In this episode, we journey into the teachings of 1 Peter 4 where Dr. J. Vernon McGee unpacks the significance of living a life in fellowship with God. Addressing the importance of embracing suffering to align our will with God’s, Dr. McGee shares his insights into the scripture’s challenge and the profound truths awaiting discovery. We also explore new broadcasting initiatives that aim to take God’s word to diverse communities across Canada in various languages, further spreading the teachings of the Bible.
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word.
SPEAKER 03 :
You can’t live in sin and have fellowship with God. That’s the truth that we hear on Through the Bible as our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, takes us through 1 Peter 4, verses 1 to 4. And I want to warn you now, this isn’t a lighthearted section of Scripture. In fact, Dr. McGee says this particular passage disturbed him in the past, but he unpacks these four verses, and we discover a lot of truth in them. So as you grab your copy of God’s Word and you find your seat on the Bible bus, What’s new?
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, we need like a little branded thing for that. But we do love every couple of weeks if we get a chance to share with you what’s new. And if you are a newer listener, Steve has been saving you a seat and you got your seat on the Bible bus. You will learn that we don’t try to make a lot of new things happen. God is constantly changing. doing new things, and we just want to share some of them with you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, the doors have flung wide open, and this time they’ve flung wide open in the Great White North.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right, in Canada.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
And we love our Canadian brothers and sisters, and we have great leaders at TTB from Canada. And we are excited. They are starting something new this year. And that is now this is a little different. So we want to wrap our head around it. That is broadcasting one of the through the Bible language programs on the weekend with the view toward people getting a taste of. And we’re going to talk about Tagalog. We’re going to talk about Ukrainian language. Low German, which is also known as Plata Deutsch, which I just like to say. Yeah. And soon Arabic. And the idea is they listen to a program on the weekend on a local station in Canada. And then the call to action or at the end of the program, they say, you can get the app and listen to this every day.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I think it’s a great opportunity for where you’ve got these little communities, particularly in Canada, also in the U.S. and other parts of the world, and people cluster together. You want to be together with your people, especially when you’re in a foreign land and you’re a new person to that country, and they’re listening to the radio as well. And it’s a great opportunity to open up new avenues for the program to go out. Like we’ve talked before, the limitation of terrestrial traditional radio is, okay, we’re in the Ukrainian language. We’re only going to broadcast that into a Ukrainian speaking area. It’s not worth it for the small subset in a province in Canada. But with the digital and with radio in this time, it does make sense because radio on the weekend is way cheaper than radio Monday through Friday.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, and those of us that get to work in this industry, if you want to call it, of radio, we understand that the prime time is Monday through Friday, and then the weekends are a little more flexible. And so this is a great use of the airtime. And it’s also, as you hear us talking about our commitment to digital, Steve really articulated it well. We want to get the whole word to the whole world. Right. And if we want to reach all the Ukrainians in the world, we actually almost can’t do it with radio.
SPEAKER 03 :
We got to leave Ukraine. Yes, we have to leave Ukraine. Yeah. And that leads us into the other area where we have Greg, you sent us that email to the whole team on Monday. And it was such an encouragement to see the spread of through the Bible around the world. Tell us about your global map.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, I have this beautiful map that we’d love to share with you if we could. But if you imagine a map of the world, and it’s hard to know how many exact countries there are. I think Google enumerates about 244 countries. But we have, through the app, 199 countries. We have listeners in 199 countries to this program.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Steve.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, absolutely incredible.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m beginning to feel nervous now.
SPEAKER 03 :
I know there’s a couple of people listening. No, but it’s so encouraging because if you’re listening, you’re obviously listening because you love Dr. McGee’s teaching and people are getting that exact same teaching. Yes, it’s being translated, but it’s also Dr. McGee’s voice going out into 199 different countries that people are willingly listening to it. Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
And here’s just real quickly before we pray. If you’re outside of the United States or Canada and you’re listening to this program in English, send us, let us know where you are and what God is doing.
SPEAKER 03 :
There’s a great feedback section on that app. Super easy. Just tell us, hey, I’m here and I’m listening. Praise the Lord. Yes. Okay, Greg, why don’t you pray for us as we begin?
SPEAKER 04 :
Father, it’s so exciting just to follow you and to see the doors you open and the way you are using your word and our humble efforts to just hand out the bread of life. And people’s lives are being changed all over the world. And we just thank you and praise you for it. And we pray now that you would change our lives as we open your word and study it. In Jesus’ name, amen.
