His Perfect Love

Guest (Male): Here’s the biblical encouragement ahead for us today on His Perfect Love.

Matt VanderVen: Don’t lose hope in your circumstance. Well, isn’t that a good word for all of us that could be the generation of the rapture?

Don’t lose hope in your circumstance, though God’s word, last I checked in the Book of Revelation, tells me the earth is going to pass away. We just happened to be in that very passage this last Sunday. There’s going to be a new heaven. The heaven’s going to pass away. But my word will never pass away or fail. And what is he telling us here? Don’t lose hope in your circumstance. He is the ancient of days. Do you think he has a different talk track for you today?

Guest (Male): Well, maybe as you look around this world or even the circumstances surrounding you on a personal level, you’re left discouraged. Discouragement is an age-old struggle. It's good to remember we serve a God who is able to accomplish his purposes. It may seem as though we’re losing many of the battles, but we won't lose the war. As Christians, we are on the winning side.

That comes to our attention today on His Perfect Love. We’re in Isaiah chapter 51 with Pastor Matt VanderVen.

Matt VanderVen: Now as we move into chapter 51 here, he’s going to say, "Look, listen to me." This is interesting, especially because we just came to a chapter where God the Father was speaking and Jesus was demonstrating the ability to listen and obey. Messiah Jesus was. So now Jesus is coming and he's going to say, "Listen to me." He’s going actually to say this three times. He’ll say it in verse four and then he’s also going to say it in verse nine. He’ll actually say, "Listen and awake," but it’s the same idea. Listen is what he's telling us.

"Listen to me, you who follow after righteousness." He’s speaking to the righteous remnant in Israel because they’re all going to go into captivity, but God always has a righteous remnant on the earth, those that will go by his name and bow their knee to no one else, a Daniel. "You who seek the Lord, look to the rock from which you were hewn. Look to that foundation from which you were modeled and created. And to the hole of the pit from which you were dug." In other words, you're a masterpiece.

"Look to Abraham," verse two, chapter 51, "your father, and to Sarah who bore you. For I called him alone and blessed him and increased him." Do we forget that they were Gentiles? And not only Gentiles, but Abraham's father was an idol maker. Do we forget that he’s talking about Abraham and Sarah? Remember Abram and Sarai? "Look to Abraham, your father, the father of Jews, and to Sarah who bore you. Look, I called them out of the Ur of the Chaldees. I called them out. They were Gentiles. They were lost. There was no Hebrew."

God says, "I will give you children like the grains of sand." He says, "I called you out the way you were, and you were in sin when I called you. You were broken. You hadn’t arrived. I called you out of that." And look at the faith that Abraham—now look, it’s really interesting because when you and I read the Old Testament and we read about Abraham, what do we sometimes do? Snicker. Really? Your half-sister? A half-truth is still a full lie. Come on, Abraham.

And Sarah, really? You're going to laugh at God like he’s right there in the other room, like he can’t overhear you? He’s that close to you and you're mocking him and laughing because you think you're so old that he can't give you a child? Meanwhile, he could take the sand and create human life from it, and you think he can't bring a child through an 80 or 90-year-old woman? But he can do it with sand out of nothing.

Do you ever wonder? I know God has a sense of humor because when I read what he writes like this, he’s sitting up there and he’s like, "Have you processed this, anyone? Hello? Look to Abraham your father. Look at what he did. He left the Ur of the Chaldees. He believed, and he had no understanding of all that you have already, Israel, governed by God, ruled by me, Israel."

"For I called him alone and blessed him and increased him." There wasn’t a whole group of Hebrews at the time. I called Abram, one man I called, and he followed. It wasn't groupthink. It wasn't, "Well, I better go because everybody else was going." Abraham followed because Abraham knew he'd met with the living God. It's not a popularity contest.

So look back to your past. Look at how gracious God is. That's what he wants you to see. Look how gracious God was in dealing with Abram and Sarah. And he did this great miracle forming you into a nation. I, God, did it easily. I can do a lesser work in your life. I did this great work; I can do a lesser work in your life easily. Look what I did with Abraham and Sarah. I called him alone and blessed him and increased him. For the Lord will comfort Zion, Jerusalem. He will comfort all her waste places. He will make her wilderness like Eden.

