His Perfect Love

Guest (Male): Are you feeling hopeless today, wondering what's the point of it all? Pastor Matt suggests the following.

Matt VanderVen: The problem is you need to bring God into the equation. You need to bring God into the equation. If you don't know Jesus, you need to receive Him as your Lord and Savior and realize there is a purpose for your life. You are not an accident. You never have been. And if you are alive, God has a plan for you, no matter what your circumstances are. Your circumstances don't determine you, and you are not your circumstances. Circumstances come and go, but you are a child of God.

Guest (Male): What is the meaning of life? Maybe you've pondered over that late at night, in a philosophy class, or on the heels of a tragedy. Today on His Perfect Love, we join Solomon on his journey to figure out the meaning of life. There was a time when he tried to do life without God, and he would describe it as grasping at the wind, a futile endeavor that many are still engaged in today. He explains his research and journey in the book of Ecclesiastes, and we join Pastor Matt VanderVen now in chapter one.

Matt VanderVen: In verse 12, "I, the preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem." Solomon. "And I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven." He says, "I was going to use scientific observation here, and I was going to go ahead and study these things. This burdensome task God has given to the sons of man by which they may be exercised. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and indeed all is vanity and grasping for the wind." Again, have you ever tried to grasp for the wind?

He says, "Look, I gave myself fully to this." As a human being who possessed godly wisdom from God in some capacity more than any other man on earth, he says, "I gave myself fully to understanding and figuring out the meaning of life." And he tries this without the inclusion of God, and immediately he is presented with a sense of futility. And the best way he could describe it is, it's all grasping at wind.

He says it's like going after that which you can never comprehend or attain. Have you ever tried to do that, grasp the wind? You can't. It's futile. And then he gives us a reason here. Verses 15 and 16, and we'll stop in verse 18 on our time tonight. We'll finish chapter one. But he gives us the reasons now. He's going to explain his research, his journey, and his experiences.

This is the reason he thinks or has come to this conclusion so far that you can't grasp the wind. He says, "What is crooked cannot be made straight." Well, with man's wisdom, that's absolutely true. "And what is lacking cannot be numbered." How many times have you and I realized that we are not in control? Control is an illusion, and we really can't fix anything.

But yet he's mediated or meditated, considered, and pondered these things. And he said, "What is lacking cannot be numbered." He's basically saying God is, and he's going to make this statement throughout, it's not logical. How many of you like patterns? Anybody in here like to study patterns? Anybody realize that humanity is patternistic? People are creatures of habit, if I say it that way, habitual.

Anybody know anybody that's like that? You're all pointing to each other. You're like, "Yes, he is. She is. I'm not. I'm unique." No, we are all patternistic. Everyone of us, to some degree or another, is predictable. And as a matter of fact, that explains, ever wonder, spiritual warfare? I'll just give free information here. Did you ever wonder how the demons know?

Don't ever do this, but you know how there's people that go to the occult, or they'll go to fortune tellers, soothsayers, and things like that, mediums and all that nonsense? Some of that is real. Please don't think it's all fabricated. There are people that are truly demon-possessed that are doing that. Have you ever wondered why those demons are able to give that information? Because please remember they're immortal beings.

They've been alive for 6,000 years or more. They have watched. You and I might forget great-great-great-grandpa, great-great-great-grandma, but they have been watching your lineage since the dawn of time. And just like there's certain mannerisms or characteristics that you have, maybe there's something that you do that maybe your mom did. Maybe a certain look, or maybe your dad did.

Maybe your dad was an engineer, and every once in a while you come out with an engineering mindset or you say something like, "That's just an engineer's mind." Where did that come from? Well, more's caught than taught. I always say that. It's environmental. You grew up in a home like that, different things like that. They've been watching. They can't tell you the future. The demons don't know the future.

But they know the past. And when you know the past and you can see some of those things, there's a certain level of predictability based on human nature, on the things that trapped your great-great-great-grandparent. And what they struggled with, guess what? You might just have some of the similar DNA, and you might struggle with some of the similar things. Did you ever think about that? And that's why, from a predictive perspective, they know how to try to tank you, if you will.

It's spiritual warfare. Principalities and powers. Ephesians 6:11-18. I'm not telling you anything new. Many of you know this, but some of you don't. And it's important to understand that's how your enemy does that. He can't read the future. He doesn't know. Satan doesn't know. He doesn't know when Antichrist is coming, which is why every generation he's had an Antichrist that could sit in that place.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao, throughout human history, there's always been someone that can rise on the scene to be an Antichrist. Because he doesn't know when it's coming. And in the wings, he's just always ready that way. He says, "I communed with my heart, saying, look, I have attained greatness and I've gained more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge."

He's not being prideful. He's stating a fact. God already said he gave him this wisdom. He's the wisest man alive at this time on earth. He says, "And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know," what's he say there? Circle it in your Bible. "Madness." Because as we read earlier, man's wisdom, he gave the reasons why what is crooked cannot be made straight and what is lacking cannot be numbered. Verse 15.

And where did all that knowledge lead to? When he finally got to that point where he went, "I can't fix anything. Nothing's going to change." And oh, by the way, humans are patternistic as I was mentioning. But guess who isn't? God. And that's the thing that Solomon learned in all of this study, and you will know that by chapter 12. The one thing that you and I will learn is that human beings, while we're created in the likeness and image of God, especially after we're saved, before that in likeness and image of Seth or Adam, adamic nature, Genesis 5.

But the reality is we may be patternistic; God is not. And that's something that as we study things, sometimes is difficult for us because he's not predictable. Can't you and I micromanage God pretty effectively? I mean, we could tell him the best way to do something way more efficient than the way he's doing it. I mean, clearly if you just gave us a million dollars, we could just clearly do this and we'd solve world hunger and we'd stop this.

"Well, Lord, what are we waiting for? Let's get after it." And the answer is no. Because God works through sinful human beings that are forgiven to teach us dependency. And he puts the timing and operates and puts people in our lives and he's orchestrating and moving all of these things all at the same time. And we're so focused on self most of the time that we're like, "Why is this happening? What did I do wrong?"

And you may not even be in sin or did anything wrong. And it's just God allowing timing sometimes for things to line up. Or there could be a point where God is allowing further growth or stretching, and he's doing that, but then also that's not just for you, that's for the coworker that you don't even notice is watching you over lunch as you just lost somebody in your family that you loved.

And they're thinking, "Where are you getting the strength to endure this? How are you doing this?" Until that one, years in the future, all of a sudden they come to you and they have something, and "I need your help. What is this that you knew about? How did you do this?" You go, "Well, it was my Jesus." "You mean you were watching me?" They're always watching.

You're in a snow globe. I like to say it, you're in an aquarium. Realize that about your life. You're always in an aquarium. Your life is on view for everybody to watch. And so, you know, when you look at it, God isn't necessarily the most efficient, but he's the most perfect. He is the only perfect thing that we know. And so when you take somebody who's logical, who's pragmatic, who's using science, who's doing and he's saying, "But wait a minute, logic, God, you are logical in so many ways. Two plus two will always be four."

Yes. And he's given us decency and order on this earth. But then there are other things that he does that are very what we would say confusing to us because they don't follow the same pattern that we would expect. And that keeps us completely dependent on him. Because we don't know what tomorrow will hold. And he said that he makes his mercies new every day.

Not mercies for two days from now. But when you wake up, should we wake up tomorrow, the Lord doesn't come tonight and take us home, if we wake up tomorrow, all of today's affairs and problems, he will come tomorrow and restore you and give you new mercies to tackle tomorrow's day. And just enough mercies for tomorrow to handle what will come before you, including temptations.

And he'll be with you through all of it and the trials. And that creates a completely dependent relationship. A dependency on him and not self, which is why Jesus says when you lose your life you gain it. But when you try to gain your life you... it's the inverse of logic. Because everything in our natural being, if somebody came up to you and pushed you in a pool, it's a natural reaction.

You flail, even if you don't know how to swim, you flail because you're trying to get to the surface because there's a self-preservation. The heart, right? When sometimes we're with a loved one that's on hospice, that they just want to go be with the Lord, they're saved. And so often they'll say, a hospice nurse will say, "The heart is so strong. It just doesn't want to let go." Meanwhile, the person's, "I'm just ready to be with Jesus."

And you have to watch that labor. You come into life with labor, many times you go out of this life with labor. So he's describing this and he's giving us the reasons. And he says, "But then there's this madness." Now, this is interesting. This insanity. So do you realize that in 2009 something switched? Something switched since we've had the 1930s, 1940s, and '50s, when most people began to drive automobiles.

The number one top cause of injury deaths was automobile accidents. Did you guys know that? Except in 2009 and forward. Do you know what the number one cause of injury death is now? Suicide. Suicide. Do you know one of the top positions that are most likely, do you know physicians? Medical doctors, clinicians, have a higher, dentists, have a higher rate.

Do you know secular counselors are four times greater risk than a physician? Because of all the load they're taking on, the stress and everything, that almost every counselor has a counselor. Everyone you're going to to talk to has someone they're going to talk to more frequently than you're going to talk to them. Because the suicide rate is four times higher for them than for the physician.

Which is, if I'm not mistaken, I think close to four to ten times higher than what you and I face, those that are not in a medical type setting. In 2009 literally suicide surpasses car crashes. I have the article up here. I was reading through it, going through the details. The recent suicide and data statistics, I'm bringing this up because we're talking about madness and mental illness here.

First of all, if there's anybody here that is struggling with suicide, please don't walk out of here without getting help. Please don't not call the 1-800 suicide number, wherever you are, wherever you hear this, if something like that happens. It's a lie from the pit of hell because whatever's going on inside of you, what do we want to do?

When somebody's thinking about suicide, they want to terminate their life. The problem isn't their body or their life. It's not the mind, it's the contention of the soul, the things that they're wrestling with. But guess what? If you're not saved, you permanently put yourself in a place like that. I truly do believe that, look, it's the worst thing that I think could happen, but someone could be born again but have an episode of mental illness because of many different reasons and end up taking their lives.

And I do believe you'll see them with Jesus in heaven. I fundamentally believe that because you cannot lose your salvation, and he didn't say that was the unpardonable sin. Now I'm going to be clear, God is not telling you anyone to go do this. Nobody has the right. You know why? Because you are blood-bought. You don't own yourself.

You are blood-bought. You have been bought by Christ. You are his. You're no longer your own. But I want us to understand because this is a real thing that has happened and we're seeing more of it. When I looked up the CDC's data and statistics on these things, 2024, the highest that it's been. They're going through over 49,000 people died by suicide in 2022.

That number continues to grow each year. That means there's one death by suicide every 11 minutes. Every 11 minutes. That means that there's 13.2 million people that have seriously thought about suicide. That means there has to be 3.8 million people that made a plan for suicide. And then that basically boils down to one in 11 means that there has to be 1.6 million people that actually attempted suicide.

This is an epidemic, and it's getting worse and worse and worse because humanity has tried to kick God to the curb. And so they don't have the word of God. They don't have that infusion of truth and God's wisdom. And when left to oneself and man's wisdom, they end up coming to the futility just as Solomon did. It's not new.

Solomon's going to demonstrate that. He's going to constantly come to this place. Look, if that is you and that is happening to you, first of all, you're not necessarily abnormal. Solomon was the wisest man. The problem is you need to bring God into the equation. You need to bring God into the equation. If you don't know Jesus, you need to receive Him as your Lord and Savior and realize there is a purpose for your life.

You are not an accident. You never have been. And if you are alive, God has a plan for you, no matter what your circumstances are. Your circumstances don't determine you, and you are not your circumstances. Circumstances come and go, but you are a child of God. Just think about when you were younger how many different things you went through and thought, "Oh, I broke up with such and such and they broke up with me and I'm never going to make it."

And you look back and you think, "Well, I made it." Or "I lost this job, I'm never going to find another job," until you found a better one. I want you to think about all the things from the temporal perspective and how misguided and misled we can be. Our own emotions can betray us, our own minds can betray us. And Jesus came and said, "These things, they're temporary. What I have for you is forever. And your job while you're here is to minister to people with the hope that you have because they don't have that same hope if you don't know Jesus."

The book of Ecclesiastes is one of the most powerful books to lead people to Christ because when you look at where man's wisdom brings you, it can look hopeless. But when you see all of the things that God does for you, it brings hope because there is meaning and purpose in life. And you have meaning and purpose.

And I'll go so far as to say it doesn't even matter how you feel about that because our emotions can betray us. It's a lie from the pit of hell. Does everybody understand that tonight? So many people are being sold a lie from the pit of hell. It's a real problem. Do you know when I was looking at some of the data, and I know we're at our time here this evening, it's going to surprise you.

