Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: Well, we've come a long way in our studies through the book of Revelation. Welcome to Thru the Bible. Our teacher is Dr. J. Vernon McGee and I'm Steve Schwetz, your host on this five-year journey through God's word.

Now, in recent studies, we've witnessed the end of the devastating Great Tribulation and the victorious return of Jesus to Earth. Now, in chapter 20, we've got true peace on Earth as He reigns for a thousand years. But when those thousand years come to an end, what happens next? Well, as Dr. McGee leads us through Revelation 20 verses 9 to 13, we'll learn about an unbelievable rebellion. And despite the peace on Earth, those who still don't know the Lord will rebel at the end of the millennium when Satan is released from prison.

And there's no doubt that Satan is alive and active on the Earth today. I think most of us see that. Just look at the news headlines today. You'll get a glimpse into some of the spiritually dark regions under Satan's control. Yet we know that no darkness is so thick that God's light of God's word can't penetrate it. So find your seat on the Bible Bus and buckle up. We're in for quite a ride in today's study. But before we begin, Greg and I have got some letters that we want to read, this time from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Greg: Yeah, and you talk about parts of the world where there's been spiritual darkness. Central Europe or Eastern Europe was under the grip of communism for decades and of course it was godless communism. It was telling people there is no God and repressing and oppressing people. And of course this region has also been the subject of tremendous wars and ethnic strife. Traditionally the Bosniaks are Muslim, the Serbs are Eastern Orthodox, and the Croats are Roman Catholic.

That's a party. Religion in that part of the world is an integral part of each group's national identity and culture and that a lot of the strife has been between these groups. But God gets His word into these areas and we see people respond.

Here's a letter that says, "I discovered you by chance while looking for something to listen to before bed." Let me just stop. We've mentioned this before. That's the providence of God when somebody's flipping their dial around. Again, radio, which doesn't always work but works here, and they find Thru the Bible on radio. Let me continue. "Now it has become part of my evening ritual. Each episode reminds me how close God is even in the most ordinary moments."

And Steve, Thru the Bible by the grace of God and only by the grace of God is a huge ministry. We're global. We're in 300 languages. We're in 1500 stations here in North America. And just a simple letter like that, I don't know if it helps everybody else, but just I think of this person getting ready for bed, tuning on the radio, opening an app, it doesn't matter what the delivery method is, and it's literally impacting their life personally. And that to me makes all of this worth it.

Steve Schwetz: I love the way how it impacts families. Why don't you read this next?

Greg: Yeah, this listener writes, "I had never talked to my children about faith before, but since we listen together, we often discuss what we heard after the episode. These conversations have brought us a new closeness. I also believe this is a good parental investment and very beneficial for their future and their life."

Beautiful evidence of impact of people studying God's word and then talking about it in their family and them growing in their faith. Here's another one. This is short but powerful. "I've been listening to this program regularly for several months now. I feel like I've spiritually awakened. Before that, I used to read the Bible superficially, but now I truly feel like I understand it for the first time."

That's a huge deal for me. I love these short but so impactful letters. Just the visual we get and here's I think we have time for one more. I love how she explains how good Bible teaching makes her feel. She says this, "For a long time I thought I couldn't understand the Bible, but now I feel as if someone is patiently explaining it to me. Now when I read, everything feels a little closer and clearer."

Father, thank you for encouraging us that as we fling your seed, you do the work and you reach people in their personal lives in deep ways. And we pray that as this last letter said, that all of us would feel closer to you, to your word, and things would be clearer as we study today in Jesus' name. Amen.

Steve Schwetz: Now let's dive into our continuing study of Revelation 20 on Thru the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now today, we come back to this portion of scripture that we considered so important. And we've been already two times in this chapter 20 that we got no farther along than the ninth verse. And we actually didn't complete this section at all. And again, I want to read this section beginning with verse 7 because it's so important. And here you have the last mention very frankly of the thousand years. And here it is. And probably I should say yes, and let me read now from my translation.

And when the thousand years are ended, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, shall come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war, the number of whom is as of the sand of the sea. And they went up over the breadth of the earth and encompassed the camp of the saints about and the beloved city and fire came down out of heaven and devoured them.

Now we explained this rebellion after the millennium as revealing how terrible the heart of man is. You remember Jeremiah said the heart is desperately wicked, who can know it? And you and I do not really know how vile we really are and how separated we are and that we have an old nature. And that old nature you just can't bring it into subjection to God at all. The carnal mind, Paul said in Romans 8:7, is enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

Now these are folks that have lived under ideal conditions with Christ reigning. And I think they got a little tired of it very frankly. I think when He reigns as we've said, He's really going to be a dictator. You're going to stay in line or else and they didn't like staying in line. And therefore when the opportunity was offered to them to rebel, why they rebelled and it reveals the power of Satan and their following them.

Now the rebellion is labeled Gog and Magog. Now many Bible students identify it with the Gog and Magog of Ezekiel 38 and 39. Now very candidly, I think this is just due to the fact that the names are the same, but this is not possible at all for the conditions described are not parallel as to time, as to place, or participants. Only the name is the same. The invasion from the north by Gog and Magog of Ezekiel 38 and 39 breaks the false peace of the Antichrist and causes him to show his hand in the midst of the Great Tribulation.

Now that rebellion of the godless forces from the north will have made such an impression on mankind that after one thousand years, the last rebellion of man bears the same label. In other words, that began Armageddon really. It was a war, not just a single battle. Now we have passed, I think, through a similar situation in this century. World War I was so devastating that when war broke out in Europe again and included many of the same nations and even more, it was labeled again World War. It was the same name, but it was differentiated by the number two.

World War I, World War II. And now you hear people today predicting World War III. And the scripture says it's coming on this earth. Now the war in Ezekiel 38 and 39 is Gog and Magog number one. And the reference here in verse 8 is to Gog and Magog number two. Just because the names are the same, this is a different war. This is the last rebellion of Satan and I'm sure that just because they bear the same name does not mean that they are the same person.

In my family, there were so many Johns on both sides of the family that my mother decided that I should be J. Vernon McGee. The J, many people ask, would stand for John and I never was called John because there were too many Johns around. That doesn't sound good, but that's exactly what it was. And so I was named J. Vernon. Now just because we had similarity in names doesn't mean we're the same person. I had an uncle on one side an uncle named John, had a grandfather named John, in fact, two grandfathers named John, and my dad's name was John. So you can understand why I bear that name of J. Vernon. I had to be separated from that crowd.

Now we have here in verse 9 the dropping of the last atomic bomb. The phrase here from God is actually not in the best text. It simply means that natural forces which destroyed Gog and Magog number one, and if you'll check back with it, you will see that it was natural forces, it will destroy Gog and Magog number two. You can check actually there were certain plagues that God brought on them. There was the rain of hailstones from heaven. Now this last rebellion and resistance against God was as foolish and futile as man's first rebellion in a garden of Eden.

Here it is not the beginning but the ending of man's disobedience to God. It is the finality of man's rebellion. Nothing remains now but the final judgment. And so we have here in verse 10, "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where are also the wild beast and the false prophet and they shall be tormented day and night forever and ever."

Now this is a most solemn statement and it's rejected by this lovey-dovey age in which we live today. But it is a relief to God's child to know that the enemy, both his and God's, will at last be brought to permanent justice. There's nothing here to satisfy the curiosity or the sadistic taste. The fact is stated in reverent reticence, which to me is awe-inspiring. If man had written this, having said this much, he couldn't have restrained himself from saying more because today all of these things that Sir Robert Anderson call the wild utterances of prophecy mongers. You see men today they go farther than the word of God.

The word of God is very restrained. Very little is said about this subject of hell and actually of heaven, but we're going to see heaven next time. Now there's several facts here that contradict popular notions. First of all, the devil is not in hell today. He is the prince of the power of the air. He today is the one that controls this world to a large extent. God is limited, of course, today in the Great Tribulation. He'll have full reign for a while.

Now in the second place here, he's not the first to be cast into hell. We saw the wild beast and the false prophet preceded him by 1000 years. And then finally, hell is described as a lake of fire and brimstone. Now the Lord Jesus is the one who gave the most solemn description of hell. Will you listen to these verses? Luke 3:7, "Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him," now this is of course John the Baptist, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"

Now in Matthew 25:41, "Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." And then Matthew 8:12, "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Now it ought to make anyone stop and think. How can it be outer darkness and still be a literal fire? For you read it in Matthew 13:42, "And he shall cast them into a furnace of fire, there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

And then again the Lord Jesus in Mark 9:44, "Where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." Now to me, that fire is a picture and it is the best symbol that could be used of the reality. Sins that men have committed in the spirit, for instance, how are they to be punished in the body? I think that outer darkness is to be separated from God and to be looked back upon a life that's been misspent in this world. And can you think of any fire that would be hotter than for a man to be in hell and to hear the voice of a son of his say, "Dad, I followed you down here."

I want to say to you today this is a solemn thing. A man said to Dr. Bill Anderson, he says, "Suppose that we get over there and find out that this is not true at all?" Well, Dr. Anderson said then, "I will just have to apologize and say I must have misunderstood the Lord." But he says to the man, "Suppose we get over there and I'm right and you're wrong. What about it then?" May I say to you friends, that's the thing that has kept a great many men sleepless at night. What about it if this is true? And friends, it is true. This is the word of God that we're looking at.

We love John 3:16, but what do you think about this? I think that fire is a very poor symbol of the reality of what it means to be lost, separated from God for eternity. Now you can't reduce these descriptions to something less than the reality and I would not accept anything less because always a symbol is a poor representative of the reality and you can't dissolve this into the thin air of make-believe. The reality far exceeds the description and human language is beggarly in trying to depict the awful reality. Hell is a place and it's also a state. It is a place of conscious torment.

Now that is the language of the word of God and you can't escape that. Now verse 11, "And I saw a great white throne and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them." Now this is the great white throne. And this is what men mistakenly call the general judgment. But it's general only in the sense that all the lost of all ages are raised to be judged here. All the saved have been raised in the first resurrection. And that's made clear here that even the tribulation saints have part in the first resurrection. This is the second resurrection and these are raised here for judgment.

The lost are raised to be given an equitable, fair, and just evaluation of their works in respect to their salvation. I said to a man on his deathbed right here in Pasadena years ago. I was asked by his wife to visit him and he says, "Preacher, you just don't need to talk to me about the future. I'll take my chances. I believe God is going to be just and righteous. Let me present my works." And I said, "You're right. He is just and righteous and He's going to let you present your works. That's what He says He's going to do. But I have news for you. At that judgment, nobody's saved because you can't be saved by your works."

When you stand in the white presence of the righteousness of God, your little works will seem so puny that they don't amount to anything at all. My little grandson brought in to his grandmother there the other day some flowers that he'd picked. And I want to tell you they were sad-looking bunch of flowers and with great pride he gave them to his grandmother. And his grandmother patted him on the head and thanked him for the lovely flowers.

And when I looked at that scene, I couldn't help but smile. But I also immediately recognized how solemn it's going to be when a lot of these goody-goody boys are going to stand in the presence of a Christ they've rejected with their little bitty bouquet and expect that He'll be a grandmother to pat you on the head and say what a smart boy you were. My friend, this is solemn and this is serious. You need a Savior to stand into His presence. You need to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. Don't you know we are sinners? We are lost. We are in a world of it. We like to compare ourselves with other people.

"I'm as good as the Joneses down the street." Sure you are, but you ought to know about the Joneses. It was Samuel Johnson that said every man knows that of himself which he dares not tell his best friend. You know yourself, don't you? You know things that you've covered up and smothered that you wouldn't have revealed for anything in the world. Well the Lord Jesus is going to bring them out at this point while you're presenting your little bouquet. He's going to tell you about yourself. You need a Savior today.

Now will you notice this is the great white throne and the holiness of this throne is revealed in the reaction of heaven and earth to it. They roll up as a scroll. The one sitting on the throne is the Lord Jesus Christ. You say how do you know? The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself and he hath given him authority to execute judgment also because he is the Son of man.

Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice and they'll come forth. They that have done good, well what is the work of God? To believe on him whom he has sent. Those are the ones that have done good, they've accepted Christ. And then they come forth unto the resurrection of life. That's the first resurrection. We've talked about that. And they that have done evil unto the resurrection of what? Of damnation and condemnation. That's the great white throne judgment.

Now he says here, verse 12 and 13, "I saw the dead, great and the small, standing before the throne, the books were opened." Sure you're going to be able to get a fair trial there, friends. "And another book was opened, which is the book of life and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in him and they were judged every one according to their works." My friend, may I say to you your life is on tape and He happens to have the tape.

And when He plays it back, you're going to be able to listen to it and it's not going to sound good to you by any means. Are you willing to stand before God and have Him to play the tape of your life? And also I think He'll have it on television there for you so you can see it too. And you think that your life can stand the test? I don't know about you, but I couldn't make it. Thank God for the grace of God. That's the only way.

Now John says here the dead are classified as the small and the great. They're all lost for evidently none have their names written in the book of life. They had never turned to God for salvation. And the Lord Jesus said that in His generation, ye will not come to me that ye may have life. These had not come. And there are books which record the works of all individuals. God keeps the tapes and He'll play them at the right time.

And I want to tell you there are a lot of politicians that are going to have their tapes played in that day and it's going to be a lot of us preachers that'll have our tapes played in that day and I want to tell you we're not going to be happy about it at all. But if you're saved, you don't go before this judgment. Your works are to be judged as a child of God at the judgment seat of Christ which took place during the Great Tribulation. This is the judgment of the lost.

And the Lord Jesus said, ye will not come to me that ye might have life and these didn't come. And multitudes want to be judged according to their works and this is their opportunity. The judgment is just but no one is saved by works. The sea gave up the dead that were in it. Multitudes have gone to a watery grave in which the chemicals of their bodies have been dissolved in the waters of the sea and you say how can it be raised? Because some of it's in the Atlantic and some's in the Pacific. Well God'll have no problem with that. After all they're only atoms. He just has to put them back together again. He did it once. He can do it again.

The graves on earth will give up their bodies and Hades, the place where the spirits of the lost go, will disgorge for this judgment. And it's a frightful judgment. And I'm not quite through with this chapter. I've got almost to the end of it, but I'll finish it next time and then we're going to change the theme song. We are going to heaven, friends, and look at a glorious scene that is there, the new Jerusalem. Until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Schwetz: As Dr. McGee said, I can't wait to go to heaven next time. It's going to be an amazing study because we'll see Jesus in the new Jerusalem and all evil will finally, finally be removed from the earth. How's that for a teaser? Until then, you'll find great Bible study materials in our app, online at TTB.org, or by calling us at 1-800-65-BIBLE. That's 1-800-65-BIBLE. I'm Steve Schwetz and I'll meet you back here next time as we continue to make our way through the Bible.