SPEAKER 03 :
Let’s dive into 1 Peter 4 as we make our way through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, friends, we have come to the fourth chapter of 1 Peter, and I’m sure that you have found your place there. This is the section where suffering produces obedience to the will of God. And this, I believe, is a very important chapter. It is one that you and I need to consider today. I’m reading now, beginning with verse 1 of chapter 4. “‘Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind, for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin.'” Now, this is a verse that I must confess I have just been given new insights into it. It’s a verse that disturbed me a great deal. And if you’ll notice in my notes, I have very little to say about it. In fact, our notes are very brief through this section here. It is because of necessity. They have to be brief because we attempt to elucidate and enlarge upon them in our study. But I’ve never gone into a great deal of detail of this verse. And I have been rather amazed to discover that others, likewise, have more or less bypassed it and have not dealt with it in detail at all. Now, I trust that, again, that the Spirit of God may give us an insight into this that will be helpful to us. Now, he says here, for as much then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh. Well, the for as much, I think, refers us back to the third chapter in verse 18. And I’ll turn back and read that. It reads, “…for Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit.” So these two verses go together, and as I indicated last time, that I would dwell upon that when we got to this particular place. Now, this is a reminder again that in his human body, Christ not only endured pain, but he was actually put to death in the flesh. Well, God didn’t die. And the theology that came up some time ago that said God is dead, well, he never died, and he’s not dead today, and he hasn’t even been sick. Christ died in his human body that he took yonder at Bethlehem. And as the writer to the Hebrews put it, that he was tempted in all points as we are. He knew what it was to suffer. He knew what it was actually to bleed. He knew what it was to weep. He knew what it was to shed tears. He knew what it was to be brokenhearted. He knew what it was to rejoice. He was perfectly human, and he died in that human body. Now, actually, he brought an end to his relation to the sins of man when he died on the cross. because he bore the penalty in his own body. And we were told that. You will recall back in the second chapter, verse 24, “…who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes we are healed.” Now, three times here we are told that it was in his flesh and in his body that he paid for the penalty for man’s sins. And therefore, that leads me to say this. He did not die in sin, nor did he die under sin, but he died to sin. He took my place. He took your place. He paid the penalty. Now, from here on, he’ll not be back to die for sin. He will no longer have any relationship to sin himself because of the fact He came back from the dead, you see. And when he came back from the dead, made alive, came back in a glorified body, and he was quickened in the Spirit, as we’re told here in verse 18 again. Made alive by the Spirit is the better translation. Then when he was raised from the dead, he has a life. that now lives in a body, he’s up yonder in a body today, that is completely devoted to the service of God, for he is God. And in the enjoyment of full and free access to God and to all creation in his body. And he’s able to make this benefit over to us. Now, we are told here, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind. Actually, the word here is the same thought. There’s some that have tried to say it’s resolution, but it’s not quite like that. This is a very difficult verse, by the way. It’s the thought that leads to a resolution. And what is it? with the same mind. Well, that’s what Paul was talking about. You remember when he says, “…let this same mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, and he hath suffered in the flesh.” Now, he says, those of us that have suffered in the flesh, we have ceased from sin. And that, may I say, is a very unsatisfactory translation. And it is that that disturbed me. I have before me right now a half a dozen of the outstanding Greek scholars. that have commented on this. Unfortunately, a couple of them avoid it altogether. And it’s this expression, for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin. Now, the word is pow-ow. The word actually means to stop. means to cease in the active voice. Paolo means that. In fact, you have it like that over in the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. That is, they’re going to stop. And I’ve emphasized that in the past. Now, over in Greece, when we were there, I took a walk from the Hilton Hotel down to Constitution Square. And I’d come to a corner and there would be a sign up there like our sign stop. Only on it, it had pow. It would be pi alpha uxilon. Pow. That means stop. That’s in the active voice, by the way. An active verb means that the subject does something. A passive R in the Greek here, it’s metal. And the metal means that the subject is acted upon. Now, that’s the word here. Pao means to stop. But here, it’s in the metal voice. The subject doesn’t do anything. And therefore, Dr. Thayer translates it literally as this. Hath got release. Now… If you’ve suffered in the flesh, you’ve got release from sin. What does he mean by that? All right, now will you look at that for just a moment? First of all, I would say that God today will use suffering to keep you from sin. I’m confident that many of us have experienced that. Suffering will keep us from sin. But he’s saying more than that here. This word hath got release from sin. Now, that means that God has made an adequate provision for you and me to live the Christian life. And as Dr. Griffith Thomas says, this verse right here is Peter putting Romans 6 of Paul in a nutshell, just putting it in one verse here. Now, what is that? Well, it’s the provision God has made for you and me to live the Christian life. Now, Peter’s made it very clear. We’ve been born again by the Word of God and the Spirit of God. Using the Word of God will produce a Son of God. And that son of God now has a new nature. Now, that new nature is not going to live in sin. The illustration, and it’s a Bible illustration, and I use it a great deal, is the prodigal son. Now, the prodigal son got down in the pig pen. But you see, he wasn’t a pig. He had the nature of his father that lived down that road in that wonderful mansion. And that boy had the nature of his father. And he didn’t like eating out of a trough. He didn’t like eating the swill that the swine ate. He enjoyed sitting down at the table with a white linen tablecloth and using a knife and fork and having a nice steak, prime rib put before him. and other delicacies, and touch it off with ice cream. That boy didn’t care for the pig pen. He had the nature of his father. Now, that’s Peter saying that here. And he’s saying because of that the same thing Paul says. You are now identified with Christ. When you came to the Lord Jesus… and you were born again, the Spirit of God baptized you. That is, he identified you with Christ. Now, let that mind, that thought, Christ is up yonder at God’s right hand in a body, totally devoted to the service of God for you and for me today. All right. Do you think, my friend, that if you really have been born again, that if you’re really a child of God, and you have a new nature, do you think that you can go on living in sin? Now, I’m a Calvinist, and those of us that listen to us on the radio know that I emphasize the security of the believer. But I think today that there’s such an overemphasis in that connection. that many of our Arminian friends need to be heard today. And that’s the reason that I feel as kindly as I do to the Pentecostal. They are producing a doctrine that’s been forgotten, and that’s holiness. And that’s a life that should be lived for God today. Now, friends, you just can’t be a child of God and go out and live in the pig pen. If you do, you’re a pig. Let’s face it. Pigs live in pig pens and they love it. But sons don’t love it. And therefore, he says, God now has made every arrangement for you. Born again, indwelt by the Spirit, baptized by the Spirit, identified now with Christ, and now the Spirit of God. As Paul, not only in Romans 6, but Romans 7, he shows you’re defeated when you live in the flesh. But in Romans 8, God has provided the Holy Spirit for you to live by the power of the Spirit. And again, I come back to this. This is not the active voice. What we have here is a word that doesn’t mean cease, hath got release. God has made every arrangement for you and me not to live in sin today. And these great gross sins that these people were indulging in, and many of us have, we can’t live in them today. It’d be impossible for us. And the son can get in the pig pen, but you can put this down for sure. He won’t stay in the pig pen. One day he has to say, I will arise and go to my father. And my friend today, if you’re living in sin and you’re comfortable in it, I would question your salvation. I sure would. Because if you’re a child of God, you can’t do it. That’s the important thing. Somebody says, can a Christian do this or do that? He might do it one time, friend, but if he lives in it, there’s something radically wrong. This is an important verse, and we’ve spent time with it, and I’d like to move on. But let me say this. A child of God with a new nature longs to please Christ in all things. And if you don’t, friend, Something is radically wrong. And that’s the reason that I believe the study of the Word of God is essential today. Now, I know that I play on an instrument of one string. I’m no musician, so I’ve only got one string on mine. And that is, it takes the total Word of God today. Not just a few little verses and draw out some little legalistic system by which you attempt to live. And if you’ll follow that, why, you will be able to live the Christian life. You cannot live the Christian life. by following rules. You can only live the Christian life by having the mind of Christ and by having the Spirit of God moving in you to please God and to refrain from these things that bring a disgrace. Now, let’s keep right on. 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, Paul is very strong in this connection, as you remember. You go to the 8th of Romans. Paul is very bold there. He says, They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. But to be carnal-minded is death. But to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Now, to be carnally minded is death. What does he mean? You lose your salvation? No, sir. It means you’re dead to any fellowship with God. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, John says we lie and do not the truth. My friend, you can’t live in sin and have fellowship with God. And that’s the thing that’s keeping people away from the Word of God today. It’s the reason that I have to confess today Christians are a minority. But in going through the Bible like we’re doing, I appeal only to the minority of the minority. Because today, a great many are trying to find a shortcut to live the Christian life. And my friend, there’s no shortcut. God says he’ll use suffering in your life in order to keep you from sin. And now he says here that you can no longer live in the things of the flesh. These lusts, desires of man, but to the will of God. You’re either going to live today to please man, or you’re going to live to please God. And you can’t do both. Now will you notice, verse 3, For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, When we walked in lasciviousness, lust, excessive wine, revelings, carousings, and abominable idolatries. Simon Peter spells out the sins here. I asked Homer Rodeheaver years ago. He became a very personal friend of mine, and I loved him in the Lord. Homer Rodeheaver and I were having lunch together. And I said, you were with Billy Sunday for so many years. What do you say was the secret of his ministry? He said this. He preached on sin, and he always was specific when he spoke about sin. He spelled it out. Well, you know that Simon Peter spelled it out here. For the time past of our life, May suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lasciviousness. That’s living in sex today. Lust, and that includes a great many things. Lusting after the things of the flesh and excess of wine. That’s drunkenness, reveling. and carousings, and abominable idolatries. The love of money is the root of all evil, we’re told, but covetousness is idolatry today. Now, these are the things that will take you from God, and he spells them out. You don’t have to guess what Simon Peter’s talking about here. And I’m afraid that today we’ve got a great many that are pretty indefinite about this. Some wag wrote this. If you got religion, you don’t know it. If you know it, you haven’t got it. And if you got it, you can’t lose it. And if you lose it, you didn’t have it. And if you never had it, you can’t get it. Some of the talking I hear today sounds like that. May I say, friends, you can spell it out here. And it’s written in bold letters. It’s in neon lights in the Word of God. And there’s no way of missing it. Now he says in verse 4, “…in which they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same profligacy, speaking evil of you.” Now, you either are going to please God or you’ll please man. And if you’re pleasing man, you’ll not please God. The Lord Jesus said, “…the world hated me.” They’re going to hate you. And if they don’t, then something’s radically wrong, friends. These are things that need to be said, and we’re trying to say them the best we can. Until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
SPEAKER 03 :
Jesus made it all.
SPEAKER 02 :
All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.
SPEAKER 03 :
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?
