charles C. Revelation. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1968. (A fine, inexpensive survey.)
Scott, Walter. Exposition of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. London: Pickering and Inglis, n.d.
Seiss, J. A. The Apocalypse, Lectures on the Book of Revelation. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1957.
Smith, J. B. A Revelation of Jesus Christ. Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1961.
Strauss, Lehman. The Book of Revelation. Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, 1964.
Walvoord, John F. The Revelation of Jesus Christ. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1966. (Excellent comprehensive treatment.)
McGee, J. Vernon, Thru the Bible with J. Vernon McGee, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers) 2000, c1981.