Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: Will the church go through the Great Tribulation? Well, we've already heard from our Bible teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee. The church will be raptured. That is, it will be removed from the earth before the tribulation begins. But for those who aren't sure or would like a little more convincing, then stay with us as Dr. McGee takes us through some compelling evidence. Welcome to Thru the Bible. I'm Steve Schwetz, your host on this five-year journey through God's entire Word.

As you find your seat on the Bible bus, I want to share a couple letters from fellow travelers who have seen how his truth is changing their lives. First is a note from Celine, who tells us this: God bless you, brothers and sisters. I am a Mexican listener who lives in the United States. This month marks five years of listening to your program. I found you through the Christian radio station Radio Nueva Vida.

I have to confess that at first, I would turn off the radio as soon as your Bible study began. I mistakenly thought your teaching would be old-fashioned because of the hymn you always play at the beginning. But my son, who was only a few months old at the time, would raise his little hand to that hymn every time. Finally, one day, I stopped turning off your program and listened. And what a surprise I got.

The Word of God never goes out of style because it is alive. I have learned so much in these last five years of listening to you. I always share your program with my family, starting with my husband and also with the brothers and sisters at my church. I was born into the faith and have dedicated myself to studying the Bible since I was a child, but your program has given me a broader knowledge.

I am delighted with all I am learning. I send you an offering whenever I can and keep you in my prayers because I know your program is worth so much. I continue to listen every day, now with a new baby and a new perspective. Well, congrats on your little one, Celine, and thank you for your prayers and your support. And now we've got a voicemail from Walter, who hops aboard the Bible bus in Kentucky.

Guest (Male): I've learned so much. This is my second trip of the five years through the Bible study with Dr. McGee. He is so formal in sharing an unbelievable story of the truth about the Bible and how it's expressed in what he brings out in the Word of God. As I follow along in my Bible, I'm encouraged every day to know that there are others praying and seeking the same thing that I am. And that is answers to God's holy words that he's spoken through his Bible through one of his teachers.

I thank Dr. McGee for the time that he was here, and I know I'll be grateful to see him, more grateful to see him and talk with him when we meet in heaven. I am on the prayer team. I listen to Gregg and Steve every morning. I pray for your families. I pray that the work that you are doing is blessed by the Word of God, that you continue to go on. I am studying now in the book of Jude.

We just got through with Zephaniah, and now we're in the book of Jude. I'm looking forward to exploring more and allowing the Holy Spirit to move in my life as it has moved in many others when I hear what their Bible story is. We bless you guys and don't want to rattle on, but I share the Word of God with my family. I asked for another pack of Bible bus passes that I can pass out, that the word may be spread from here to abroad.

We thank you so much, and I'm blessed by every teaching that I learn more and more every day. Thank you so much. I hope others will also send a message of encouragement because it's blessed my family, my life, and I continue to share the word as God gives me the strength and the will and desire to keep going in the midst of all the trials that I have come through in these 77 years that I've been here. God bless you. Keep up the good work. God will be blessed.

Steve Schwetz: Thanks, Walter. Thanks for sharing your story. Well, you heard him. Your stories encourage us all. So please call and leave a voicemail at 1-800-65-BIBLE. Or if you want, you can send a note in our app, you can email it to biblebus@ttb.org, or you can write us a good old-fashioned letter by writing to Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, send it to Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1.

If you'd like to receive a pack of Bible bus passes that Walter mentioned to share this study with your family and friends, just let us know. That number again is 1-800-65-BIBLE. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your presence in our lives. Speak to us and give us the wisdom and knowledge for living godly lives in an ungodly world. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Now here's our study of Revelation 7 on Thru the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Friends, we're still in this very wonderful seventh chapter of Revelation. It is very wonderful because it answers the mooted question about whether people will be saved in the Great Tribulation period. To me, it also answers the question of whether the church is still on the earth. We see that a great company are being saved. Fact of the matter is, two great companies. And they are both clearly identified.

We saw a great company out of the nation Israel. When I say a great company, I'm sure it would be considered just a remnant. But 144,000 are very clearly delineated and designated here because 12,000 are taken out of each tribe, and the tribes are identified for us. Then there was the great multitude. It was so great that no man could number it at all. These are out of all the tribes and peoples and tongues. The interesting thing is that they are a group of Gentiles and they are saved.

The church is not here. The church was mentioned again and again in chapters two and three, and all of a sudden, it disappeared. What happened to it? Well, it left the earth and went to heaven because we see it now no longer a church, but the 24 elders in heaven. From here on, the church is just not mentioned. It's not the subject at all. If you were overhearing a conversation that was taking place in the room next to you and you hear somebody talking to somebody named Bill, and it was "Bill this, Bill that, Bill something else."

All of a sudden, you hear Bill say, "Well, hello Bob," and apparently, Bob is coming into the room. Bob says, "Hello, Bill," and then you see Bob talking to the others in the room and Bill is not mentioned again. Don't you assume that maybe Bill left the room and Bob came into the room? When you leave chapters two and three of Revelation and the church is not mentioned anymore, you assume it's not there. Or if it is, you certainly forgot all about it, and it was very important.

Somebody else is mentioned. Bob has come into the room and Bill has left. The church is gone, and God now has returned to the nation Israel. The Old Testament is just filled with prophecies that God had given them, there to be a nation forever. They are to be in a land forever. The fact that you can come to the New Testament and write them off as having disappeared and that God's through with them, you have to contradict the whole tenor and tone of the Old Testament.

Here they are. I told you that the book of Revelation is like a great union station where trains come in or an airport where planes come in. They come in from everywhere. All the major themes of prophecy come into Revelation. Now you'd certainly expect Israel to be here in the book of Revelation. And lo and behold, here it is. Israel is Israel. If God had wanted to call Israel the church, I think he would have just said "church" because he was able to say "church" when the time came.

The church is not mentioned anymore and he's talking about Israel and 144,000 sealed to witness for him. Then a great company of Gentiles now are to be saved during this period, obviously witnessed to by the 144,000. The thing that makes it extremely interesting is that they made it through the Great Tribulation period. They were sealed, and they got through the Great Tribulation period. We find them standing before the throne.

I think that we move now to the end of the Great Tribulation. I think most of them were martyred during that period. But they endured to the end. Why? The Lord Jesus said in the Olivet Discourse, speaking of this same period, "they that endure to the end shall be saved." Are they going to endure to the end because they gritted their teeth and clenched their fists and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps? No, they didn't do it at all. They were sealed.

Here is a great company of Gentiles, and they are making it through. We also saw that in the great praise that this great company gave to God before the throne and to the Lamb on the throne, they were joined by a great angelic host. They praised God not for salvation because they are sinless creatures who were not redeemed, but because of his wisdom, his attributes of goodness and power, and all of that, and that he's worthy of praise and adoration.

One of the elders wants to bring John up to date on what's taking place. Now I'm going to read verses 13 and 14. If you have your Bible there and will follow along, you'll see I make a few changes, not many. But we do try to clarify the language here. Let me read: "And one of the elders answered saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. or My lord, thou knowest," as we have attempted to put it in the original. "My lord, thou knowest."

This is an idiomatic expression. I think we have one that would match it. If somebody asks us a question we don't know the answer and we just sort of lift our hands and we say "search me," which means "I don't know." That is exactly what John is saying here. "My lord, thou knowest." You know I don't know. You tell me because I don't know. He said to me, "These are they which came out of the Great Tribulation. And they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

This is a very enlightening passage of Scripture. If these people that are gathered here had been the church, don't you know that John would have known it? John wrote to the believers in his day. He knew about the church. He knew about the body of believers. He talked about that great unifying cement that holds them together. The love of God means that they must love one another. And that was demonstrated in a little poem about that the other day too to you.

John doesn't know who they are. At this point, John is frankly an amillennialist. He doesn't know who this company is. And so the elder who represents the church knows. This company is not one of them. It's an altogether different company. It's those that came out of the Great Tribulation. Doesn't that tell you that the church is not going through the Great Tribulation? This is a special company out of all tribes and tongues and nations that have come out of the Great Tribulation.

We live today when God makes a division in the human family. One division is saved and lost, of course. That is the great bifurcation of the human family. But if you want a group division, you will recall that the Word of God has something to say about it. We are told in 1 Corinthians 10:32, "Give none offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God." Paul says to the Corinthians, there are three groups over there.

There are Jews, there are Gentiles, and there is the church of God. Don't give an offense to any one of these groups. That is what he is saying to the Corinthians. That is one of the divisions that the Scripture makes of the human family. There are Jews, there are Gentiles, and there is the church of God. That is the division today that runs right down through the human family.

Now we've come to a period where there are only two groups: Jews and Gentiles. Where is the church of God? It went to be with him. He said, "I'm going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I'll come again receive you unto myself." They are with him now. This peculiar group which he mentions in 1 Corinthians 12:13: "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles."

God today is calling out of the two divisions, both Jews and Gentiles, a people for his name that are different: the church. That church will be taken out of the world. I don't like the impression given today by some—and it is a pessimistic viewpoint—that somehow or another today, God is failing. My friend, God today is doing exactly what he said he was going to do. In this age, he would call a people out of this world to himself.

He's doing a lot better job at that than you and I think he is. In fact, as a pastor of a church, I didn't think he was doing very much. But I've discovered on radio as we've reached out across this land and now around the world, we have discovered that there are multitudes that are turning to Christ today everywhere. That is what others are reporting. So God's calling a people out of this world to himself: the church.

The church is not here, and John makes it clear. This is a group different from the church. They came through the Great Tribulation. Where in the world have we heard about the Great Tribulation before? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is the one that used this term. In fact, he's the one that gave it to us. Somebody thinks that maybe some rank, wild-haired fundamentalist thought of that term, but he didn't. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one that thought of it and designated it.

He makes the statement in Matthew 24, verse 21: "For then shall be great tribulation." Here in Matthew and also in Revelation, there is a way of expressing it that we just can't do in our language. There is an article with the adjective "great" and an article with "tribulation." It is "the tribulation, the great one." That is given to us for emphasis. In other words, this is something that is indeed unusual.

John is here quizzed by one of the elders. He is unable to identify this great company. John would have known them if this was the church, but it's not. If they were Old Testament saints or Israelites, I think John would have known that. This company he does not recognize at all. They are identified as redeemed Gentiles who've come out of the Great Tribulation. Their robes, which speak of the righteousness of Christ, how did they get them? Because Christ shed his blood.

That's the only way in the world that you and I will be able to stand before God: because he paid the penalty for our sins. He died that you and I might live. That is true of this group here also. God has only one way of saving mankind. It's always been true, and that is by faith in the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul tells us what the gospel is. Let me read it from 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.

"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain." If your faith was an empty faith and not put in the gospel, you're not saved. If you've trusted, what is the gospel? Listen to him: "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received."

Paul says this is not new with me, I never thought of it, it was given to me. The Lord Jesus taught him out yonder in that Arabian desert for two years. He says that he is giving them what he'd received: "how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures," according to the Old Testament, "and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures." This is the gospel.

The gospel is not God asking you to do something; it's God telling you that he has done something for you. The gospel is not you giving something to God; the gospel is God giving something to you. The gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. How do you get it? By faith. That's the only way you can receive a gift. Suppose you bring in here a gift to me by Christmas. You come in here and you say, "Dr. McGee, here's a gift for you."

What do I have to do to receive it? I could say to you, "I'll come out and mow your lawn." But you'd say, "I don't want you to do that." By the way, many of you when you hear this, wonder why I mention mowing a lawn in California. I have to mow my lawn in November. So I say, "I'll mow your lawn." You say, "I don't want you to mow it. This is a gift." I'd insult you if you'd brought me a gift and I try to pay you for it.

Suppose I said, "Well, I've got three cents here in my pocket, I'll give you this for it." That would be an insult because I know you wouldn't give me a gift that just cost three cents. The things have gotten all mixed up today. The gospel is what God is doing for us. He says again in Ephesians 1:7: "In whom," that is in Christ, "we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace."

God's got plenty of grace and I don't care who you are, he can save you. We have here this great company that's not part of the church, and we need to enlarge our conception of the redeemed to the extent that it goes beyond the borders of the church today, and certainly beyond the borders of your little group or my little group or your denomination or mine. This brings the chapter to an end.

"Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple." I know good and well that it is not the church. The church is never identified with a temple. We are told when we see it at the end of this book, the church in heaven in the New Jerusalem, there is no temple there. The church will never have a temple. There's going to be one here on the earth, but there is not one in heaven where the church is.

This couldn't be the church. "And he that sitteth on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them for protection. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore, neither shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat." Scorching wind, that is. "For the Lamb in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd and shall guide them into fountains of waters of life, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes."

This company, they've had it. They've been through the Great Tribulation period. Most of them I think were martyrs who laid down their lives for Christ. Although we're not specifically told that, they are presented to us as being before the throne of God in heaven. The things that are mentioned now are things they endured. They're not going to hunger or thirst; they apparently did. They have been out in the burning heat of the sun.

They also have been thirsty for spiritual things and they didn't have that. They wept. Now God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. They made it through the Great Tribulation because of the blood of the Lamb. This wonderful company that is presented to us here. You see, he has other sheep. He told his apostles, and it was just hard for them to get it, "I have other sheep that you don't know anything about. They're not of this fold."

He has other sheep, and he could say that to the church. "I have other sheep that you don't know anything about." Here are some of the other sheep that have been redeemed. But it's not the church. I trust we've made that clear. We must stop at this particular point. Begin chapter eight next time. Until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Schwetz: If you'd like to share God's Word with the important people in your life, all of Dr. McGee's messages in this five-year study are available anytime in our app or at ttb.org. For a deeper look into this important topic, why don't you join me for Dr. McGee's Sunday sermon, "The Church That Goes Through the Great Tribulation."

It's available on our app at ttb.org or call 1-800-65-BIBLE if we can help you find a station that carries the Sunday sermon. I'm Steve Schwetz, praying that God will bless you as you make his Son Jesus and his Word first in your life. Thru the Bible is a five-year study of God's entire Word. Together we discover God's purposes in history and our lives, found only when we believe in Jesus Christ. Do you know him yet?