His Perfect Love

Guest (Male): Satan has always had a target on the Jewish people, and many have tried to exterminate them. But Pastor Matt reminds us that God will protect them.

Matt VanderVen: You see, God is the deliverer of the Jews. He always has been and always will be. God will always deliver the Jewish people. They're His chosen people. And no matter if they sinned through the Old Testament and everything, He never abandoned them.

I just need us all to understand that and take that in. No matter how wicked, no matter the idolatry, no matter all the difficult things and different things they did against God, God never turned His back on them. They turned their back on Him, but He never turns His back on His people.

Guest (Male): Sin is pleasurable for a season, but takes its toll in the life of the backslider. Thankfully, our God can help us get back to where we need to be and welcomes us with open arms. If you've been backsliding and wondering how to get back, you picked a good day to join us. That's our focus today on His Perfect Love. Join us in Isaiah chapter 41 as the attention shifts to the nations of the world and God's delivering hand. Here is Pastor Matt VanderVen.

Matt VanderVen: Isaiah chapter 41. It’s a beautiful passage we came after last week. You might remember chapter 40: "Comfort, comfort." It was such an encouragement, God saying, "Comfort my people." Always whenever there's repentance, whenever certainly there's conviction, repentance follows. After repentance, what follows after that is, as we've seen in God's word, comfort and peace because that's our God. He's a God of peace.

And so as we go to chapter 41, God is now turning and transitioning, or if you will, looking to, as He's been talking to predominantly Judah, Jerusalem, and the people of Israel. Even remembering that at the time this was written, Assyria is still in power. Assyria is still in power, okay? So we need to keep that in the forefront because He's talking about we're in that next section of Isaiah where it's pretty much Babylon here out. He'll mention Cyrus and some of the Persians.

But this is still given at the time where Assyria is in power. So a lot of this is prophetic at the time that it was written, almost 150 years before even Cyrus would appear on the scene. Babylon hasn't even arrived as a dominant or any kind of world scene power at this point. Still Assyria, okay?

So in chapter 41, He's now taking and He changes the view from just Jerusalem, Judah, or Israel, if you prefer proper, and He looks at the nations and He starts to talk to the Gentiles. Now according to scripture, there's really only two types of people, right? He doesn't go in to say, "Well, I have Italians over here. I have Polish over here." He doesn't certainly break out things that way. It's either Jew or Gentile.

Now we know according to the scriptures in the New Testament, He says now under Christ there is no longer Jew and Gentile. We are one. We've been grafted in, right? But please understand, Christ at this time had not come on the scene. So when they're talking, God is predominantly talking to the Jewish people, or He's talking to the Gentile people.

And so this is important because 41's going to transition us to the nations of the world, and what He wants to do is He effectively wants to put them on trial. He wants to gather them all together, just as the Gentiles are gathered here tonight, and He wants to speak to them and say, "I have some things for you to consider, like my chosen people, Israel. I've mentioned that there is only one God, and that is Jesus." Right? God would say that is Me.

But yet these Gentile nations, you are pagan and you are worshipping all these other things. And He says, "I just want you to consider one moment what you're doing. I want you to reason with me." God is saying, "I want you to reason with me as we look at these things and where we have prioritized our time, our resources. I want you to consider how you're living because God ultimately has a plan and purpose to save the Gentiles, right?"

But He was already laying this groundwork. He was already laying this foundation, and it was even prophesied back in Genesis early on in chapter 12 that He would do a work one day through the Gentile people until Israel would then come back into the land one day and then ultimately fulfill that purpose as God's covenant chosen people. So let's look at chapter 41 here, just a little context for you, and we'll keep that as we go here line by line.

Chapter 41, verse 1: "Keep silence before Me, O coastlands, and let the people renew their strength. Let them come near, and then let them speak. Let us come near together for judgment." So God initially calling out to the nations and saying, "Come near. I want you to come here in reach, if you will." That's what God is saying. "Come near." And why is He calling them near? He's very clear there: conviction, judgment. I want to talk to you about these things.

