Thru the Bible - Questions & Answers

Guest (Male): Mark records that one of the signs of the end of the age is the gospel must first be preached to all the nations. So how do we know when this is completed? Well, stay tuned and find out.

You're listening to the question and answer program with our Bible teacher Dr. J. Vernon McGee, a ministry of the Thru the Bible Radio Network. Our first question for today comes from a listener in Austin, Texas who writes: Could you please explain the amillennialist viewpoint concerning the end times and the millennium?

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now of course the first thing that the amillennialist says is that the Bible does not teach that there is a millennium, that the word millennium is not in the Bible. And that of course is accurate. If you're talking about semantics and not prophecy, then you're right, the word does not occur in the scripture.

I've noticed that that's the argument that the post-tribulationists use, that the Rapture does not occur in the scripture. If you're looking for that word, no use going to your concordance, you will not find it. But your argument is just a matter of semantics. The Bible does teach the Rapture of the church. The Bible does teach the millennium.

The term amillennial means that you do not believe in a millennium. A pretribulationist believes that Christ is going to come before the Tribulation. The post-tribulationist believes that Christ will come after the Tribulation. Now the amillennialist, in trying to solve the problem, he's just rubbed out the millennium. If you do, well of course then everybody is together.

The interesting thing is, instead of bringing them all together, he's got the field divided more than it's ever been divided before. The amillennialists are pretty well divided in their viewpoint. Many of them are post-tribs. In fact, most of them are. I think they are guilty of a certain amount of subterfuge when they begin by arguing that the term is not in the Bible.

It is in the Bible, and in the 20th chapter of Revelation, it appears there about six times. I do not know how many times God has to say a thing before it's true, before it's accurate. I turn now to the 20th chapter of Revelation. At verse two it says, "He laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years."

A thousand years in the Greek is a chilia. A chiliast is one that believes in a millennium. The Greek word is a thousand years, and millennium is a thousand years. They are synonymous terms. So to use that argument is rather facetious. Then it occurs again in verse three of chapter 20. It says Satan is to be put in the bottomless pit. He will not deceive the nations during that thousand-year period.

It says that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled, and after that, he must be loosed a little season. Then we find over in verse four, you can see in every verse here at the beginning, the thousand years occurs. It speaks of those that did not worship the beast, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

In verse six it says, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison.

I think from all of those statements that you see that the scripture says that down in the future there is coming a period of a thousand years in which Satan will be bound and he'll be removed from the earth scene. He's the great troublemaker today. Then Christ is going to reign a thousand years.

In that thousand-year period, it's an ideal period. The prophets in the Old Testament spoke about that period. They never gave the time of it or any of the details concerning it. It's John here that gives you the details, that that thousand years is a period of testing actually of mankind under ideal conditions.

At the end of that period, Satan is loosed for a season, and then you still see that man under ideal conditions is going over to Satan again, and he's in rebellion against God. How terrible this sin nature is that you and I have. Therefore, that period is a period of testing under ideal conditions.

Even if you could bring in the millennium today, that wouldn't mean you'd get people saved. And that's the reason the business of the church is not to try to make an ideal state down here. To begin with, we can't do it. The second thing is that we are getting away from our main business.

Someone made the statement years ago that the church is in the business of making the world an ideal place for man to go to hell in. Well, believe me, that's not the business of the church. We are to save man out of this world system today under the awful domination that is satanic.

John gives us this program. After Satan is released, rebellion takes place and Christ puts it down. Then eternity begins, so that the kingdom in the Old Testament embraces the millennium and the eternal kingdom. Daniel says it's an everlasting kingdom. John makes it clear that it follows a certain program, and you have here this matter of a millennium.

The reason I said that all amillennialists do not agree, I went to a seminary in which actually our Bible professor in one class one year, he taught that we were living in the millennium, and that Satan was today in the bottomless pit and the chain was on him.

Some of us that were premillennial, we rose up in rebellion against that and asked him how in the world, even in my day what was going on in the world, how could you say that Satan was bound? He said, "Well, it's like this. You take a cow out into a vacant lot and you tether her there. That is, you drive a stub down, tie a rope to her, and she can only graze so far."

That's the way Satan is today. I give you my word the class laughed at that because it's so utterly ridiculous. Now, that's the belief of some of the amillennialists. Some others do not take that position at all. They believe very frankly that we are coming up to the time that Christ is going to come to the earth and set up an eternal kingdom.

So that you have all shades of meaning. A few years ago I suggested to one of our outstanding theologians in this country from the premillennial viewpoint, I told him, "You have spent so much time answering the amillennialist, why don't you let him state his case? Tell him to put what he believes on the line."

This man began to do that and began then to follow right along back of him in the books that were written and answered him, or answered the amillennialist. I give you my word, none of us knew at that time that there were so many shades of meaning among this group. So that's the reason I asked the question at the beginning, what amillennialists are you talking about? But amillennialism denies that there will be a millennium on the earth.

Guest (Male): Our next question comes to us from a listener in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She writes: What determines from God's point of view when the gospel has been preached in all the world?

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: May I say that you and I do not make a determination here: how many are going to hear, when it will take place, and the method by which it takes place. I believe at the present moment that the only way to reach the world with their own language is by radio. I can see that there's no other way at the present moment.

Down the line, God may have another method. I'm not sure about that. But we are not the ones to make the determination of when that will take place. Our order is to go into all the world and preach the gospel. It doesn't say to do it by any certain method.

It doesn't say that a certain percentage will hear or all will hear. Now, there is a verse of scripture in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew that has been greatly abused in this connection. In verse 14 of Matthew 24 it says, "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."

The context of that verse makes it impossible to lift it out and make application of it for today. For this is a section where the Lord Jesus Christ was answering a question of the apostles. They wanted to know what is the sign of the end of the age.

He's answering that and he tells about the Great Tribulation period, which shall end it, by the way. In that, it's the gospel of the kingdom. It's the gospel we preach today with the addition of the fact that they'll be able to say then that he's coming soon because that is in that seven-year period, and they can say he's coming soon.

We can't say that today, though we do say it. The Lord Jesus never meant 1900 years ago when he said, "Behold I come quickly," that he was coming soon. That means those events that are connected with the Great Tribulation are going to happen so rapidly that when they begin to happen, then you can say behold I come quickly. He's coming soon and they'll be able to say that then.

But that is in the day when the gospel is going to be preached during the Great Tribulation period, and that does not refer to this day in which we live at all. So it's almost to say it's beside the point for you and me to make a determination of how many are going to hear.

Our business is to get the Word of God up to the ear gate of as many people as we can today. But for some strange reason, the church has been detoured today and it's busy about many things. It's been busy here and there and the whole program that we were to follow has been forgotten. It's got away from us.

Our business is to get the Word of God out. That's the primary business of the church today. That's what the Lord Jesus said: you're going to be witnesses unto me to the very end of the world. Today we are engaged in so many things. However well it is to take care of human needs, our business is not to feed them rice.

Our business is to get men and women to Christ, and when we do that, then they'll be getting the rice too. Our government is engaged in a project of trying to get foodstuffs out to the world, yet we are not feeding the hungry world at all. But nevertheless, we are making a stab at it and we are probably the only nation that is.

The only people that are engaged in this just happen to be people that have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, or they've lived in a land where it's been preached and it has had an influence upon them.

Guest (Male): Moving on to our next question, we have this one from a listener in Muskegon, Michigan who says: I heard a Bible teacher say that Ezekiel chapter 30, verse 26 has never been fulfilled in history. He believes this will occur after the Rapture when the Antichrist will be growing up to the age of 30 years, mimicking the life and times of Jesus before offering himself as the great peacemaker. Could you please explain your position?

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Well, may I say that it seems to me that there is too much speculation in this interpretation and not enough scripture. That is, this interpretation goes entirely beyond what the Word of God has to say.

To begin with, if you read the entire passage there, Ezekiel is speaking about the Babylonian captivity and he was one of the captives. He was then in Babylon, by the rivers of Babylon or the canals of Babylon, and he's speaking there what had happened to Israel, that they were carried into captivity, that the same thing was going to happen to the Egyptians.

Now, that same thing happened to the Egyptians. Secular history tells the fact that the people of Pharaoh were taken in captivity and scattered as the children of Israel were scattered. The only thing is they never went back to their land as Israel went back to the land.

What they did was they were scattered and a hybrid people moved into Egypt. You have left there the circumstances the same that you have in Israel. When the Israelites were all taken out and taken to Babylon, there were a group that were left that were not taken, and they intermarried with the people in the land and they were the Samaritans, you remember.

They are there today. Well, you have that same kind of thing in Egypt today. The people in Egypt are not the proud nation of the Pharaohs. So that this interpreter of scripture, I do not know who you refer to, he seems to have no knowledge of history whatsoever.

He's attempting to make more or less of a sensational interpretation, which scripture does not in any where indicate that for instance, Antichrist will be mimicking Jesus in growing up. I don't think that we have any basis for that whatsoever, and I can't understand why people today don't test these things by the Word of God and by history, by the way.

Guest (Male): We now turn to a question from a listener in Mountain Top, Pennsylvania who writes: I am confused by the New Living Bible's translation of John chapter 20, verse 23 which says: If you forgive anyone's sins, they're forgiven. If you refuse to forgive them, they are unforgiven. Could you please clarify this passage for me?

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: And this is one of the many reasons why I cannot accept many of the modern translations because this modern translation changes the meaning of it altogether. No wonder you're confused, for the Lord Jesus didn't mean that at all.

If you want a further clarification of it, you ought to go back to Matthew's record up at Caesarea Philippi, where he says in Matthew 16 verse 19, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

To begin with, the keys are a badge of authority. It was very meaningful in that day because the scribes carried a key as a badge of their authority as scribes who understood the Old Testament. Now what the Lord Jesus is actually doing, he's saying: I'm taking that key away from them and I'm giving the keys now to you.

And what is the keys to, by the way? What do they signify? They signify an authority over the scriptures, but what is that? Well, that is the gospel today by which men are saved. Now what is it that binds man today? It’s sin. What is it that will free man?

Well, it's the Lord Jesus Christ when you accept him as your savior. He says if the Son make you free, you shall be free indeed. And that he died and paid a ransom. That means he paid for your release. He paid for your deliverance. He paid the penalty for your sin. Now that is the thing that binds man is sin.

Today the gospel's been given to us and not just the one man or a line of men, but it's been given to all believers have the keys. There may be somebody working next to you that does not know what the gospel is. We get letters all the time from people that actually been in churches, never really heard the gospel, never knew they were sinners, need to accept Christ.

So we try to use the keys and give out the Word of God. Now the thing that binds is not a man or not men. I can't bind anyone. I can't set anyone free. What I can do is preach the gospel, and when I do that, then that will free man if they accept it.

Now that is the way that I understand that. He told them: whoever you bind. And how do you bind them? By not giving them the Word of God. I'm afraid that there are going to be many Christians that are going to find out when they get into his presence that he's going to judge us not only for our sins of commission but our sins of omission.

That actually we did not get in this great movement of getting out the Word of God to the world. That's the key is the Word of God, and we need to use it. That's the thing that'll free man. Now that I think is what he's talking about here in this particular passage.

Guest (Male): Moving on to this question from a listener in Sturgeon, Wisconsin who writes: Can the Hebrew name of God, the Tetragrammaton, be fully explained by ministers today?

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Well, I'm not sure that the Tetragram does exactly that, and I'm not sure that any of us know what it is: how it's four Hebrew letters that were translated Jehovah. Others have sought to translate Yahweh.

The reason for that is that these four Hebrew letters are not vowels, they are consonants. There are no vowels in the Hebrew so that you have to supply them. The thought back of all of this is that this name for God was so holy and sacred that actually Israel did not use that name at all.

Over a period of time, they actually forgot how to pronounce it. So that today I agree with you that I doubt whether there's any minister today that knows how to pronounce it. But that's no reflection on the minister because who does? Your best Hebrew scholars today disagree relative to this.

So that we do not know what the actual pronunciation really was. I don't think that is that essential that we know exactly how to pronounce it. It's I think well to know that the name of our God is holy, and I think that Christians today, especially in this day when God's name is used in profanity so much, that Christians treat the name of God with reverence.

I think that should apply to the Lord Jesus Christ, that we should not get familiar with him. Actually, he made it very clear, he says: You're my friend if you do whatsoever I command you. Now we're his friend if we do what he commands us, and we can sing at the top of our voice that Jesus is a friend of mine.

But he didn't say that. He said if you obey him. Now, I always feel like when I hear somebody singing that song "Jesus is a Friend of Mine," I feel like saying: Well, that means you obey him then. I think that Christians ought to be very careful about in fact singing many songs that they cannot actually sing from their hearts.

Guest (Male): Well, that brings us to the end of another questions and answers program. We hope that you've gained insight and understanding into the Word of God and its principles. If you'd like to learn more about these issues and others, then call and ask for a copy of our resource catalog.

Another way to learn about God's Word is to follow along with us on the Thru the Bible Radio program that's heard every Monday through Friday on this station. Dr. McGee's studies the whole Word of God in five years. To be added to our mailing list for notes and outlines that go along with that five-year study or to ask for the catalog, call anytime at 1-800-65BIBLE.

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