Join us in this enlightening episode as Dr. J. Vernon McGee explores 1 Peter 4 and offers a Bible-based solution to the persistent problem of sin in believers’ lives. We also venture into the heart of Africa to share moving stories of transformation from listeners in Uganda and South Sudan. These narratives paint a vivid picture of how God’s Word is changing lives and restoring hope in some of the most challenging environments.
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word.
SPEAKER 04 :
Are you ready to be free from the sins that drag you down? Well, our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, will share a Bible-based solution to the problem of sin in a believer’s life. And we all have to deal with it. So while his ideas may not seem desirable at first, listen closely. They just may be the new direction that you’ve been looking for. Thanks for joining us on Through the Bible. I’m Steve Schwetz, your host on this five-year journey through God’s entire Word. Why don’t you open your Bible to 1 Peter 4. And as you find your spot, Greg and I want to turn our attention to how our ministry is impacting the lives of people in Africa.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and Steve, today, although we’re always excited and joyful about what God is doing, a lot of what God does, not only around the world but in our own lives, is it’s very deep and it’s sometimes very tender, and there’s painful things that God touches in our lives. And today we want to have the privilege of sharing some of the vulnerable stories that listeners from a country that you and I have a lot of heart for, which is Uganda. Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and just Africa in general. I mean, we’re really seeing the Spirit of the Lord move in that continent in significant ways. And the letters that we have today that all stem from a happenstance meeting in Carlsbad, California, these three languages all came out of that. Let me start with the first one. This is a dramatic story from a listener to our Juba Arabic program. Juba Arabic is spoken in South Sudan, a very difficult place. I would list it from what I know of the top three to five most difficult, most dangerous places to live on the planet today.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, that’s right.
SPEAKER 04 :
So that’s where this letter is coming from. It says, In our family, we’ve had some terrible things happen. One of our brothers died by suicide as a result of challenges and a family misunderstanding. During the burial of our late brother, people were blaming us for his death. This had a traumatic impact on my life. I became miserable and depressed because I felt rejected by my relatives. So the only solution, I thought, was for me to commit suicide as well. But one day a lady came to me, and when she heard of my situation, she introduced me to your program. When I tuned in… My negative attitude started changing immediately, and I was relieved and believed that God still has work to do with me and that I have a purpose. I started following the Word, and it kept building my faith daily. I still follow you and thank my friend. If not for her introducing me to the healing power of God’s Word taught on the radio, I would have joined my brother in the grave. God is indeed gracious.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, my goodness. I mean… You know, this not only is what we get the opportunity to do eternal, it is life and death in situations like this.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. And I just think about what an encouragement this letter must be to the speaker, Dr. McGee in Juba Arabic.
SPEAKER 03 :
Brother Abraham. Yeah. His son, shortly after we were with him, we were with him in Uganda for some wonderful meetings, and he is a lovely, mature, godly pastor, and he loves Dr. McGee. He went back, and his son was murdered. His son was a law school student who just was murdered on the street. And so, yeah, I’m sure that Pastor Abraham is really touched by his own suffering and how it’s relieved others.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, yeah. Now here’s another one from Renu Katar. Greg, why don’t you read this? And the thing I remember the most of this place was the time it took us to get there and the difficult journey. But then the excitement of the listeners when we went into that radio station and people started calling in and talking about Through the Bible. And it made that 12-hour road trip worth it, 100%.
SPEAKER 03 :
And this is in western Uganda, and as Steve said, it’s a long way, and it’s not a long way on a nice, smooth interstate, we’ll tell you that. So this is part of the fruit of that ministry. I would like to thank God for this program. When I started listening, I was going through a depression after my husband left me alone with three children. I was encouraged through the program not to give up on life, but to trust in the Lord with all my heart, to lean not on my own understanding, and that there is no situation that is meant to last forever. God gives us power to overcome every situation. I believed the word, I kept praying, and I have seen God do marvelous things in my life and that of my children, too. God bless you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Wow. Again, such an encouragement from a country and a place that doesn’t have WIC and EBT and all the other government safety net programs that help people in these situations. When they talk about relying on the Lord, they are relying on the Lord, both for the provision for their three kids, for food and deliverance and for fighting depression, all of those things.
