The Individual the Family the Group the Nation — J. Vernon McGee

God's Redemptive Plan Revealed in Scripture

From Genesis to Revelation, God has revealed to us his plan for the redemption of mankind, and it all points to the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus makes this clear to us in his statement to John recorded in the book of Revelation.

He says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty, I am the first and the last. So we find Jesus in Genesis, in God's prophecy to Adam and Eve, that her seed will bruise the head of the serpent.

Then we find him in Revelation as the bright and morning star, and in every book in between. On this edition of the Sunday Sermon Broadcast, a ministry of the Through the Bible Radio Network, we'll hear Dr. J. Verna McGee take us through the major themes that point to the first and second coming of Christ that thread their way through Scripture.

He titled his sermon, The Individual, The Family, The Group, The Nation. Dr. McGee first gave this sermon in December of 1968 at the historic Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles, where he served as pastor for 21 years.

Dr. McGee's sermon highlights just a few of the major points of God's plan for man's redemption, but the Bible is filled with numerous references that point to Jesus Christ. Now the best way that we know how to learn all that the Scripture has for us is to study the Bible.

Not just a book here and there, but a systematic study of all 66 books, and you know that's exactly what Dr. McGee did on the Through the Bible Radio programs. In five years, we go through every book of the Bible, every chapter, and oftentimes every verse.

In just a few weeks, we'll begin our eighth trip through the whole Word of God. So if you'd like to join us on the Bible bus for the beginning and travel with us for the next several years, then we suggest that you request to receive our monthly mailings, which include Dr. McGee's notes and outlines, our newsletter, and a handy bookmark with the Scripture references that we'll cover for each day's program.

Now to make your request, you can call us at 1 -800 -65-BIBLE anytime and leave a voicemail with your request. Just make sure that you include your name, address, and the call letters of this station.

You can also use our internet order form by going to our website at www .ttb .org and clicking on the sign-up button on the left-hand side of our homepage. Or you may write to us at Sunday Sermon, for those in the U .S., Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109.

In Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. Now before we come to the sermon, let's hear from a few of our listeners. Our first letter comes to us from a long-time listener in Memphis, Tennessee.

She writes, Years ago, I had the privilege of hearing Dr. McGee at what was then the Mid-South Bible College. At that time, he spoke on the Book of Jonah, which he is covering once again this month. It is still the same wonderful message.

When I accepted Christ as my Savior at the age of 12, no one ever told me anything about reading the Bible or growing in the Christian life. While in my 20s, I met an individual at work who was truly grounded in the Word and encouraged me to read, study, and grow in God's Word and find a good Bible-teaching church.

This person also told me about a small local college that had courses during the day for non-students to study the Word of God. It was during one of these classes that I first heard of Dr. McGee, so I made plans to attend his lecture.

Nothing could have prepared me for this lecture or the absolute presence of the Holy Spirit as I entered this room. It has remained with me to this day. Dr. McGee's messages have continued to bless me over the years.

I've been listening to him for about 30 years now. Thank you so much for your continued effort to reach the world with God's Word. Now another long-time listener in Grandview, Missouri sent us this letter.

I started listening to J. Vernon McGee when I was 23 years old. Now I'm 62. I consider him my spiritual father. I've been a Christian since I was 6 after attending a Good News Club in White Settlement, Texas.

But it was from listening to Through the Bible and getting all the notes and outlines and a Bible that I really started to grow spiritually. There was a period of years that I quit listening due to work hours and a busy life raising two children.

Several years ago when I turned on the radio while I was eating breakfast at 6am, I heard that wonderful, familiar voice of J. Vernon McGee. So he is my breakfast partner every morning now. I'll never forget the time he announced that the doctors found some cancer spots on his lungs.

I think the whole world was praying for him, and what a wonderful witness from God it was when they disappeared. I want to help make sure Through the Bible stays on the air, so I'm writing this letter to you with a check, because I know God blesses this wonderful ministry, and he certainly does.

Now in Milton, Washington is where this next listener lives, and here's what the letter says. Thank you for continuing to keep this 5 year Bible teaching program moving along. I'm coming up on my completion of my first trip through using your plan.

My husband has been riding the Bible bus for a longer time. It is wonderful to share this activity together. We start our Monday through Friday with you at 6am. We listen over the internet. Thank you all for helping us draw near to God and continue to grow in His grace and knowledge.

We're blessed, and you are a blessing to us. Our next letter comes to us from a listener in Cincinnati, Ohio, who's been with us for 30 years, and she writes,. Initially I found Dr. McGee on my radio while I was preparing dinner.

I was married with a toddler, and was a toddler myself in Christ. I grew into the fine tutelage of Dr. McGee. My family grew too, four wonderful children. My husband would go to great pains to tape your program each evening.

Even though the children were young, they were nurtured on the wonderful voice of Dr. McGee. Time has passed. The children are grown. We purchased your tape series, as we missed too many lessons. Try as we did to catch them all.

And our bookshelves have a set of Dr. McGee's lessons. Just last week I loaned Genesis to my daughter-in-law, who was searching timidly for the truth. I thank God for the solid foundation Dr. McGee has provided.

In this world of upside down, especially in the churches, I continue to have a bulwark of fundamental teaching truths with Dr. McGee. I thank God for his mercy and grace to us through his beloved child, Vernon.

And then there's this letter from Hamilton, Alabama, which says, Through the Bible is a blessing to us as we listen to the programs. It is amazing that the sermons Dr. McGee gave those many years ago are so relevant for the day and age in which we live.

Proof that our God and his word are still the same yesterday, today, and forever. We count it a joy to be able to partner with you in the work that you continue to do and support this work as we do each month.

It is a joy to read the letters you share from those who are being touched and changed by God's word being sent out to remote areas by radio. Our prayer is that God will continue this work through you as you are faithful to him.

Now speaking of letters from those who have been touched by the teaching of God's word in remote areas, let's hear from some of those who are listening. These in Asia. First from a Chinese listener who hears our Mandarin broadcast comes these words of encouragement.

I am a believer in Shanghai, and I listen to your program every day. When I first came across your program, I was listening to your teachings and explanation on the book of Revelation. I felt that your explanations are very clear, and they have helped me to gain understanding.

Revelation is a very difficult book. There are so many people who explain the book of Revelation differently. They impart incorrect teachings to the believers and offend God's words. May the spirit of truth be with you, and I pray that you will help to strengthen the believers who are seeking the truth as they preach God's word.

Now a listener in Shanxi, China sent us this brief letter. Greetings and blessed in Christ. I have been listening to your radio program for a long time. Through your program I accepted Christ in February of 2001.

Your programs are great. I often listen to it as I lay on my bed. I am particularly fond of Through the Bible. I thank God for using you as an instrument to reach me. You have helped to lead us to God's word.

Another listener of our Mandarin broadcast wrote to us saying, I am happy to have a chance to listen to your program. I am a little Christian and am like a pot ready to be used by God. My church is located in the rural area and it seems that we are isolated from the rest of the world and so we seldom have a chance to learn about God's word.

We are hungry spiritually. Since I know little about God, I also do not know much about serving God, but I am glad that you can help me know more about our wonderful God. In recent years we have been able to use the internet more and more for getting out the word of God and currently 31 of our over 100 foreign language broadcasts can be heard online.

One of these languages is our Korean program. So here are a couple of letters from listeners who use the web to listen to us in Korean. This listener in Seoul writes, Hallelujah! When I prepare the evening meal, I listen to McGee's Bible study and have a grace-filled time.

There are spectacular scenes from Genesis and I can see that spot of history. Your explanation of the Bible leads me to heaven. I can forget daily fatigue and many problems by following God's guidance.

I will listen every day. Thank you. And finally we have this letter from a Korean listener who writes, I think that McGee's Bible study is interesting and easy to understand. It gives me a fresh perspective on the Holy Bible.

I am very grateful for your program. It really means a lot to me and strengthens my faith in God. And now let's pray. Heavenly Father, teach us the mystery of your ways. Reveal to us the plan and purpose that you have through your Son Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.

Looking Through God's Telescope

Our subject this morning is the individual, the family, the group, the nation, and I'd like to add another, the world. Perhaps this morning you were thinking that our subject needs streamlining. Well, I'm thinking the same thing, and I'm prepared this morning to cut it down to size.

And I wonder if I may give it this subject, looking through God's telescope. And this morning we want to look at the Word of God like that. There are two ways actually of looking at the Bible. It can be expressed in a very simple way.

One is to use the microscope, and that's to go into detail. That's the analytical viewpoint. Then there is the telescopic method of getting the long-range program, and that is the synthetic method. And this morning that's the method we are using.

The Bible is a telescope and you can look through it, and out yonder you will see that it's fixed on a star. It's a fixed star, by the way. And this star is out there in time and space, called here in Revelation 22, 16, and you see you don't see it with the telescope until you get to the very end of the Bible.

And after all, that's what telescope means. Telos means end, and that's what you see at the end. And at the end we see a star. Will you notice verse 16, I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches.

I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. That is the term that he appropriates here for himself. There are a group of people that are here on the earth today, and many of them have already gone ahead, but they are being prepared today to go out to this star.

They are being put today and are put on the launching pad of faith. By faith they are put on and in Christ, and one of these days they will take off, the countdown will come. He says, Behold, I come quickly.

That doesn't mean soon. It means when these events in Revelation begin to come to pass, they come to pass quickly. It's a regular countdown that you have in the book of Revelation. And therefore, everything from Genesis to Revelation is moving toward the appearance of this star, the bright and morning star.

Anything and everything from the creation of time and man to the appearance of the star is but just for a moment. It's a passing fancy, it's a whim, a vagary, it's a delusion, soon pass away. All is in the plan and purpose of God, but it's not an end in itself.

None of these things are. It only has significance in its relationship to this star. Today, the riots, the rebellion, the lawlessness, the immorality, the problems of the nations, the problems of the individuals, the problems of the cities, they're all important for this day.

They were not important for yesterday, and they'll not be important for tomorrow either. They're just for the moment. They're like Jonah's God. They came up in a day, and they'll disappear in a day. But may I say to you that this fixed star toward which we're moving today is the thing that becomes all important.

And this morning, I'd like to ask you to come and take a look through the telescope. We want to look out yonder into space and take a look at this tremendous star and see it in relationship to where we are and these things that are around us today.

Humanity's Predicament and the Promise of Redemption

But we'll have to go way back at the beginning to get to the place where we can begin to look through this telescope, if you please. And I want us this morning to move back there. The human procedure, of course, would be to begin with an individual and then to the family and the group and the nation and then the world.

That would be the human method. However, God does not use human procedure, and you'll find here that he does not begin with the individual. Actually, he begins with a nation, as important as Abraham might be.

It's the nation that God has in mind when he called him, and back of him is that world of mankind. We call it today humanity, and a great deal is being said today about humanity and the human predicament, that is, what has happened to the human race.

Why is it today, with all of our brilliance and our cleverness and all of our scientific gadgets, that the world today is in the sad shape that it is in? And man does not seem to be able to extricate himself and deliver himself from his problems.

He's strapped down in the cities, and he's strapped down out in space, and he's strapped down in the world today. Everywhere he turns, man is strapped down. The Bible does have an answer. We'll go back and listen to the Lord as he tells us how it all began.

After the creation of man and man's disobedience, God made it very clear what was going to happen. In Genesis 3, verse 15, he says, and this is, I suppose, the beginning of prophecy, it says, And I'll put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed.

He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. He said that there would be a conflict that would go on until the enemy was removed from the scene. That enemy is Satan, and as long as he's in the world, there can't be peace in the world today.

God says, I'm putting enmity between the two, and you and I ought to thank God this morning that man cannot make peace with sin. No man can. No man today, those that are out in the world today away from God are restless, and it's obvious right now they're marching everywhere.

They're stirred up. Why? Because there's no peace today in the human heart at all. God made man that way after man's sin, that he put enmity between thee and the woman, and there would be the bruising of the serpent's head, but there would first of all be the bruising of the heel, and we're living in that particular period at the moment.

But now let's move on down, and we find out that man thought he'd soon solve his problems. In chapter 4, Genesis verse 1, Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, I've gotten a man from the Lord.

And what she's really saying is this, I have gotten the man. I've gotten a seed of the woman. This is the Savior. And she actually thought Cain would be the Savior of the world, but instead of being the Savior of the world, he was a murderer.

And that's been the story of man largely from that day down to the present hour. Man has not changed materially. This is the human predicament today. A writer recently stated that the horrible and frightful doctrine of Puritan theology had at last been removed from the American mind and way of life.

And that doctrine is the total depravity of man. Now unfortunately he was accurate. It has. It's probably one of the most unpopular teachings that there is today. And actually in fundamental circles today it has slipped into a silent slot where very little is said about it.

But may I say to you that man may have silenced it as far as his thinking is concerned, but man even may have repudiated the doctrine. But he's proving that it is accurate today by his conduct. You can look any place around you today and you can see the evidence of the total depravity of mankind.

Man is today on the skids, and he continues to go down when he's left to himself. He never improves. He goes down and down and down, and that's man at the present hour. That my friend is the picture of man today.

He needs a helper. He needs a Savior. He needs a redemption from this human predicament. He needs a hope in the darkness of this world today. He needs to be able to extricate himself from the problems that he has made today, and he doesn't seem to be able to solve those problems.

And you'll find that Paul, writing to the Romans, he talked about this. I'd like to turn to the 8th chapter of Romans, begin reading at verse 22, and will you listen to this? This is, as you can see, there's been no change from creation down to Paul's day.

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit, the redemption of our body.

For we're saved by hope, the hope that's seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Paul says, as he looked about him in his day, that man's predicament was such that he's groaning and travailing, and even nature itself is under the curse.

Has that changed? Isn't today that a picture of the present hour in which we live? And you go back to the beginning when man began to multiply upon the earth, you will find that that's a picture of him.

At the time of the flood, it is said in Genesis 6, 5, God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. What a picture that is, if you please, of mankind as he is today.

The worldwide problem manifested itself, you see, very early in the human family, and that's the history of the race from that day down to the present hour. And in order to move in and to be able to bring salvation, God had to reach in and get a man, and from that man a family and then a nation.

Abraham and the Formation of the Nation

But it's the nation that he's after, and will you listen to him? After he called Abraham, after he tested Abraham, even going so far as to have Abraham offer his son, we find that at that time God made this promise to him.

And will you listen to it? It's over in the 22nd chapter of Genesis, verse 15, and the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.

So God now is telling Abraham that he's making a nation, and he's reaching down now, pulling a man like a brand out of the burning, from that man a nation will come, and out of that nation God will move to accomplish his purpose here upon this earth.

And then that focused on actually three men, Abraham, then Isaac, and then Jacob. And you find Jacob going down into the land of Egypt, and in Exodus, the first chapter, verse 5, it says, All the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls, for Joseph was in Egypt already.

And verse 7,. And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, and multiplied and became exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them. Now a nation is born, and through that nation God will move to bring the Savior into the world, because the telescope is focused down through the centuries upon a star, the bright and the morning star.

And he's moving now, very obviously, in a definite way, because Abraham had other sons. Ishmael was his son, Midian was his son, Medan was his son, and he loved Ishmael. He said to God, when God told him he was taking Isaac and that Ishmael would have to leave, he said, Oh, that Ishmael might live before you.

My friend, today the sin that Abraham committed back yonder, and if you want to know whether sin ever ceases paying dividends, look in that area today, the Near East, and you will see a great company of people called the Arabs, and they go back to Ishmael.

In Mohammedanism, Ishmael is the one that is all-important, and this morning the greatest international problem is not China, it's not Berlin, it's the sons of Ishmael and Isaac. It's Abraham's sons.

It's the sin he committed, because, my beloved, that just happens to be the spot where God says things will happen. They've always happened there, and they'll happen as long as there's a God in heaven, for he has made that choice, he's moved in that direction.

Judah and the Prophetic Line of David

And then when you leave, now the nation, you come to the group, and in the Bible it's called a tribe. It happens to be the tribe of Judah now that God will fix upon, not the eldest son nor the youngest son.

You would think that the eldest son would be chosen, Reuben, or the youngest son would be chosen, Benjamin, but neither one. God reaches down, and when old Jacob was on his deathbed in the land of Egypt, he had these twelve boys standing around him.

When he came to Judah, he had a prophecy for each one. And for Judah, in Genesis 49, verse 8, Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise. Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies, thy father's children shall bow down before thee.

Judah's a lion's wealth. From the prey, my son, thou art gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion, and as an old lion, who shall rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, that is the one that is spoken of, until that one come, until you can see out yonder in focus that star that our Lord called himself, I am the bright and the morning star.

Until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. So we now come to the tribe, or to the group, but now we move to the family. And it's interesting, when God was ready to choose a family, he took a family that you would, well, you just wouldn't choose them, I'm sure God did.

It was a farmer up at Bethlehem, he had a boy that was a shepherd, and God chose him to be his king. He was of the tribe of Judah, and now God is moving into the family of Jesse, and going to do a very definite thing.

And I just want to turn to two or three references here to show how significant and important it is. First, in 2 Samuel, the seventh chapter, listen to verse 13. This is a promise God made to David. You see, David had in his heart to do so many things for God, and one of them was to build God a house.

God wouldn't let him, because he said, your hands are bloody, and he was a bloody man. God says you can't do it, but God gave him credit for it, because it was in his heart. And God turned right around and said here, verse 13, He shall build a house for my name, and I'll establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

That's the throne now of David. How long? Forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I'll chasten him with the rod of man and with the stripes of the children of men.

Somebody says he didn't sin. He didn't, but he was made sin for us, and we are told in Isaiah 53, with his stripes we are healed. Healed of sin, that's the thing that Peter makes very clear. He was owned self by our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sins might live unto righteousness, by whose stripes we are healed.

Healed from what? Healed from sin, my beloved. Now will you notice he says, but my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. Listen to this, and thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee.

Thy throne shall be established forever. Now that was very important to David. It was so important to David that David later on could make the statement, he says, this is my salvation. This is the thing that I'm looking toward.

Not only did David look toward the coming of one in his line, but you'll find out that God made an oath to him, just in case somebody would deny it in the 20th century, which they have, and listen to him in Psalm 89, now verse 33, nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.

My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that's gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me.

Now God said, I intend to make that good, and all the prophets took that up as the theme song. You would think it's a stuck record as you go through the prophets. I want to lift out just one verse this morning, and I can assure you I could stand here the rest of the afternoon and turn up verses in the prophets where God said he was going to make good his promise to David, and there'd be one coming in his line.

I turn to Jeremiah 23, 5, and I'm reading, Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

And that, my friend, was repeated literally hundreds of times in the Old Testament. And now you move out of the Old Testament, and we come now and leave the family. We leave the Old Testament, we come to the New Testament, and we come now to the individual.

Jesus Christ as the Promised Individual

And now the spotlight's put on the individual. It focuses on him. Immediately when you open the New Testament, the telescope is on him, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

May I say to you that the word of God focuses in upon him, and he becomes all-important for the plan and purpose of God. I want to turn to a passage of scripture. It's found over in the Gospel of Matthew, and it's the 22nd chapter.

There are those that say the Lord Jesus never taught his own virgin birth. I'd like to know what he's doing here. The last question he ever put to the Pharisees, the religious rulers of his day, was a question that concerned the virgin birth.

They refused to answer it, because they knew the implications of it. And this was the last time they ever came to him. After this, they did not dare come to him. Will you listen to this? Matthew 22, verse 41.

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord?

Saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. If David then called him Lord, how is he his son? Did you know that the only honest answer to that is just simply this?

He had to be virgin born, because that's the only way that David can call him Lord, his superior. That's to be the only way in the world. So any son in the line of David must be inferior to David, except this one.

He is great David's greater son, if you please. And this is what the angel meant, and Mary understood it, because she knew something of the Old Testament scriptures. The angel came and made this statement unto her.

And I want you to listen to it in the Gospel of Luke. It's in the first chapter, verse 30. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.

He shall be great, he shall be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

May I say to you, when you come to the epistles of the New Testament, you'll find out that Paul said in Romans 1, 3, Born of the seed of David. He said to a young preacher in 2 Timothy 2, 8, he says, Remember Jesus Christ of the seed of David.

Remember, that's the thing that's of particular significance. And then when he was born yonder in Bethlehem, a star appeared in the east. And the wise men were brought to Bethlehem because of that star.

May I say to you this morning, very candidly, wise men will no longer go to Bethlehem. I know today that a great many pilgrims are on their way over there, and they like to be there for Christmas. I'm not sure that I'd want to do that, but many people apparently like that sort of thing.

But there's no use going to Bethlehem. The telescope is no longer pointed at Bethlehem. That was in the plan and purpose of God, and wise men don't go there any more. Will you listen to him now? He says, Let's look somewhere else.

I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and offspring of David, and the bright and the morning star. The bright and morning star is a star that can be either Venus or Jupiter or Mercury or Mars.

It's difficult for me, at least, to tell just which star it is. But out in the Wayan Islands, the picture I showed of that sunrise scene last Sunday night, before that sunrise scene I was sitting out there writing, and I noticed how bright it was.

And the reason it was so bright, it was because of the morning star. The morning star always appears before the sun comes up. Always appears before the sun appears. May I say to you, if you look through the telescope now very carefully, there's another star, and it's as bright as the sun.

The fact of the matter is, it is the sun. It is the Son of God. The Old Testament closed like this, in Malachi 4 .2,. But unto you that fear my name shall the Son of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings.