Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: Welcome to Through the Bible. I'm Steve Schwetz, and in this study of the New Testament book of Jude, our teacher Dr. J. Vernon McGee is going to tell us how we can protect ourselves against people who only claim to know God, in particular, false teachers. So grab your Bible and open it to Jude verses 4 to 6. And while you do that, I've got some great letters to share from our fellow passengers here on the Bible bus.

First is a note from Steve, who writes this: "I'm about to complete my first round trip through the Bible, even though I'm over 60. I feel like I am the son, and Dr. McGee is the dad dispensing the wisdom. Thank you for those who work for this ministry and the many financial supporters who make this teaching possible."

Well, thanks for writing to us, Steve, and like you, I'm so grateful for our fellow listeners who keep the Bible bus rolling in more than 250 languages all around the world. Next, we hear from Paul. "While I've been on the World Prayer Team now for a couple of years or so, I've never actually felt that connected to it and struggled with understanding if my prayers make a difference. That is until you shared a note from a fellow listener named Jackie in San Diego, who wrote that prayer had always been a mystery to her. She never knew if her prayers were quite right, or if they mattered. And then Jackie went on to say other things that I identified with. She really resonated with my lack of understanding in faith. I finally got it. So thank you, Jackie. I now look forward to being a a more meaningful member of the team."

Listeners praying for and encouraging other listeners, what a joy. Thank you, Jackie, and thank you, Paul. Our last letter comes from Scott, who writes this: "I have been very burdened for our nation and its repentance, especially in these uncertain times. I know God's will is that all repent and come to the Lord Jesus, but I've been struggling with exactly where the United States fits into prophecy. I was so blessed when Dr. McGee was teaching from Amos 9, sharing about the repentance of Nineveh and the future salvation of the nations when the Lord returns. The Lord confirmed to me that we are to keep praying and that He is faithful. Praise God for you all and the work He is doing through His Word all over the world."

Well, it's great to hear from you, Scott. Thanks for that letter. And what's God teaching you as we travel through His Word together? Why don't you tell us? Email us at biblebus@ttb.org, or send a note through our app, or write to us at Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. Or call 1-800-65-Bible anytime and leave a message. You know, we'd love to hear your story in your own voice. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank You for the work that You're doing in our lives and thank You for Your Spirit who guides us as we study. Help us, Lord, to hear from You and then give us a desire to obey Your Word in Jesus' name. Amen.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now, friends, last time I was not able to finish the matter that we were talking about, and that was the fact that in the fourth verse here, and this is a tremendous verse, he says that there are certain men that crept in unaware. And these men have come in, putting up a front that they believe one thing, but in their hearts they believe something else. In other words, outwardly, they're changed.

They're transformed into something that they are not. They pretend to be ministers of light, and they're actually ministers of Satan. And they crept in unawares, who were before of old that is written of beforehand, not ordained as we think of that, but they were written of beforehand. And last time we were calling your attention to certain passages of Scripture that enlarge upon it and show that other writers in Scripture had mentioned this. Well, I don't think I got down to quote Simon Peter.

Simon Peter said in the second chapter of Second Peter verse one, 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. The thing that is the final test, the acid test, is his teaching regarding the person of Jesus Christ. If he denies the deity of Christ, you can rule him out immediately, and you have to be very careful about this matter of the deity of Christ because there are so many facets in which they can deny the deity and give the impression that they actually believe in Him as the Savior of the world.

So that we need to be very careful today. Now, I was quoting Scripture, not only in Second Peter, but I had turned to the one that was in Second Timothy, the third chapter, verse 6. Maybe I ought to read the verse before it, "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." And I gave a warning last time, and I guess that I stuck my neck out and I got into trouble up to my neck because of certain statements that I made.

And I want to be very clear on this. I'm not backing down on anything that we said, but I do want to be understood clearly. I think one of the greatest movements there have been in our day, and there have been several, actually outside of the church. It's been this tremendous movement of the study of the Word by women, and women's Bible classes all across this country, and thank God for them. Now, I want to make this statement very clear, if I can.

My impression is, and I don't claim to be an authority in this particular field at all, that a woman is built finer than a man. She has finer sensibilities than a man. She has a closer perception, I think, than a man has. I know that I can go to a meeting, and I can meet folk and we come away, my wife and I, and she said, "Did you know this?" And I didn't know it at all. "Did you know so and so?" Well, you know, I never got on to that. I was rather stupid, I guess, but she got a world of information that I didn't get because she has a perception that I do not have.

Now, because of that, any fine instrument is in danger of being led astray also. I have to be more particular with my watch than I am with the motor in my car, because this watch is a much finer instrument than the motor in the car. I treat the car pretty rough. And I think for that reason there is a grave danger. And I've heard this voiced now by several ministers across the country. There's a danger of these becoming women's movements totally outside of the church, and not cooperating with the church at all, and operating entirely without the local church.

Now, I think it's been, first of all, a failure of the local church. The failure of the church today has led to many of these movements that have taken place outside, the youth movement, for instance. And we have found out in radio, we move largely outside of the local church. Now, we try to work with the local church, and we believe that all of these movements should work with the local church if it's a Bible church. Any Bible believing church, we ought to work with them, and there is the grave danger today.

And that's the warning that Paul is putting up. There's a danger of these false teachers coming in the side door. And I personally think that any movement that the Spirit of God seems to be blessing, needs to be watched very carefully because of the fact that the devil's going to come in the side door. And if you think he's coming in as the devil, you're wrong. His ministers are ministers of light, and we need to be very careful. And I think, and I give this warning continually on the radio, we need to be careful of the radio teacher. I tell folk constantly, many of you have heard me say this, you need to investigate the radio program you support. You ought to know about it. You ought to know something about it before you support it.

And we believe that that is something that's very important. Now, Paul again in Galatians 2:4 says, "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." Now, friends, we need to guard every movement where God is blessing today. These organizations that are outside of the church, they may go off on a tangent because actually, the ministers of Satan are waiting to come in the side door. They won't come in the front door.

I think it's foolish to guard the front door, they're not watching it. They are attempting to come in the side door. And these men are men that are characterized by one thing: they're ungodly men. Actually, in their lives, they just leave God out. I heard this concerning a man that is a Bible teacher, and I was amazed that this couple, because they do have spiritual discernment, they said, "You know, we attend his classes and we are greatly impressed by him. He's a good Bible teacher. We consider him outstanding.

But we were disturbed by the fact that he was carrying on an affair with another woman who was not his wife, and this was all out in the open where many of us could observe it." And this man was willing to tolerate that. Well, may I say to you that that is the thing that we need to recognize that these men may teach the Bible and may give an appearance, but what about their lives? That is very important. And are they putting God in their lives? Ungodly means they just leave God out.

They are not taking Him in consideration at all. And then that is their character, but they do two things here. They turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness. Now, that word lasciviousness is a very important word. We're paying particular attention, if you've noticed here, to words because they are actually very important in the study that we are having. And the word here, I suppose the best word for it is wantonness. And the word wantonness has in it the thought of lawlessness.

And it's an arrogance of doing as you please, even if you offend the sensibilities of others. That is the whole thought that is in this word here. So that they turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness, that is, they turn the grace of God into actually immorality. And this is the thing that Paul warned about in Galatians, the danger of turning the grace of God into a license that would permit you to do and live any way that you please. He warned against that, that that was always a danger.

And I'd like to turn back to that. He says in Galatians 5:13, "For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another." And so, you find that gross immorality is the thing that characterizes these because they have thrown overboard all of the great precepts of Scripture concerning morality. They call it today the new morality. Now that's been adopted by many church leaders, and there is a growing danger in this country.

Of the church actually espousing and condoning gross immorality. And the danger has been expressed by one writer. He says one of the troubles with the world is that people mistake sex for love, money for brains, and transistor radios for civilization. And it was Dr. Wallace Petty, he said that the creed of the present day is, "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 today, by the way. And this wantonness is marked by an arrogant recklessness of justice of the feelings of others. And I'm giving you now Webster's meaning of the word. Wilfully malicious. And that is today the flouting of this matter that marriage is not essential, that you live with whoever you want to live with, a total disregard of the morality that builds homes, and thereby builds a nation.

