Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: Welcome to Thru the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee. We're in for a very serious study, and some might even call it sobering. And we must ask ourselves at the beginning, what's our responsibility once we understand our passage in Revelation chapter 8?

So for the next couple of weeks, we're going to be learning about not what is past, but what is ahead. And a tragedy is coming, not for anyone who knows Jesus as their Savior, but for a world that rejects him. There will be no escape from the judgments that will descend on the earth.

And as sad as it should make us feel, Dr. McGee tells us it should do more than that. He says it should not only affect our hearts, it should also affect our wills and our feet to get moving in taking the Word of God out to the world. That's our solemn responsibility.

So as you get your Bible open to Revelation 8, let's hear from Greg Harris, Thru the Bible's president, on how we can partner together in responding to this urgent need to get the whole world to the whole world. It is an important topic, isn't it, Greg?

Greg Harris: It's a hugely important topic. It's an eternally important topic, as Dr. McGee teaches us and will teach us. And we are so grateful for our partners. Steve, we have three letters today that emphasize the different ways that people partner with us. One is giving, one is praying, and the other is one of our favorite phrases, "flinging the seed."

Steve Schwetz: Great. Well, let me get right into the first one. So Kathleen in Texas is helping us to fling the seed, and she tells us how she's partnering with us. Let me read the letter.

"Thank you for the Bible bus passes. We ordered 100 cards for our mission trip, and I should have ordered more. Our interpreter in Mongolia knew of the TTB ministry, and she, alongside her daughters, listened for the first time in English.

"It was quite encouraging to see God use your ministry for deeper study for the Mongolians. Thank you. By the way, can you send another 100 cards? As I want to give out as many as I can. Thanks again, and may God bless your ministry with much fruit."

Greg Harris: Wonderful. So that was flinging the seed. Now Gregory and Yesa are partnering with us through their giving. And they shared this letter to you and me. It says, "Steve and Greg, thank you for your endurance promoting Thru the Bible. We've been listening now for close to five years, so we will be turning it over soon for another go-through.

"Both my wife and I used to listen to CSN Radio in Las Vegas every morning or noon, but we have since moved to my wife's natural-born country in the Philippines. We now follow along on your website. We find Dr. McGee's teachings are as profound now as they were back when the five-year study started.

"It was because of Pastor McGee's teaching that I started reading the Bible daily with my wife and proclaimed Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Now that I'm in the Philippines, I had to set up a virtual mailbox in Nevada so that I can use my US bank and continue to contribute.

"Now that our money goes so much further, I'm able to increase my donation. Both my wife and I try to stay humble and walk righteously here in the Philippines, helping others when we can. And we thank our faithful God for our protection, and may you and your program continue to bless those around the world."

Steve Schwetz: Well, Gregory and Yesa, thank you. Thank you so much for the support and your continued listening. And congratulations on your five years. May you continue on for many more.

And then here's a World Prayer Team member. Didn't give their name, but they're talking to us about prayer, which is so vitally important. Dr. McGee calls it the foundation of what you can do to support the ministry. Here's the letter.

"I was particularly touched by a World Prayer Team email a while ago when you referenced Isaiah 55:11. I wanted to share that I pray that every day for the Bible bus, along with 2 Peter 3:9 and 2 Thessalonians 3:1. It's important to stand on God's promises because He is always faithful. His Word will not return void. He's not willing that any would perish, and His Word will have free course throughout the world wherever it goes."

Greg Harris: Wow. Well said. Greg, why don't you pray for us as we begin our study in God's Word?

Father, we just marvel at the way you've built this ministry, the way you continue to support it, and you call people to fling the seed and to give and to pray. And there are so many around the world, Lord, that are advancing your Word through this humble ministry called Thru the Bible.

We just want to thank and praise you for it and ask you to keep us faithful and humble as we serve you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Steve Schwetz: Here's Dr. J. Vernon McGee with our study of Revelation 8 on Thru the Bible.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now, friends, we have come here to the sixth verse of this eighth chapter of the book of Revelation. And we're going to move right along, I trust, a little faster today because we're going to be blowing some trumpets or listening to the angels blow them. And it's frightful indeed because this is the judgment of God now coming directly upon the earth.

And we read now verse 6, "And the seven angels having the seven trumpets prepared themselves that they should blow the trumpet." Now, this is a solemn moment. The half-hour of silence is over. The prayers of the saints have been heard. The order is issued to prepare to blow.

The angels come to attention, and at the blowing of the trumpets, divine wrath is visited upon rebellious man. The blowing of the trumpet does not introduce symbols or secrets. The plagues here are literal plagues, and this method today of evaporating the meaning of Scripture is just as bad as to deny the inspiration of the Word of God.

In other words, it's saying that God doesn't mean what He says, but He means something else altogether. Now, I'm reading from my translation again, which I don't recommend, but we are trying to get at the meaning here.

I'm reading verse 7: "And the first blew the trumpet, that is, or the first sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled in blood, and they were cast into the earth, and the third part of the earth was burnt up, and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all the green grass was burnt up."

Now, this is a direct judgment, of course, from God. Judgment falls upon all plant life, from the grass to the great trees. Every form of botanical life is affected first. Now, notice it's only one-third, however, but that makes a tremendous impact upon the earth. And fire is the great enemy, is the instrument that God uses.

You remember it was the flood in the first global judgment. Now it is going to be fire, and the fact of the matter, this earth is to be transformed by fire, purified by fire. Now, the forests and the prairies covered with grass are partially destroyed by fire.

One-third of the earth denotes the wide extent of the damage, and it means one-third, not one-fourth, and it doesn't mean one-half. It means one-third. And plant life is what He's talking about here. You remember plant life was the first to be created, and it's the first to be destroyed.

In the record in Genesis 1:11, He begins with the plant life after order had been brought into the physical globe. Now, this is a literal judgment upon plant life in the same way that the seventh plague on Egypt was literal.

Now, I've called attention before that there is a striking similarity between the plagues in Egypt and the trumpet judgments. And again, that's no accident, because if you are going back to the book of Exodus and say the plagues are literal—and every believer in the Bible has to grant that, of course—then you must grant that these plagues in Revelation should be taken in the same fashion.

I do not know by what type of flip-flop method of interpretation or of hermeneutics that you can interpret one way in one place and another in another place unless the Scripture makes it clear that you can do such a thing as that.

Now, probably I ought to turn over to Exodus the ninth chapter, verse 18, and let me just pick up a few verses there. "Behold, tomorrow about this time I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof even until now."

And then when the hail came down upon Egypt, why, we're told that it destroyed every herb of the field. Now, this is verse 25. "And it brake every tree of the field." Now, that was 100% destruction. Here, one-third of the earth. Now, let's come to the second trumpet in verses 8 and 9.

And again, I'm reading my translation. "And the second angel sounded or blew the trumpet, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was thrown or cast into the sea, and the third part of the sea became blood, and there died the third of the creatures which were in the sea, even they that have life, and the third of the ships was destroyed."

Now, the sea, which occupies most of the earth's surface, is next affected by this direct judgment of God. And you remember again, back in Genesis, there was the separation of the land and the sea. And it occurred on the same day in which plant life appeared. And that's Genesis 1:9-10, and I'll not turn back to that, by the way.

Now, I want you to notice the exact language here. And that's the reason that I have given my translation and I've attempted to lift out the literal. And I think we need to pay very careful attention to the literal language here.

John does not say that a burning mountain was cast into the sea, but rather a great mass or force "as it were" a great mountain. You see, "as it were" a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea—as it were a great mountain.

Now, this careful distinction in the use of language should be noted, especially since it's the common practice to lump together everything in this book and call it symbolic. And that, of course, gets you out of a lot of trouble but gets you out of the frying pan into the fire, by the way.

The mountain represents something as literal and tangible as that which we have in Jeremiah the 51st chapter, verse 25. Now, let me go back again to the Old Testament and listen to this language. Now He's talking here about Babylon, and notice what He says.

"Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth, and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee and roll thee down from the rocks and make thee a burnt mountain." Now, this literal mass of force here falls into the literal sea, and one-third becomes literal blood.

And one-third of all the literal living creatures in the literal sea die a literal death. Nothing could be plainer than this. And also, one-third of the literal ships of all literal nations are literally destroyed. Now, if you would just let John say what he wants to, it makes it very clear.

There's no use to run and try to find some symbol that this is symbolic. Symbolic of what? Doesn't say this is symbolic. He makes it very clear that a great mass of force is put into the ocean. Now, I do not know what that could possibly be.

And you say, well, why don't you know? Two reasons. First of all, John didn't tell me, and he didn't tell anybody. And that's the reason that I don't think anyone has the answer for it. And then the second thing is, I don't expect to be here at that time.

So I won't be reading the evening paper. The bad news that we get in the papers and on TV today will continue, only more so in the Great Tribulation. I won't be here to look at it, and so this "as it were" does not concern me too much, other than what an awful tragedy has come on a Christ-rejecting world that actually ridicules the Word of God today.

And this is something that certainly makes the believer sorrowful. But it ought to do more than that. It not only ought to affect our heart, it ought to affect our wills and our feet and start us moving today to get the Word of God out. That's our responsibility.

And I believe it's a very solemn responsibility that we have today. You can't keep this judgment from coming on the earth, but you can get the Word of God out and reduce the population that will be left on the earth at that particular time.

Now, we come to the third trumpet, verses 10 and 11. "And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters, and the name of the star is called Wormwood, and the third part of the waters became wormwood, and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter."

Now, I've read that in the Authorized Version. I'm going to read it now in my text. "And the third angel blew the trumpet, and a great star burning as a torch fell out of heaven, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of the waters, and the name of the star is called Wormwood or absinthus, and the third part of the waters became wormwood, and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter."

Now, we're living in a world today where a great deal is being said about pollution. And it's a real problem today. Man seems to have beaten a star to polluting all the waters. Personally, I think that man is going to be forced today to clean up the water of the world if he's going to be able to exist at all.

And you know self-preservation is considered the first law of nature, and man wants to hang on to this little earth, so he's going to do something about that. But here, in the Great Tribulation, the fresh water's polluted, and the drinking water for mankind is contaminated—that is, a third of it is.

And those of us that live here in Southern California, we know something of the scarcity of fresh water for drinking and domestic use. It costs in Los Angeles, I am told, somewhere around $100 million just to turn on the spigot to get water. That's what it takes to get the water here to us.

And we've had several instances in this country of drought and the difficulty of getting fresh water. That's something that is essential for man and beast. I remember in Dallas, Texas, during the drought of the 50s, the water supply of the city came from manmade lakes.

And the lakes dried up, the water supply was exhausted, and it was necessary to get the water from Red River. Now, the oil companies had let drain salt water that had come from their deep wells into Red River. Well, nobody worried about it until they needed the drinking water.

And the drinking water was so salty that it was barely possible to drink it. And I know, because I was there during that period. And many people traveled to surrounding little towns to get a bottle of water to bring home.

Now, these experiences ought to teach man how dependent that he is upon fresh water. And this is a judgment here upon this. And you remember Israel had the experience when they crossed over the Red Sea. They came to Marah, and the waters were bitter there.

And Moses was directed to take a tree and cast into the waters, made them sweet. Now here in Revelation, the sweet waters are made bitter by a meteor, a star out of heaven. And somebody says, "Well, is this a literal star?" I see no reason to think otherwise.

And the tree that Moses put in, it speaks of the cross of Christ. Now, Wormwood is a name here used metaphorically in the Old Testament according to Vincent in the following ways. It speaks of the idolatry of Israel—that's found in Deuteronomy 29:18.

It speaks of calamity and sorrow, and that is in Jeremiah 9:15 and Lamentations 3:15. And it speaks of false judgment—Amos the prophet in 5:7 did that; he made that clear. Now, this star is literal and is a meteor containing poison, which contaminates one-third of the earth's fresh water supply.

Now, the name suggests that this is a judgment upon man for idolatry and injustice. Calamity and sorrow are the natural compensation that's coming upon man because of this judgment. I think that this is quite a remarkable passage of Scripture.

Now, we come to the blowing of the fourth trumpet, and I'm reading verse 12 and in my translation. "And the fourth angel blew the trumpet, and the third part of the sun was smitten, third part of the moon, and the third of the stars, in order that a third part of them might be darkened and the day did not shine for the third part of it and the night in like manner."

Now, another phase of creation on which mankind on this earth is solely dependent for light and life is the sun. And to a lesser degree, of course, man's dependent on the moon and the stars. Now, it was on the fourth day of recreation that these heavenly bodies appeared.

They had been created before, but the light broke through. And now the light is put out, as it were, on the third part of the earth. Now, God let these lights break through—the greater light to rule the day, the lesser to rule the night. And they were to be for signs and seasons.

The Lord indicated that in the Great Tribulation, there would be special signs in these heavenly bodies. The Lord Jesus mentioned it in Matthew 24:29, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, the moon shall not give her light, and the star shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heaven shall be shaken."

Now, the laws of nature are radically altered by these disturbances. There's a definite limitation. Only a third part of the light and of the day is affected. But the intensity of the light has the wattage reduced by one-third.

You talk about an energy shortage, believe me, friends, one is coming to this earth someday. This reminds me of during the time up in the Northwest, in Seattle in particular, when Boeing shut down so many plants up there and several thousand men were laid off and people began to leave town.

And some wag put on a billboard as you come down Highway 5 this sign. It says, "The last one leaving town, please turn out the lights." Well, God is getting ready to turn out the lights here on this earth. And the Lord made it clear, though, "while the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

May I say that I think that there's something quite interesting in this connection, and I want to quote from Govett. He says, "Hence day continues still, though its brightness is diminished. God shows His right to call in question man's right to the covenant. He has not kept the terms. Blood for blood is not shed by the nations. By this time, the command to put the murderer to death is through a false philanthropy refused to the world."

This is another angle to capital punishment. These judges with soft heads as well as soft hearts today, they get rid of capital punishment and they turn the criminals loose on us in this world today, and that's what's happened. And man continues to move in that direction.

God says that I gave you a covenant that you were to protect human life. And you protect human life when you punish criminals and in actually removing them from this life. Believe me, that's a deterrent to crime.

And any person that would say it's not a deterrent to crime must be like an ostrich with his head in the sand because it's quite obvious it's a deterrent to crime. Now, may I say to you, this is remarkable. I think capital punishment will be done away with by Antichrist if it's not done away with before.

Now, may I read verse 13. "And I saw and heard one eagle flying in mid-heaven, saying with a great voice, 'Woe, woe to them dwelling upon the earth by reason of the remaining voices of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to blow the trumpet.'"

Now, when the fourth trumpet is blown, the announcement is made here of a peculiar intensity of woe and judgment that's coming on the earth. And the last three trumpets are separated from the other four, and they are woe trumpets.

Now, we have here one eagle. And somebody says, "Well, is it a literal eagle?" Because he's talking. Well, if God can make a parrot talk and a few of the other birds today, I don't think He'll have any problem with an eagle to talk.

And it's quite interesting that He chose the eagle here, because actually, we are told that the Lord Jesus said this: "Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together." And that's after the great battle of Armageddon. May God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Schwetz: It's always a pleasure traveling through God's Word with you. If we can help you find a resource or maybe answer your questions about this ministry, just call us: 1-800-65-BIBLE. Or visit ttb.org.

I'm Steve Schwetz, and I'll see you back here next time as we continue to make our way through the Bible. Our study today was made possible through your prayer and financial support. We'll meet you back here next time. In fact, we're going to do this together, Lord willing, till Jesus comes again. In which case, we'll meet you in the air.