In this enlightening episode of Through the Bible, we are reminded to shift our focus away from earthly distractions and towards Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Our host, Steve Schwetz, explores Hebrews 12 and shares testimonies from listeners around the world, drawing parallels between the first-century Jewish Christians and our contemporary spiritual journeys. We are encouraged to look for the good ground in our hearts, where the seed of faith can grow and bear fruit, even amidst life’s challenges. Dr. J. Vernon McGee takes us deeper into the teachings of Hebrews, especially about the dangers of
We need today to get our eyes off of a church, off of religion, off of an organization, and off of a man, by the way. No man down here should be the one we should be looking to. And I hope you just don’t look to this poor feeble preacher on the Through the Bible radio. Look to Jesus. Look to him.
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The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith.
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What great encouragement to begin our study. Look to Jesus. Who doesn’t agree that it’s pretty easy to be distracted by all the shiny things our culture throws in front of us? Or on the other side of that, the difficult things that burden us. You know, Jesus warned us of this tendency in his parable of the seed in Mark 4. He said, “…the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entered in and choked the word, and it became unfruitful.” But he then contrasted the seed thrown on good ground, such as those who hear the word and receive it and bring forth fruit. Let’s listen to Jesus’ encouragement and let the seed of his word fall on the good ground of our hearts and grow fruit in our lives. I’m Steve Schwetz, your host, welcoming you to Through the Bible. Now, in just a moment, our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, is going to lead us through Hebrews 12. And as we learn about another danger signal… It’s a warning sign, really, that Dr. McGee calls the peril of denying. And we’ll see how this warning directed toward Jewish Christians in the first century applies to us as well. So hop aboard the Bible bus and find a comfortable seat and turn with me to Hebrews chapter 12, beginning in verse 15. And while you do that, let’s hear a couple of letters from our fellow passengers. First, we hear from Sunil in India, who says this. When I accepted Jesus Christ, I was excommunicated from my community. Other villagers would have nothing to do with me. Now there are three other Christian families, and we stick together. The teaching in my language of Bodo, which began not long ago, is helping us grow in our faith. Now curiosity is building among passersby, and they have started to come into my house and listen. I play it every day, and some of them are coming regularly, which has not only restored my fellowship with some villagers, but I am happy and thankful to God that my community is listening to God’s word. Isn’t that an encouraging report? Here’s another one. This one from a listener in Uganda. He shares this. I listen to you and my family listens too. It has taught me to read and meditate on the Word of God every day and also to follow the leading of the Spirit as I study the Word. I have learned the Holy Spirit is the best teacher, so I need to rely on Him in my Bible study time and follow His leading in everything I do. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, to join us in asking God to reach more people just like this in India, Uganda, and all over the world, why don’t you sign up for our World Prayer Team? It’s super easy. Go to ttb.org forward slash pray. And let’s do that together now. Heavenly Father, would you strengthen those around the world who love you? Give us ears to hear your word and help us to obey what you prompt in our hearts. In Jesus’ name, amen. Hey, we’re off to Hebrews 12 on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee, so stay with us.
