Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: It's not often that we get a new start, but it sure is great when we do. Welcome to Thru the Bible where we're doing just that. We're starting over. I'm Steve Schwetz, welcoming you aboard the Bible Bus for the first study in our five-year journey through the entire Word of God. So whether this is your first trip through the Bible or your second or third or maybe even more, we're certainly glad that you're here.

The Holy Spirit, of course, is our bus driver, and Dr. J. Vernon McGee is our teacher and guide, pointing out the sights in this initial study called Guidelines for Understanding Scripture. Greg, this is an exciting day, isn't it?

Greg: It's really exciting. It's historic. This is only the 12th time in our more than half-century history as a ministry that we're once again launching this teaching.

Steve Schwetz: 56 years. I like to talk about it as the ministry that no smart person in the broadcast radio or podcasting world would do. As two leaders, we celebrate the truth of that statement. The fact that it just keeps going on and on, and Dr. McGee went home to be with the Lord so many years ago, and yet God and this ministry continue to grow and flourish. Those of you that are listening, I know are already being blessed by Dr. McGee's teaching, so you know what I'm talking about. It is truly timeless.

Greg: And that's why we can find ourselves launching the 12th series of this material. I keep waiting for my phone to ring and a station manager to say 11 is enough, we're done. And it hasn't happened yet, Steve.

Steve Schwetz: So we would encourage you, if this is your first trip or if this is your sixth, seventh, eighth trip, whatever that is, we would encourage you to listen as often as you can. I know there's a sense that you keep a streak going, like you've heard the phrase of falling off the wagon. Not that this is alcoholic, but hear me out. Talk about falling off the Bible Bus in the next five years.

The door is always open. It stops every day. If you have the app, you can start it up anytime. You don't have to binge watch if you get six or seven programs behind; just pick up where you left off. That was one of the things that my pastor encouraged us years ago when we were reading through the Bible. He said if you miss a few days, just pick up where you should have been. There's a sense of wanting to catch up and bring everything forward. Don't do that. Just start with the program for today and go forward, and make a commitment to listen today and tomorrow.

Greg: Well, and may I make a confession? You won't tell anybody, will you? I don't listen every day. I listen to every program. I think one of the reasons these new tools are so amazing is because you and I have pretty busy, crazy lives. Sometimes I come to a Wednesday and I haven't listened, but the app and the website allow me to go back and listen every day. Your point is so well taken. This is not about guilt; it's about grace and it's about growth. Seriously, friends, we just want you to join this journey and Steve is there every day holding open the door to the Bible Bus and saving you a seat.

Steve Schwetz: Couple of other tips for you: we would encourage you that if you're not on our mailing list, it's not so that we can send you a bunch of stuff, but you get a monthly newsletter and you get a bookmark that lists the daily programs that you can fit into your Bible. I also love putting the newsletter into my Bible as part of my devotional time to be praying for the ministry.

Also, you can keep up with the program by reading the passage before we begin. That's so helpful. You'll get so much more out of the study and ideally with the Bible open as Dr. McGee's teaching. I know that helps me a lot, but I do listen in the car and I don't typically have my Bible open then. Hopefully not. But I have read it, so that would be two tips for you. Then just continue listening and praying that the Lord would use it in your life.

Greg: And we make a promise to you: you ride the Bible Bus for the whole five-year journey or as much of it as you can make, you will study every book in the Bible through more than 1,300 studies. Very few people in their entire life can say they've done that. What you and I have learned and millions of others is that once you get into the habit and the rhythm, it's actually not that difficult. It just becomes a part of your daily routine. Greg, we're out of time. We want to get to the study. Would you pray for us?

Father, we're honored on this Good Friday to be starting something once again that is so important. We know that you did something wonderful in history on this day through the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray now that as the millions of fellow Bible Bus riders join together to study your Word, that you will do a great work in us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Steve Schwetz: And now I'm pleased to say for the first time in our new journey, here's Thru the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now as we begin this series, we are naturally going to begin in Genesis. But before we do, I want to give a very brief series on guidelines for the studying of the Bible. Now I want to say just a word about the Bible and what we are attempting to do in this Thru the Bible program.