What’s he saying? Don't lose hope in your circumstance. Isn’t that a good word for all of us that could be the generation of the rapture? Don’t lose hope in your circumstance, though God’s word—last I checked in the book of Revelation, tells me the earth is going to pass away. We just happened to be in that very passage this last Sunday. There’s going to be a new heaven. The heaven’s going to pass away. But my word will never pass away or fail.

And what is he telling us here? Don't lose hope in your circumstance. He is the ancient of days. Do you think he has a different talk track for you today? Do you? Really, process that with me tonight. We do the silliest things sometimes. The things we get in our own head. God, you love me. You're madly in love with me. I'm madly in love with you. I'm in your will. I'm your son. I’m going to be with you for all eternity. You’ve promised that.

You’re not going to ever take my hand joined with yours; you’re never going to pull away. You’re never going to pull away. You're going to keep it like this forever. And even when I try to do this, I hope you pray the same prayer I pray. "Lord, don't leave me to me. Lord, when I try to pull, you grab tighter, Lord. If it means you break me, you break me because I’d rather be broken by the living God than destroyed by ego and I and pride."

That’s what Jesus was teaching us: surrender. When he was talking about it, it was almost like we were in his head and he was telling us, "I gave my back to those who struck me." He was letting us see these things. "And her desert like the garden of the Lord." So he says, "I will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of melody."

Now we get to the second listen. "Listen to me, my people." He speaks to the future, the future kingdom, the millennial, the time that he’s going to—he talks about righteousness and salvation also. "Listen to me, my people." Who’s my people? Israel. "And give ear to me, O my nation. For the law will proceed from me, and I will make my justice rest as a light of the people. My righteousness is near. My salvation has gone forth."

"My arms will judge the peoples. The coastlands will wait upon me, and my arm they will trust." He’s already writing about Calvary and the cross like he already did it. To him, it's already done. He says, "My salvation has gone forth, my arms will judge the people." He's already written like it's a done deal because to God, he’s outside of time. It is done. It was just a matter of him actually coming into our timeline and doing it so that we can go, "Oh." But he had already destined it from the foundations of the earth and the world.

"And my arm they will trust. Lift your eyes to the heavens and look to the earth beneath. For the heavens will vanish away like smoke. The earth will grow old like a garment." Didn’t we just read that in Revelation? "And those who dwell in it will die in like manner. But my salvation will be forever." If God says, and it's all predetermined by him, that his salvation is not something that is given and taken because he said, "But my God’s, the author’s, salvation" that he is giving to Israel, that he wants to give to you and I, "will be forever." What does that mean to you?

Does that mean you can lose your salvation and not blaspheme God by saying that? I want you to look at the words again here, please, in context. Is it possible for you to say the only thing that a human being can do is what Hebrews 6 says, to commit apostasy is to reject Jesus Christ and walk away from him? In other words, you're saying, "I don't believe, I reject you." But is that God taking it away or is that you pushing it back and saying, "I don't want it"? Which one is it?

It's the latter. That’s right. You're saying, "I reject your offer of salvation." Hebrews 6. That's not the same thing as you losing your salvation. When God says, "But my salvation will be forever," what else could it mean? I'm not trying to be over-simple here with anybody, but my, God’s, Jesus’s, salvation—the author of it giving it to humanity. Nobody here questions that Jesus Christ came to save. He didn't come to save angels, did he? Angels can’t be saved. He didn't come to save himself, did he? No, because he was perfect and sinless; all the New Testament tells us that.

So who else did he come to save if not humanity? He came to save humanity. So if he is telling you that my salvation will be forever, what else could he be saying here? "And my righteousness will not be abolished." Why is that important? Because if there was a timestamp on Jesus's righteousness that he gave to us, and then all of a sudden at the turn of the clock on a certain date we turn into a pumpkin, and all of a sudden that righteousness goes away, then what would we be found in? We would be found in our sin and trespasses again.

It's part and parcel. There’s no coincidence that Jesus Christ describes imputed righteousness. Righteousness given by him, imputed to us. He doesn't impute anything; he is righteous. We have that imputed to us. This is why he ties the two together here. You can't take them apart. Because then you have a paradoxical problem because then I have salvation, but I still sin tomorrow, and then my sin now has caused me not to go to heaven and be with you. That only exists if his righteousness is timestamped and it doesn't remain upon me. It only exists if Calvary wasn't finished—past, present, and future.