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Now we’re coming to the 16th verse of this 12th chapter, and I’d like to drop back to verse 15 because… We begin there with the sixth danger signal that we’ve had in this epistle. As I’ve called your attention to it, all the way through the epistle, the red light is turned on. A warning sign is given. And certain perils are mentioned. Here it’s the peril of denying. And notice what he says in verse 15 again. Looking diligently, and looking diligently has in it the thought of direction. And what is that direction? Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And we are looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God. Now, the word here for fail is not the word for apostasy. It doesn’t mean that they were in danger of apostatizing. It really means just to fall back. In other words, a believer must keep his eyes on the Lord Jesus, not on man. And if he doesn’t keep his eyes, he’s apt to get to the place where he doesn’t avail himself of the grace of God. Now, God has a tremendous reservoir of grace. He wants to lavish it upon his children. And he’s prepared to do that. And he’s able to do it because Christ paid the penalty for our sins. God is rich in mercy, rich in grace. And he wants to spend it on us. But the problem is, many of us do not avail ourselves of it. You see, we’re talking, friends, about reality. Something that you can go to God and lay hold of. And that is the wonder and the glory of it all. That’s been the message of this epistle. Now he says that if you don’t do that, there’s a danger, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. And one saint in the church, and it’s generally a saint who ain’t, that can stir up more trouble than can be possibly imagined. And now he goes on and says in verse 16, lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. Now, I think actually fornication here is spiritual. There is a danger of turning from God to the things of the flesh, and it could be most anything of the flesh. As far as Esau was concerned, why, he sold a birthright, a spiritual birthright that entailed so much it meant you’d be in the line that led to the Messiah. Man should be the priest of the family of Abraham. But he didn’t care for it. Now, when it says here that he was a profane person, it doesn’t mean that he cussed a great deal. In fact, it has no reference to that at all. The word profane actually comes from two words. Phanos means temple. Pro means either before or against. And here, apparently, it means against the temple. It means against God. It means that he was just a godless fellow. Esau saw no need of any recognition of God or any relationship to him or any responsibility. And so he despised this birthright. And he counted it just as being something valueless. And he was even willing to trade it in for a bowl of soup. And there’s many a man that has sold his soul. Well, some have sold it for a bottle of liquor. And I think that is worse of all. Some are selling it today for drugs. Some today sell their soul for sex, some dishonesty. And that’s what he’s talking about here. There’s a danger because as a child of God, you’re either going to go forward or you’re going to fall back, as he says. You won’t stay in the same place. And now verse 17, For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. And I do not know of a passage that’s been so misunderstood as this passage of Scripture right here, because it gives the impression that Poor Esau, he wanted to repent, and God wouldn’t accept his repentance. And we need to recognize that he’s saying something here that’s altogether different than that. Esau despised this birthright, and then he found out later that there was also an inheritance attached to it, that he would inherit twice as much as any other son of Abraham would inherit. And that’s the thing that he was interested in, that which was physical. Now, his repentance is one of shedding of tears. And when it says he sought it carefully with tears, it means that he did a great deal of boohooing about it. And I think I can illustrate this like this. The thief was caught, and the thief began to weep and say he was sorry. Now, he wasn’t sorry that he was a thief. He was sorry he’d been caught. Esau was not repenting because of the fact that he wanted to turn to God, wanted something spiritual. He repented because he had missed something. And he cried because of that. And that is the thought that you have here. He’s actually against God, as you can see. Now, verse 18, “…for ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they had heard entreated, that the word should not be spoken to them any more.” For they could not endure that which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with the dart. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. Now, I have read to you the passage beginning with verse 18. down through verse 21. And I read all of that because it’s quite obvious that what he’s talking about here is Mount Sinai. He’s speaking of the giving of the law to Moses on top of Mount Sinai. He’s speaking of the old covenant. Now, the thing that he’s saying here, and again, I think it’s quite obvious that what he’s saying is just simply this. These people that he’s writing to, and we need to keep that before us all the time, they were Hebrews. They were Hebrews who had turned to Christ. Now, again, you must remember that the early church on the day of Pentecost, those 3,000 that were saved were not Gentiles. They were Jews. And the early church… For all of those first few years, until Paul and Barnabas and others of the missionaries began to move out, it was 100% Jewish. And then the Gentiles were saved. Now he’s writing to these Jews. Now, many of the Jews in Jerusalem that had turned to Christ, they found themselves here at a great loss. They’d been accustomed to go to the temples. They would have been accustomed to hear the law read. Now they’re shut away from the law. They’re shut out from the temple. They’re no longer part of that system at all. And I want to say this. They felt very much on the outside. And now they are being told, and I think Paul here is saying to them, you’ve come now unto the mount that’s different than Mount Sinai. And you don’t want to go back to that. Mount Sinai was a place where when the law was given, 3,000 people were slain. You read that in Exodus, the 32nd chapter, that giving of the law. 3,000 people were slain. On the day of Pentecost, 3,000 people were saved. They died at the giving of the law. They lived at the day of Pentecost and the preaching of the gospel. And the giving of the law is not pretty. That was the sound of the trumpet. That was an earthquake. That was thunder and lightning. And the people, they said, we’re frightened. They said to Moses, you go up. And the people were told to stand back and not come near. And some of them got too close. And Paul says, you don’t want to go back to that system. And even today, there are people that want to go back to that system that are even Gentile. Now he says, we’ve left that system and we’ve come away from it. We’ve got away from that altogether. I remember when I was a pastor in Nashville, Tennessee, a lady came up to me. She was a lovely person in many ways. But I always felt that she came in under that designation. where Paul spoke of silly women laden with sins, ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. She was a woman that was sort of a social hanger-on. That is, she belonged to a very wealthy family. She went to their cocktail parties, engaged in their sins. But she still wanted to go to the Bible classes. And she came, attended my church, but she never was a member. But she always pretended to be quite a Bible student. But she was one of those ever learning, but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. She said to me one day, after I’d preached a sermon about the law and how we don’t want to get in under it. And she came to me, she says, you know, Dr. McGee, the giving of the law is so beautiful, isn’t it? And I had to say to that dear lady, lady, the giving of the law is not beautiful. I see nothing beautiful about it. I think, frankly, it’s one of the most frightening scenes there is in the Bible. Well, I said 3,000 people were slain that day. And it was a law that these people were told. that they could never be saved by it, and God gave them a sacrificial system. They had to bring a sacrifice. A little animal had to die because the law couldn’t save them. It actually condemned them. Now, here we have some of those people in that day. They had been accustomed to go to the temple. They had been going through that ritual. Now there’s nothing to go to. There’s no ceremony. There’s no sacrifice to bring. Now, he says, but you really have something. And will you notice, he says, but ye are come unto Mount Zion. Now, remember he’s talking to Israel. Mount Zion, that was David’s place. David had a palace up there. And David’s buried up there. And I actually think his bones are up there, by the way. I think that’s where David is. That was his favorite spot. And he can have it for all I care. I wouldn’t want Mount Zion. But he says here that these Jewish believers, many of them are in Jerusalem, many of them still went up to the feasts. And he said to them, they won’t let you go up to Mount Zion, but you got to Mount Zion and under the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You’ve been shut out of Jerusalem now. The persecution had broken out, you see, and Christians had been driven out of Jerusalem. But he says, you got a heavenly Jerusalem. May I say to you that I think this is quite wonderful here. Mount Zion is the heavenly city. And it’s the city of the living God. It’s the heavenly Jerusalem. And it’s called in Revelation, the new Jerusalem. Now, if you want my future address, I’m going to be moving one of these days. I’d like to give it to you. I can’t give you the street or the number on the street. But my address is going to be the New Jerusalem. This is the place we’ve come to. This is our position today. You’ve got something far better in Christ, he says. Then he says that you’ve come here to an innumerable company of angels. Now, frankly, I’ve made the statement, and I want to stick by it, that angel ministry is not connected with the church. But we’re going into the New Jerusalem someday. And I see in Book of Revelation a big worship scene there. It’s a great scene. John saw it. John said that there was a company of created intelligences there. Well, there was 10,000 times 10,000. And then he looked around. He said, my, I didn’t see that other crowd out there more than any man could number. And there God’s created intelligences called angels here. I’ve never seen an angel. Often wondered about them. And I’m going to come someday to the New Jerusalem and join in that great worship scene with you. We’re going to worship the Lamb and all these created intelligences there. One of the things I want to do is talk to some of them. I’d like to… Talk to them, wouldn’t you? Never had that privilege. Every now and then I meet somebody down here that tells me they’ve had a dream and an angel spoke to them. But I always tell them that they ought to go back and find out what they had for supper. That may explain the presence of the angel. You haven’t seen an angel today, friend. You may think you have, but you haven’t. We’re coming to that place someday. Now he says here, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn. And here it’s the firstborns. And it doesn’t mean here Christ, although he’s called that. And I won’t go into those scriptures. But these are the ones that have been born again. They are the only ones going to be that. This is the church that we’re talking about now at the rapture. They’re going to be caught up to this place. And their names, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all. And thank God when I get in the presence of the judge, somebody’s already paid the penalty of my sins. That’ll be taken care of. And to the spirits of just men made perfect. Now, that doesn’t mean complete or perfect as you and I think of it. It means Old Testament saints, now that Christ has died, their salvation has been made complete. And then we are brought also unto Jesus. We’re to look to him now. Then we’re going to be brought into the presence of Jesus, and he’s the mediator of the new covenant. He’s not going to thunder from Mount Sinai. Even when he was here, he sat down on a mountain and gave law for his kingdom. And I think it’s going to be a lot sweeter when you and I come into his presence someday and see him as the mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel. Abel’s blood cried for vengeance, but the blood of Christ speaks of salvation. Now, this is important. This is wonderful here. This is great. And this leads me to make this statement, and I hope I have time to do it. We had it back in verse 3. Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself. They’re trying to get these Hebrew Christians to get their eyes off the temple, off of a bloody sacrifice, off of a ritual, and onto the person of Christ. And we need that today, to get our eyes off of a church, off of religion, off of an organization, and off of a man, by the way. No man down here should be the one we should be looking to. And I hope you just don’t look to this poor, feeble preacher on the Through the Bible radio. Look to Jesus. Look to him. And this seems so simple, you see. The temple, with all its splendor and its ritual, it was passing away to be destroyed. Now they’re under a new economy. And somebody says, this is the simplicity of our faith. And I agree with that. But there is a danger of oversimplification under the present methods that are being used today. Now, I have a little book, Faith Plus Nothing Equals Salvation. And I believe that. Faith alone can save you. But we have today an epidemic of believing-ism. These folk today that everlastingly have made salvation a little mathematical problem or a little equation, and if you can say yes to this and yes to that and yes to half a dozen questions, then, brother, you’re a Christian. And I don’t want to be ugly, but I want to say you’re not, because this type of thing leaves no room for the work of the Holy Spirit, for the conviction of sins. It just means a nodding assent, a passing acquaintance with Jesus. And there’s a word today that’s being overworked. Commit your life to Christ. What kind of life do you have to commit to Christ, friends? If you’re coming as a sinner, you don’t even have any life. You’re dead in trespasses and sins. He’s the one who said, I’ve come that you might have life. You don’t commit a life. He committed his life for you, and he died for you. And you are dead in trespasses and sins. And he has life to offer you. I’ve come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. And this idea today, and I’ve fallen in this in the past, give your heart to Jesus. But my friend, why do you think he wants that old dirty heart of yours? Have you ever heard what he said comes out of the heart? Out of the heart comes the dirtiest things that I can think of. Read the list that he gave. You think he wants that old dirty heart? No. He didn’t ask you to give your heart to him. He said, I want to give you a new heart. I want to give you a new life. And we need today the conviction of sin that we’re sinners. And this idea that we made salvation a very jolly affair and an evangelistic crusade today is just too ducky. It’s just so sweet. It is so lovely. I don’t see people come weeping today I don’t see that, and I think that today we need an emphasis, a strong emphasis upon the Word of God. Now, I felt that it’s important to give, but it did keep me from finishing this chapter. I’ll finish it next time, and we’ll move into the next one. Until then, may God richly bless you. Bible letter.
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Yes, that’s what we all need, a new heart. If you’d like to find out more, you can click on How Can I Know God in our app or on ttb.org. And there you can find the message Dr. McGee mentioned titled The Faith Equation, Faith Plus Nothing Equals Salvation, along with many other free resources that we’ve set aside just for you. Now, this is the most important decision that you’re ever going to make, so please don’t wait. Listen to and read them now. Again, just click on How Can I Know God in our app or at ttb.org. You can also call us at 1-800-65-BIBLE or write to us at Box 7100, Pasadena, CA 91109 or in Canada Box 25325, London, ON N6C 6B1 and we’ll send you a couple of these resources to you by mail. Now, when you contact us, be sure to tell us how you join us every day. Is it by app? Is it online on your favorite Christian radio station? However you listen, we want to know that information. So thanks in advance for helping us be good stewards of the resources that God provides through faithful friends like you. To learn more about how this ministry works and how listeners like you partner with us to take God’s whole word to the whole world, just visit ttb.org forward slash give or call 1-800-65-BIBLE now. Are you looking for a safe place to hide? Well, Dr. McGee said there’s one secure place to run. Hear about it when the Bible bus comes back around your corner. I’m Steve Schwetz for the entire Through the Bible team. We’re praying that the Lord blesses you as you walk with Him today. 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.
