As we journey Through the Bible, Dr. J. Vernon McGee and his team explore the practical application of the scriptures, emphasizing the impact of acting on God’s Word. With examples from vibrant young evangelists in Kazakhstan, this episode highlights the dynamic mixture of historical and spiritual insights delivered through modern digital platforms. Experience the inspirational tales of transformation, where genuine faith is tested and verified through conduct, reflecting a profound understanding of liberty and obedience in Christ.
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word.
SPEAKER 04 :
James 1.22 says, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Welcome to Through the Bible, where our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, explains how Christians can take these words to heart and put them into practice in our daily lives. I’m Steve Schwetz, welcoming you aboard the Bible bus as we continue our terrific study in the New Testament book of James. As you find your spot in God’s word, Greg and I want to encourage you with some stories of God’s people who were doers of the word, this time in Central Asia. Asia.
SPEAKER 03 :
And this is so encouraging, Steve, because if you know anything about Central Asia, it’s a tough, tough place to bring the gospel. And today we want to talk specifically about Kazakhstan, a country that I had the privilege of visiting not too long ago. And it’s home to 20 million people, and most of them speak either Kazakh or Russian. And, of course, Russian is tricky in the former republics because there’s a lot of political overtones. the TTB Russian, if they want it, and a lot of Muslims in that area.
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And it’s also, I think it’s interesting, a lot of people think, you know, some countries are aging out. A poster child for that would be Japan. But that’s not Kazakhstan. The average population age, two-fifths of them are under the age of 25. So I see that as being very hopeful. If we can get the gospel in there, if we can get them to understand the significance of Christ, we can make a real change in that country, not only for the glory of God, but also for the good of the people and the greater world.
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And I can tell you when I visited, I was impressed by how young our team was, the FEBC team that we were working with. And I remember we went to one of these cultural exhibits where they were showing us very interesting things about the country. And we were inside a giant yurt, and we’re all sitting on rugs. And there are these young girls sitting around me doing the selfie thing and posting things on Instagram. Now, you and I don’t do that when we travel. No. But they are reaching, and they told us great stories of evangelism through digital media. So this is an exciting part of our work. You want to read this first report that we got?
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Yeah, here’s a message from someone on the team there. It says, Her heart was filled with peace and joy and her faith was strengthened. This woman told me that the programs helped her better understand the Bible and find meaning in her life. Soon she began sharing what she heard with friends and neighbors, becoming an active participant in spreading the gospel. I see the Lord working through these programs, bringing truth and hope into the lives of those who previously didn’t have the opportunity to hear God’s word. Each testimony strengthens my conviction that this ministry is important and necessary.
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And when she said that she – a woman received a receiver, that it could be a media player, it could be a radio, it could be a combination, but it has TTB on it. That’s what we care about. Now here’s another. This is an awesome report. Another team member says this. Once our brother preached in a church in a small town. After the sermon, he shared radio receivers with your programs on them. So that’s what we just talked about. And he goes on. One day, a lady from that church shared her testimony about her mother. She evangelized her mother for a long time, but her mother was very opposed to Christianity. She was a local witch who, quote, healed people from different sicknesses. She was a strong and very popular occultist in that region, as many people came to her from far away. Not long ago, this lady from our church brought a radio receiver with TTB programs to her mother. She listened to that program and then repented from her sins and accepted Christ. She stopped her witchcraft and started to share the gospel. Many people who came to her for healing started to hear about Jesus instead because she stopped the rituals and only shared the gospel.
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Yeah, I think that’s called bait and switch, but in a good way.
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We love it. In Jesus’ name.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, absolutely. Here, I think we’ve got time for another one. Here’s a young listener that says, Hello, my name is Alabeck. Today I started listening to your programs, and I really like them. Historical plus spiritual, true information. It’s cool. I will keep listening, and I will tell others about your teaching.
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Now, Steve, you’ve been reading listener letters for 30 years.
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Has anybody ever said it’s cool? No, I don’t think so. That’s a new one for me.
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But it does reflect seriously what we were talking about. There are a lot of young people, and we are working with partners that have young team members, and they are faithful to Through the Bible, but they know how to reach their generation.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and I think that’s one of the many unique things through the Bible is it doesn’t appeal to any particular age group. In the U.S., I mean, it’s young kids, young homeschooling kids to senior citizens and folks that are in rest homes and ready to step into the presence of the Lord. Even old guys like you and me. Yeah, I’m not quite ready to be in that group. But yeah, no, I’m definitely skewing towards the older class now. So yeah, we’re both there.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, but you’re right. It’s because McGee is like your grandfather. And the teaching, it’s just like someone reading the Bible and explaining it to you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. And if you want to hear more of these stories on a regular basis, Monday through Friday, join our World Prayer Team. We’ve mentioned it before. Go to ttb.org forward slash pray. It’ll revolutionize the way you go through your inbox. Greg, why don’t you pray for us?
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Father, thank you for the work you’re doing in Central Asia and around the world. Now open our hearts and minds and change our lives as we study your word. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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Stay with us for our study in James 1 on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, friends, we’re in this section here in the epistle of James where he’s giving a verification of genuine faith. This is the test of it. This is the proof of it. This is actually the comfort of it. If you have genuine faith. You’ll find God will test you. And he does that for a purpose, to prove that you are his child. And God tests faith not only by trials, but he never tests faith by evil. And God tests faith by the word. And that’s where we are today. And never by man’s words, but by his word. And doing not doctrine is really the final test of faith. Actually, just knowing is not enough. Now, don’t misunderstand me. Knowing is very important. And he’ll make that very clear here in just a few moments. In fact, in verse 23. But I want to finish up with verse 22. He says, “…be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” Now, he says, “…be ye.” Now, that’s not the ordinary verb, amy, for be at all. Actually, it’s the word genesthe, and it can be translated to be born. It literally means to become or to be born, something that comes into existence. And it’s not the imperative of the regular verb to be, but rather this verb, which now means be ye. That is, you have been born again. In other words, he’s talking here to believers. God is not asking the unsaved to do anything. God is not asking you to do that. God is talking here to his children. And he doesn’t command the devil’s children to do anything. As we said, he never spanks the devil’s children. And he never asks them to do anything. He doesn’t ask the unbelieving world today to do anything. He wants to tell them he’s done something. I remember as a boy that we’d be playing baseball on the school lot on Saturday. And that to me was a wonderful thing. I played first base and I look forward to that. We played the different teams in other schools around his high school and generally ended up in a fight. Didn’t make any difference who we played. But one day I saw my dad coming up. I knew he wasn’t coming up to see the game. And he came up and told me that he had an errand, some work for me to do. Fact of the matter is, I had neglected when I left home of taking care of my Saturday chores. And he came up. Now, he didn’t ask any other boy there to do anything. He asked me, you know why? I’m his son. These other boys weren’t his son. God’s not asking you to tell you become, but be ye, those of you that have become a son of God, now be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. Now, be a doer of the word. And this is something that’s very important. It’s something very difficult for us preachers. I remember back east, I played golf with a doctor friend of mine back there, wonderful Christian. And a man wanted to join us. And so my doctor friend, who apparently knew him, he shook hands with him. And he says, and this is Dr. McGee here. And Oh, he says, we’ll have two doctors. And so I wanted to make clear what kind of a doctor I was. I said, I’m a doctor that preaches, and he’s a doctor that practices. Well, we need more DDs that practice, by the way, as well as preach. And that’s what he’s saying here. Be ye doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. Byer put it in a… a little poem like this. It’s easier to preach than to practice. It’s easier to say than to do. Most sermons are heard by the many, but taken to heart by the few. Be ye doers of the word. Now, God is talking to his children, and he is saying that if you’re just a hearer of the word, You’re only deceiving your own selves. And we need to recognize that he is making it very clear that hearing leads to doing, not to ritual and that which is habitual, not that which is drab or monotonous, not that which is routine. And the word for doers here, and by the way, this is where I get my name for the doers translation of the Bible. Actually, it has to do with exciting living, thrilling experience, creative action, doing something for God, motivated by an inner desire. We began this radio ministry and began to build up our staff and I think I have with me here one of the finest staffs. And I know it’s the finest I’ve ever had in my ministry. And it seems that God sent each individual to us. And each one of these individuals has made a marvelous contribution. These are dedicated workers. And my feeling is that in God’s work today, that we need that which is creative, that which is dynamic, that which produces today. And he says, don’t be a hearer only. Well, there’s a difference between being a student and an auditor in a class. I used to have quite a few auditors come into downtown Los Angeles when I was teaching at the institute there. And I had more trouble with the auditors than I ever did have with students. They were constantly sending me letters and cards telling me I was too hard on the kiddos. And they didn’t know that you had to be hard with hard boil. But the kids knew I was kidding half of the time. And somebody wrote a card says, it’s a shame the way you treat God’s little lambs. And I read it to the kids and they let up a big howl. Well, I want to tell you, those little lambs, some of them were old goats. They were hard to get into action, by the way. But those auditors, they never had to take an exam. They never had to make any preparation. They never wrote any papers. They never did any study. And they never got any diploma or any degree. They just sat there. And the very interesting thing is that they just didn’t do anything. Faith leads to action. It won’t make you an auditor. Someone said to a man that got his wagon stuck in the mud, this man was always talking about his faith, and he never did anything for God. He just talked about his faith. And so when the man came along and saw him stuck in the mud and couldn’t get the wagon out, he says, well, you sure are well established in the faith. May I say to you, what we need to do today is to keep moving. After we get established, we need to keep moving in the faith and not get stuck in the mud. And he says here, we deceive ourselves. And self-deception is one of the worst things. John says those that say they don’t have any sin in their lives, they don’t deceive anybody but themselves. And it’s very easy to rationalize your actions. Rationalize the fact you don’t do anything. Now, in verse 23, we come to the danger of the Word. And there’s this danger. For if any be a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he’s like a man beholding his natural face in a mirror. Now, he’s like a man that beholds his natural face in a mirror. Actually, the word mirror here refers in that day to a very highly polished piece of brass that was used. And a mirror is a very interesting thing. It’s a picture of the Word of God. When you look into a mirror, you get a reflection of yourself. You see yourself in the mirror. And you see yourself as you really are. You remember the fairy story that And I forget a lot of the fire stories, but this one I know concerned, I think it was two sisters. One was very beautiful and the other was not. And the one that was not was very much concerned and she did everything she could to make herself beautiful and she’d go look in the mirror and the mirror talked back to her. She’d say to the mirror, mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all? Well, Mary told her. And the Word of God is just like that. The Word of God tells you just what you are, just as you are. If you have seen pictures of President Lincoln, you know that there’s some pictures there’s a wart on the side of his cheek. On others, it’s not that. The artist that wanted to paint him began to have President Lincoln to move around. He says, President Lincoln, would you sit here? And then this man would move his easel and he’d have him shift a little. And President Lincoln began to smile because he saw what he was doing. He was trying to get him into a position where the wart would not show. And then finally, the man was satisfied. Now he says, President Lincoln, how do you want me to paint you? President Lincoln says, paint me just like I am, wart and all. Well, that’s what the mirror will tell you. You got a wart. It’ll show it up. The Word of God tells you what you are. And that is one of the reasons that many of us don’t like to spend too much time in the presence of a mirror. Now, there’s something else here that is quite interesting. For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he’s like a man beholding his natural face in a mirror. Well, somebody says it ought to be a woman. Well, the woman carries a little mirror around with her to make sure her makeup’s on straight. But what about men? Do they look in mirrors? They’re just as vain, friends. And there’s always a mirror in a man’s washroom, just the same as there is in a woman’s. Because the man likes to make sure his tie is straight and his hair is combed as it should be. And especially the way they wear it today, almost in a hairnet. And they spray it so that we’re living in that kind of a day when the way you look seems to be very important. And a mirror, therefore, reveals that. Now, there’s a danger, though. of looking into the mirror and seeing your natural face in the mirror and not having an effect upon you. For he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and immediately forgetteth what manner of man he was. Now, what he’s doing here is answering What he had said before up in verse 19, he says, be swift to hear, slow to speak. And the thought in being swift to hear means to give it all your attention. Be alert to the word of God. as we indicated before. Now, what he’s saying here, don’t treat it casually. Don’t go over it hurriedly like that. For any man that’s just a hearer of the Word and not a doer, if it doesn’t lead to action, he’s like a man beholding his natural face in a mirror. He beholdeth himself and he goeth this way and immediately forgetteth what manner of man he was. The Word of God says you’re a sinner. You read that, you don’t like it. You pass over it. And that’s the reason today that my feeling that textual preaching is outmoded. I think that we need to go through the Word of God, not pull out nice sweet verses here and there. God gave it not in verses, by the way. Verses are man-made. And I think that you’re to take it as it is, just like that. And it’s a mirror that reveals what you are. The Word of God, I think, today is crystal clear. It reaches down and tells you who you are. Why, a man that goes to a doctor and has an x-ray made, as I did, and it reveals a cancer. The doctor says, I looked at that x-ray. You got seven spots on your lungs. Now, I could have said, look, doctor, I don’t put much confidence in x-rays, and I just think I’ll ignore it and forget it. And I’ve known a lot of people that have done that. They have died. I wanted treatment just quick as I could get treatment, if you please. So you can’t afford to read the Word of God. And not respond to it. Because it demands you respond. And if you don’t, you are responsible. Now, if the doctor tells you you’ve got cancer in your lung and you do nothing and die, is the doctor responsible? And he absolutely is not responsible at all. And God has given you his word. That’s what James is talking about. And he uses this illustration, like a man. And of course, it means a woman too. And a word will take him back to when he was born again. Now, what he’s saying is, look, you’re not growing. You’re actually leaving your first love. And he says, remember. And God’s calling them back. There’s a danger today. As I heard a song leader down in Chattanooga, Tennessee, he’s a good country boy from North Georgia. He got up and he says, now let’s stand up and sing, standing on the promises. And he says, the trouble is we sing standing on the promises when we’re sitting on the premises. Well, that’s what we’re told not to do here. The mirror. is one that reveals, and we’re not to forget what it said, for the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. It reveals us as we are and penetrates below the surface. And the Bible today is not a popular book, I don’t think. It’s the bestseller, but the worst read. It just shows you who you are. Many years ago in East Tennessee, this story went around that tourists came and camped up in the mountains among some of these mountaineers. And they didn’t see many tourists in those days. And when these tourists left after they had been camped for about a week, one of these mountaineers, he went looking around where they camped, and he found several things. And among them, he found a mirror that had been left by the tourists. And he’d never seen a mirror before. And he looked into it longingly. And when he looked at it, he said to himself, I never knew my peppy had his picture took. Well, actually, he was looking at someone that looked like his father. It looked, but he’s looking at himself, you see. And so it was very sentimental about it. He slipped into the house and climbed up in the loft on the ladder and he hid the mirror. And his wife saw him do that. She didn’t say anything. But after he went out of the house, she went up to look around what it was he’s taken up there to hide. She found the mirror and she looked in it. And she said, so that’s the old hag he’s been running around with. May I say to you, it’s so easy to read the Word of God and think it’s a picture of somebody else. Picture you, and it’s a picture of me, my friend. And now we have here a design of the Word in verse 25. He says here, but whosoever looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth in it, he being not a forgetful hero, but a doer of the work. Now, notice it’s not word, doer of the work. This man shall be blessed in his deed. And the thee ought not to be, that’s just the doer of work, if you please. Now, here’s the design of the word. The thing of it is, the mirror would be down on the ground, and that day you’d have to stoop down. It means you need an humble mind and the perfect law of liberty. And this is not the Mosaic law. It’s the law of grace. And we’re going to be talking about that James does not talk about law here in the way Paul did. When Paul talks about law, it’s the Mosaic law. When James talks about it, it’s the law of faith because there is the law of faith. Also, there’s love in law in the Old Testament, and there’s law in love in the New Testament. If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed. But wait a minute. He said, if you love me, keep my commandments. He also said, bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law. What law? His law. And John says in his first epistle, for this is the love of God that we keep his commandment. When you’re driving down the freeway and it’s loaded with traffic, also that freeway is loaded with laws. And if you want to have freedom to drive down that, you sure better obey the laws or you’ll be in trouble. Now, there’s liberty in Christ, and it’s the only true freedom. You can be sure of one thing, that when you’re in Christ, you’re going to obey him. His laws are not hard. They’re not rigorous. And because you’re a child of God, your freedom doesn’t entitle you to break the Ten Commandments. The laws are for the weak. The laws were given to the natural man. But now there are laws for the child of God. And that’s very important, by the way. Now, I’d like to finish that next time. And we’re moving very slowly here. We will finish this chapter and get into the next one. So until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
SPEAKER 04 :
Go deeper in your personal study of God’s Word with our app or visit ttb.org and check out all the great resources available to you. Or call 1-800-65-BIBLE if we can help you find something in particular. Again, that’s 1-800-65-BIBLE or ttb.org. And for more encouragement every day, look for Through the Bible on your favorite social network. You’ll find us on Facebook, X, and Instagram. Next time, Dr. McGee tells us about God’s war on poverty and his war on riches. Hop aboard the Bible bus and join us.
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Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left the prince unsaved. He washed it white as snow.
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Today’s study with Dr. J. Vernon McGee is brought to you by Through the Bible, and it’s made possible by the generous prayer and financial investments from listeners like you on the Bible bus all around the world.