And it was about 1959 that Vice Admiral Robert Goldwaite, who was Chief of Naval Air Training, he told a group of leading educators, businessmen, law enforcement officials and others that there is a surge of immorality in civilian and military life. He said, "Moral decay is an acute national problem." Now remember that was back in 1959. Think what it is today. This is something that ought to alarm Christians today. And they ought to be very careful about the man that is teaching in the church.

Is he teaching a loose morality? That is something that's very important. And then the other thing that would characterize him, denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. He would deny the Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, he gives us therefore then these three marks of an apostate in his character. These apostates are ungodly men, and they're not converted. They leave God out. They turn the grace of God into lasciviousness.

That is, that's blatant immorality, shameless sin. They arrogantly and proudly flout sin publicly. And in Jude's day, it was Gnosticism. Gnosticism taught that the body was essentially evil, and that all matter was evil, and the Spirit alone was good, and as a result it did not matter what a man did with his body. He was free to satisfy the lust of the body. Now that was a perversion of grace. But that thing has sprung up again today. That's actually the new morality. That is abroad. It's old Gnosticism. It's old as the first heresy.

And then denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. And that of course is the mark of an antichrist. John in his Epistle, as we saw, called them Antichrist, and it's the spirit of antichrist that denies the Lord Jesus Christ. May I say to you, these are very important things for us to have before us, and that's the reason I've dwelt so long at this place. Now, he's going to give to us here six examples of apostasy in the past.

Now, I want to talk just a little about this word apostasy. We have had that up when we were in Second Thessalonians. And the word, apistemi, here gives the meaning of it to remove, to withdraw, to go away, to depart. And in Second Thessalonians, I take the position there that it has a twofold meaning because the word literally means to depart, to remove. And it means the removal of the church, because in the first Epistle, he had talked about the rapture of the church.

Now he says that rapture must come first, the apistemi, the departure, the removal of the church. Now the removal of believers down here will lead to the total apostasy, that is, the departure from the faith. And the Lord Jesus asks the question, and he asked the question like this, he says, "When the Son of man cometh, will he find the faith on the earth?" And the answer is, no. That's the way he asked the question. In the Greek, the answer is no. He will not find the faith at all.

In other words, there will be the total departure, the total apostasy. Now that cannot come about until the true believers, the true church is removed from the earth. And that, of course, could occur at any moment. Now, he is going to give us here, as we've said, six examples of apostasy in the past. That is, a departure from the faith. And there will be three groups, and then three individuals given. He'll give the three groups first, and then the three individuals.

Now, first, he'll give here the three groups. Verse 5, "I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not." Now, Israel in the wilderness, in unbelief was destroyed, and it is an example that God does judge apostates. And here you have Israel at Kadesh Barnea. Now, I'm not going back to lift that story out, but you will recall in the book of Numbers, Israel came to Kadesh Barnea, and they refused to enter the promised land.

Now, God had given them an abundance of evidence. In other words, He permitted them to send in spies, to spy out the land. They brought back evidence that confirmed the fact that the land was the kind of land God said it was. It was a good land. It was a land flowing with milk and honey. It's not the land you see there today. The judgment of God is still on that land and will be on it until they're back there worshiping God, and their return will not only be to the land, but will be a return to God.

Now, the spies brought back that evidence that God was accurate. But they didn't believe now that God could bring them in the land. First, they didn't believe it was that kind of land. They said, "Let's stay out here. This is a good place." And that was the wilderness. Now, they will not believe God. Now, that was an example of apostasy, a departure from the faith, you see. They departed from the basis on which they left Egypt. God says, "I will take you out of Egypt, and I will bring you into the land."

Now, that generation, God pushed them back into the wilderness, left them there for 38 more years till that generation died. Then God says, "Your children that you thought would be a prey, I'm going to bring them into the land." You see the excuse they used was their children. Well, you know, I have the children and that is the thing that keeps me from serving the Lord. And they were saying the same thing. We must think of our children. Well, it sounds very good, but it infers that God wasn't thinking of them. God says, "I'll take care of you. You'll go in and take the land," but they would not because of unbelief.

Now, God pushes them back into the desert. They'll be there now for 38 more years till that generation passes away. Everyone but Joshua and Caleb of that generation that came out of Egypt. They're the only two that entered the land. It was the new generation that crossed the Jordan River and took the city of Jericho. Now, they did not enter in because