Look at verse 2. Now that all the nations are gathered, and He's going to demonstrate here, God, who's ultimately sovereign and in control. "Who raised up one from the east? Who in righteousness called him to his feet?" He's actually prophetically speaking of Cyrus one day. "Who gave the nations before him, and who made him rule over kings? Who gave them as dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow or bow? Who pursued them and passed safely by the way that he had not gone with his feet? Who has performed and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last, I am He."

You see, what God does and how He begins, and this is brilliant, by the Lord. I mean, really brilliant. This is an evangelistic tool that God has just given us in that passage. Did everybody get that right there? I mean, maybe you read it through the first time with me here tonight and you're like, "Pastor, I don't get what you mean. How is this an evangelistic tool?"

God is actually teaching us how to reach out to a people that may not know Him, that may not have been called by His name yet. And He begins by bringing them to the beginning and the end. He's describing legacy. He's describing history. He's saying, "Do you know how the Earth was formed? Do you know how it began? Were you there? Can your science reveal everything to you? Are you still believing a Big Bang theory that most scientists today don't even subscribe to anymore?"

How's it going to end? We have the Book of Revelation. How do you think it's going to end? He's going right to the heart of the matter. Only God knows and only God could know the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning. And so when we're going to someone and you ever want to evangelize or sit with some, maybe on a plane or wherever you are, one of the easiest ways to strike up a conversation is, "How's your day going?" and you start doing that, and then, "How do you think we got here?"

Oh my, they might go, "Oh, one of those." But really because it opens a door based on their response. It's an open-ended question, right? And no one else can give us this. Your Bible, 27% of your Bible's prophecy. Nobody can give us these answers. Only God. And even through the most amazing scientists and modern technology, we still know so little, just even in the human brain.

Einstein, one of the smartest men to ever walk the Earth, said, "Look, in all my studies and wonders, I know that the human brain only is operating at 6% of capacity." I know that the human intellect is only at 6% of capacity, and that's at someone we would say would be brilliant. There's just so much we don't know, and God is sitting there saying, "Hey, let's talk about this." It's amazing when we start asking questions that deal with the universe and things like that, we start to realize—the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. And there's so much more I don't know the more I continue to learn.

He says, "I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last, I am He. The coastlands saw it and feared; the ends of the Earth were afraid, and they drew near and came. Everyone helped his neighbor and said to his brother, 'Be of good courage.'" So the craftsman encouraged the goldsmith. Now, this section He's going to go into the next aspect of evangelism, okay? The first one was creation: how did it begin, how's it going to end? Right?

The next one He's going into is: what are you building and what are you worshipping? Because anyone that takes and worships something that they have made—anything they have made. Some people say, "Well, I made a business." Some people say, "Well, I built a house." Some people, "Well, I built a this or I built a that," and they begin to worship that. Some people, that can be families and children and all kinds of things, and they begin to worship those things, putting them in the place that only God belongs.

And what God is going to call on trial here is why would it make logical sense to any human being that if you are the creator of something, why would you as the creator of something bow down to the creation that you created? That is just insanity. If you turned around and went in your woodshop and you whittled from a piece—a log. He's actually going to bring this out all the way through chapter 44, actually. You whittle something down with wood, and then you turn around and toss half of it into the fire—it's the example He gives in chapter 44—and you take the other half and you look at this little object you made and you start to bow down and worship that object.

Well, what kind of insanity is that? There was nothing particularly special about the wood. You burned half of it to cook dinner. These are the kinds of things He's drawing. So He's saying, "Look, created these idols, all these things that you've created, these pagan lands, these idolatrous nations." He says, "Oh yeah, you even helped your neighbors. You came together, all right. You came together to work together. But what did you do to come together to do? To do evil. You didn't come together to worship. You didn't come together to do my work," God is saying, "worship the one true God, but you actually came together to compromise."

"Everyone helped his neighbor and said to his brother, 'Be of good courage.' So the craftsman encouraged the goldsmith, who smoothes with the hammer, inspired him who strikes with an anvil, saying, 'It's ready for the soldering.' Then he fastened it with pegs that it might not totter," right? You know what that means? Teeter-totter.

"But you, Israel, are my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham my friend, you whom I have taken from the ends of the Earth." So now He's actually calling Israel back into this whole trial. He's saying, "Look, it's not just the Gentiles. You've done the same thing." And called it from the farthest regions and said, "You are my servant. I have chosen you and have not cast you away. Fear not"—circle this—"for I am with you. Be not dismayed"—a second time—"I am," drawing our attention to Him. "Who am I? Who should I say, Moses, when he asks who should you say You are? I am." God declaring Himself here. "Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

Thank you, Jesus. You know, this prophecy specifically speaks to those and they will read this again when they are in Babylonian captivity and they are downtrodden and they are wondering, "Will this ever end?" They will come back to these passages and say, "God, You are my God. I'm going to humble myself. I'm going to worship You because You will uphold me with Your righteous right hand. Behold, all those who were incensed against you"—so who are we talking about? Nebuchadnezzar, if it's Babylon, if it's Assyria, Sennacherib, right?—"shall be ashamed and disgraced. They shall be as nothing, as those who strive with you shall perish."

You know, no one trying to destroy the Jews will be any more successful than those prior. And that's really, really important. We need to understand that, right? When you think of Hitler, when you think of Stalin, when you think of Mao, when you think of all those that have tried to exterminate the Jews, they could not do it. They tried with all of their might, but they could never exterminate the Jewish people. And God is calling to the attention to that. You may try to destroy the Jews, my chosen people, but you will never be successful. Why? Because God is sovereign. And that's what He's drawing the attention to. And He's saying, "Look, this is my chosen people." The nations are watching and hearing this, the Gentiles who don't understand about the Jews being God's chosen people, and they're looking on, and I got to imagine they probably say, "Well, how do we sign up for that? Or how do we become children of God, right?" Because I want that same protection. Wouldn't you want that same protection? God, I want that protection. I want that love and care.

He says, "But those who strive with you shall perish. You shall seek them and not find them. Those who contend with you, those who war against you shall be nothing as a non-existent thing." I want you to think back to Revelation and the future, right? When the Antichrist goes out and he knows his time is limited—do you remember we covered those passages?—and he wants to kill every single Jew. And they all go out, and God brings them to the wilderness. He even uses His creation to supernaturally protect them. Even the Antichrist, the Dragon, the Antichrist, the false prophet, all of the people and all of the nations that want all of the Jews dead at that time, they can't do it. They can't exterminate them. They can't get to them. The 144,000 that are alive, that have been sealed, they can't harm them either. And when you're in the will of God, you're invincible. You have all been here, if you're born-again Christians, sealed by God. And it's that same idea and promise that God is describing here. The Jewish people are His covenant chosen people.

If you're born again today, you're not necessarily a covenant Jew, obviously, unless you were Jewish before you were saved, but you are certainly a born-again believer and you are a child of God, and you are sealed and protected and lifted up by His holy righteous right hand, just as we read. Because as He says, there's neither Jew nor Gentile in the kingdom of God. On Earth there is, but there is neither Jew nor Gentile in the kingdom of God. We're children of God.

And He says in verse 13, "For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, 'Fear not, I will help you.'" You see, God is the deliverer of the Jews. He always has been and always will be. God will always deliver the Jewish people. They're His chosen people. And no matter if they sinned through the Old Testament and everything, He never abandoned them. I just need us all to understand that and take that in. No matter how wicked, no matter the idolatry, no matter all the difficult things and different things they did against God, God never turned His back on them. They turned their back on Him, but He never turns His back on His people.

And just as you and I can sin and fall short of the glory of God, God doesn't turn His back on us when we fail Him. No, usually we run from Him and turn our backs on Him. But if we humble ourselves and come back to Him, repent from our wrongdoing, God is faithful and just to forgive us of all unrighteousness, and as we already read in the previous chapter, comfort us. And He says He will hold us and help us. And He actually tells us, "Fear not."

And I really think that's an important message to take from this tonight because I imagine there's got to be some people in this room, or some people that'll hear this on the radio or maybe driving in the car next week or when this is aired on the Hope FM there. And maybe this is you sitting in the car right now going, "Man, I've blown it with God. I used to walk with Jesus. I attended church faithfully. I was doing all these things right, but I've gotten off in the last 10 years. How can I come back to God now?" Let me tell you something: God has been waiting for you. God has been waiting for you to turn and come back to Him. He wants nothing but restoration with you. He's not ashamed of you. He loves you. He wants you to come home where you belong. He doesn't want you out there trying to worry about it and handle it on your own. He wants you to turn and come to Him and rest in His loving arms.

And see, that's the message. That's the Gospel. That's the message throughout the Old Testament as well. It's not a new covenant New Testament message. It's the good news. And all 66 books proclaim it because He's the same God. Amen? He's the same God. And so He says, "I will help you." Does anybody want God's help here? I want God's help. I want God's help all the time. "Fear not, you worm Jacob." Now He's not mincing words. He doesn't say, "Hey you, Jacob, you're pristine. You've never sinned." No, God knows. He no longer sees the sin, but He says it like it is. It's not flattering.

But He loves that worm. But He loves that worm. You know, we don't like to talk that way. We don't like to think about—Paul said, "I'm filthy rags," but God loves those rags. All right? We need to come to terms with this. We have a loving, good, holy God that wants to be with His people. Amen. Yes. "Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel," I will help you," says the Lord, "and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." This word "Redeemer," circle that. Every time you see this word, I want you to have this mind's eye going forward, okay? I want you taking notes. I want you thinking about these things as you go through life. "Redeemer," what is that implying? To be redeemed means what? If you were to go up and redeem something, you're going to pay a purchase price for it, and then it will be given unto you, and you will then own it. I want you to think of the premise of that. Redemption. Redeeming.

Remember, He just went through in the first few verses explaining the beginning from the end and how He's the God, and implied in all that is how He created everything. Amen? He created everything. That's one of the things that He used right away to say, "Nations, all you pagan nations that are worshipping all that, were you there when I created the heavens?" He's bringing everybody in and setting the plane very simple. God's here, we're here.

But part and parcel in doing that, He's also communicating something else. "I created you." That's implied. He is the creator of all things. He created you and I. So now let's connect those two ideas for a moment. God created everything, every human being. Not every human being is a child of God, only those that are born again are a child of God. But He created everything and He did that once. He bought all of us, if you will, for all intents and purposes, by creating us. He made us.

But He does it again. He turns around and comes to the creation that He created who have turned their back on Him and born into sin and sin nature, adamic nature we call it, a carnal nature. And He sends His son Jesus Christ to go to a cross for a creation that He already created that ultimately belongs to Him anyway because He created you and I. We belong to Him. And then He does what? He sheds His own blood, God. And what does He do with that shed blood? He redeems you and I. He goes back and pays the purchase price again and buys us and brings us back into right relationship.

So how many times has God really done this? Twice. Is there any coincidence that the other half balances? Everything balances that God does. It's perfect. He says, "I don't want you to just be born once. You need to be born again. I didn't just create you. I redeemed you." Do you see the beauty and the perfection of God? His plans all laid out before the foundations of the world, that He knew that? He could have said, instead, "Wait a minute. I created you. You owe me. I'm not going to send my only begotten Son to die for you. I already created you. You're mine. What do you mean to tell me you're not going to follow my commandments, statutes, and judgments?"

But what God won't do to redeem—what wouldn't He do, let me say it that way, to take your soul and my soul and bring it into perfect communion with Him? You know what He would do? He shed His own blood. There's no other God, no other religion, no other teaching, no other philosophy or psychology where you ever see the person that's the founder, creator, that is willing to do that. No, everything becomes subservient under that creator or under that maker or that philosophy or ideology. You worship Buddha, right? Joseph Smith. You go and you look at these men; they become enshrined. Jesus said, "I didn't come to do my own will, but I came to do the will of my Father." He's the example.

Guest (Male): You’re listening to a study in Isaiah from Pastor Matt VanderVen on His Perfect Love. Catch a replay when you visit hisperfectlove.org. That’s hisperfectlove.org. We’re also at oneplace.com and look for us wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a mobile app. Now this is a great way to take Pastor Matt’s teachings with you wherever you may go. You can learn more about the mobile app and start your download when you visit our website, hisperfectlove.org.

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Sunday morning services begin at 8:30 and 10:30. We have a midweek service on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. You’ll find us at 28 North Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, PA. Go to ccharrisburg.org for more information. Set aside another half hour to join us tomorrow at the same time on the same fine station where Pastor Matt will pick up where we left off in Isaiah here on His Perfect Love. His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore.