Thru the Bible

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Steve Schwetz: After a long and intense journey through the Book of Genesis, the Bible bus is headed to the New Testament. Welcome to Through the Bible. I'm Steve Schwetz, and in our study, we're going to hear Dr. J. Vernon McGee introduce us to the Gospel of Matthew. A book that he felt makes a profound impact on a person's life. Here are a few of his thoughts on that.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: This is a good place for you to begin going through the Bible with us. It'll be an experience that'll be life transforming. It will revolutionize your own lifestyle and also your home and maybe your church. That's what's happening in the study of the word of God. We invite you first of all, of course, to listen to the program. And the second thing which actually ought to be number one is to read the scripture that we are going to study, read it beforehand. And it'll make it very meaningful to you. Also, we urge you to get notes and outlines which we provide.

Steve Schwetz: Yes, this is a wonderful time to start going through the Bible with us. If you're a new listener, welcome aboard. We're so glad that you've hopped aboard the Bible bus alongside our listening family that speaks more than 250 languages and lives in nearly every country in the world. You're going to find the free notes and outlines Dr. McGee mentioned right in our app or you can visit ttb.org and download our digital book briefing the Bible, which contains them all. You can also call 180065 Bible and request an abridged paperback copy be sent to you by mail.

And if you miss a study and you want to catch up, you can listen anytime with our app. And don't have that yet? Well, it's super easy. You can download it from any of the app stores. It's a great resource. Also, check out our Bible companion for Matthew. It's a concise and clear summary of Dr. McGee's teaching in a great way to travel through God's Word with us.

In fact, many say it's their favorite way to study alongside Dr. McGee. So you can download it for free or order a print copy at ttb.org or call 180065 Bible. Now before we turn to our study, one more thing. Reading letters from listeners is a tradition Dr. McGee began on Through the Bible back a long time ago at the beginning of the ministry, and it's one that we love to continue today.

And it's such a joy to see how God uses his word as we commit to studying it together. And to give you just a taste of what I'm talking about, here are a few notes from our fellow Bible bus passengers. The first this is an email from a listener in the US who didn't leave their name, but shared this. I boarded the Bible bus back in 1996 when I first got saved. I climbed back aboard for this latest trip during the Gospel of John, and I'm excited about this new cycle as well. My eight-year-old son rides along with me, although I'm not always sure how much he understands, but the other day he reminded me about a letter from a listener in Afghanistan who asked to be accepted in the Through the Bible bus family and wants to become a Christian. Apparently, my son is paying attention. He and I have been praying for this listener ever since. Thank you for your ministry and all that you do to get God's word to as many people as possible.

Well, we certainly love hearing when Through the Bible becomes a family journey, don't we? Now here's a note. This is from Sandra. I have been blessed by catching a daily ride on the Bible bus. I have strengthened my faith through Dr. McGee's lessons. He keeps his listeners wanting more insights into God's word every day. My prayer is that the word of God is sown in the hearts of all who listen and share how much they are uplifted by his ministry. Peace and love to you all in the Lord. Well, let's join Sandra in that prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for the way that your word is changing lives across generations, across nations, and across languages. Thank you for families who study together, and for faith that's grown stronger each day. As we open the scriptures now, Lord, plant your word deep into our hearts and draw us closer to you in Jesus name. Amen.

Now we're off to the Book of Matthew on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now, as we come today to the Gospel of Matthew, I'd like to bridge the gap first between the Old Testament and the New Testament, because in order to appreciate and have a right understanding of the New Testament, it's almost essential to know something about this period of approximately 400 years. You see, after Malachi had spoken, heaven went silent. Station G.O.D. went off the air, and there was no broadcasting for 400 years until one day the angel of the Lord broke in upon the time of prayer when there was a priest by the name of Zachariah standing at the altar in Jerusalem.

He gave the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist, who's to be the forerunner of the Lord Jesus. And we'll see how important John the Baptist is in this gospel that's before us, which is Matthew, of course. We find that a great deal, though, took place in this interval of 400 years, though it's silent as far as the scripture is concerned. Yet it was during this period that in one sense, it's the most thrilling and exciting period in the history of these people, who have undergone a great deal, but during this period, it was indeed terrific and tragic in many ways.

