Thru the Bible - Questions & Answers

Announcer (Male): When Jesus taught the people, he used stories or parables to convey a specific point. Dr. McGee helps us understand a number of those stories today, so be sure to join us.

You're listening to the Question and Answer program with our Bible teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee. This is a ministry of the Thru the Bible Radio Network. Now our first question comes from a listener in Jeffersonville, Ohio. He says, "Could you please explain the meaning of Luke chapter 16, verse 9, which says, 'And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home'?"

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Many of the parables the Lord gave are parables by contrast, and this happens to be one of them. The Lord Jesus cites a man of the world who, when he found out he was going to lose his job, he began to dicker with the customers of the man he was working for and he made a good deal with them, which was entirely wrong. But he was thinking of his future. And so his investments were pretty good. He was able to extend consideration to them, and he received consideration after he was fired. He was building up something. Now, it was totally wrong what he did, but he was smart. And the Lord Jesus says that the children of this world—crooked even—they are wiser than the children of light.

Now what he's saying here is, how do you invest your money? This mammon of unrighteousness. We've got some of it, all of us have, and it's not worth as much as it once was. But where do you invest your dollars for God? I know people that go down at the stock market. When I was pastoring downtown Los Angeles, they'd sit all day in a broker's office watching that stock market board going up and down. They invest. They are wise, smart, some of them made money so I was told. One man I heard about made a fortune doing that sort of thing.

How do you invest God's money? Do you hear some sentimental appeal on the radio or in your church and you are moved by it and you give to that? You're not smart at all. Why don't you investigate when they say that they are a worldwide mission? We claim that we're getting a word of God out to the world. Do you give to this program? Do you know whether we're doing it or not? You ought to find out. You ought to investigate. That's the reason I read letters so people will know.

When you invest money, you are actually building something with wood, hay, stubble or with gold, silver, and precious stones. Don't you want to invest for the future so that when you get in God's presence someday He says, "My, you've sure got a nice deposit here of gold"? Some of us are going to get in and find out that all we had was a haystack and they've already burned it up because every man's work's going to be tested by fire. I found out that a lot of these rich men are smart fellows when it comes to investing and in their business.

But some Christian worker that's got a good line of gab can come along, butter them up, and they'll make out a substantial check for a work that's doing nothing. You're just building wood, hay, and stubble, friends. Why don't you investigate? Why don't you find out and put your money where it's going to receive you someday into heaven? And this is practical. Our Lord is being very practical there.

Announcer (Male): Our next question comes to us from a listener in Big Rapids, Michigan and she writes, "Could you please explain what is meant by the word lawful in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12, verse 4?"

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: We're going to attempt to do that, but we'll first have to turn to 2nd Corinthians. It concerns this term here of lawful. What does it actually mean? I want to read the verse of course. 2nd Corinthians 12, verse 4 reads like this: "How that he was caught up"—this speaks of the incident when Paul was caught up to the third heaven—"how that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words, which is not lawful for a man to utter."

Now the word lawful here is a revelation of the fact that you have a Greek word that it's practically impossible to put into English. I can tell you what it means. I can give you that, and I trust that that will explain to you why they use the term that they did. The word is a very interesting word and it means that it's something that is not allowed. It's not permitted. It's something that is beyond the boundary of expression. It means actually that it's impossible to express it.

Paul is not saying that there is some rule abroad that makes it impossible for him to tell them what he saw and heard, but that it was actually so wonderful and ecstatic and exciting that the vocabulary, the Greek vocabulary, is a beggar because it cannot even furnish him, cannot even give him one word that would tell how wonderful it was what he saw. That word lawful is a very poor translation, but it's the best that you can get.

It's impossible for it to be put into a language, that day in Greek, and certainly you couldn't put it in our language at all. The original word, the verb, means to be out of the country. And we have a few expressions today that carry the meaning: "way out." We say a certain thing or a certain person is way out. And what we mean is you can't explain it. It actually means it's in the realm of reason but not in the realm of speech. I hope that I've conveyed to you something of the meaning of that. That's the reason that the Greek language is such a wonderful language that we have the Gospel and the New Testament given to us in that.

Announcer (Male): We come now to a question from a listener in Marriott Island, Washington who writes: "We often hear the statement 'absent from the body, present with the Lord.' Could you please explain what Paul meant by this statement as mentioned in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, verses 6 through 8?"

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Well, I think frankly that the passage in 2nd Corinthians that you refer to is speaking of that same thing, that is, the death of Christians and what actually takes place. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians, the fifth chapter, in verses 7 and 8—and if you'll begin in verse 6: "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, not by sight). We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord."

Paul is saying here actually two things: that if we are present with the Lord, we are absent from the body, and if we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord. And he means that is something that takes place instantaneously. I don't think that there is any time period. I don't think you could say it's a second or a half a second or anything like that. I believe that he says about the coming of Christ, it's in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.

Well, what is the twinkling of an eye? When the eye goes down or when it comes up or both? And how long does it take? Well, some busybody in the past has measured that and they come up with something like one less than one-hundredth of a second. So it takes place in a very quick time. And that is the thing Paul is actually emphasizing in 2nd Corinthians.

But I think you get a better understanding of what is said here because it's the exact language that you hear the clergy use today, and that's in Philippians chapter 1, verses 23 and 24. Now listen to this: Paul says, "For I'm in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ; which is far better: nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." And then he has just said that it's absent from the body and present with the Lord here. He says that "I'm in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ; which is far better." And that is absent from the body and present with the Lord.

That is the death of a believer. That when a believer dies, the moment that the spirit leaves this body in which we are living today—and Paul says in that passage in 2nd Corinthians that this is a tabernacle, just a tent that we live in down here, and it's a very frail tent; you put it in front of an automobile going 35 miles an hour and believe me, you'll move out of that tabernacle in a hurry. For a child of God, the moment he's absent from the body, that same moment he's in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what Paul means. I'm glad that you hear ministers use that because it is entirely Bible language that they're using, and I'm sure you're not complaining about that. But I think if you use the Philippian passage that it will be more understandable to you.

Announcer (Male): We turn now to this question from a listener in Raleigh, North Carolina who writes, "Could you please explain the meaning of Matthew chapter 25, verse 20?"

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: That's Matthew 25:20. He says, and I want to be sure I have the right verse: "And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I've gained beside them five talents more."

Well, the important thing is that God equipped this man with a great talent, and that probably was of teaching the Word of God, and I consider that a wonderful talent. And so this man exercised it. Now there was a man there that just had one talent and this is the danger today. When I went to the Church of the Open Door as pastor, a dear lady came to me after the first service and said, "Dr. McGee, I sit back there in row 5, three seats in. Been sitting there for about 15 years and I'll pray for you, but there's nothing I can do."

To pray for the preacher is a ministry. And the trouble is that there are a lot of people saying today, "Well, there's nothing for me to do, I can just pray." Well, friends, make sure you exercise that one talent because our Lord, He had a little difficulty with the person with one talent who would not exercise it. Therefore this entire parable illustrates the fact that you and I are held responsible for the gift that God's given us.

If God hasn't given you a gift to be a speaker or a singer or a Sunday school teacher, you must have one talent somewhere along the line. Or maybe you have 10 talents and don't recognize what it is. I know that two young men years ago, one agreed to go to the mission field and the other agreed to stay home and support him. And he supported him as long as he lived. Now, I'm not sure which young man there had the 10 talents and the one had the one talent. Whatever talent God's given you, be sure and use it. That's what that parable is teaching us.

Announcer (Male): In a previous question, a listener asked about a passage in Luke chapter 16. This listener from Eugene, Oregon has a similar question, however, Dr. McGee gives a slightly different application of the passage as he responds to this question: "Could you please explain Luke chapter 16, verses 1 through 12?"

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Of course the one you're talking about here is really this question of the unjust steward. Now Dr. Luke uses parables in a different way and he's using this parable of the unjust steward to show how the man out in the world does it. In other words, this unjust steward, when he found out that he lost his job and he's going to be out in the cold, why he made arrangements because he was a crook. He made arrangements to discount the bills in order that these people would be indebted to him that were indebted to his master. And when he was finally put out, he had quite a bit coming to him. And I'm not sure but what a lot of Christians use that method today.

Now what the Lord Jesus is saying, a child of God is not to use that method. We don't use the methods of the world. But we ought to have the same zeal that that man had. He says, "If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to you the true riches?" Now if what God has given you today, if you're not using it for God—as one man says to me, God's part comes first and then I take what's left—if you're not showing that you're a steward of God, the Lord Jesus said you don't even come up to the man of the world in zeal.

The child of God should exhibit that kind. It's wonderful today to see, and I have that privilege of seeing, so many of God's servants that give their time and their money to God's work today. They are using the zeal that the unjust steward used. And if the man of the world can use that kind of zeal, why don't God's children? And the Lord Jesus said we are to exercise just a little zeal when we're serving God today. That's the meaning, I think, of the parable, the broad meaning.

Announcer (Male): Here's a question from a listener in Shafter, California who writes, "James in his epistle says that faith without works is dead. Why do pastors who believe in the eternal security of the believer try to get around this verse in doubtful ways?"

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Well, that's not been my experience. I do not know any preacher who believes in the eternal security of the believer attempts to evade or get around this passage of scripture. I know when we teach it, we bump right up against it and I personally don't see that it presents a problem at all, especially when you look at the book of James. James is writing from a very practical standpoint. In fact, he's writing from man's viewpoint. And he wrote after the church had come into existence and there were a great many that apparently were professing to be followers of Christ that probably were like Ananias and Sapphira, that they made a profession but they didn't carry it out in works. Now James says from man's standpoint that faith without works is dead.

I believe that that's literally true. Now even John Calvin said faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone. I use the same thing quite a bit, especially in dealing with the parable of the prodigal son. That boy was a son all the way through that parable. It's not how a man becomes a son of God, it's how a son of God who gets into sin can return to his heavenly Father, that the Father will always welcome him home. It has several other good meanings there and one is that has to do with the eternal security of the believer.

And with this passage: faith without works is dead. You know that boy in the pigpen was never a pig. He lived like a pig, he ate like a pig, but he wasn't a pig. And since he had the nature of his father, he wanted to go home. And one day he said, "I will arise and go to my father." And one day he arose and he went to his father. Why? Because he's a son. A son will always do that. Now when you try to tell me, "Well, I knew a fellow he was a drunkard, he got saved and then he went back to drinking and he became even worse than he was before," well, that man got cleaned up, reformed a little, but he didn't get saved, as we say. He did not really appropriate the redemption that there is in Christ. He made a profession, but he possessed nothing.

This is a good scripture: faith without works is dead. Saving faith will produce works. And if it doesn't, you just have to come to one conclusion. Now I've had funeral services of several people that were members of my church and I honestly wondered about their salvation. I couldn't help but wonder, but I always take the position the minute that that man ceased to breathe, he's out of my hands. He's before God now, not before me. I can't judge him anymore. I find it difficult to judge the dead that have already gone. They're before God and they'll have to stand before Him. But if they're a child of God, you can be sure of one thing: they're going to produce works. And works follow salvation, works do not precede salvation. And we need to keep that in mind.

Announcer (Male): Now this listener in Orlando, Florida has a question from Psalm 48, verse 13. He writes, "How could this psalm refer to a future generation when according to you this psalm is after the kingdom has already been established?"

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: There was something else that I said that I wish you had heard because as we entered the Psalms especially, I said many of these Psalms are written and they are prophetic Psalms, Messianic Psalms and they look forward to the time of the kingdom being established upon this earth and upon the King reigning upon this earth. Now they have a present application for...