Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: A large number of people will be saved during the Great Tribulation, but how? And how will God protect them? Well, that's what Dr. J. Vernon McGee explores in this study on Thru the Bible. I'm Steve Schwetz, inviting you to grab your Bible and turn to Revelation chapter 7. And while you do, Greg and I have some stories to share from our home groups.

Greg: Steve, I think this is one of the most impactful parts of our ministry, and God has done this. He's raised up these home group leaders. We now have tens of thousands of these around the world. And yet, the impact stories, the evangelistic impact, the depth of discipleship, homes being put back together, marriages—it's amazing.

And we're going to read some great testimonies. I do want to just comment in a way that hopefully will help people understand when we refer to an overseer. When you have thousands of groups, you need basically a kind of a pyramid structure for accountability, for making sure that people are following the curriculum. And so, we'll have one person who oversees 100 groups, and each of those overseers, as it were, has 10 volunteers that oversee 10 groups. Kind of like a centurion. It's biblical, actually.

So, let's start with this first one. This is a testimony from a home group supervisor in the language of Sadri. That language, if you've never heard of it—don't worry, you're not alone, nor had I—has 5.1 million speakers, so not an inconsequential number of souls in Chhattisgarh, India. And here's the letter.

"Recently, I witnessed how the gentle touch of love can lead to deep transformation. One of the group leaders under my care, Bin-Gool, had been neglecting his responsibility of leading the Bible study sessions. Despite my gentle reminders and loving encouragement, he remained indifferent. His continued disobedience was disheartening, yet I chose patience over pressure."

"And then one day, Bin-Gool was in a minor accident and injured his leg. When I heard about it, I didn't go with judgment but with compassion. I visited him, simply wanting to show care. Sitting beside him, I smiled and softly said, 'Keep listening to the Lord's voice.' Those few words spoken with love seemed to pierce his heart. In that moment, he realized how far he had drifted from the responsibility God had given him. Deeply convicted, he immediately said, 'Let's first play a Bible study session and then pray.' That moment became a turning point in his life. Since then, Bin-Gool has returned to his calling with enthusiasm and now faithfully leads his radio home group once again."

Steve Schwetz: Wow. I mean, this is real-life ministry, and Greg, this is us equipping the church of the Lord Jesus Christ to do its work in this kind of a way. The other thing I'm always encouraged about is the fact that oftentimes it's the testimonies we hear from the small group leaders themselves and from the supervisors that they see an impact on their lives in addition to those that they're ministering to.

Greg: Yeah. Now, let's go from a language of five million to the Malpaharia language spoken by only 51,000 people. But we care about those people, and here's what the home group leader told us:

"There is a lady who has been regularly attending our group for the past three months. Her husband is currently employed outside their village, and they have two children. Over this period, her love for the Lord and her faith in His Word have grown significantly. When she faced opposition in her village, she made the bold decision to move into a rented house to be closer to our fellowship."

"Not only has she remained steadfast in attending, but she has also started coming to church. Though she continues to face various challenges with those who oppose her decision to study with us, God's Word is powerfully at work in her heart. She is raising her two children with great joy in the Lord, and her transformed life has also positively influenced her husband, who now expresses happiness over her faith."

Steve Schwetz: Amazing. I don't think we fully appreciate how someone who is prevented or not able to go to a Bible study because of social pressure actually moves so that she can continue the Bible study. That is an encouragement. Greg, pray for us as we begin.

Greg: Father, we're just humbled to see Your Word and Your Spirit working in the lives of Your children. We thank You for all You're doing around the world and pray You'd keep us faithful as we give Your whole Word to the whole world. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Steve Schwetz: Now, here's our study of Revelation 7 on Thru the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now we come to this second verse of this seventh chapter of Revelation, and I want to preface again my remarks by saying that we're not in a book that cannot be understood and that it's just a jumble of symbols. That is not accurate. There's no book that is so mathematically divided. There is no book that the divisions are made clearer than they are in the book of Revelation. Now, if we get bogged down in some place and try to take symbols and juggle them to fit into any system that we might want to, then we're going to be in real trouble. But if we'll just let John tell us as we go along where we are.

And we're now in a section that we have labeled the Great Tribulation. Well, I shouldn't say we labeled it; the Lord Jesus is the one who gave it that label. And this period takes place after the church leaves. It's the things that are after these things—that is, after the church concludes its mission and is taken to be with the Lord. Now that, I think, is not only reasonable, but I personally feel that it's very clear. Not only here, but no prophecy is of any private interpretation. Peter says that—that is, you don't just lift out one verse or even the book of Revelation.

And that's the reason the book is difficult, because it just happens to be the last book of the Bible, and there's 65 books come before it. And we ought to know a little about those books that come before it if we are to understand this book. That doesn't mean when we get down now into details—and John is going into details concerning the Great Tribulation period, or the period that has not been elaborated on in any place in the Scripture except in the Olivet Discourse that the Lord Jesus Christ gave. So, John is merely widening out that and giving us additional information. And what he says is based on what the Lord Jesus had to say.

Now, we saw that there was six seals opened, and these six seals had for us—and I trust that they had for us—a real message and that they actually revealed the great plan of the Great Tribulation period. And these six seals open with the four great tragedies that are coming upon the earth, the beginning of the judgments. And then the fifth seal let us look at a martyred company of people; there was a great throng. And then the sixth seal, we were introduced to some of the signs of the coming doom that is to come upon a godless world in the Great Tribulation period.

Now the question arose, well, will anybody be saved in that period? We saw last time a great company is going to be saved. Actually, this will be a time that there'll be nothing to correspond to it in the number of people that are saved. There's no other time period—that is, seven years—in which so many people turn to God. And it does reveal the fact that these judgments will accomplish a purpose for God; it will cause multitudes to turn to Him in this period. It's going to cause another multitude to turn actually against Him.

You see, it's just like the effect, the illustration is of the sun shining down upon a piece of soft clay. What will it do with it? It'll harden. What will the effect of that same sunlight be upon wax? Well, it'll melt it; it has the opposite effect. And so, the judgments of God—and I feel that in our lives today as believers, when trouble comes to us, sickness—I've discovered in my own life that it'll either draw you to God or it'll drive you from Him. And we need to be drawn to Him. That's the reason I think the Lord's let some of us have sickness and trouble; He's wanted to draw us closer to Himself, and this was His way of doing it.

Now, I want to look here at this first company that are going to be saved during the Great Tribulation period. And we can't explain every little detail here—at least I can't. I get a little irritated and provoked that I don't know as much as some of these so-called prophetic teachers today, because they seem to have a private line into the Lord. They know now the date when the Lord is coming; they're great at that. And not only that, but actually they can interpret some passages in a most amazing fashion.

Where the Scripture says that the blood will be up to the bridle bits in the war of Armageddon, why, some of these fellows can tell you the type of blood it is. My, they irritate me because I don't seem to be able to get that kind of information. And then I actually wonder what the value of it is after you get it. And to begin with, the church ought to understand clearly that we have been delivered from judgment; we're not going through this period at all. The Lord Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath right now eternal life and shall not come into judgment."

And the Great Tribulation was a judgment, and we're not coming into it. He said so. And He made it clear to the church of Philadelphia. He said, "I'm going to deliver you from that hour." What hour? Well, He's talking about it now. Oh, if we would only let the Scripture speak for itself. Now, I'm going to let it speak for itself because I'm doing a great deal of talking right here and haven't read anything yet. Verses 2 and 3—I'm reading them. I hope you have your authorized version, because I'm reading now my miserable translation, and I ought not to call it a translation. I merely just attempted to translate the words out of the original.

Will you listen to it? "And I saw another angel ascending from the sun rising, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it had been given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, 'Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees until we shall have sealed the servants or the bondslaves of our God in their foreheads.'" All right, now "another angel" here means there's a fifth angel. And he apparently is of a higher rank than the other four because he gives them orders.

And as we saw in the book of Daniel and we saw it also in the Epistle to the Ephesians, that there are gradation of orders of angels, both good and bad. That Satan has the demon world well organized; he has generals, he has lieutenant colonels, and majors, and he has lieutenant, and then a sergeant, and then a great many privates. And so, we have on the other side, God has His arrangement. So, this angel gives orders to the other four. Now, it says here he did it with a great voice. And in the Greek, that is phone megale.

Now, if you turn phone megale around, you have megaphone, and that's where we get our word megaphone. Mega means great, phone noise or voice. And here, it's an indication that it's with frightful and fearful judgment that is getting ready to break upon the earth, and it's therefore necessary to secure the servants of God. If He doesn't seal them, they're not going to make it through. Now, they are to be preserved in this day of wrath that's coming on the earth. And the Lord Jesus Himself mentioned this.

He says in Matthew 24, verse 21 and 22, "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened." For the sake of these that have been sealed. Now, this is a terrible time. Now, what is the mark that was put on their forehead? Now, here is a place where I must confess—and I sure hope you won't let this get out; we want to keep this just to ourselves because there's some people think I know what that mark is.

I don't know what it is. I can only make suggestions here. Now, I recognize there are many that know what that mark is, but the interesting thing is that you can't get any two to agree what it is. So, some of them must be wrong. I've come to the conclusion they're all wrong on that, and why? Because we're not told what it is. And I don't think it's important for the church today to even know what the mark is. We're just told they're going to be marked. Now, what kind of a mark? I don't know.

Now, we're told that there are those that will not be able to trade during this period when Antichrist comes into power unless they have the mark of the beast. Now, this mark is in contrast to it. But my feeling is that this is a spiritual mark that will be in the lives of those. "By their fruits ye shall know them," by their lives. And I believe that's going to be the mark of God's own in this period, because the godless are really going to be godless in this period. And I personally don't see how they can be any more godless than the godless are in Los Angeles today or as the world is getting today.

But the Word of God says they can go lots farther than they've gone even in our day. Now, God is going to save a remnant of Israel. Now, we had given first in this chapter—and let me show you how simple even a chapter like this is divided. I have in my book here three divisions of this chapter. You have the reason for the interlude between the sixth and the seventh seals. Why? To seal these, to make sure that they're going to make it through. And the Lord Jesus made it very clear that they're going to make it through, that they are going to come through.

We begin now here at verse 4: the remnant of Israel sealed. And then in verses 9 through 17: a redeemed multitude of Gentiles. This is the three Rs of Revelation—not reading, writing, and arithmetic, but the reason for the interlude, the remnant of Israel, and the redeemed multitude of Gentiles. Now, look at the remnant of Israel. When God deals with Israel, I've always noticed He'll deal with dates and He'll deal with numbers. When He's dealing with the church, He never deals with dates or numbers.

And that's the reason that we never announce on this program that we had so many saved in a certain year. Now, I had one of the young ladies that runs our robot-type machine; she brought me in a clipping—and I have it here somewhere—that we had at that time 15 letters from folk that said they had been saved through the program. And I at that time thought, "My, this will be a good time for us to start putting down numbers and handing out figures." Well, I began to think that after the day of Pentecost, you never had any numbers given.

Paul never turned in a report to anybody how many were saved. And we're told when we get even to this great company of Gentiles, the number's not given. But when you deal with Israel, God deals with numbers and He deals with dates when He's dealing with them, but not with the church. And that's the reason today I think that this matter of date setting has hurt the study of prophecy and brought it down to a low level, whereas this subject ought to be kept on as high a level as any other subject of prophecy.

Now, he says here in verse 4—and I'm still reading from my translation—"And I heard the number of those sealed: a hundred and forty and four thousand sealed out of every tribe of the children of Israel." Now, this company can be identified without any speculation whatsoever. And to me, it's almost nonsense for any group to come along and say, "We are the 144,000." Now, two of the cults did that in the beginning, and then they passed 144,000; they apparently were not very optimistic when they started out.

But now they've passed that number, and you don't hear them mention it anymore because they say they take it literally, and yet they don't now because they passed that number. They just should have gone out of business when they got 144,000, but they didn't; they just kept right on going. But the interesting thing is it does not refer to any group today or the church or anything at all. It's during the Great Tribulation: 144,000 are to be saved, and it's out of every tribe of Israel. So that if you are in the 144,000, you not only say that you belong to Israel, but you better identify your tribe. Or you'd have to, because that's going to be done.

Now, we need to make that very clear, that God will have a remnant of His people that are going to be saved. Now, that may seem to you like a big number. Actually, it's very small. There're about 12 million today in the world, I think. It got down to 10 million under Hitler; it was up to 16 million. But in contrast to that number, you can see the remnant is going to be really very small of the children of Israel—comparatively speaking, very small. But we need to be clear: there's no use speculating here and trying to draw on symbols.

There are some even that say that the number 144,000 is a symbol of another number. Well, can't God say what He wants to say? Can't He count? Certainly He can. When He says 144,000, I don't think He means 145,000; I think He means exactly that. And then there are to be out of every tribe of Israel. Now, there are some things here that we need to note: that this remnant has always been true from the day He called Abraham, there's always been the remnant.

There's a remnant today in the church. I know many wonderful Christian Jews. Now, I don't know why I say that, because I don't say Christian Americans or Christian Germans, but we do say it of Israel because of the fact there is that remnant today. And again, not a large remnant, but there's not a very large remnant of Gentiles to tell the truth. I suppose the great minority group today are real believers in Christ. Now, Paul says in Romans 9:8: "That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed."

See, that's true today. Now in Romans 11:4 and 5, he says: "But what saith the answer of God unto him? 'I have reserved to myself seven thousand men who've not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.' Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." Paul said in his day, "There's a remnant today that are in the church in his day." Now, there's a remnant in our day that's in the church, and just a remnant of Gentiles to tell the truth.

Now, during the Great Tribulation, here is the remnant, and the number's given. Now, we're told that these are the ones that are going to witness in the Great Tribulation period. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 24:14: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Now, He was talking about the Great Tribulation period. And the gospel of the kingdom—somebody says, "Oh, that's a different gospel." Of course not. God's never had but one way to save sinners, that's through the death of Christ.

If you'd ask Abel when he brought that little lamb to God and said to him, "Abel, do you think that little lamb will save you?" He was an intelligent man. He said, "No, this little lamb is pointing down because God told my mother that there was coming from her line, from a woman, one that would be the Savior of the world, and this little lamb points to Him." And John the Baptist stepped out of character almost when he said, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world."

Now, the gospel of the kingdom is the gospel of the death and burial and resurrection of Christ. That's going to alert the nation Israel, and many will turn to Christ and they'll preach that. But they'll have something to say that we have no right to say: they say it's not going to be long till He'll be back here. They'll be able to say that; we have no right to say that at all because we know not the day nor the hour when He shall come. Now, these are divided into tribes here, and we're told how much are in each tribe. Now, I'm going to deal with that. It's a little tedious and technical, but I intend to go through with it and then to try to show why we today need to be very careful about being dogmatic where the Word of God does not give us the answer. Now, the Word of God never told us what the mark is going to be in that day on believers, those that will be God's servants. Frankly, I don't know what it'll be. All right, until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Schwetz: Well, we're about one-third of the way through our study in the book of Revelation. It's hard to believe. If you haven't downloaded your copy of Dr. McGee's notes and outlines, now is still the perfect time. And if you listen by our app, well, you've already got them right there in the app. And if not, you'll find our free digital book Briefing the Bible at TTB.org. Now, with this one download, you'll have access to all of Dr. McGee's notes and outlines for our entire five-year journey. If you do want an abridged print copy of Briefing the Bible, you can request it at 1-800-65-BIBLE. And when you're in touch, remember that we love to know how you listen. You know, there's so many different great options, and your feedback helps us as we make essential ministry decisions and really work to be wise stewards of the faithful financial support of friends like you. So, thanks in advance for your feedback. Our study of Revelation continues; I'm Steve Schwetz, and I'll save you a seat on the Bible Bus.