Thru the Bible

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Steve: As popular as the image of angels are, not many people understand the truth about these supernatural messengers. In this study on Thru the Bible, Dr. J. Vernon McGee gives us an unusual peek into a part of God's creation that we don't know that much about.

So, grab your copy of God's Word and turn to the book of Jude, and as you do, Greg and I have got a quick update on the good things that God's doing through His Word around the world.

Greg: And we never have enough time to talk about all the good things. Just this morning, Steve, I was on a meeting with some of our global team and a couple of us older guys—not you, you weren't in that meeting—but we said, we've been doing ministry for decades and we've never seen just the kind of explosive fruitfulness that is happening in Thru the Bible.

Steve: I'm excited because the Lord's opening so many new doors in this time where we just get further and further away and in the back of my mind Dr. McGee's words, "Play the tapes till the money runs out." It's like, okay, I think you're going to have to go to plan B, which is play them through the resurrection and back into the millennial kingdom.

Greg: Yeah, I think that might have been part of his vision. But one of the things we want to talk about is a trip that I just got back from, but it's a country you and I visited some years ago, and that is Uganda. Yeah, we had a lot of fun there. And I took one of our team members, Nathan Bugby, and he is beginning to handle direct management.

And although we don't want to focus on the internal things, we do want to let our team know that we are growing as a team and we're bringing in younger leaders, we're training them up. They love Thru the Bible, they love the Word of God, they love the mission. And you've traveled with a number of these younger leaders, and we are thrilled at what God is doing in the team He's building.

Steve: Yeah, and specifically I'm thrilled about seeing how God is moving right now in Africa. As I've mentioned before, for so long we had so much going on in India and different parts of the world kind of pop up at different times. And we are really seeing the Spirit of God move in Africa now, and that's exciting.

Greg: Yes. And one of the things we did—it was kind of a bookend kind of a trip—one of the things we did was launch or commission a brand new language, the language called Luo, spoken by about four million people in northern Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania. And we had literally only been on the air for one month when Nathan and I drove six hours north in—you remember what those roads are like?

Steve: I know what those roads are like. Those roads are, how shall we say, interesting, adventurous. And you want to make sure you're saved before you get in because you wonder if you're going to live.

Greg: But we drove this long way up and, let me tell you, for having been in broadcasting for a long time, the traditional thinking is you don't get an audience for six months or a year. Well, after one month, Steve, we must have had about 70 pastors in one room just enthusing over this new broadcast.

Steve: Yeah, it's so exciting. And I think the key to that is because it's in a language where there's only four million listeners and there's not much content, which is a theme we've really focused on really in this latest phase of Thru the Bible and how we're getting the whole Word to the whole world. Yes, we have coverage in the major languages, but the benefit of being in those heart languages where there's not much content, we have a much deeper reach into those regions and those countries and languages.

Greg: You are absolutely correct. And the whole response was, "We now have the Bible teaching in our language." And so it was really exciting to just hear from these pastors about their seeing this changing their own preaching styles. We heard pastors say, "Now that I have this kind of teaching, I'm teaching in my church differently."

Steve: Yeah, I appreciate that too, that it gives us really some flexibility to work with partners that maybe aren't aligned completely doctrinally with Dr. McGee. And okay, that's fine. They believe in the deity of Christ and some of the fundamentals, but they vary on some different things from what Dr. McGee. But we're the ones that are carrying the content and really essentially delivering the doctrine. And so it straightens things out where things are bent doctrinally with accurate teaching of God's Word.

Greg: I'm so glad you brought that up, because those of us that get to travel around the world realize that, yeah, lots of people love Jesus, love the Word of God, believe in the gospel, the saving grace of our Lord, but then on some other things, we are there to help them see what the Word of God has to say.

So, Steve, the other thing we did was we celebrated the completion of the five-year Runyachitara, which is the western language. And so it was a great bookend trip.

Steve: Wonderful, wonderful. Greg, let me pray for us as we begin.

Heavenly Father, we just praise You for the way we see Your Spirit moving in Uganda and throughout Africa. And we pray that You would continue to do that with the Luo language and many more, Lord, that many would come to Christ to glorify Your name. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Here's Dr. J. Vernon McGee with our study in Jude 6 and 7 on Thru the Bible.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now we return back to the little book of Jude and we are in verse 6 today. Now he made it very clear that certain men had come in by the side door into the church among believers. And Jude says, "I didn't write this something new. Other writers had written about it. Peter wrote about it. Paul wrote about it. That these men were coming in and they had an outward appearance of being godly, but they were ministers of Satan, but they looked like ministers of light. Inward, as Paul said, they were ravening wolves, but outside they acted like they were sheep, of course."

And the test of the men finally came because they were turning the grace of our God into wantonness—that is of arrogant sin and gross immorality—and they denied the Lord Jesus Christ. This was the mark. Now he gives instances of how God has judged in the past, and he gives first of all three groups of people. Later on he's going to give us three individuals, but here are three groups. And we saw Israel last time. Because of unbelief they could not enter the land, and they were judged.

Now we find in verse 6 where we got to last time: "Angels rebelled and they're kept in chain and God will also judge them." Now I want to read again today this verse: "And the angels who 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."

Now may I say that the judgment of angels here is something that is not new either; it is something that had been mentioned before. But before I get into that, I would like to say just a word relative to the fact of angels. Now for a long time the church was denying the supernatural, denying that there were any such creatures at all. Actually, many ministers denied that.

We're living in a materialistic age and the viewpoint was that we were going to get rid of God altogether, that we didn't need Him. And certainly the idea of angels is just a superstition. And 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.

And back in 1963, Ben Hecht wrote—and I'm going to give you just an excerpt from a little article he wrote on the new God for the Space Age—will you listen to just these first few paragraphs here? He says, "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 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. 50 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 how they feel and they do not know what to say about God, His angels, and the record of His miracles. Not wanting to sound antichristian 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."

Now that was back in 1963. And if Ben Hecht was here today, he'd note that there's been a tremendous revival. Now liberalism has been predicting for years the death knell of the church and of that, of course, which is supernatural. Now I could quote you ad nauseam what liberals said a few years ago. For instance, one 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.

Now that was the picture they gave, and of course it's the picture of the liberal church. And by the way, it certainly has almost gone by the board. But today there's been a revival of that which is the supernatural. And it's quite interesting that the revival didn't come in a church. It didn't come even among the fundamentalists. It came on the campuses of some of the colleges, and especially the campuses of some colleges that a few years ago that were blatantly materialistic and denied anything of the supernatural at all.

Now today they're talking about demonism, and they're talking about Satan, and they actually are talking about God and the Bible. So that the supernatural all of a sudden has appeared again and angels today seem to make sense even in a space age. And so in this day 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 down here on this earth.

And one of the great problems is taking place right here in Southern California. A paper that's a reputable paper here in Southern California came out with the fact that Los Angeles is becoming an armed city because of the gangs that roam the streets. And they are free to roam the streets, the article said, and good people—that is, law-abiding people—are in prison in their homes, afraid to venture out, and Los Angeles is an armed camp.

May I say to you, the thing that happened a few years ago was in this materialistic age we said human nature's gotten better, it's been improved, and we don't need all of these laws. And the lid was taken off. And my friend, we found out instead of it being a bucket of perfume, it just happened to be a bucket of slop, a bucket of filth, a bucket of garbage. And the vile and unspeakable crimes that have been committed, unbelievable immoralities taken place.

And the questions being asked, "Where does all this vileness, where does all this evil come from?" And so they need the devil, as somebody has put it. If there wasn't a devil, men would have to invent one to explain all the evil that's in the world today. In other words, humanity is depraved.

You and I don't seem to realize that we belong to a race that's totally depraved and in a world under the control of Satan today. And we think that by removing all the laws and restraints which have been that we would produce a wonderful free society. Well, instead of that, men now are returning back actually to the supernatural. And unfortunately, the great emphasis has been upon evil spirits because they have to have something to explain them.