SPEAKER 03 :
And, Steve, we actually have more letters like this, but we really wanted to take the time to just stop, all of us as a listening family, and realize what an honor and a privilege it is to bring the Word of God to people. As you just pointed the picture, these people are literally desperate sometimes. They don’t know how they’re going to live. They don’t know how they’re going to feed their children. And yet God’s Word is making a real difference in their lives.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Greg, why don’t you pray for us and pray for the listeners in Rooney Katara as well as Juba Arabic as we begin the program.
SPEAKER 03 :
Father, our hearts are deeply touched that these people have turned to you and to your word and been helped by our humble efforts just to give them the word of life. And we want to pray for the millions of listeners who are in very difficult circumstances around the world and pray that you would… as you’ve promised, meet their needs, provide for them, and help them grow in your word. And now we ask you to help us to grow deeper in your word as we study in Jesus’ name. Amen.
SPEAKER 04 :
Here’s Dr. J. Vernon McGee with our study of 1 Peter 4 on Through the Bible.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, friends, our study today brings us to 1 Peter 4, verse 5. You turn, if you have your Bible… to 1 Peter, the fourth chapter, verse 5. I want to comment very briefly now upon these verses. Verse 1 of chapter 4 reads, “…forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourself likewise with the same mind, for thee that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin.” Now, we have labeled this section here that suffering produces obedience to the will of God. And he makes it very clear here that when life is easy, there is a danger that we drift into a state of just accepting everything as if it is something very special to us. And we do not prize life as we should. We do not value life today. And as a Christian, I wonder what value that you put upon life. Now, suffering will change all of that. suffering for a child of God, and God permits us to suffer to keep us from sin and give us a value of life. I hear so many young people as I speak around the group say that they did this or that in order to find a new direction for life. Well, may I say to the Christian today, suffering will give you a new direction to life. And that was the thing that David discovered over in Psalm 66, verse 10. He says, For thou, O God, hast proved us, thou hast tried us, as silver is tried. So God puts us through the test in order that it might draw us to himself and help us to prize life. gives us a new direction and drive for life. And that is the purpose of suffering. Now, he goes on in verse 2, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of man, but to the will of God. Now, we don’t take life for granted, but we have suffered, and he’ll use suffering to keep us from sinning. And now he’s beginning to look ahead as he moves out in this particular section here that life is short. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lasciviousness, lust, excess of wine, revelings, carousings, and abominable idolatries. That’s verse 3. Now, we are very foolish. to spend our lives after we’re converted in the things that we did before. In fact, we can’t do that. We’re now joined to Christ. We’re united to Him, if you please. And we can’t run with the world to sinning. Now we must live today for God. What a tremendous thing this is. Life is short and time is fleeting. We must recognize that we’re going to come up before Him someday. Verse 4, “…in which they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same profligacy, speaking evil of you.” Now, I worked in a bank as a boy. Began that when I was 16 years old, and they put me on a teller’s cage when I was 17, and promised me that next year I’d be made a junior officer. And I felt like I was popular in the bank. And then I went to a young people’s conference, and that’s where I made my decision, really, for Christ. First time I’d ever made it. publicly and that I wanted to study for the ministry and I came back and resigned, yet they let me have a part-time job. They were good to me in that way, but I found out I was no longer the popular boy in that place. I became very unpopular as a Christian. In fact, fellows that I had run with, they ridiculed me and I guess they did well in doing it because they knew what my life had been before. But I want to tell you that was the hardest decision that I had to make at that particular time. I hope I’m not misunderstood when I tell this little story. In those days, I went to dances. In fact, I was chairman of a dance committee that they had, of all things. Now, I imagine some of you never dreamed that I did that. But as a boy in my teens, I did. And so I thought I’d break off gradually. And so I went over to the dance that night with the idea I would not dance. I’d just stand around in the stag line. And I was standing there, and I felt, frankly, very much out of place. And a fellow in the bank that I had been promoted above him, and he didn’t appreciate that, and he didn’t care much for me. And especially when I announced I was studying for the ministry. And yet he was an officer, a young fellow, an officer in a church. And he came over to me and he said, this is an H of a place for a preacher to be. And you know, that’s the first time he’d ever told me the truth. I agreed with him. I found out you can’t break off gradually and that the world is not going to appreciate you very much when you continue on with it. And I walked out of that place and never to walk back in it again. My friend, I don’t think you can go on in sin if you’re a child of God. You’ve got the nature of Christ. You’re joined to Him. He’s suffering no more. He suffered down here once, but He can help you. He sent the Holy Spirit down to indwell. And we’ve been baptized in the body of believers, as Peter’s pointed out to us. And now, by being filled with the Holy Spirit, we can live for God. And we can’t do it in our own strength. And he says here, “…who shall give an account to him that is ready to judge the living and the dead.” Now, the Lord Jesus is going to judge someday. And the believer knows that he’s to come up before the judgment seat of Christ. And the Lord’s going to judge the world. Well, will he judge believers? He sure will. Not for salvation, because you’re already a child he is. But he’s not going to let you get by with sin because he’s judging the world for that. And my friend, if God judges Christians today in the world, and he does, he chastises his children. And if he does, the unbeliever better beware. He has warned that he will come up someday for judgment. Now, verse 6, “…for for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to man in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit.” Now, God wants the gospel preached to all men. And if they don’t hear the gospel and don’t respond to the gospel, He makes it very clear that they are already dead in trespasses and sins, and they will be judged as men in the flesh. But if they accept Christ, they can live according to God in the Spirit. And that is the thing the Lord Jesus made very clear in John 5, 24. He says, “…verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word…” believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. He was in a state, you see, of death. And he further amplified that at the time of the death of Lazarus over in the 11th chapter of John at verse 25. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? In other words, you and I are dead in trespasses and sins. And that’s what Paul meant in the second chapter of Ephesians when he said, And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. We’re spiritually dead. Now, in time past, Paul says, we walked according to the course of the world. And we were fulfilling the lusts of the flesh. Now, that’s exactly what Peter is saying here, that the gospel is being preached. And when the gospel is preached, two things happen. Some accept it. And if they accept it, they’re going to live for God and live throughout eternity. And the others, they are men that are dead in sins. And they are dead to God throughout eternity. That is, no relation to him whatsoever. This is a tremendous statement that he’s making here. Now, he moves on down in verse 7. But the end of all things is at hand. That has been true. From the day that he went back to heaven, Paul could say that the coming of Christ was imminent, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing. That is the rapture of the church. And he says here, the end of all things is at hand. God’s going to bring this world to a standstill one of these days. While he judges it, he’ll take his own out of the world. There’ll be a lot of things to straighten up in the lives of believers. They go before the judgment seat of Christ, not regarding salvation, but regarding rewards, regarding their life that they live for God. That’s another reason that we should live for God down here, because we are coming up for judgment. He says, “…be ye therefore sober-minded.” And I’m glad that the New Schofield Bible has put that in, sober-minded. Peter uses this expression a great deal. And when he uses it, he means actually, be ye therefore intelligent. Be an intelligent Christian. Now, an intelligent Christian is one that will know the Bible. That is, know it the best he can. I’ve already made the confession on this program. That I marvel at my ignorance of the Word of God. And the more I study it, the more ignorant I become. I see how little I really know about the Word of God. But friends, an intelligent, sober-minded Christian is going to know the Word of God. Be something radically wrong. And not only that, he is to be intelligent in an evil world. The Lord Jesus said, Be wise as serpents, harmless as doves. But you better have the wisdom of a serpent today. If you don’t, another snake around the corner is going to bite you. I can assure you that. Be therefore sober-minded and watch under prayer. In other words, prayer should have that anticipation in it, that expectation in it of the coming of Christ. Oh, our dead prayer meetings today, because we’re not looking for him. He’s the living Christ. And we ought to talk to him now. And we’re going to talk to him hereafter. And he’s going to talk to us. That’s the one I’m not so sure I’m looking forward to. Verse 8, “…and above all things, have fervent love among yourselves.” For love shall cover the multitude of sins. Now, he’s talking about our relations as believers today. And you’ll find out that that is something the writer of the Proverbs had to say. In Proverbs 10, 12, he makes this statement. Hatred stirreth up strifes, but love covereth all sins. You see, hatred in a church. will stir up strife. And this little click will be against that little click. And these will be against somebody else and that type of thing. But love covereth up all of that. Maybe you don’t like the way your pastor combs his hair. And a pastor friend of mine in Texas said that he had just a lock of hair right on top that always would stand up and it didn’t make any difference how he did it. And he says that actually the choir threatened to quit because they were back of him and they could see that hair sometime during the sermon come up. And they actually became angry with him because of a lock of hair that stood up. Like that. And he said, you know, every time I went to barber, I had him just cut that off because I didn’t want to offend the choir, you know. Imagine that type of thing. And that’s what Peter’s talking about here. Then he says, use hospitality one to another without grudging. And I think hospitality today can be expressed in a different way than actually entertaining in your home. The average minister that’s going around in conferences today, needs to be alone. If his wife is with him, they need to have a room in a motel where he can study and pray and not in a home where he has to carry on a conversation all the time. And may I say, if you want to extend hospitality to your visiting speaker, take care of his motel bill. Maybe invite him out for dinner, but don’t talk his arm off. Verse 10, as every man hath received the gift even so minister the same one to another as good servants of the manifold grace of God. Now, I’ve been over this before in other books, and I’m not going to develop it here at all. But just to say this, and I’m saying just what Simon Peter is saying, every man hath received the gift. Now, the gift means a particular gift. There are many gifts. And Paul has already told us in the body there are many members. And the church is a body and there are many gifts. Now, I don’t know who you are and I don’t know what your gift is, but if you’re a child of God, you have some gift. And that gift may be to encourage the through the Bible radio. And I wish that we had more that had that kind of a gift, by the way. Now he goes on. If any man speak, notice, let him speak as the oracles of God. Now, if you’re not speaking the word of God, We have no business to get in the pulpit. We have no business to say we’re teaching the Bible when we’re not really teaching it. Now he says, if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God give it. In other words, here’s one man, he teaches the Bible one way and another another. And you say, I like this one, I don’t like the other. Well, this other man will appeal to somebody that your man doesn’t appeal to, by the way. Let him do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ. In other words, we are to teach the word of God that God may get glory through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen. But now he’s not through. He’s going to continue on. Now he’s going to talk about suffering in another area. These people were already now moving. into the orbit of the hurricane of persecution that broke out during the reign of Nero. Nero had already begun the persecution of the Christians in Rome, and it was spreading out through the empire. And he’s warning them now that they are moving into that orbit of suffering. And they’ll become martyrs, many of these dead. And he’s talking to them. You and I may not have to become martyrs, and I trust we won’t, but we’re going to suffer. Verse 12, “…beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to test you, as though some strange thing happen unto you.” You know, most of us, when something comes to us, we think it’s something strange. Nobody else has ever suffered like we’ve suffered. Well, when I was pastor in Cleburne, Texas, I went on one side of the railroad track to visit a family And they’d just been a suicide in the family and went over to minister the word to them. They were not members of my church. And they said this to me, Dr. McGee, why in the world did this happen to us? No one has ever been called upon to suffer as we are. I left their home. And I crossed the railroad track. It was a place then of about 15,000. And the railroad went through the town. And you better be on the right side. Well, I went over to see the family that was on the wrong side. And they had just had a suicide. And you know what they said to me? Dr. McGee, why should this happen to us? Nobody’s ever been called upon to go through anything like this. Well, my friend, I don’t know what your problem is, but whatever it is, I can assure you that it’s not something strange. Others have gone through it, and you will never be the one that will suffer more than anyone else. Paul the apostle was chosen. One of the reasons the Lord said, I’m going to show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake. And Paul’s gone the limit, and therefore you won’t be going the limit. So don’t consider it a strange thing. Now, all of us fall into this fallacy. I know when I got cancer, I could not believe it when the doctor said, told me what I had. I thought you could have cancer, but I never thought I could have cancer. I thought that cancer was something for somebody else, but not for me. May I say to you, friends, that when this comes to you, this fiery trial, and I want to talk about that fiery trial next time. Until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, that’s a great teaser for our next study. So why don’t you come back as the Bible bus travels further into 1 Peter 4 next time, and we hear more about how to handle the fiery trials of life. Until then, if you want to learn more about what God’s Word says about suffering, you can download Dr. McGee’s booklet, Why Do God’s Children Suffer? over at ttb.org. And if we can help you find it, just call us, 1-800-65-BIBLE is the number, or email biblebus at ttb.org. I’m Steve Schwetz, grateful for your company as we make our way through the Bible.
SPEAKER 02 :
All to him I owe. Sin hath left the prison safe. He washed it white as snow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Through the Bible exists to take God’s whole word to the whole world. And we invite you to stand with us with your faithful prayer and financial support. Where will God’s word go today?