Now, world history had made tremendous strides in the interval between the Old and New Testament. And the internal condition of Judah and the tribes experienced a radical transformation. A new culture, different institutions, and unfamiliar organizations arose in this period which appear in the New Testament. The Old Testament closed with the Medo-Persian Empire being the dominant power. Egypt was still a power to be reckoned with in world politics. And during the interval between the Testaments, both faded from the scene as outstanding nations. World power shifted from the East to the West, from the Orient to the Occident, from Asia to Europe, and from Medo-Persia to Greece. When the New Testament opens, a new power, Rome, is the world ruler.

And a consideration, I think, of some of these important dates ought to give us a bird's eye view of this great transition period. Now, I do not want to bore you, but these are things that we need to know and need to have before us. For instance, if you go back to 480 BC, Xerxes the Persian was victorious against the Greeks at Thermopylae, but he was defeated at the Battle of Salamis. At least a storm defeated him. And this was the last bid of the East for world dominion.

And in 333 BC, out of the West, there came that goat that Daniel records in the eighth chapter, Alexander the Great, the goat with the great horn. And he led the united Greek forces to victory over the Persians at Isis. And then in 332, Alexander the Great visited Jerusalem. He was shown the prophecy of Daniel, which spoke of him, and he spared Jerusalem, which was probably one of the few cities that he ever spared.

And then in 323 BC, Alexander died way over in Persia. Apparently intended to move the seat of his empire there. And the world empire, both East and West, was divided among his four generals. Now, Judea was annexed to Egypt by Ptolemy Soter in 320 BC. Seleucus, who founded the kingdom of the Seleucid, which is Syria, he attempted to take Judea over. And that became the battleground between Syria and Egypt. And this little country became a buffer state. Was very much like the old-fashioned rub board that many of you remember your mother used in a number two tub. And up and down, and up and down, she'd rub the clothes. Well, that's the way that these two nations went up and down the little land of Judea.

Antiochus the Great, he took Jerusalem in 203 BC, and Judea passed under the influence of Syria. And then it was in 170 BC that Antiochus, or Antiochus, however, you pronounce this, Epimanes, he took Jerusalem and defiled the temple. And he'd been mentioned by Daniel as the little horn in Daniel 8:9. He's been called the Nero of Jewish history. And then in 166 BC, Mattathias, the priest of Judea, he raised a revolt against Syria. And this is the beginning of the Maccabean period. I do not think that the nation Israel have ever suffered more than during this era, and never were they more heroic than during this interval. And Judas Maccabeus, that means the hammer, he was the leader who organized the revolt.

And then in 63 BC, Pompey, the Roman took Jerusalem, and this people passed under the rulership of this new world power, where they were at the time of the birth of the Lord Jesus, and all the way through the New Testament period. 40 BC, the Roman Senate appointed Herod to be king of Judea. And never has there been a family and a man that's been more wicked than this. You can talk about the Mafia all you want to, or the Cosa Nostra, or whatever it is, but this family would exceed them all.

37 BC, Herod took Jerusalem and he slew Antigonus, the last of the Maccabean king priests. And then in 31 BC, Caesar Augustus became emperor of Rome, and 19 BC was the rebuilding of the Herodian temple. Never was completed. It was going on quite a while when our Lord was born. And then in 4 BC, the Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

Now, that more or less dates that period for us, but during that time, there arose among these people certain parties that you find mentioned in the New Testament, never heard of them in the Old Testament. Let me mention several of them. The Pharisees. They were the dominant party. They arose to defend the Jewish way of life against all foreign influences. They were strict legalists. They believed in the Old Testament. And they were nationalists in politics. They wanted to restore the kingdom to the line of David. So that what you have is a religio-political party. They were what we'd call fundamental in the faith, theologically. They were way to the right as far as politics is concerned.

And then you have the Sadducees. They were made up of the wealthy and the socially minded, who wanted to get rid of tradition. The crumbs still fall from the rich man's table, by the way. And they are willing to give the crumbs, but they don't give their wealth. That is for sure. The Sadducees, they were liberal in their theology. They rejected the supernatural. They were opposed to the Pharisees. And the Sadducees were closely akin to the Greek Epicureans. That is, the Epicureans believed eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die. They were the opposite of stoics, and we have, I think, maybe a wrong idea of them. They were attempting to attain really the good life, and the way to overcome this body of ours was to give it unbridled rein, and a great many people think that's the answer today.