Many years ago in downtown Dallas, Texas, there was a church that had this very impressive message on a sign out over the sidewalk: "The Bible as it is for man as they are." That to me is a tremendous statement. Let me repeat it: "The Bible as it is for man as they are." Now that has been the goal of the Thru the Bible ministry, and that is to give the entire Bible, the total Word of God, as it is and give it to man as they are.

Let me just reach as it were in the air and call to mind some things that just come to me at this time. There's a little mother up yonder in Alaska, a little mother who lost a son in the war. She lives in a little town that is snowed in during the wintertime, and she wrote and told us what this ministry meant to her.

Out yonder on the reservation in Arizona in Navajo land, there is another Navajo mother who tells me that in the summertime she puts her little radio outside at night and listens. Then in the wintertime, she has to leave it outside as she can't get it, but she has to sit inside and through the flimsy curtain of the hogan, she listens to the Bible teaching. May I say if these were the only two, I'd think it would be worthwhile to broadcast.

But I think of the preacher that's down yonder in the Caribbean who wrote and said, "Keep coming our way because if you don't, I won't have any sermons to preach." Well, I'd like to help him. And then there are multitudes of others that are using this radio ministry and we're delighted for that. We'd like to actually expand this ministry and have it reach as many people as possible because we believe as others believe, and I hope I'll have time to give you some of those quotations today.

So we are going to attempt to give the entire Word of God. We believe that all the Bible is the Word of God and that all of it should be taught, not just some of it, not just the familiar books of the Bible. It's so easy to settle for that.

Here's a little poem that came to me several years ago, and it's based on the statement in 2 Kings 23:2, "And he read all the words of the book." Not just some of them, but all the words of the book. And here is the poem. Let me share this with you today.

I supposed I knew my Bible, reading piecemeal, hit or miss, now a bit of John or Matthew, now a snatch of Genesis, certain chapters of Isaiah, certain Psalms, the twenty-third, twelfth of Romans, first of Proverbs. Yes, I thought I knew the Word. But I found that thorough reading was a different thing to do, and the way was unfamiliar when I read the Bible through.

You who like to play at Bible, dip and dabble here and there, just before you kneel a weary, yawning through a hurried prayer; you who treat the crown of writings as you treat no other book, just a paragraph disjointed, just a crude impatient look. Try a worthier procedure, try a broad and steady view; you will kneel in very rapture when you read the Bible through.

And so today, we invite you to study with us the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, 66 books. Every chapter and most of the verses we'll be dealing with. It's going to take five years to do it, and if the Lord spares our lives, we'll all, I'm confident, be better men and better women and have the most thrilling experience that we've ever had. I trust that you are going to come along with us in this wonderful experience that we're going to have.

Now I want to share with you some very outstanding quotations of men concerning the Bible because this is a book that has influenced the great men who in turn have influenced this world. I am of the opinion, and this of course is merely an opinion of a poor preacher here in Los Angeles, but I'm of the opinion the reason that we do not have great men today is simply because of the fact that we do not have men who at least respect and read the Word of God.

Now there have been great men of the past that you would not call them Christian, but they had a great respect for the Word of God. Today, the hatred and the bitterness that is exhibited especially on the part of some so-called great men—and they're not great, it just means television and radio and the newspaper has given them a prominence they do not deserve at all. In fact, I'm sure that many of you recognize that we're given a pretty much of a lopsided viewpoint today.

So let me go back, if you will, to way back in history and quote from certain ones that made a tremendous impact upon this world in which we live. There was an African prince who came to England and was presented to her majesty Queen Victoria. This prince made a very significant statement, in fact it was in the nature of a question, and he asked her, "What is the secret of England's greatness?" And the Queen got a beautifully bound copy of the Bible and presented it to the prince with this statement: "This is the secret of England's greatness."

I wonder today, friends, the fact that England now has become not only a second-rate but a third-rate nation, and England's having trouble getting friends as well as we're having today, I'm wondering if maybe that somehow or another that it's not tied up in the fact that England has gotten away from the Word of God. I believe that's what made England great was the Word of God. It's known in history that England was in for a bloodbath and a revolution the same as France, but God raised up John Wesley and a revival came to England at that time.

It might be interesting to note what some of our early presidents had to say. President Adams made this statement, and I'd like to read this to you. He says, "I've examined all"—and he's speaking now, by the way, of the Bible, I'm reading, let me go back and read this then—"I have examined all, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened means, and my busy life would allow me, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world. It contains more of my little philosophy than all the libraries I've seen, and such parts of it as I cannot reconcile to my little philosophy, I postpone for future investigation."

And then there was another President Adams, as you know, and the second President Adams said this: "I speak as a man of the world, command of the world, and I say to you, search the scriptures. The Bible is the book of all others to be read at all ages and in all conditions of human life; not to be read once or twice or thrice through and then laid aside, but to be read in small portions of one or two chapters every day and never to be intermitted unless by some overruling necessity." That's the end of the quotation.

Now friends, let me hear you top that one. He was a President of the United States. The very interesting thing is there were presidents back in those days that made our nation great and they didn't get us into foreign wars and they were able to solve the problems of the street. Somebody says, well, they weren't as complicated then as they are now. They were for that day, my friend. May I say to you that it's quite interesting to see that not only England, but the United States today, we've gotten away from the Word of God, and the farther we get, the more complicated our problems become.

Right now, there are certain men that are in positions of authority in this land that are making the statement that there's no solution to our problems. That's the reason we're teaching the Word of God in all of its entirety, because we believe there is only one solution. Frankly, friends, I think we'd better get back to it. If we don't, we're gone.

Will you listen to another president? President Woodrow Wilson. President Wilson, by the way, was the son of a preacher. He was a great man. He was an idealist, he was a post-millennialist, and I never met a post-millennialist in my life that was not an idealist and who was one who never dealt with reality. But that didn't keep him from being an outstanding man, and after all he was president of Princeton and then became President of the United States.

When I was just a student in seminary, they sent me down to preach at the First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia. They were having, I think, a little difficulty in that church, and they felt like a seminary student couldn't hurt them very much either good or bad, so they sent me down.

I went down and preached and I never shall forget. It was a hot day and a hot day in the spring and it can get hot down there and very humid, and they had me preach in a robe. That's one of the few times that I've ever preached in a robe and come to think of it, I think it was the only time. I found out that if you'd strip to the waist and put on the robe and then when you got up in the pulpit, if you'd make gestures by lifting your arms up and down, you'd create a draft and you could keep cool. Somebody said to me they'd never seen a young preacher make so many gestures, and I kept cool, I know that.

But I noticed when I was preaching that there was a plaque down on the first pew there to my left. I couldn't wait till after the service was over to go down and read that. When I did go down, I got down on my hands and knees and read it, and you know what it said? It said that Woodrow Wilson when he was a boy sat in this pew with his mother when his father was pastor of that church.

So may I say to you, I know something of his background and his belief because I was educated in that same tradition and I know it does lead to a glorious idealism. But it does forget the great truth of the scripture that man today is a sinner and he's totally depraved. The League of Nations was ideal, just as I suppose that today the little affair they have going on in New York City could be called that, but you see it doesn't deal with human nature as it really is.

Well now, let me quote from Woodrow Wilson about the Bible. He says, "I would be afraid to go forward if I did not believe that there lies at the foundation of all our schooling and all our thought the incomparable and unimpeachable Word of God." Now my friend, Woodrow Wilson couldn't say that today. He could say that back in the teens, that is 1914, '15, '16 all through there, but he couldn't say that today. That may be one of the reasons we're in such desperate condition today. I would not want to be President of the United States, and friends, that's not sour grapes either. I wouldn't have it if they offered it to me, and if anybody's thinking about running me, I trust you'll forget it, friends; I'm not going to run at all.

Now let me give you some other quotations today of great men concerning this book we're going to study, the Word of God, the Bible. It was Gregory the Great that made this statement. He says, "It's a stream where the elephant may swim and the lamb may wade." When I read that, I thought about all we'd be doing would be like a little child at the shore or on the beach of a vast sea, and we'd have our little bucket and spade and be playing there, but out before us there'd be a vast ocean that we'll not be able even in five years to comprehend. What a glorious thing is ahead of us, friends.

Judge Hale years ago wrote to his son this statement: "There is no book like the Bible for excellent learning, wisdom, and use. It is want of understanding in them who think or speak otherwise." I wish we had more judges like that today.

Now Thomas Jefferson was a deist. Thomas Jefferson, I think by the standards of those of us today that are conservative, I don't know that whether we'd call him a Christian or not, but I certainly don't want to argue that point and I'm not sitting in judgment upon this great man. But I would like to quote what he had to say about the Bible. He says, "I have always said and always will say that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands." That's something to think over today in a day when citizens are burning down the cities in which we live and divorce is running right today where now almost, well here in Southern California, divorce is equal of marriages today.

I'd like to give a few more quotations before we conclude this study today because I'm anxious to let you see that though the Bible may be in disrepute in many quarters today—and we'll look at that in time—but that this is the book that in the past that's brought greatness to this world and we today somehow or another are losing that greatness.

Will you listen to what Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great literary critic and writer of England, this is what he says. I'm quoting him now and this is a statement that he made in his last sickness to a young man who sat up with him during the night, and here is his statement to that young man: "Young man, attend to the advice of one who has possessed a certain degree of fame in the world and also will shortly appear before his Maker. Read the Bible every day." May I say to you, that's a tremendous statement, is it not?

Now I'd like to quote Daniel Webster. "I have read it through many times. I now make a practice of going through it once a year. It is the book of all others for lawyers as well as divines, and I pity the man who cannot find in it a rich supply of thought and rules for conduct." That's end of quotation of Daniel Webster. He read the Bible through many times.

You see today the tendency is even among our conservative folk to stay in familiar areas, especially when the other is so unfamiliar. In the Gospel of John, no one goes wrong there; Philippians, and many of us stay in prophecy, but there are others.

I think I'll have time for one final quotation and that is Thomas Carlyle. He was that Scotch philosopher. I'm quoting: "A noble book, all men's book. It is our first, oldest statement of the never-ending problem, man's destiny and God's ways with him here on earth. And all in such free-flowing outlines, grand in its sincerity, in its simplicity, in its epic melody and repose of reconcilement."

My friend, we're going to be for the next five years talking about the Bible. Not about the Bible; we are going to see what the Bible has to say. May I say to you that today we're talking about it, and the difference will be when we get underway in Genesis. We'll not be talking about the Bible then or attempting to defend it, but we will be attempting to teach the total Word of God. I believe it with all my heart. Next time, we're going to talk to you about the inspiration of this book. Be with us and go along with us in this wonderful adventure together, going through the Bible in five years. All right, until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Schwetz: There's so much more to come in this great study of God's Word, so get back on the Bible Bus every day with us. This weekend, we're going to celebrate Resurrection Sunday. We'll share a sermon by Dr. McGee that we've never aired before; it's called "The Stranger of Galilee." You'll find the Sunday sermon in our app, of course, as well as online at ttb.org, or just call us at 1-800-65-BIBLE if we can help you find a radio station in your area. I'm Steve Schwetz, thanking God for the privilege of studying His Word with you today and every day for the next five years.

Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe; Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

We're grateful for the faithful and generous support of Thru the Bible's partners whom God uses to take the whole Word to the whole world.