Well, the Bible has something to say about it. Bible, you see, is very much up to date, friends. And here in the sixth verse, we have a remarkable statement: "And the angels who 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."

Now the Word of God has a great deal to say about the judgment that is coming upon this earth. And friends, instead of there going to be one judgment day—that is rather naive and, of course, those who are without a knowledge of the Bible talk about a big judgment day, the great judgment day. Well, the Great White Throne judgment is coming in the future for the unsaved, but there are actually eight judgments that are mentioned in the Word of God. And one of those judgments is the judgment of angels. And that judgment, of course, will take place sometime during the kingdom reign of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We have a passage over in 1 Corinthians 15:24, now I want to turn there and read. He says here—he gives the order of the resurrection—Christ the firstfruits, and afterward they that are Christ's at His coming. Now verse 24: "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, all authority, and all power." That is, this evil power, the demonic forces that are in the world. "For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet." So during the millennium, these demonic powers will be judged. "And then the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

Now the Scripture has a great deal to say about this judgment of angels. And I'd like to turn to several passages that refer to it. Over in 1 Corinthians 6:3, we're told: "Know ye not that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life?" Now that's something I wouldn't have known if Paul hadn't told us, that we are going to have part in that. And I think it'll be during the millennial reign of Christ on earth when we are with Him as believers. And I think that He'll commute back and forth to the New Jerusalem where the church is—that'll be the eternal home of the church—and so during that time there will be a judgment of angels. Though we're created lower than they are, someday we will have part in the judgment of them.

Now in 2 Peter 2:4, we have another reference here that corresponds to that of Jude: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell"—and the word hell here actually, of course, means Hades; it's the place of the unsaved—"and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment."

Now that leads me to make this statement here concerning our passage here that says that they are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Now if you think that this has reference to chains that has links in it, then forget it because these angels are spiritual creatures and it'd be pretty difficult to put a chain on one of them. The word is bonds. Actually, they're going to be, frankly, heavily guarded.

And again I'm going to turn to Dr. Wuest's translation that he's given. He says, "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." Now this company of angels are awaiting a judgment that apparently will come during the Kingdom Age.

Now another group of these fallen angels are the demons that are abroad today in the world. And demonic power, of course, is a reality. But may I say that all of this emphasis today, it's being overplayed and actually there's not near the manifestation of demonic power at present as we're led to believe. All of this thing has been built up to a very high pitch. But the fact is that if 90 percent of it is phony—and I think that a good percentage is phony—what about the other 10 percent or however much it is? You're sure going to have trouble explaining that away.

And that's the reason that that play, The Exorcist, got under the skin of so many people, is that here was an example of the forces of evil that are in the world. And that was nothing in the world but a movie and there's no reason for you to go there and faint because all you're doing is to see actors act. That's all that is. But the thing is, it's based upon a factual case, one that actually took place, and there are cases like that. But there's not near as much as a great many people are led to believe.

And again may I say that there are other references here. In Jude, we have this reference. And then over in the 20th chapter of Revelation at verse 10, it says: "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever."

Now this is a reference to actually hell. It's the lake of fire. And now if you want to argue literal fire, all right, but it's more literal than fire and it's worse than fire. Fire is a very weak symbol for how terrible it's going to be. After all, these are spiritual beings here that are mentioned. And the devil doesn't get there first. Great many people think the devil is in hell today. Instead of that, he's very busy in Los Angeles. Probably he's busy in your town and he has a great deal that he's able to do. He's a very powerful creature today and he's not been judged yet.

Steve: To find out more about the ministry of Thru the Bible, call us at 1-800-652-4253, or visit ttb.org. Tomorrow, we continue our search of Jude as the Bible bus rolls along through God's Word. I'm Steve Shwetz, for all of us here at Thru the Bible, we're praying that you would be blessed as you walk with Him today.

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