They tried it then, didn't work. The third group I'd mentioned are the scribes. They were a group of professional expounders of the law, which stemmed from the days of Ezra. They became hair splitters. They were more concerned with the letter of the law than with the spirit of the law. When old Herod called in the scribes, asked him where Jesus was born, they knew the letter of the law. They knew it was in Bethlehem, but you would have thought they had a hitchhiked to ride on the back of the camels and gone down to Bethlehem to see him, but they weren't interested. It was the letter of the law.

May I say, I don't think anyone who listens to this program would say that I am opposed to studying the word of God. But friend, there is a danger of just wanting the information and the knowledge and not translating it into shoe leather and letting it become part of our life. Now, Bible knowledge, and it's limited as we saw in our guidelines to the study of scripture, you can only learn certain basic facts. The Spirit of God has to be the teacher. But you can learn these facts and know all about the Antichrist and the beasts, and you can know about a great many things about predestination and free will and election.

You can know those things theologically without actually these things getting possession of your heart. Now the scribes come in that category, and personally, I feel like sometime today that the most hard-hearted people I meet are cold-blooded fundamentalists that apparently would be willing to rip you apart just in order to maintain some little point. The important thing is to know the word of God. That's a laudable attainment. The thing is not to have it for our own benefit, but to pass on to others and to translate it into shoe leather.

Now the fourth group are the Herodians, and they were strictly a party in the days of the Lord Jesus as political opportunists. In other words, they sought to maintain the Herods on the throne. They wanted their party in power, and that's the reason they went after Herod, since he was in power. Now there was during this period a time of great literary activity. The Old Testament was translated into Greek in Alexandria, in Egypt, during this period, 285 to 247 BC. And it was made by six members from each of the 12 tribes, and that's where it got the name of Septuagint.

And this was used. Paul used it, and our Lord apparently quoted from it. The Apocrypha of the Old Testament was written in this era. Their 14 books, they bear no marks of inspiration. I've listed them in my briefing the Bible. And there are two books they feel like should belong to the Old Testament. When I say they, I mean there are many good men feel like they should, that's the Book of Enoch and the Salter of Solomon. But again, these are two books that there'd be some real question about.

Now there is a period, therefore, that's marked by the silence of God, and God was preparing the world for the coming of Christ. And the four Gospels are directed to the four major groups in the world of that day. The Gospel of Matthew, it was written to the nation Israel. It was written in Hebrew first, and it was written primarily then for the religious man. The Gospel of Mark, we're going to see, was directed to the Roman. He was the man of action. He believed that government, law and order, was the way you could control the world. And a great many feel that that's the way it should be done today. Well, there must be law and order, but the Roman soon learned you couldn't rule the world like that. And the world needed to hear about one who also believed in law and order, but he also believed in the forgiveness of sins, and the grace, and the mercy of God. And that was none other than the Gospel of Mark written about our Lord and presenting him to the Romans.

The Gospel of Luke was written to the Greek, to the thinking man. And we'll see that when we get to it. And the Gospel of John, written actually for believers directly, but indirectly for the Orient, where there was the mysterious millions of the Orient, all crying out in that day for a deliverance, and are still crying out for the world today needs a deliverer. The religious man needs Christ and not religion. The man of power, as the Roman was, he needs a savior who has power to save him. And the thinking man needs one who can meet all of his mental and spiritual needs. And certainly that great Orient with the wretched man, he needs to know about a savior. Not only save him, but build him up and bring him to a place where he can live for God.

That gives you a bird's eye view of the Gospels, and I felt like it was worthwhile to take all this time for that. Now, I would like to get our foot in the door of the Gospel of Matthew. As we said, the Gospel of Matthew written by actually a publican, and he was one that the Lord Jesus had put his hand upon in a very definite way. He was his follower, his apostle. This man wrote apparently in Hebrew. Papias says that, Eusebius confirms it, and other of the apostolic fathers, they all agree that it was written originally by Matthew in Hebrew for the nation Israel.

A religious people, and I don't have time to give the background of that, but God had prepared them, this whole nation for the coming of Christ into the world. And he came of that salvation is of the Jews, the Lord Jesus said. And it was a great German historian said that God prepared the savior to come out of Israel. Salvation to come from them, and he prepared the heathen for salvation because they certainly needed it. The world needs it.

Now you will find that this is a book that is remarkable. The reason I consider it such a key book, it swings back in the Old Testament, gathers up more Old Testament prophecies, which you would expect it to do than any other book. And it moves farther into the New Testament than any other Gospel moves. For instance, no other Gospel writer, that is, Mark, Luke, or John, mentioned the church by name, but Matthew does. He's the one who gives the word of our Lord, on this rock, I will build my church.

And we find that even Renan, the French skeptic, he said of this Gospel that it's the most important book in Christendom, the most important that's ever been written. That's a remarkable statement coming from him. Now this converted publican was the choice of the Spirit of God to give this Gospel primarily to these people. Now, this Gospel presents the program of God. The kingdom of heaven is an expression which is actually peculiar to this Gospel. It occurs 32 times, and the word kingdom occurs 50 times.

And friends, a proper understanding of the phrase kingdom of heaven is essential to any interpretation of this Gospel and of the Bible. And may I make this statement right now, and I do make it categorically and dogmatically, the kingdom and the church are not the same. They're not synonymous. And the church is in the kingdom, but after all, there's all the difference in the world. Los Angeles is in California, but Los Angeles is not California. And if you disagree with that, ask people from San Francisco. And California is not the United States, but it's in the United States. Now, I know the Chamber of Commerce thinks it's the United States, but it's not. It's only 1/50th, by the way. So that the church is in the kingdom, but the kingdom of heaven, simply stated, and we'll see it when we get to it, is the reign of the heavens over the earth.

Now, I know the theologians have really clouded the atmosphere, and they certainly have made this a very complicated thing. But poor preachers like I am, have to come up with a simple explanation, and that's it. It's the reign of the heavens over the earth. Now, that's the great theme of this Gospel here for the one who is going to establish that kingdom on the earth is the Lord Jesus. That kingdom is all important. And the three major discourses that you have in the Gospel of Matthew all concern the kingdom.

You have the sermon on the mount so-called. That's the law of the kingdom. And I think only a partial list of what will be enforced in that day. Then the mystery parables in Matthew 13 concern the kingdom. In fact, that's what our Lord said. The kingdom of heaven is like a sower, and like a mustard seed, and so on and so forth. And then you have the great Olive discourse, and it looks forward to the establishment of the kingdom here upon this earth. This is very important to see. Now, we're not going to talk today about the kingdom of heaven. We don't have time to tell the truth. But you're going to find that in this Gospel, I have a different division than this, but you have the person of the king, the preparation of the king, the propaganda of the king, the program of the king, the passion of the king, and the power of the king. It's all in this Gospel. I'll follow, however, a little different division, and we'll talk to you about that next time as we get underway in this very marvelous Gospel of Matthew. Until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

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Steve Schwetz: In our next study, we're going to look at the genealogy of Jesus. Dr. McGee often reminds us that genealogies may seem boring at first glance, but they're really vitally important. In fact, he says the entire New Testament rests on the accuracy of this genealogy. So as we travel through his word together, we're going to discover why every name matters and we'll spotlight four names that stand out like neon lights.

And for more in-depth study, why don't you join me this weekend for Dr. McGee's Sunday sermon from Matthew chapter 1, The Gospel in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. You can listen in our app or at ttb.org or call 180065 Bible if we can help you find a local station. In the meantime, if we can help you find or place an order for a resource by Dr. McGee, or maybe tell you how you can partner with Through the Bible, let us know that. The number is 180065 Bible. And when you're in touch, let us know how you listen to Through the Bible. Is it on the app? Is it online? YouTube? Your favorite radio station? However you hop aboard the Bible bus, we want to know that. This little bit of information as we've said before is a huge help as we follow God's lead in taking his word to the world. So thanks in advance for your help. I'm Steve Schwetz, and I'm going to meet you back here next time as the Bible bus rolls along.

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Steve Schwetz: Through the Bible exists to take God's whole word to the whole world, and we invite you to stand with us with your faithful prayer and financial support. Where will God's word go today?