Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: It's a momentous day here on Thru the Bible, so welcome. Today, we begin a new study in the book of Revelation, the final book in the Word of God. In this series, our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, focuses our attention on our Savior, Jesus Christ, and His place in the whole plan of God.

How appropriate that our thoughts center on Him on this first day of the New Year. Happy New Year, by the way. Dr. McGee was a bit excited when he first recorded this Revelation study, so let's hear about it straight from him.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: I’m coming to this book with mingled feelings, and when I say mingled feelings, I mean that. And I’m going to emphasize the fact that I actually am running scared as we come to this great book—I think one of the great books of the Word of God. But very candidly, I must also say that it’s with great joy that we come to this book. And I’d like to explain to you why I say that.

It has always been my interest, as a time of relaxation, to read a mystery story—a detective story. And the more gory it is, the more I enjoy it. And I have done that for years. Now, that’s a confession that I’m making to you, that this has been more or less of a hobby of mine over the years. I do not read much of Agatha Christie today for the very simple reason I’ve read so many of hers that I can pretty much figure out who the killer really was, who did the murder.

Now I read Dorothy Sayers, and by the way, she’s a Christian, and she gets a great deal into her books that the unsaved are not even aware of. They are reading the Bible without knowing it. But anyway, I’ve always enjoyed reading them. And when I was single and started the ministry, on Sunday night after I got into bed, I would relax by reading one of these mystery stories.

Well, along about 1:00 in the morning, you get to the place where the heroine has been tied down to the railroad tracks by the villain. And old number 77 is going to be coming along in about 20 minutes, and she’s in a desperate condition. And you think, "Well, the hero is going to be able to get there and rescue her." But you find out that he’s in that old warehouse down by the pier, and he’s been tied to a chair, and underneath it is a stick of dynamite, and the fuse is already lit.

Well, you can’t leave the hero and heroine at 1:00 in the morning in that kind of a position. So the thing is you just must do something about it. So what I do—it’s time to turn over and go to sleep—well, I just slip over to the last page. And a different scene greeted me. I see the hero and heroine sitting out in a yard. Then there’s a white picket fence around this lovely cottage. They are now married, and there’s a little baby there that’s playing down on the grass. My, what a wonderful, comfortable scene that is.

So I just turn back over and I say to the hero and heroine, "I don’t know how you’re going to get out of it, but I tell you this: It’s going to work out all right." Well, I have a book in the Bible called the Book of Revelation. And it tells me how this world scene is going to end. And I’ll be very frank with you, friends, I get a little disturbed today when I see what’s happening in the world. It’s a dark picture as you look out at it, and you wonder how it’s going to work out.

Well, all I do is to turn to the last book of the Bible, and I begin to read there. And I find out that it’s going to work out all right. Did you know that? Everything’s going to work out. I know that Emerson said things are in the saddle and they ride mankind, and it looks that way. And certainly today it looks like the devil is having high holiday in the world, and I think maybe he is. But it’s going to work out.

God is going to regain control of this earth—in fact, He’s never lost control. And He is going to move to the time that He’s going to put His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, on the throne of this universe down here. And it does look dark. I think any person today that can look at the world situation and take an optimistic view of it, there must be something wrong with their thinking because the world’s in a desperate condition.

But I’m no pessimist because I’ve got the Book of Revelation, and I can say today to that person who has trusted Jesus Christ: Don’t you worry. It’s going to work out all right. The thing is going to come out with God on top. And therefore, I want to be with Him. Or as Calvin put it, he said, "I would rather lose now and win later than to win now and lose later." And I want to say to you that I’m on the side that looks like it’s losing now, but we’re going to win later. And the reason I know is because I’ve been reading the Book of Revelation. And I hope you’re going to read it with us.

Steve Schwetz: That’s a great comfort, isn’t it? When it looks like the evil in this world is going to win, we can read the last chapter and know everything is going to work out. Well, thank God that we can put our confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s pray as we come to Him in our study. Father, thank You that our lives are in Your hands. We’re grateful to know everything will work out for Your glory and our good. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now friends, I want to spend some time in introduction to this very wonderful book, because there are many reasons for it as you’ll see as we go along. I approach the Book of Revelation this time actually with fear and trembling, not primarily because of a lack of competence on my part, although that is self-evident, I’m sure. But many factors enter into this feeling.

Rather, there’s a lack on the part of listeners. You see, this is the 66th book of the Bible, and it comes last. And that means we need to know 65 other books before we get here. Most of you were not with us when we began in Genesis five years ago, and you need to have a background of a working knowledge of all in the Bible that has gone before. You need to have a feel of the scripture as well as the facts that are in scripture.

And then there’s another factor that makes me enter this book with a feeling of alarm. And the reason again is the climate into which we are giving these studies in Revelation. It’s not primarily because of a skeptical and doubting age, although that’s true. But it’s because of these dark and desperate and difficult days in which we live and the failure of leadership in every field: government, the political leaders, the scientists, educators.

The educators today can’t even control their own campuses. How are they going to supply leadership for the world? And then the military, and then the business tycoons, and then the actors. And you can hear them on these talk programs on TV, and you can spend a little time—and that’s all that you’ll want to spend listening to them—and you’ll find out they’ve got nothing to say. They do a lot of talking, but they say nothing that’s worthwhile today.

None of these groups and segments of our society have any solutions. Actually, they are failures in the realm of leadership today because right now there is a lack of leadership, no one to lead us out of this moral morass or the difficult and Laodicean problems that have us all tangled up. And we’re living in a very difficult time, friends, in fact, one of the worst times I think in the history of the church. And it makes it very difficult because of the grave danger there is in the world today.

It was Dr. Harold C. Urey many years ago—that is after World War II—who wrote, "I am a frightened man." And he says, "All the scientists I know are frightened, frightened for their lives, and they’re frightened for your life too." Well, that’s the picture of the day. I could give you many more quotations. And the church doesn’t have any solution for the problems of this hour in which we’re living, which makes it a very difficult thing.

One of the things was the phenomenal growth in membership in the church, especially after World War II. And that only took place for a while. There was a phenomenal growth in membership from 20% of our population in 1884 to 35% of the population in 1959, and that was the high point—that is, Protestant church members. And that would indicate the possibility of a church on fire for God. Then it had wealth, building tremendous programs.

But recently the church is beginning to lose, and today it also is certainly not affecting the contemporary culture of this hour. We’re living definitely in days like this. It was way back in December the 19th, 1958, that the late David Lawrence wrote an editorial on the mess in the world. And he went on to describe it, but even he didn’t have a solution for the mess that’s in this world today.

What a picture it is that we have at this present hour as we look out at the world that really is in a mess. And we could quote, I suppose, here from many other sources, and we’ll probably be inserting them later on, but I think this is enough to enforce the fact that we’re living in this kind of a day. There has been, therefore, a renewed interest in prophecy.

And as a result, many men who apparently showed very little interest in prophecy before have suddenly become experts in the field of prophecy. They apparently have not studied it very much, and they’ve come up with what Sir Robert Anderson said were the wild utterances of prophecy-mongers. And it has led to some of the wildest and weirdest interpretations of scripture that’s imaginable.

Why, they make the Book of Revelation a mystical, fanatical, and hard-to-understand book. They’re beginning to set dates, and they translate Revelation as if it is happening today or has happened recently. And believe me, friends, some of the interpretations are laughable. I could enlarge on this, but I want to say that I think one illustration will reveal how ridiculous it is. And I have used in the past others.

Now this is one man, supposed to be a Bible teacher some time ago, that listened to our program when I was teaching the book of Amos. And I mentioned in there somewhere that the Lord Jesus was the lion of the tribe of Judah, and that out of Judah would the Lord Jesus come. That had been the prophecy, and He was born, and He came as the Lamb of God, but He’s coming again as the lion of the tribe of Judah.

Now this man wrote me and says, "Out of Judah will be the Antichrist. You’re wrong again. What does the Bible say? It says he’ll come like a roaring lion. Now where do lions come from? Why, they come from Africa. And therefore, he’ll be coming out of Africa." My friend, I want to tell you, you can’t get any farther out on a limb than that in interpreting prophecy today. And it’s that type of thing that I very personally decry at this time.

Actually, we come to a book now that I want to make a startling statement at this time. And I’m sure that it’ll not be agreed to by a great many, and I intend to attempt to answer all of these weird interpretations as we go along and show that the Book of Revelation is one of the most sensible books in the Bible. Now, I want to make the startling statement: The Book of Revelation is not a difficult book.

The liberal has tried to make it that kind of book, and then even the Amillennialist has attempted to say that—that it’s a difficult book, it’s symbolic, it’s hard and difficult to understand. And of course, some of our Premillennialists are trying to demonstrate that it’s a weird and wild book. Actually, it’s not a difficult book. It’s the most orderly book in the Bible, and there really is no reason to misunderstand it.

First of all, let me say that no book of the Bible—and we’ll deal with this as we go along—is as orderly as the Book of Revelation. Now, this is what I mean: It divides itself, as we shall see. John puts down—he says you’re to write of the things you have seen, the things that are, and the things that will be: past, present, and future. Then you will find that the book divides itself, as no other book does, in a series of sevens.

In each one is just as orderly as it possibly can be, and you’ll find no book in the Bible that divides itself like that. And as we get into the book, we’re going to demonstrate it. And then there are those that claim that all of it is symbolic and you just really can’t understand it. It’s just beyond us. May I say to you that the Book of Revelation is to be taken literally.

And when it’s a symbol, it’ll be either indicated or so stated, and it will be symbolic of reality. And the reality will be more real than the symbol for the simple reason He uses a symbol to describe a reality. And that’s important, in fact, that’s all-important to follow. Now because of this, we have no right to reach into the Book of Revelation and to draw out of it some of these wonderful pictures that John gives us—and some of them actually symbolic.

But symbolic of a reality, but not of a reality taking place today because let me say something else, and then we’ll develop this later on: The Book of Revelation is prophetic of the future. When it was given, all of it was prophetic. And all of it looked to the future, even beginning with the glorified resurrected Christ. He saw Him as He is today, but that was the vision he was given. And since he’d been given the vision, he was to write of that vision which was. But it’s of the Lord Jesus Christ as He is today.

So that the church is set before us in the figure of seven churches that actually were in existence, real churches. I’ve visited all seven of them, and I have spent many hours there, for I’ve visited them some of them as many as four times. And I’d love to go back there tomorrow because it’s a very wonderful thing and it makes these churches live for us today to see the ruins of them and to see how John was speaking into a local situation but giving the history of the church.

Then at the beginning of chapter 4, the church is not mentioned anymore. In fact, will not be mentioned again in the Book of Revelation. Somebody says, "You mean it goes out of business?" Well, it leaves the earth and goes to heaven. Well, what happened to it? Well, it became the bride of Christ, and you’re going to see a bride in the last part of Revelation—but not the church. She’s a bride now to be presented to Christ. What a picture.

And then beginning with chapter 4, everything is definitely in the future from where we are right now. So that when anybody reaches in and tries to pull out of Revelation some vision about famine or wars of that sort of thing, my friend, it just doesn’t fit today. And if we’ll let John tell it like it is—and I tell you, we need to let the Bible speak like that, just let it say what it wants to say—and this idea of drawing these weird and wild interpretations, that's the reason I enter this book with a great deal of fear and trembling.

The interesting thing to note is that prophecy is being developed today. The great doctrines of the church have been developed in certain ages. At first, it was the doctrine of the scripture, of the Word of God. Then there was the doctrine of the person of Christ, Christology, and then the doctrine of soteriology of salvation, and then on down. And now we’re living in the day when prophecy is really being developed, and we need to be very careful of who we listen to and what we listen to.

When the Pilgrims sailed for America, their pastor at Leyden—that is in Holland—reminded them, and I’m quoting from him now: "The Lord has more truth yet to break forth from His holy Word. Luther and Calvin were shining lights in their times, yet they penetrated not the whole counsel of God. Be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written Word of God."

That’s important. God today is not revealing new truth by giving you a vision or a dream or a new religion, but God is revealing new truth from His Word. And therefore, we need to be very careful of what it is. The 20th century has witnessed, as we’ve indicated, a renewed interest in eschatology. Now, that’s the doctrine of last things, or as the common colloquialism is: prophecy. Especially since World War I, great strides have been made in the field of prophecy during the past two decades.

Indeed, new light has fallen upon this phase of scripture. All of this attention has focused the light of deeper study on the Book of Revelation. Even in this series that will take us three months, we are going to try to avoid the pitfalls of attempting to present something new and novel just for the sake of being different. Likewise, we shall steer clear of repeating threadbare clichés. Many works on Revelation are merely a carbon copy of other works.

I have more books on Revelation in my library than I have on any other book of the Bible, and most of them just didn’t need to be written because they’re nothing in the world but just a Xerox copy of the one that was written before them. Next time, I want to spend time again in this introduction, and I hope we get our foot in the door of the book before it’s over—the different theories of interpretation of Revelation. And there actually have been four different theories of interpretation, and we’re going to consider those next time.

Now, there is another danger we need to avoid, and that is of thinking that the Book of Revelation can be put on a chart. Now, I make that statement because I happen to have a chart myself, and I’ve used it before. But I’ll not be using it in this study, and I’ll tell you why. A chart generally is so complicated, if you get everything in it, nobody can understand it. And on the other hand, if it’s too brief or so you can understand it, it doesn’t tell you enough.

That’s always been my danger. I have several charts, in fact, I have them here in my briefcase today, the different ones have sent me, men frankly that I have great confidence in. And one of them is so complicated that you need a chart to understand his chart, because it’s a very complicated thing. So we’ll not be using a chart, but I will attempt to simplify at different stages as we go through this book the overall picture.

Because the Bible opens not only on a worldview, a global view, but a universal view: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the Book of Revelation is another not only global book, but universal book. It shows what God is going to do with His universe and with His creatures. There’s no book quite like this.

Steve Schwetz: That’s true. There’s no book quite like Revelation. It ties together all the lines of prophecy and then gives us a panoramic view of earth, time, and eternity. Well, if you’d like more resources to deepen your study, you can download our app or visit ttb.org. And if you’d like to be in touch with us, just email us anytime at biblebus@ttb.org or give us a call at 1-800-65-BIBLE. I’m Steve Schwetz, and until next time, I’ll save you a seat here on the Bible Bus.