I think it's going to surprise most of you. Do you know what the largest population of people that are taking their lives? Most of you would probably think it's the Gen Z, Gen whatever, alphabet soup, I don't know which one. You might think it's the 10 to 14, 15 to 24, 25 to 34. Probably some of you, you know who it is? It's the 85-plus. Does that shocking to most of you tonight?

I want you to think of something. Look at the two generations of the spectrum. We have abortions at an all-time high. 65 million babies have been murdered. Go to the other end of the spectrum, people that are living lives are being told, especially in United States of America, not so much in Europe, but in America, "Hey, we're just going to tuck you away in some home. You don't matter."

Sometimes that's needed to take care of a loved one. But what I'm saying is, "Oh, there's not a purpose necessarily for you." That's not true. That's not true at all. And that is again another lie that's being believed. I love what the Bible teaches. Those that are more, I will use the word mature, senior. Jesus teaches us that we can go to those individuals and we can sit down and I love the conversations.

What was it like in such and such or what are you seeing here now? I love it when my kids would go up to my grandparents or my parents and ask them questions. What can we learn? I love it when they go up to you and ask you questions. You're their family. You know, what can you teach them about things you've experienced in your life as to not repeat them again?

You are a wealth to us. And yet the enemy knows that because you have history, experience, wisdom, a life of walking with Jesus and overcoming so many difficulties. You're a threat to him. He hates you. So if he can convince you you're of little or no value, and he can take a percentage of that population out, talk about a brain drain?

We're worried about that with countries and losing people that come in we educate and then they go to their home country. It's called a brain drain. We're having an epidemic of brain drain from our senior population that has so much wisdom, so much biblical wisdom, who grew up with the Bible in schools. I had a beautiful, beautiful sister many years ago.

She would have been almost a hundred now. She went to be with the Lord maybe eight, seven years ago. She brought me in a book and I have it. It's dated 1893, 1901. You open it, "A is for Adam." And it was her schoolbook, her first schoolbook that her grandpa gave her when she started school. And I keep it in my office because every once in a while when I go, "Lord, what's going on?" I go back to that and I say, "Oh no, Lord, you got a plan. You got a plan."

And then I go back to my Bible and I read again. It's beautiful. Then the next population is 75 to 84. So we start to see the attacks really begin at 75 years old because there's a wealth of knowledge from 75, and then the numbers drop off. And then the next closest numbers between 45 and 54 according to the data. Right in that midlife point.

We call it a midlife crisis. It's not a crisis. We're just get to the age where we realize just when we thought we knew it all, we don't know anything. And we can pick up our Bibles, friends, we can start all over again. Every day we can reset. Who do I want to be when I grow up? I want to be like Jesus. And tomorrow if I should have another day, I get another chance.

And whatever happened today, it's gone because tomorrow all things are made new. And that's the hope of the Christian. And that kind of hope takes away all the depression, all the anxiety because yesterday doesn't matter anymore then. Today's a gift from God and that's why it's called the present. It's a present.

You see as we study these things, we realize we see what the devil's doing. We didn't even have to get that far. We got 16, 17 verses. "And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceive this is also grasping for the wind. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow."

Absolutely, when you don't have Jesus. So friends, we all have a call to action. You hear me using those terms more and more. And I believe in these last days we're going to have calls to action. Discipleship. Here's the call to action, you ready? In your marriage, pray Jesus into your marriage. With your children, pray Jesus into your relationships.

With your parents, pray Jesus into your relationships. With your coworkers, with your church, with everybody, you pray Jesus into every relationship you have. And you watch these things melt away. The circumstances. Your God is bigger than every one of them. Amen? Chapter one, check, check.

Guest (Male): You're listening to a study in Ecclesiastes 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've also got 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. Thank you for your prayers and financial support. You can make a contribution to the ministry and send us your prayer requests through the website, again at HisPerfectLove.org. Those of you in the Mechanicsburg, PA area or will be visiting the area, we want to cordially invite you to join us for a worship service.

Just like on the radio, Pastor Matt teaches verse by verse through the Bible here at Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. 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 Locus 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 this same station when Pastor Matt will pick up where we left off in Ecclesiastes here on His Perfect Love. His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore.