Doctrine For Difficult Days

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

That’s what he has been looking for, and he is still looking for it. He has never had it, and he never will. But when he goes into God’s presence, I think he will get one then, because he sure doesn’t think he’s going there! But he will. I tried to tell him, “Sure, Paul had a great emotional experience, but what about the Ethiopian eunuch? He had none whatsoever. All he did was pick up a hitchhiker, and the hitchhiker presented Christ to him and he got saved, that’s all it was.”

You may be saying, “Well, I’ve never had any great emotional experience either.” My friend, it all rests upon the Word of God, what God says, and whether you can take God at His word.

Then there are those who say, “Well, I don’t want to say that I’m saved. That seems to me to be a lack of proper humility to say that we’re saved and we know it.” Oh, my beloved, it is merely taking God at His word:

He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:12)

Do you believe God? God says if you have His Son you have life. Do you trust His Son? Then you have life. On what basis? Your feelings? Your experience? No, sir. Our rest is upon exactly what God said. Can you believe God? You honor God when you believe Him. You dishonor Him when you do not believe Him. You glorify God when you tell Him you accept His Son and that you’re resting only upon that.

Now suppose a telegram is handed to me, and the telegram is from Mr. Gotrocks. He says, “I understand that you have been talking about me, and I want to show you my goodwill. If you will meet me tonight at midnight in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel, I will give you a check for your missionary program for ten thousand dollars.” Well, why not make it one hundred thousand as long as we’re dreaming?

Let’s suppose he sent a telegram with that message. Now look, where would I be tonight at twelve o’clock? Home in bed? Well, you’re wrong. I would be down at the Biltmore Hotel Acts 11:30 — I wouldn’t want to miss him! I would be there waiting. I would take him at his word, believing what he said.

But suppose I did go home and go to bed, and he called me up Acts 12:30 and said, “Did you get my telegram?”

“Yes.”

“Well, why aren’t you down here?”

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t believe you.”

I wouldn’t honor him, you see, and I don’t think I’d get the one hundred thousand dollars.

Oh, my friend, we honor God when we take Him at His word. And He says if we trust Christ, we have eternal life. And He wants you to have that assurance.
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TO BE CONTINUED...

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Sanctification

The subject we want now to consider is sanctification. Let me give you a definition of sanctification as it is described in the Westminster Confession of Faith:

Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed, in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and to live unto righteousness.

That may seem to you to be a rather long and elaborate definition. But I consider it a very fine definition of what sanctification really is.

There is more difference of opinion relative to sanctification than probably any other subject. I do believe that up to this chapter every person who is considered conservative would have agreed with every doctrine I have dealt with, except possibly in a few minor points.

On the doctrine of sanctification, however, you may disagree with me. And certainly you could disagree with me and still be sound in the faith, I can assure you of that. But I do believe that what I am presenting here is the correct and the scriptural position on sanctification.
 
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What Sanctification Is

There are two words for sanctification. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word is gadas; and in the New Testament the Greek word is hagiazo. These two words mean the same thing. And they both have two meanings: “separation” and “to set apart.” So in sanctification there are two aspects, the negative part, which is separation from evil, and the positive side, which is dedication to God.

Unfortunately today we have certain groups that will emphasize the negative, and that’s all. But there is also danger in talking only about the positive and not even mentioning the negative. It takes both of these concepts to give a full-orbed view of exactly what sanctification is. It is separation from evil, and it is also dedication to God.

I want to look at a passage of Scripture that will illustrate both of these. Turn with me to Colossians 3:5. Your Bible may read “Mortify,” “Put to death,” or “Put out of operation,” or even closer to the meaning than any other, “Put out of gear.” Let’s substitute that one:

[Put out of gear] your members which are on the earth.

This instruction is needful because, when you are saved and receive from God a new nature, you still retain your old nature, and that old nature wants to dominate you. It still wants to run your life, but you are to put it out of gear. As you know, even if you have your motor running, your car won’t move if it’s out of gear. And that is exactly what the believer is to do relative to the old nature. You are to put out of gear your members which are upon the earth.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Sanctification

Now let’s be specific. These are the things you are to put out of gear:

… fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. (Colossians 3:5)
This is all negative. These are the things that you are to get rid of as a believer.

Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. (Colossians 3:6)

God will judge the unsaved for these things. Do you think that He will let a believer, one of His own, get by with doing these things? He will not. He will judge that believer.

Notice what Paul says next:

… in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. (Colossians 3:7)

That is, before you were saved, those things were in your life, “But now you yourselves are to put off all these….”

Here are some more negative things that you are to get rid of. Look at your Bible very carefully, because it is well for you to know the correct translation here. We as believers tend to make our own lists of superficial things which we consider unacceptable behavior if we are to be a separated Christian. “But now ye also put off using makeup, jewelry, dancing, going to movies” — aren’t those in your Bible? May I say that they’re not in my Bible either. I was just making them up, because that’s what a lot of people tell me it means to be separated. And yet you can refrain from doing all those things and still be the meanest little stinker there is in your town.

But here is what God says you are to put off:

But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds. (Colossians 3:8-9)

Do you tell the truth? “Well,” you say, “every now and then I stretch a point.” May I say, and I say it from the Word of God, you are not a separated Christian.

Now don’t misunderstand me. I am not approving or disapproving some of these other things, like dancing or going to movies. I’m just saying that we tend to emphasize the wrong set of things, and we do not emphasize the things God does. As a result, we have more satisfied little believers running around who think that they’re separated, and they are not separated. They have mean tempers, they will gossip, they will misrepresent — they will do all of these things and yet consider themselves separated. Paul says they are not, and I’m just agreeing with him. Let’s go by the Word of God, friends, not by the new standard of conduct that people have today.

You see, this is the negative side of separation, separation from evil, and I’ve stated here the evil that Paul identifies.

We come now to the positive side. To be a sanctified believer means you are not to be just negative, putting off certain things, but you are also to live a positive lifestyle, since you have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him. (Colossians 3:10)
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Sanctification

Then continue with verse 12:

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies….

Your Bible may read “bowels of mercies,” which is an accurate translation from the Greek, indicating that the viscera, the internal organs, are the seat of our emotions. I think that even psychology is moving to the view that not much emotion happens in the head, but a whole lot happens down lower. I have noticed that when I am in a very stressful situation I don’t hurt in my mind — I hurt in my tummy. And it is down in the viscera area where you and I are to be merciful. The point is that mercy is the thing that the believer is to exercise.

Now notice that the next word in verse 12 is “kindness.” That’s a positive thing. Are you known as a believer who is kind? Are you kind to everyone?

… kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. (Colossians 3:12-14)

“Perfection” is completeness or real sanctification, by the way.

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. (Colossians 3:15)

This was the truth that brought John Wesley to conviction and eventually to saving faith in Christ. John Wesley was a fine young man and practicing Christian. In fact, at Oxford he and his brother organized a society for spiritual improvement known as the “Holy Club.” These men had rigid rules, and they refrained from doing certain things. John Wesley thought he was a believer. He was the son of a preacher, he had a godly mother, and he even came to America as a missionary to the Indians and colonists.

But on the way over here the ship got into a terrific storm. Wesley, although it wasn’t visible, was terror stricken. As he watched the German Moravians on board he saw that they had the peace of God in their hearts, something that he did not have. It brought John Wesley under such conviction that when he got to this country, according to the account, he never did any mission work. He was a failure here. His record in Georgia was nil; he did nothing at all.

His cry was this when he returned to England: “I went to America to convert the Indians, but who shall convert John Wesley?” He knew that he didn’t have anything on the inside. He thought he was sanctified, but in truth he was not even saved. It’s not what is on the outside, but what is inside.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Sanctification

You see, friend, sanctification is like taking off an old garment and putting on a new garment. And this figure of speech in the Scripture is a good figure. It is actually a picture of a habit — we speak of a riding habit or a walking habit or another kind of habit that we wear. It is laying aside this old garment, which is the negative aspect. But then it is putting on a new garment, and it’s this new garment which is such an important part of sanctification, you see.

What we are trying to do is get to the meaning of sanctification. It means to take off and it means to put on. This is the goal for a believer as found in Colossians. It spells out things which you and I are to put on.

Now I’m confident that we who are believers, as we read down through the negative list — anger, malice, blasphemy, lying, and so on — we recognize that there are certain things there that we have not put off. Right? Also there are certain things on the positive list — tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, and bearing with one another — that we have not put on. Oh, my friend, for this reason sanctification ought to mean a great deal to us. None of us, regardless of who we are, has reached perfection. Now I know there are some folks who think they have, but they have not arrived at all.

Let me make only one other point by way of trying to isolate and identify this. Justification, which we dealt with in a previous chapter, is our standing before God. We are guilty, lost sinners in our natural state, but when we come and trust Christ, our standing before God changes. God, who had to pronounce us guilty, now says that we are not guilty, that we are accepted in the Beloved, accepted in Christ our Savior. Our standing is changed by justification. Regeneration, which we looked at in a previous chapter, means that God has not only done an exterior job of decorating, but He has also done an interior job. We are regenerated. We have been given a new nature on the inside if we are children of God.

Sanctification has to do with the character and the conduct of the believer. Justification is an act; it happens one time. Sanctification is a work. Justification is what God does for us; sanctification is what God does in us. And they go together. May I say that having justified us, God wants to sanctify us. He wants to improve us. He wants to develop us.

But there are three dangers to which we must be alert. First of all, there is a danger that we interpret our sanctification by our experience. A great many people do this today. And, I say this kindly, this is the difficulty with some of our more charismatic friends. They attempt to interpret sanctification by an experience. And if they have had some great, overwhelming experience, they feel that they have been sanctified.

Oh, my friend, this is the rule that we should follow: The Bible interprets our experience, but our experience does not interpret the Bible. It’s so easy for us to have an experience and use that experience to interpret the Word of God. But the Word of God must interpret the experience that you and I have. There’s danger in getting the cart before the horse.

The second great danger is in thinking sanctification means sinlessness, that is, to reach the place where you do not sin. No, beloved, that is not sanctification. You will find, for instance, that Paul said to the Corinthians that they were sanctified; then he turned right around and told them what a bunch of carnal believers they were. Yet they were sanctified. You see, sanctification does not mean sinlessness under any circumstances.

The third danger is thinking sanctification is an act. It is not a single act but a continuous work. It is without cessation. As long as you and I are in this world, God wants continually to improve us. And you and I, in this life and this frail flesh, will never reach the day when we can say, “Well, I’ve arrived. I don’t need to go on.” Now I have a feeling that there are believers today who think that they have already arrived. But, honestly, to believe that is a matter of ignorance. You and I will never reach the place where we don’t need to progress in our Christian walk.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Sanctification

Three Aspects of Sanctification

Now I’ve come to the subject at last! Here are the three aspects of sanctification.
 
Positional Sanctification

The first is positional sanctification:

To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.… (1 Corinthians 1:2)

Notice in your Bible that “to be” is in italics, which means it is not in the original. The fact is, the word saint means “sanctified,” and every believer is positionally sanctified. Paul addressed the Corinthians: “to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints,” if you please, not “to be” saints. Will you notice also another verse here in the first chapter:

But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God — and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. (1 Corinthians 1:30)

Let’s look at this for a moment. The Lord Jesus Christ is our sanctification, and all that He is has been made over to us. The moment you trust Christ, you are made accepted in the Beloved. And you have as much right in heaven as He has because you have His right…all of His worth, all of His merit is made over to you! That is the position you and I have.

Let me remind you that God through Paul is giving this marvelous information even to the Corinthians. A little later he is going to be rough on them. He is going to tell them they are carnal; he’s going to scold them for having divisions among them, running after teachers who please them. They are nothing in the world but a bunch of little babes in Christ. And yet to them Paul says, “Christ has been made unto you sanctification.” He is your sanctification, and you are accepted in Him. You cannot improve on that! Keep in mind that this is your position. This is what you occupy up yonder in heaven.
 
Practical Sanctification

However, down here on earth where you and I live, we have practical sanctification. And this, by the way, is progressive, it’s experiential, and it’s what most people have in mind when they talk about sanctification. It is where we all live and move and have our being, the place where there is latitude for growth, for development, for improvement.

God has provided for you and me the means for us to grow and develop into the kind of Christian He intends us to be. And I want you to look with me at these provisions God has made for you and me to be sanctified. I am going to give you five means that God has provided, and I am bold enough to say that you and I can never be sanctified in this life on earth, we can never grow in grace, and we can never develop unless we use the means which God has provided for us.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Sanctification

The Word of God is the first provision, and that is very clear. The Lord Jesus, during His final days on the earth, prayed for us: “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17). I want to make a statement that may seem strange to you. This Book, the Bible, is a miracle cleaner. The media has a great deal to say about the right kind of miracle powder to put into your washing machine, and every one of the manufacturers claims to have a secret formula and that if you don’t use his, those clothes will come out tattletale gray, or they won’t be as you’d like for them to be. So you must use their miracle cleaner. Well, the public falls for that type of thing today!

But, friend, I want to talk to you now about a real miracle cleaner. This Book I hold in my hand, the Word of God, is the best bar of soap for a believer that you’ll find anywhere. This is the miracle bar of soap. This Word has the power which prompted our Lord to pray:

Sanctify then [make them holy] by Your truth. Your word is truth. (John 17:17)

I do not believe that any child of God can grow and develop and be sanctified — that is, be made holy unto God — apart from the Word of God. God has no other method except this.

Now this is the reason that all of this business of experience we hear in our day is not worth a snap of the fingers when the experience is divorced from the Word of God. This Book has the power to cleanse you. It has the power to clean up your life! It has the power to transform your life!

Let me share with you some of the experiences of folks whose lives God has absolutely transformed by the simple teaching of the Word of God on radio. In the early days of teaching the Bible by radio, I would be by myself in my studio, and when I would turn around after the thirty minutes were over, I would sometimes wonder if anybody had listened and if anything had happened.

Let me tell you a couple of things that encouraged me during those first years. There was a young man who was sitting down on the wharf in San Diego. He was as vile as a man could possibly be. He had such a tongue that, when he started using it, even those roughnecks on the docks would move back because he knew how to blaspheme.

Somebody else down there brought a radio with him and tuned in our program. The young man told me later that the first thing he said was, “Turn off that [blankety-blank] preacher. I don’t want to hear him!” But the fellow left the preacher on, and God in His great mercy brought the blasphemer under conviction. He started listening to the Word. He listened to the simple teaching of the Word for six months. I met him at the First Baptist Church in La Mesa, and I want to tell you, that young man has been transformed! He’s one of the sweetest fellows I have ever met. You know what did it? This Book, the Word of God. It has power today to transform.

I can tell you about a family out in the San Fernando Valley who had come from the East. They were not saved, although they were churchgoing folks. But when they came to California they went to Disneyland one Sunday, and the next Sunday they went to the beach, the next Sunday somewhere else. They got away from God. Neighbors invited them in to have cocktails. That was new to them, but they tried it, and they liked it. First thing you know, they were in trouble.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Sanctification

Then, occasionally, they began listening to our broadcast. They got to the place where one morning they realized that they had made a shipwreck of their lives, their marriage, their home, and everything. The wife actually said, “I’m packing up and going back home.”

But instead, that couple started coming to church for our Thursday night Bible study. I had never even talked with them, only greeted them out in the foyer. The Word of God is responsible for putting them back together again.

I believe I hold in my hand the only miracle cleanser there is! This Book is the only thing that has power to sanctify you, my friend.

Now honestly, how much time do you really spend in it? I say to you, this Book has the power to transform a person’s life. I could give you illustration after illustration from people all over this world of what this Book can do. I have great confidence in the Book, the Word of God. In fact, it’s the only thing I do have confidence in today. It is a miracle cleanser!

The Holy Spirit is the second provision that sanctifies. Would you look with me at 2Th_2:13:

But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the spirit and belief in the truth.

You see, the Holy Spirit using the Word of God is the way it works. The Holy Spirit sanctifies also. And may I say, and I won’t take time to develop this point, when sanctification is mentioned in connection with the person of Christ, in practically every instance it is positional sanctification. When it’s mentioned in reference to the Holy Spirit, it is practical sanctification.

The body and the blood of Christ, my beloved, is a third means that God uses to sanctify us. And I want you to look at several Scriptures which have to do with the blood and the body of Christ.

Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. (Hebrews 13:12)

And will you notice this in particular:

The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)

This is present tense: The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, just keeps on cleansing us from all sin.

The reason I dwell so much on the Cross and the blood of Christ is that I believe there is personal value in our talking about the blood and body of Christ. I believe that the elements taken at the Lord’s Supper are more than symbols. I hear people say, “Well, the bread is just a symbol, and the fruit of the vine is just a symbol.” It’s true that the juice is only juice, and the bread we serve is only unleavened bread. And honestly, there’s no value in those elements. But if partaking of them directs us to the body and blood of Christ, there is a sanctifying value in that!
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Sanctification

In too many churches today, especially Bible-teaching churches, we take the Lord’s Supper as if it is only a form, a ritual, to go through. But, my friend, there is a spiritual value in it. Are you getting it? Does it sanctify your own heart and your own life? Is it developing you? It ought to, because that’s the purpose of it.

Now notice two other Scriptures:

By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10)

But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14)

May I say to you that the body and blood of Christ is a means that God uses to sanctify us.

Yielding to God is the fourth means of sanctification, and this is the one that some people consider to be all that is necessary. But I believe that all of the other three should be in our lives before we come to this matter of yielding to God.

But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. (Romans 6:22)

You’ve been made free from sin. You’ve become now the servants of God. And that’s what Paul means when he says in Romans 12:1:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.

We have to yield to God if we’re to be sanctified and if we are to grow in grace.

I want to say something now that is sure to sound strange to you. I don’t want you to misunderstand this because it is important. Someone asked Dr. C. I. Scofield, the editor of the Scofield Reference Bible, if it were possible for a person to live without sin. And Dr. Scofield’s reply was this: “God has made an arrangement whereby you can live without sin, but I never met a Christian who had reached that place.”

May I say to you, I do not believe in sinless perfection. But I do believe that God has made a perfect arrangement for you to live for Him.

Read this carefully:

My little children [my little born ones], these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. (1 John 2:1)

Isn’t that wonderful! This ought to be the goal of every believer. And you and I ought not to be satisfied. We can have peace in our hearts and all that sort of thing, but we ought never to be satisfied, never content, as long as there is sin in our lives. This means simply, as I’ve already said, that we can never in this life, as far as I can see, get to the place where we have arrived.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Sanctification

“But,” you say, “God has made an arrangement.” Yes, but I’ve never met anybody that entered into it perfectly. God has made a perfect arrangement, and that’s the challenge today, it’s always the challenge for a child of God. I wish we could get the challenge back into Christian living.

I watched these boys out here at USC several years ago on the track jumping over the little cane pole. Since I used to high jump, I watched them with a great deal of interest. I saw that they never were satisfied with their jumps. They kept moving that bamboo pole up, inching it up. Why? Well, they wanted to go just as high as they could go.

God has made a perfect arrangement for you and me to achieve in our Christian life. But a lot of us, with the pole way up there, are satisfied with mediocrity in our Christian experience. We wonder what’s the use of trying, which is the other extreme from thinking we’ve arrived. However, God has made a perfect arrangement: “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin” (1 John 2:1). Wouldn’t you like to get to that place? Are you tired of failure in your life? Well, if your answer is yes, there’s hope for you. If you said no, there’s no hope for you. But, friend, can you say with me, “I want to live for God; I want to live on the higher plane; I want to be a better Christian”? Listen again to the apostle John: “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin” — God has made a perfect arrangement, and I want to go to Him and say, “O Lord, help me to enter more perfectly into this arrangement You have made.”

Now if our Lord had stopped there, I would have to go to Him every night and say, “Lord, I failed. You’ll have to count me out. There is no use my trying to get over that bar anymore.”

But we have an Advocate! He said this to me:

And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (1 John 2:1)

So at the end of this day I’m going to have to go to Him, as I’ve been going to Him for years, and say, “Lord, I didn’t clear the pole today. I didn’t go over it where You put it. I failed You!” But, thank God, I have an Advocate. He’s on my side; He will plead my case. Do you know what He tells me? He says, “McGee, you get up tomorrow morning and I’ll put the pole up and we’ll try again.” He has been saying that every day, and as long as He will put the pole up, I’m going to jump. I sincerely want to live for Him, and I think you do too. Oh, may God help us.
 
Final Sanctification

We must move on now. We’ve got one more point under the subject of sanctification: perfect, or final, sanctification. You may remember that in the epistle Paul wrote to the Ephesian believers, he said that the church is the bride of Christ:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27)

What kind of church? Perfect. When we are presented to Him someday, we will be perfect. That’s final sanctification.

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. (1 John 3:2)
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Sanctification

Although I keep falling down in this life, I do hope I’m getting a little higher on the pole each day. But though I’ll never be able to clear it at the height my Lord has put it, one of these days I am going to be presented to Him and I will be perfect! You may not recognize me. And I may not recognize you either, since we will be perfect. We will be presented to Him without spot, without blemish. Then our sanctification will be complete. But you and I now are in training down here.

I believe God uses many means today to sanctify us. Do you know one of the greatest means that He uses? Discipline. He not only disciplines us, God actually sends us trouble, and He uses it like sandpaper to get the rough edges off our lives. God is doing all of that to develop us, and I’m convinced of this (although I have to pause many times and ask God why He’s permitting a certain thing to happen). This week I’ve had occasion to ask Him that question, and I do not know the answer. But I am persuaded of this: God will not let anything come into the life of a believer which will not aid in his sanctification. My friend, everything God sends to you He sends into your life to sanctify you.

God wants to produce fruit in your life, the fruit of the Spirit. He wants your life to be improved. We are saved by faith, but God is not satisfied to leave us in sin. So we cannot live in sin if we have been saved. We must, my friend, be pressing on.

A dear brother, a retired Methodist preacher, used to visit the church where I served, and one day he said to me, “McGee, there’s only one thing wrong with the holiness movement, and that is it lacks holiness.” And this, my friend, is the thing needed today in our own lives. We’re a little afraid of the word. When we mention holiness, we say, “Oh my, no, that means a fanatical group.” No, it’s a good Bible term. God wants to create holiness in your life and in my life. That is, He wants to develop us. He wants to sanctify us. He wants to bring us up to maturation, make us full-grown children of His, living for Him and bringing honor and glory to His name.

My, what a challenge is held out today to the child of God. None of us could ever be satisfied, and yet none of us, even the weakest, needs to despair because we have a wonderful, wonderful heavenly Father who every day will begin with us again. Though intent on developing us, He will be patient with us as He leads us on.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Heaven and Hell

Let me ask a question or two of you now: What do you know about heaven and hell? How much of what you know is scriptural, and how much of your thinking about heaven and hell is due to speculation? How much is due to mythology, to the Middle Ages, to the writings of Dante, or Goethe the German, or Milton the Englishman? How much of what you know is really the Word of God?

May I say that the accretions of men’s imaginations and the impressations of time have largely shaped our thinking on both of these subjects. And one of the reasons is that Scripture has very little to say about either of them. Actually, more is said about hell than about heaven, but very little has been said about either one. However, that which has been said is both specific and it’s unmistakable. You cannot misunderstand the language. You may not believe it, but you can certainly understand what’s being said.

Our subject is not as simple as it may appear. For example, we need to distinguish between the intermediate state and the eternal state after death — there is an intermediate state for both the saved and the lost. Then there are different classes of creatures. There are angels, and they are divided into the fallen and the unfallen. There are the Jews, and they’re divided between the remnant and those who are lost. There are Gentiles, and they are divided into the saved and the lost. And then there is the church. So when you talk about heaven and hell you have to think of these different classes and different groups.

Also we must know the meaning of certain words in Scripture pertaining to heaven and hell. One is sheol, another is hades, and then there are gehenna, tartarus, and hell; also heaven, the kingdom of heaven, and the heavenlies. May I say, we need to be able to distinguish and know these different areas we’re talking about.
 
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Hell

Now I want to preface what I have to say with this remark: There is nothing more repulsive to the natural man than the subject of hell. There is no subject that causes him to rebel more than this one. It’s very interesting. I have noticed that on the radio I can speak on any subject under the sun and find a certain amount of agreement. But the minute I touch on the subject of hell, that changes.

I spoke on it the other day, and it triggered several letters; someone wrote me a poem; someone else called me at home. In fact, they said things like, “You belong to the Middle Ages; you’re not up to date. Apparently you haven’t done any thinking recently. Don’t you know that no intelligent person today speaks of hell, that it is absolutely a figment of the imagination?”

These kinds of reactions don’t disturb me anymore, because if they reacted any differently I’d know there was something wrong. The natural man must inevitably rebel against this. He’ll see red when you begin to talk on this subject. May I say that if you are reading this today and you’re not a child of God, you’ll not like what I’m going to say right now, I can assure you. The fact of the matter is that inside you will be rebelling against it.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Heaven and Hell

What we are talking about is the subject of divine retribution, not punishment. When you talk about hell being a place of divine punishment, it gives the idea of discipline and that hell is a place where people are being disciplined. That is not true. It’s divine retribution. It is a place of judgment, and it’s not a place of discipline in any sense.

Actually, the more refined, cultured, and genteel people are, the more likely they’ll rebel against this subject. That is the reason some lovely, refined folk who move so evenly on other subjects, at the mention of hell, respond so vehemently. For the unsaved person, it is a natural reaction — it couldn’t be otherwise. Their argument will go something like this: “I believe in a God of love, and a God of love would never have a place like hell.” May I say that if that were all that could be said about God, it would be true. But they forget that God is holy. They forget that God is righteous. They forget that God is enraged against sin. They forget that God cannot tolerate sin at all.

I’ve heard this kind of argument many times — generally coming from some soft-spoken person, but, oh, they get exercised over this subject! They say, “Do you think that I’d take one of my children and put my child in hell! Don’t you know God would never do a thing like that!” That’s the type of reasoning we hear. The answer, of course, is very simple. When a person says, “I would not put my child there,” the answer is, “You are not God, and you do not know what is involved.”

Friend, there is no other topic where a person reveals what a small comprehension he has of God and His infinite holiness. And he has no comprehension of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. As a result, the human family rebels against this and is not willing to leave matters like this in the hands of a God who has revealed to us certain great facts concerning hell.

Let me draw to your attention a verse of Scripture which Moses wrote:

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)

The secret things belong to God. And there are many things that God has not taken time or seen fit to reveal to us at all. It’s in these areas that He expects us to trust Him implicitly. In fact, here’s where we reveal faith, and here is where the lost reveal rebellion against God.

When Satan began to attack Job, and when God commended this man, one of the things He said concerning Job was that he had not charged God foolishly. Job never got to the place where he said, “God is being unfair to me. God is being unjust. God is not doing right.” Job did get to the place where he said, “I don’t understand what’s happening to me, and I don’t understand why God is permitting it.” But Job said this: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him! I have confidence in Him” (Job 13:15). You see, that man is right with God. Job did not rebel; he did not charge God foolishly.

May I say to you, Christian friend, you need to be very careful in your conversation, especially with the lost man. He can detect immediately the rebellion that’s in your heart because it’s in his heart also. And if we have that rebellion in our hearts, when we say, “Why did God let this happen to me?” we are charging God foolishly, you see. We are not trusting Him.

Now there are some basics that we need to nail down. The first one is, God is holy. The second is, God permitted sin. And the third is, God gave Christ to die. Those are three great facts that we have to face. Ours is the holy God, and God did permit sin, and God gave Christ to pay the penalty for us. And if God today can let one person escape divine retribution, then the Cross of Christ was a blunder. God made a big mistake in letting His Son die on the cross if there is some other way even one person could slip into heaven without turning to Christ and accepting His gift of salvation.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Heaven and Hell

 
Anything but Hell

In the presence of this awful reality of hell and of the Bible revelation concerning it, many people have offered certain theories to offset the scriptural doctrine, and I’m going to suggest several of them to you. There is no Bible basis for any of these. They are pure speculation, and there is not a scintilla of fact for them.

The first theory is annihilation, and there are those today who say that they believe in utter annihilation; that is, that death is the cessation of existence, that man dies just like an animal dies. There are multitudes of folks who are living like animals and would like to believe it is true that death would end it all. But may I say to you, as far as the Word of God is concerned, there is no support for that sort of theory at all.

Another viewpoint is transmigration of the soul; that is, at death the soul passes into another body. When I brought a message on this subject several years ago, I was surprised to find the number of people in Southern California, members of Protestant churches, who believe in this. May I say, it’s paganism and it’s Buddhism. It is said by some scholars who know Buddhism from beginning to end that this matter of transmigration is not in the Vedic scriptures at all, nor do you find it anywhere in Buddha’s writings. It is something that has grown up as a tradition. It has led, of course, to this other explanation of nirvana — that you keep moving, and when you die your soul will go into an animal. This is the reason they don’t kill a cow in India — it could be your mother-in-law, so you have to be careful about those things.

Then it is believed that after each death the soul moves on again, and finally it just ends up in nirvana, that is, total extinction. This is the reason that a great many people right here in the United States will stand on their heads in the morning and practice yoga. That is where they learn to just think, to contemplate, to spend time in meditation. The teaching is that if you just keep meditating and keep thinking, preparing yourself, one of these days you will meditate out into nothing. This, of course, has no scriptural basis; it’s paganism from beginning to end, and it’s amazing to me.

I talked to a young man who has practiced yoga, and he believes in transmigration. He approached me after the message I had brought on it, and he wanted to talk about it. And I said to him, “On what basis?”

“I reject the Bible doctrine of hell.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I reject the Bible doctrine of hell.”

“All right. Now then, would you give me the facts for what you do believe? What is the basis of your belief?”

And he had none!

It’s amazing to me that intelligent people will reject the Word of God — a document that you can have confidence in — and they will turn their backs on truth and pick up an absolutely baseless theory. Why? Because the natural man hates the idea of hell and will believe anything in order not to believe in a hell. If a person believes in a literal hell, he is open to hear the gospel. A man said to me: “If I believed in hell as you believe in hell, of course I would turn to Christ. But I don’t believe in it.” That’s the natural man.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Heaven and Hell

Conditional immortality is another explanation that bypasses the reality of hell. It teaches that the grave is hell for the lost. You are acquainted with a cult that promulgates this — they probably knocked on your door last Saturday morning. Their belief that the grave is hell for the lost has no scriptural basis. It is almost asinine to use the Scriptures they point out in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. As I was talking to one of those folks, I said, “Can’t you find something better than that? It’s obvious when you turn to the Books of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs that you are quoting from a writer who says he is talking about life under the sun. He’s talking about this life, this physical life. So with that understanding, when you say that death ends it all, it is true as far as this life is concerned. You won’t be able to come back and do it over, brother, but the very minute you leave this life, you are going to move on to somewhere else, and that’s your problem.”

That is the difficulty these people face, and they would like to think that death ends it. Oh, my friend, these folks are in deep darkness or they would see the abundance of Scriptures that contradicts them. That, by the way, is the theory of conditional immortality.

Then there is universalism, a doctrine that says all men will eventually be saved. That is, Christ died for all, therefore all are saved, and they will live happily ever after. A great many theological liberals actually take that position. To them the matter of this life and of Christianity is just a jolly nice thing, you know, and we don’t want to talk about hell, it’s an ugly, repulsive subject.

I was very much interested in talking with a family in a church in Fullerton where I was holding meetings. They were telling me that they had been in a certain denominational church in which they were hearing strange teaching from the pulpit. So they went to this pastor because they suspected he was even teaching Marxist propaganda. They asked him about some things, and one of their questions was, “Do you believe in heaven and hell?”

His answer is quite interesting. He said, “I do not believe in heaven and hell, either one. I believe in putting the emphasis on here and now.”

Then he added, “If you want to hear about heaven and hell, go down to the Church of the Open Door and hear that fellow McGee. He preaches on that.”

Well, they took his advice. In due time they received Christ as Savior and later became members of that fine church in Fullerton where I met them. They didn’t miss a service during the four nights I was there.

May I say to you that universalism, which was founded in the eighteenth century to uphold belief in universal salvation, fails to teach Bible truth. It is a very nice sort of optimistic way of life; the only thing that’s wrong with it is it’s not true! There is no basis for it anywhere except in their imaginations. You couldn’t ground it in fact anywhere.

There is abroad also a theory called restitutionalism, which holds that eventually all mankind, all angels, and even Satan will finally be reconciled to God. Right here in Southern California, a proponent of this contacted me after reading my published message, “Will Everybody Ultimately Go to Heaven?” Someone had sent him the booklet. I’ve had some correspondence with that man, and he has been quite exercised about the subject, but he admits that he and his father made the statement on radio that both Satan and Judas would walk arm-in-arm down the streets of the New Jerusalem someday. I asked him for his Scripture for that one, and although he hasn’t given it to me yet, restitutionalists generally do use Scripture to support their theory. This is their favorite verse:

… until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. (Acts 3:21)
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