Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with me." Welcome to Thru the Bible. That's the invitation that our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, shares with us from Revelation 3, verse 20.

I'm Steve Schwetz, and I'm so glad that you're here as we come to the end of the letters to the seven churches in our journey through Revelation. In this study, we're going to hear a special message from the Lord Jesus to all the churches. But before we get started, I want to share a few letters from our Thru the Bible family, this time in Mozambique, people who have recently accepted God's invitation to fellowship with Him. Let's praise the Lord together and welcome these new brothers and sisters into His family.

Guest (Male): I knew nothing about the Bible or the things of God. Whenever someone brought up God, I thought those conversations were awful and had nothing to do with me. But then I started listening to your programs. At first, it was just a hobby, something to pass the time. Little by little, though, the words began to touch my heart. They awakened something inside me, a hunger to know more about God.

One day, I heard a message on John 8:32 about knowing the truth and being set free. As I listened, I felt a strong presence telling me I need that truth in my life. That's when I opened my heart to Jesus. Now my life is entirely different. I read the Bible every day, I attend church regularly, and feel joy and purpose. What once seemed so unappealing to me has now become my greatest passion: God's word, and I want to share with others what I've learned so they too can know the truth.

Guest (Male): I thank God for the way His word reaches me through your program. For a time, I had stopped going to church, but after hearing the teaching about the importance of fellowship with other believers, I realized how much I was missing. As I returned, God told me I not only needed fellowship with others but also with Him.

I've now gone four Sundays in a row without missing a service, and I'm not just attending. I've committed to accepting the Lord in my life and getting baptized. I'm so grateful to God for learning that church isn't just showing up. I'm overjoyed to be counted among His people.

Guest (Male): I was a Muslim, but I was born again last year after discovering the truth in Jesus. I now listen to your program, and it is making a positive impact on my life. I am learning to study my Bible and understand it. I also share what I have learned with my friends. Pray they too will leave Islam for the Lord.

Steve Schwetz: Praise God. God really is moving in Mozambique, and His word continues to bring new life. If you haven't already, why don't you join me and thousands of other Thru the Bible listeners as we intercede for listeners like these all around the world? You can join our World Prayer Team from our app or at ttb.org.

Let's commit this time to the Lord. Heavenly Father, would You bless Your word as it goes out to the world? Open hearts to Your message and may Your Spirit speak loudly into the areas of our lives that You want us to surrender. In the glorious name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Here's Dr. J. Vernon McGee with our study of Revelation 4 on Thru the Bible.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now, friends, we left off last time here in the third chapter of Revelation at verse 20. I pick up there today. However, back in the 19th, He's talking now to the church there in Laodicea, and even it's not too late in this church, apparently, for those that are there to turn to Christ. He says, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent." So this church could turn to Christ and be zealous, and that word zealous means to be hot. They were lukewarm.

And then He says, "Behold," now, I take it that beginning at verse 20, that this is a general invitation that goes out from the Lord Jesus at any time. And it is this: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." Now, this is a picture of the Lord Jesus at the heart's door of the sinner. It's a glorious picture. Holman Hunt, the artist, painted this. It's a picture of Christ standing at the door.

When he first painted that picture, he invited his artist friends in to criticize it. One of them said to him, "Holman, you've left off a very important part of the door. You left off the handle of the door. There's no handle there." And he says, "Well, that door is a picture of the human heart, and the handle on the door is on the inside so that here we have that very picture. He stands at the door and knocks."

Now He won't crash the door, you see, regardless of what some extremists today in this matter of election say. The Lord Jesus will move, and He has moved, heaven and hell to get to the door of your heart. But when He gets there, He'll stop and knock, and you will have to open the door to let Him in. That is the picture that is there. And He says, "I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." And that means fellowship. It means to feed on the word of God. It means to come to know Jesus Christ better.

Now He says in verse 21, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." And again, I call attention to the fact when He speaks of His relationship to the Father, He always makes it unique. It's here "my Father." When He said, "I ascend to my Father," not "our Father," because the relationship is always different with Him.

Now He's preparing us for the next scene that will be coming up when He says, "I'm sitting on the Father's throne at His right hand," and that is the picture that we're going to see. Now He says in verse 22, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." Now, this is a message, a special message from the Lord Jesus to all the churches, that you need the blood-tipped ear to hear.

And that's the reason that today, you and I need to be very careful about our study of the word of God, that we not run ahead of the Spirit of God, but that we let Him be our teacher. If you have an ear, a blood-tipped ear, He wants you to hear what He has to say. And only the Spirit of God can make that real to us. Now, that concludes these seven churches. These are the things that are.

And they have been very important. I've spent a lot of time with these seven churches because it relates to the period in which we live and to, shall I say, our crowd. Because if we are a member of His church, we're also a member of His body, and it's a great company. Beginning with the day of Pentecost and down to the present hour, there are millions of those that have trusted the Lord Jesus as their Savior.

Now we've seen these seven churches blocked off in very definite periods of time. And largely, they're fulfilled. I think that we're in the period of the last two churches. And as we've said before, there is a bifurcation in the organized visible church today. There is that church which is moving farther and farther into the apostasy. And then there is that church that is staying by the word of God, the church in Philadelphia.

That's the church that will be raptured. The other church with its tremendous organization, and it includes all of the denominations, all that profess to be Christian churches but have long since departed from the word of God and have departed from the person of Christ. And that division today exists in the church. One church will be raptured, the other will go into the Great Tribulation period.

Now may I say that there's been a message in each one of these churches. Now, personally, I've enjoyed going through these this time more than I ever have before. And the reason for that is that since I taught the book of Revelation the last time, I have made several trips to the churches in Turkey, that is Asia Minor, and I have visited the ruins of all seven of these churches.

I have been to all of them two times and some of them as many as four or five times. And I have always enjoyed it. And each time that we have come to a new church here, I can see those ruins before my eyes. I can see the local situation. Now He spoke to a local situation, and He also blocked off all church history. These are representative churches, seven of them, the complete period of the church while it's here on the earth.

But also, there is a message in each one of them for you and me today. Now the church in Ephesus, there was a warning given and it's for us today. There was a danger of getting away from the best love. That is getting away from a personal and loving relationship with Jesus Christ. I think the real test today of any believer, especially those that are attempting to serve Him, is not your little method or your little mode or your little system or your dedication and all that sort of thing that is so emphasized today.

The one question is: Do you love Him? Do you love the Lord Jesus? Now when you love Him, then you will be in a right relationship with Him. But when you begin to depart from the person of Christ, it will finally lead to lukewarmness. The apostate church was guilty of lukewarmness. Doesn't seem to be too bad, but my friend, that's the worst condition that anyone can be in.

A great preacher in upper New York State years ago made the statement, he said that 20 lukewarm Christians hurt the cause of Christ more than one blatant atheist. And I certainly would agree with that. A lukewarm church today is the disgrace to Christ. But now each one of these churches had a message for us. The church in Smyrna, He told them not to fear suffering.

And believe me, that's the one thing that we're frightened of today in the church. We don't want to pay a price for serving the Lord Jesus. And yet, that is His method, by the way. And then to the church in Pergamum, or to Pergamos, He spoke to that church and I probably just ought to reach back and lift that out. It's in 2:14. He says, "I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam," and so on.

And those that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. And the danger is wrong doctrine. And that, of course, is a grave danger today: wrong doctrine. That was the thing that was wrong in the church in Pergamum. And then the church in Thyatira, that church, and again, turn back and look at 2:20. And if you'll notice that with me, I'll read it. "Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication."

The new morality, and that's a grave danger for many today. They think they can accept Christ and then live on a low plane. You will not get by with it, my friend, if you're His child. I can assure you that. And then to the church in Sardis, the Protestant church, there was the danger of spiritual deadness. He says you have a name that you live, but you're dead.

And what about your church, brother? Is it alive? Are you alive? Are you dead in a dead church today? And there are many that are like that. And yet they talk about holding doctrine. But my friend, the important thing in Protestantism today is the fact of deadness. And that's the worst thing that I can imagine. Now the church in Philadelphia, they were not in any grave danger because He doesn't condemn that church at all.

He has no word at all to them. But He does say this: to hold fast that which thou hast. Now what was it they had? Well, He had commended them, you'll remember, because they kept His word. And we need to be very careful about that. I look back now over my ministry and men that started out true to the faith, many of them much stronger men than I was, and were men that defended the word of God in a way that I did not in those early days.

And they've departed from the faith. I'm amazed at that, but that's a grave danger even in the church in Philadelphia today. And none of these things ought to deter us at all. This is the history of the church. Now when we come to chapter four, we naturally ask the question: what happened to the church? You don't find it from chapter four through the rest of the book of Revelation.

There's no mention of the church except when you get to the invitation at the end, which is general and hasn't anything to do with the chronology of the book. From here on, you won't find the word church mentioned. Now up to this point, the word church has occurred again and again, in fact, 19 times. Now the church goes off the air. No mention of it.

And it's gone off the air why? Because it went up in the air. It was caught up in the air to meet the Lord in the air. And the church has gone to heaven. That's what's happened to it. And it took place, as I say, during that Philadelphia period, and that thing that continued on was just an organization, and it'll go through the Great Tribulation period, and we're finally going to hear it called a great harlot. Boy, is that frightful. That's the most frightful picture in the Bible is the 17th chapter of Revelation.

And we're going to see the church again? Yes, but she's not a church. She's a bride, bride adorned for her husband. So that brings us now to this final division in this book. Now you remember that He had said very definitely, John was given the division of it, and he passed it on to us. We ought not to miss it. He says, "Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter," that is meta tauta, after these things.

And so when we come here to this book, what do we have? He says, "After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me." Now that's the sound of the trumpet that calls the church up, you see. And whose voice is it? The voice of Christ. "Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter."

What kind of things now? We'll get to that over here in verse one. But the things that are after these things. Well, after what things? Well, the church. After the church has completed its earthly run and it is caught up. Now we're coming to these things meta tauta, after these things, after the church things. Now will you notice? And I'd like to call your attention here to several striking facts that make it self-evident that we advance to a new division in chapter four.

And the climate and conditions have changed radically. And these are the things which must be hereafter, and they are in the Greek meta tauta, after these things. We begin now the last major division of the book. And what happened to the church? Well, it's not in the world. Up to chapter four, there were 19 references to the church in the world.

In fact, the subject of chapters two and three has been entirely devoted to the church in the world. Now from chapter four to the end of Revelation, the church is never mentioned in connection with the world. The final and lone reference is a concluding testimony after the world's little day has ended. In chapter 22, verse 16, Christ said, you remember to His own in John 17:16, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."

And He also said, "I'll come again, receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." And now the scene shifts to heaven in chapter four, and definitely so. And since the church is still the subject, we're going to follow and where are we going to find the church? It's moved to its new home: heaven. And how did the church get to heaven? That's a good question.

Paul gives the answer: "Caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." And he defines the operation in 1 Corinthians 15:51 and 52: "Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

You see, faith today places the sinner on the launching pad in the guided missile of the church, and from whence he shall go to meet the Lord in the air. The saints enter the open door to heaven. The church is with Christ. Christ is in heaven directing the events of the Great Tribulation period that we're going to see when we begin chapter six. Now we have a third striking fact.

The church is not a name, but a definition of those who've trusted Christ in this age. Now, this is something that we need to get fixed in our mind because I think in today is really muddled, and it's this: the word for church is ekklesia. Kaleō means to call, ek out of. It means the church or a group of people called out of the world.

Now when the church arrives at its destination and is called out and arrives in heaven, it loses the name by which it was known in the world: a called-out body. And there are other terms now used to describe it. We're going to see it in this chapter as 24 elders, representative of the church in heaven. And then we're going to see the church in heaven as a bride coming down to her new home, the New Jerusalem.

Now the apostate organization which bears the ecclesiastical terminology, it continues on in the world, and it's hereafter not given a name and title of church either. It's called the Great Harlot. And boy, let me tell you, that's bad. That's frightful. It was the late Dr. George Gill told us one time in class, he says you know at the time of the rapture, there are going to be some churches that they're going to meet the next Sunday after the rapture and they won't miss a member.

They'll all be there. Why? Because it's the church of Laodicea. Now there's a fourth striking fact. The judgments beginning at chapter six would not be in harmony with the gracious provision and promise that God has made to the church. If the church remained in the world, it would frustrate the grace of God. You see, we have been promised to be delivered from judgment.

And then finally, the fifth: to continue on from chapter three to chapter four without recognizing the break is to ignore the normal and natural division in the book of Revelation, which has been given to us: the things thou hast seen, the things that are, and the things that will be after these things. And the last division here is entered with all of its judgment and wrath, and it's well to keep in our perspective that Jesus Christ is central and He's directing all events as He brings them to a successful but a determined conclusion.

There is in the midst of the throne a Lamb. And He's a Lamb because He died for the sins of the world. And He's the one that's going to judge. Now when we get over here to chapter four, and we just barely got a foot in the door, and I'd like to read my translation of the first verse: "After these things, meta tauta, I saw, and behold a door set open in heaven, and the first voice which I heard of voice as of a trumpet speaking with me and saying, Come up hither, and I will show thee the things which must come to pass after these things, meta tauta."

Used twice here. Apparently, John was afraid the amillennialists would miss it, so he said it twice here in this particular place. Now we are going with the church to heaven. We'll see the throne of God, 24 elders, and the four living creatures in this chapter. And we'll see that next time. Until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Schwetz: Next time we'll see a spectacular view of God who is unmatched in scripture. So be sure to get back on the Bible Bus to continue your study of Revelation. I got a couple of suggestions to help. First, you can download Dr. McGee's booklet "God's Grand Finale: An Introduction to Revelation."

And if you need to be reminded that God's in control, well, walk with Dr. McGee through God's calendar of end times and be assured Revelation is more than a fantastical story of beasts, but it's the true story of our sin-bearer, Jesus Christ. Your free digital copy is available anytime in our app or at ttb.org.

Also, join me on the Sunday Sermon for Dr. J. Vernon McGee's message, "Why Jesus' Church Will Not Go Through the Tribulation" from Revelation 4. You can also find the Sunday Sermon in our app or online at ttb.org or call us at 1-800-65-BIBLE if we can help you find a station that carries it. Again, that's 1-800-65-BIBLE or ttb.org.

And when you're in touch, you know we'd love to hear your story. Has our journey through Revelation opened your eyes to something new and amazing? Are you sharing what you're learning with others? Well, we'd like to know how the Lord's using His word in your life.

Drop us a note in the feedback section of our app, email us at biblebus@ttb.org, or write to Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. Or call and leave a message at 1-800-65-BIBLE. I'm Steve Schwetz, and thanks for making Thru the Bible a part of your day.

Thru the Bible is a five-year study of God's entire word, and together we discover God's purposes in history and our lives, found only when we believe in Jesus Christ. Do you know Him yet?