“Seek Yahweh while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh, and He will have compassion on him. Turn to our Elohim, for He will abundantly pardon.”

Isaiah 55: 6-7

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Yahweh Used J. Vernon McGee’s Thru the Bible in My Life

I became a believer in McRae, GA when I was 8-years-old, but I drifted away from Yahweh during my junior high, high school, and college years. I was so far from Yahweh while I was in college that He spoke to me and said these exact words, “If you take one more step, you are dead.” That was in July 1970.

That got my attention in a hurry. I stopped on the spot.

Normally, Yahweh speaks with a gentle voice that can be drowned out easily by distractions. I think He does that because He wants us to listen for His voice all the time. He allows us to drown Him out if we drift away from Him, but He doesn’t stop speaking. We stop hearing.

In July 1970, I was involved in something that was wrong and very dangerous, and I was totally distracted. Yahweh spoke to me with such a loud voice that I couldn’t help but hear Him. He turned up the volume and spoke above the distractions. His voice reverberated in my being. Instantly, I knew He meant business, and I did exactly what He told me to do without hesitation.

Life is full of ebbs and flows, ups and downs. That day was the pit of my life. If I had not heeded Yahweh’s warning, He would have taken me out on the spot. My salvation was not in doubt, but my usefulness to Him here on Earth would have ended. I would have joined the ranks of other believers over the years who missed out on great opportunities that Yahweh had for them, because they took their eyes off of Him.

A few weeks after that experience, I met Katie. In 1972, we were married. At the bottom of the pit of my life, I met my future wife, and she was not willing to join me in the pit. I have often thought about that, and I give Katie a lot of credit from helping to lift me up at that critical time in my life and over the years since then. Katie is a blessing from Yahweh to me. I know that for a fact, because Yahweh told me.

While I was working on a Ph.D. degree, Katie and I were new parents. Becoming a parent changed my life. I knew that I would be a role model for my children. I wanted to be a good one, so I decided that it was time for me to get serious about studying Yahweh’s word. That included going to church regularly. I had not done that since I was a boy.

In 1975, we started attending Milledge Avenue Baptist Church in Athens, GA, and in 1977, Yahweh told me what I would do for Him at the end of my life. I was getting a Ph.D. in business, but what Yahweh told me I would do had nothing to do with business. I raised the point with Him, and He assured me that I was in the right place.

In 1977, I was elected deacon at Milledge Avenue Baptist. Being a deacon is supposed to be an uplifting experience, but it wasn’t for me. From my perspective, it looked like most of the members of the Board of Deacons were just playing church. John Nixon was a member of the board. He was a strong believer, and he taught the Sunday School class that Katie and I attended.

Our Sunday School class was loaded with strong believers. All of us in the class were getting so much out of the class that we frequently broke late for church and walked into church after it was underway. I didn’t know it at the time, but that offended the preacher, Claude McBride.

Claude was a nice person, but he was not a great preacher. In fact, he was more of a storyteller than a preacher. Most of his stories were only loosely connected with Yahweh’s word. From my perspective, it looked as though he wanted to say something, and he force-fitted it into a sermon. When I became a deacon and was exposed to the inner workings of the church, I was ready to raise questions about a lot of things, and I did.

I never intended to challenge Claude’s authority, but he interpreted my raising questions as exactly that. One day, Claude said to me privately, “Neil, I think you are out to get me.”

Nothing could have been further from the truth. I had a job to do, and I was doing it. The thought of challenging Claude never entered my mind. Looking back on it, I probably should have, though. At least, I should have challenged the direction in which he wanted to take Milledge Avenue Baptist. I think he would have been ecstatic if the church had a reputation for being “The Official Church Home of the Georgia Bulldogs”.

Yahweh was showing me things about church in general. The problems I saw at Milledge Avenue plague many if not most churches in our country. Claude was playing church and pushing his lightweight agenda. Offending his congregation was the last thing he wanted to do. I think Claude would have done just about anything to keep from moving the congregation out of its comfort zone. If you take Yahweh’s word seriously, you know that He wants us to move beyond our comfort zones. From His perspective, that’s called “maturing as believers”.

In 1979, I completed my Ph.D. degree and joined the faculty at the University of Virginia. In short order, I became a deacon at Crozet Baptist Church in Crozet, VA. I saw the same problems there that I had seen at Milledge Avenue Baptist. At that time, I used a clock radio to wake me up in the mornings. I set the dial for WRVL in Lynchburg, VA. It’s Liberty University’s radio station. For an hour each morning, I would lie in bed and listen to 2 radio shows back-to-back: Thru the Bible Radio with J. Vernon McGee and Grace to You with John MacArthur.

Both of them preached at churches in the Los Angeles area, and both of them are very good preachers. They are not perfect, but I was learning more from them than I had learned from any preacher before. McGee and MacArthur share these traits:

1. They are not afraid to tell the truth about Yahweh’s word.
2. They are willing to let the chips fall where they may.

In 1985, Katie and I bought a house on Smith Mountain Lake near Roanoke, VA. The lake is between Roanoke and Lynchburg. We spent weekends there, and at that point, I dropped out of institutional church altogether. I assumed responsibility for teaching my family about Yahweh. We would go out in the boat on Sunday mornings and hold a church service in a secluded spot on the lake. I knew that my young daughters were getting Yahweh’s word, because I was delivering it to them. Relying on churches to do the job that Yahweh gives to parents is a serious mistake. I can’t overemphasize that point.

Over the years, I did a lot of fishing on Smith Mountain Lake. I fished for striped bass primarily. My fishing day started at about 4:00 AM. The first order of business was netting gizzard shad for bait. Then, I would start fishing. At 6:00 AM, I turned on the radio on my boat and listened to McGee and MacArthur. I was fishing and learning.

In the mid-1990s, I was a chaired professor at UVA, and I turned my attention to the things Yahweh told me in the 1970s that I would do for Him. That’s what I have been doing ever since, and I give J. Vernon McGee and John MacArthur a lot of credit for helping to move me along. That’s something I never got from a preacher at any church I attended. If they knew the truth, they were afraid to tell it. I suspect that most preachers are afraid to tell the truth, because they don’t want to run the risk of offending churchgoers, especially churchgoers with deep pockets. Telling them the truth could cost preachers their jobs.

Several weeks ago, I was thinking about J. Vernon McGee and how much I learned from him. I decided to google him and discovered that Thru the Bible Radio is now Thru the Bible. It’s available on the internet all over the world in many formats and in more than 100 languages. I downloaded the Thru the Bible app for my iPhones and iPods, and now I am listening to the programs at my speed. That’s something I wasn’t able to do before, and because of my schedule back then, I know that I missed a lot of programs.

McGee died in 1988. Before he died, he completed his Thru the Bible project. It’s a 5-year program that takes listeners through the whole Bible, and it’s available for free to the whole world in languages that people can understand. The importance of McGee’s contribution to Yahweh’s mission is impossible to overestimate. I know how much he helped me, and I know he is still helping millions of people worldwide today more than 30 years after his death.

At 72, I am just about ready to get on with my final assignment, and I touched base with McGee again. It was a Yahweh thing. Listening to Thru the Bible with no gaps and at my speed, I can feel Yahweh taking me to the starting line for the last leg of my journey. Listening to McGee talk about the things Yahweh showed him during the last years of his life is very similar to the things Yahweh is showing me right now.

It boils down to this: It’s not about me. It’s about Yahweh. I am a weak and fragile vessel that He chose to use for a specific purpose. Part of my preparation is understanding that my weakness enables Yahweh to show His strength. I can’t take credit for anything, because Yahweh was there with me all along taking me exactly where He wanted me to be at exactly the right time. It’s Yahweh’s timing, not mine. I’m sure McGee understood the same thing before he died.

To Yahweh, timing is of paramount importance. I can only speculate about Yahweh’s timing, so I won’t even go there.

I downloaded the Thru the Bible app from the Apple app store. It’s free. At Thru the Bible, you can see the resources that are available to you. If you are a believer, I urge you to take a look at the website. You’ll be glad you did.

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“I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me — just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father — and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice, and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd. The reason My Father loves Me is that I lay down My life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father.”

John 10: 14-18

See “His Name is Yahweh”.