Thru the Bible

Guest (Male): Welcome to Thru the Bible as we continue our introduction to the book of Revelation. Dr. J. Vernon McGee reminds us that for generations, leaders and historians have sensed that history is moving toward a great crisis. Their warnings echo the same truth: time is short.

But Revelation isn't a book of despair. It's the unveiling of our living hope in Jesus Christ. Dr. McGee said the Bible as a whole tells us what Jesus has done, what he's doing, and what he will do. Revelation draws this into sharp focus. What will Jesus do in the days ahead? And then, how can we live ready for his coming? Let's begin with prayer.

Father, thank you for the gift of your Word. And by your Spirit, Lord, teach us what we need to know so that we can follow you with our whole hearts. In the name of Jesus, Amen. Now open your Bible to Revelation as we journey through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now last time, we left off with the thought that the present condition today, the failure of every great department of our contemporary culture has so failed in presenting leadership for the world that men are puzzled and they've turned in every direction.

Now, this has been going on for some time. In fact, ever since World War II, why men have been feeling like this. I'd like to continue giving you some quotations from men at the end of World War II who sensed what was coming even in our day.

Dr. John R. Mott, who after returning from a trip around the world, made this statement. He says, "The most dangerous era the world has ever known." And he says, "When I think of human tragedies I saw it and felt it of the Christian ideal sacrificed as they've been, the thought comes to me that God is preparing the way for some immense direct action."

My friend, that's what the book of Revelation is all about. God is preparing the world for some direct action. Then Winston Churchill before he died said, "Time may be short." And Mr. Luce before he died, he was up in San Francisco and you remember he was the editor of Life, Time and Fortune magazines.

He made this statement. He said that when he was a boy, the son of a Presbyterian missionary in China, he and his father often discussed the premillennial coming of Christ. And he thought that all missionaries who believed in that teaching were inclined to be fanatical. And then Mr. Luce said, and I'm quoting directly now, "I wonder if there wasn't something to that position after all."

Dr. Charles Beard, the American historian, said, "All over the world the thinkers and searchers who scan the horizon of the future are attempting to assess the values of civilization and speculating about its destiny." And Dr. William Yoke in The Road to Civilization said, "The handwriting on the wall of five continents now tells us that the Day of Judgment is at hand."

And Dr. Raymond B. Fosdick, who was president of the Rockefeller Foundation, said, "To many ears comes the sound of the tramp of doom. Time is short." H. G. Wells before he died declared, and I'm quoting him, "This world is at the end of its tether. The end of everything we call life is at hand."

And then General Douglas MacArthur said, "We've had our last chance." And the former President Dwight Eisenhower said also, "Without a moral regeneration throughout the world, there's no hope for us as we're going to disappear one day in the dust of an atomic explosion."

And the former president of Columbia University, Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, said, "The end cannot be far distant." And then the former Secretary of Defense, I think he was under the Eisenhower administration, James D. Forrestal, he said, "In my opinion, the state of tension will continue for the rest of our lives and those of our children. It is a gloomy prospect, but the cloud has a silver lining. Our earthly lives may be cut short at any moment by the shout, the voice of the archangel and the trump of God as the advent of Christ to a strife-torn world is announced for the second time."

So for a long time now, men in high places have looked into the future. And the best they could, they've said there's a great crisis coming. I wonder what they would say if they lived in our day? Well, as a result, there has been a great turning to prophecy. And I believe that it's being developed today as it's never been before.

But down through the history of the church, there actually have been four very definite systems of interpretation of prophecy based largely upon the book of Revelation. Now, I want to just mention these to pass them by, because a friend of mine several years ago, a retired minister, when I was pastor downtown Los Angeles, gave me some typewritten notes.

Notes that he had taken out of an old commentary. And I actually do not know who wrote that commentary. I haven't got to the end of the notes yet and I may get there before this study is over, and I'm sure I will. And I'll be able to say. But this is one of the most scholarly works on Revelation, and it goes into so much detail and it becomes a little complicated.

And of these four major divisions of interpretation, for instance, he breaks down the Preterist, which I'm going to mention first, into about 20 different interpretations. So that down through the history of the church, there have been many interpretations of prophecy. But I think that we can show today that the church has largely followed what we believe is the Futurist interpretation.

Now here we have first the Preterist theory. And their interpretation is that all of the book of Revelation has been fulfilled in the past. It had to do with local references in John's day. It had to do with the days of either Nero or Domitian.

And this view was held by Renan and most German scholars and also by Elliott. Now, it's true that the book of Revelation contains comfort, and some people don't think that when they read it all about the bowls of wrath and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse riding forth. But we're going to see the book of Revelation is not about those things. It has another subject.

But actually, it was for comfort of God's people and has been for all ages. But the interpretation of it—this type of interpretation—means that you just as well take it out of the Bible. It has no meaning at all for the present hour. And that viewpoint has been pretty much answered and relegated to the limbo of lost things.

Now there is the historical interpretation. And that viewpoint is that the fulfillment of the book of Revelation is going on in history and you can just fit it into history. Well, I think that there is a certain amount of truth in that for the seven churches. But beyond that, I don't think so, and we'll see why.

Then the third interpretation is known as the spiritual or historical interpretation. The spiritual-historical. Now, the historical, of course, was the fulfillment of Revelation is going on in history. And Revelation is the prophetic history of the church all the way through, according to this theory.

Now, the historical-spiritual theory is a refinement of the historical theory, which was advanced, I think, first by Sir William Ramsey. This theory states that the two beasts are imperial and provincial Rome. And the point of the book is to encourage Christians. According to this theory, Revelation has been largely fulfilled and there are spiritual lessons for the church today.

Now, the system that we know today as amillennialism for the most part has adopted this view. It dissipates and defeats, of course, the purpose of the book. Now, I attended a seminary in my denomination in which I studied Revelation in both the Greek and English, and both from the standpoint of the amillennialist.

And it was amazing how these things could be dissipated into thin air by just saying, "Well, these are symbols." But they never were able to tell you exactly what they were symbols of. It was always a real problem to do that. Fact of the matter is, you have some rather unusual interpretations that come up from that viewpoint.

One theory is that it referred to Martin Luther. And then another was that it was the invention of the printing press. Well, now, I want to tell you those viewpoints are pretty far apart, and yet they represent that type of interpretation. And it's something that I feel has hurt the interpretation of this book more than anything else.

Now, somebody's going to say, "But what interpretation do you follow?" Well, the fourth and the last one is known as the Futurist. And it holds that the book of Revelation is primarily prophetic and yet future, especially from Revelation 4 on unto the end of the book. Now, this is the view of all premillennialists and is the view which we accept and it's the view that we present to you.

Now, I'd like to mention some of the striking and singular features about the book of Revelation. First of all, number one is it's the only prophetic book in the New Testament. There are 17 prophetic books in the Old Testament, just one in the New.

And then the second thing is the writer, John. He reaches farther back into eternity past than any other writer in history. That's in his gospel. "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And then we move up to the time of creation. "All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made."

Now in the book of Revelation, he reaches farther on into eternity than any other book. In fact, that's where he goes at the end, right into eternity future. The eternal kingdom of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And it's a glorious picture, by the way. Sadly neglected or abused today.

Now the third very special feature about this book, there is a special blessing that is promised to the readers of this book. You notice in Revelation 1:3 it says, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand." It's a blessing promised.

Now also, there is a warning given at the end of the book. Over in the 22nd chapter of verse 18 and 19, "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

Now that ought to make these wild and weird interpreters of prophecy today—they ought to stop, look and listen. It's dangerous today to just say anything relative to the book of Revelation because of the fact that people realize that we've come to a great crisis in history. And then to say something that's entirely out of line, it's to mislead.

But the unfortunate thing, the most popular prophetic teachers today are those that have gone out on a limb and it has raised, I think, a very serious problem. And later on, we'll have the repercussions from it.

Now the fourth very remarkable thing about the book of Revelation is it's not a sealed book. Now, you remember Daniel was told to seal the book until the time of the end. But here in the book of Revelation, John is told in 22nd chapter verse 10, "And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand."

And I disagree with these and especially the liberal today likes to say, "Well, the book of Revelation, it's a mumbo jumbo book. You can't make heads or tails out of it and you can't understand it." Well, that is to contradict what the Lord Jesus says, that it's not a sealed book. And as we've said before, it is probably the best organized book that's in the Bible.

Now the fifth rather remarkable thing about this book is it's a series of visions expressed in symbols that deal with reality. And the literal interpretation is always preferred unless John makes it clear to us that it is otherwise.

Now we come to the sixth and the last remarkable feature about this book. Very striking indeed and it's in one sense more important. This book is like a great union station where the great trunk lines of prophecy come in from other portions of Scripture.

Revelation does not originate nor does it begin anything, but it consummates and concludes that which is begun somewhere else. It is imperative, therefore, to a right understanding of the book to be able to trace each great subject of prophecy from the first reference to the terminal.

And there are 10 great subjects of prophecy which find their consummation here. And that's the reason a knowledge of the rest of the Bible is imperative to an understanding of Revelation. Someone has figured this out—I haven't checked it, don't intend to. But here is what has been given me. That out of the 404 verses in Revelation, 278 contain references to the Old Testament.

In other words, over half of this book depends on your understanding the Old Testament. It's calculated that there are over 500 references or allusions to the Old Testament in Revelation. Now, the books that are more prominently quoted are Psalms, Daniel, Zechariah. Remember when we studied Zechariah, I told you how important it would be for Revelation. And Genesis, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Joel and the rest of them, by the way. It makes it a very marvelous and remarkable book.

Now what are these 10 great subjects? And to be able to see them, let me bring this up today. When I wrote this, I was traveling by train. And train travel was more popular then than plane travel. And I used the union station of a railroad. And now you could use the airport or air terminal for the airlines.

Let me bring it up to date then. Let's go out to the International Airport here in Los Angeles. And you could do that in any of the great airports across the country. Here comes in a plane. It comes all the way from Japan. The people there are Japanese. Maybe if you didn't know that or had never seen a Japanese, you'd be interested in taking a good look at them.

And you'd say, "My, wonder where they came from." And you'd notice that many of them were wearing a different garb than we wear. And you would have quite a few questions. You'd want to know about them and you'd need to know where they came from to understand that airplane unloading and the people getting out.

Now here comes an airplane out of New York City. It's filled with businessmen. And they are all dressed up and they hit the pavement running with a briefcase after more business. Well, you've got to understand where they came from.

And then here comes one in from Houston, Texas. They're all oil men, all very rich, each one carrying him a gallon of oil, makes sure he makes it through the day. Well, you need to know where they've come from. And then here comes a plane out of South America. And again, they're speaking a tongue you don't understand, but you need to know where it's come from.

Now the book of Revelation is an airport. And there are 10 great airlines that come in to this airport. And you need to understand where it began and how it was developed as it comes into the book of Revelation. That's important for us to know.

Now, let me just mention these and I'll be taking them up as we come to them. The Lord Jesus Christ is number one. Now, I'm not going to develop that today, but he's the subject of the book. Not the beast, but the sin-bearer, the Lord Jesus. He's the subject of this book. Don't get your eyes off of him on bowls of wrath because you'll miss the book if you do.

Now, we begin with him way back in Genesis 3:15, the seed of the woman. And then number two is the church. And you find that where the church begins, not in the Old Testament. The Lord Jesus mentioned it the first time in Matthew 16:18 when he said, "On this rock I will build my church."

And then you have the resurrection and translation of the saints. That's a third great subject. And that's over in John 14, 1 Thessalonians 4:13 and 18, 1 Corinthians 15:51 to 52, and there are other passages and I'll be referring to that when we get to it.

Now, the fourth is the great tribulation. Began way back in Deuteronomy the fourth chapter when God said that his people would be in tribulation. And then Satan and evil, where'd he begin? Well, we have that back in Ezekiel the 28th chapter. I'll deal with that when we get to it.

Then the sixth is the man of sin. And again, back in the 28th chapter of Ezekiel. Then you have the seventh, the course and end of apostate Christendom. And you have that given to us in Matthew 13. And Daniel had something to say about this world condition. And then we see the end of it here.

Then the eighth great trunk line of prophecy, the airplane of prophecy that's coming in to the airport here, is the beginning, the course and end of the Times of the Gentiles. The Lord Jesus said Jerusalem would be trodden down of the Gentiles till the Times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

And then the ninth great airplane of prophecy is the second coming of Christ. And we have that given here in a great deal of detail. And then number 10, Israel's covenants, beginning with the covenant God made with Abraham back in the 12th chapter of Genesis and five things that God promised Israel. And God says here he's going to make all of them good, just as he'll make the promises that he's made for us.

Now friends, again we've spent the entire time today on the great theme of an introduction. And that's important for this book. I trust that you'll see the importance of that as we get into the text of it and I promise you next time we're going to get our foot in the door of this book. Because very frankly, I just can't wait to get in this book. It's a great one, but it does need to be handled properly today. And I trust that we'll be able to do that.

You pray for us. We need the Spirit of God to guide us especially in this book because this is the revelation of Jesus Christ and it's only the Spirit of God as the Lord Jesus said, "He'll take the things of mine and show them unto us." We want to see the things of Jesus Christ and to see him. That's the important thing. Until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Schwetz: If, like Dr. McGee, you can't wait to get into this book, then don't. Just grab your Bible and start reading yourself. And to help you, we've got a few free resources available for you. One is our digital booklet, "God's Grand Finale: An Introduction to Revelation."

Just like the title says, it's Dr. McGee's intro to this great study. He walks you through God's calendar of end times and then assures you that God is in control. The subject of Revelation is much more than a fantastical story of beasts and the bowls of wrath. It's the true story of our sin-bearer, Jesus Christ.

That title again is "God's Grand Finale" and it's available for free download anytime in our app or at ttb.org. And if you want to share this great story with a friend, I highly recommend passing along our Bible Companion for Revelation. The digital download's totally free, or you can purchase a print edition. If you go that route, we offer a discount on packs of 10, which makes it easy and affordable if you want to go through the study with your small group.

Either way, you'll find our Revelation Bible Companion over at ttb.org. And then lastly, if you don't already have a copy of Briefing the Bible, which contains Dr. McGee's notes and outlines for Revelation, grab that too. It includes some charts and illustrations for our study that you'll definitely want to have on hand, so don't wait.

Again, you can download your free copy in our app or at ttb.org. Or you can always give us a call at 1-800-65-BIBLE. Or write to Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, the address is Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1.

Dr. McGee ended today's lesson with an important thought. He said that in our study of Revelation, we want to see the things of Jesus Christ and to see him. Let's meditate on that goal until we meet again. I'm Steve Schwetz, looking forward to studying God's Word together with you next time.