Are you with me? Are you tracking with what I'm trying to describe? These are important, important passages. He says, "My righteousness will not be abolished. Your sin has not doomed you, Israel. Through Christ, you will come to salvation." Verse seven. "Listen to me, you who know righteousness, you people in whose heart is my law. Do not fear the reproach of men. Do not be afraid of their insults. For the moth will eat them up like a garment."

He is telling you, "Look, don't be afraid of your enemies. They're going to be easily destroyed. Wasn't it easy for me to go ahead and create a people out of Abraham? I can do the easier, the lesser, easily," God is saying. He says, "No, don't you be afraid of their insults. Don't be afraid of the people that are looking to destroy you." Boy, this—look at us. We’re looking back at this. David would have loved to have had these words. David in so much of the Psalms.

David cried out, "Oh Lord, they're coming after me. They want to kill me. They want to destroy me," in constant fear. Here you and I, we look back and we see passages like this where God is promising nothing will harm you. Nothing can harm you when you're in my will until such a time as you've completed your task here. What if I told you that death was not something that was supposed to be feared and that death is what actually brings life?

God set it up like that after original sin. If you want the proof of that, the seed, Corinthians, Paul, it's not until you plant the seed that fruit comes up. We have got this whole thing with death all wrong. The way humans look at death on this earth. This is not how God looks at death. This is a human philosophy and ideology and concept and a construct. But that's not God’s construct. To God, death is something that brings life eternally, especially obviously and only for the born-again believer, or torment and condemnation forever and ever.

He says, "Don't be afraid of these people. For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool. But my righteousness will be forever and my salvation from generation to generation." Third time he says it here. This word "awake" is the same Hebrew word that you saw in verse one and verse four. We just call it awake, but it’s listen, it's pay attention. "Awake, awake, put on your strength, O arm of the Lord!" What are they saying? "Wait a minute, give us deliverance."

"Awake as in the ancient days," after he just told them all of these things he's going to do, they are still doing what? Fearing, not trusting, not believing. What did he tell them to do twice up to this point? Listen. They’re not listening. They're hearing what they want to hear. They're saying, "Awake, awake, put on your strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Remember when you helped David? Remember when you helped the other prophets? Remember when you did this, Lord? Where are you? Are you not the arm that cut Rahab apart?" Speaking of Rahab in this context as Egypt.

Think about the first Exodus. "And wounded the serpent? Are you not the one who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, that made the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed to crossover? So that the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

"I, even I," now God. "I, even I, am he who comforts you." You and I would have walked out of the room after we just told you to listen twice and then you went on this rampage, "God, where are you? Where's your strength like you used to do the things in the Old Testament? Why aren't you strong like that anymore?" effectively what they were saying. You and I would have been like, "What am I doing?" and walked out. "You're not ready yet." Not God. He stays right there. He says, "I, even I, am he who comforts you."

"Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die? And of the son of man who will be made like grass? And you forget the Lord your maker. Are you forgetting how this whole thing works? I created you. I put everything into existence. You're fearing a mere mortal and you're not fearing me, God? You're not listening to me when I'm telling you about your idolatry?" He says, "I stretched out the heavens, laid the foundations of the earth. You have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor when he has prepared to destroy. And where is the fury of the oppressor?"

The captive exile hastens that he may be loosed. Can you imagine? He could have said, "Where's Pharaoh? I don't see Pharaoh anymore. Where's the Assyrians? I don't see the Assyrians anymore. They couldn't take Jerusalem." What are you doing holding on to that? He said, "That he should not die in the pit and that his bread should not fail. But I am the Lord your God who divided the sea whose waves roared. The Lord of hosts is his name."

He speaks of himself almost in the third person there in the idea of, "I’m the God of the hosts or what we would say is the angel armies," the most used title of God in all of your Bible right there. He says, "Do you know who you’re dealing with? Did you forget who I am? I am the Lord of the hosts. I am the God of the angel armies. And I have put my words in your mouth. I have covered you with the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, Jerusalem, you are my people." Jerusalem will be home and the capital again after they’re brought out.

So he says in verse 17, just hang with me here, we only have a few more verses. "Awake, awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem." He says your judgment is going to be over before you know it, your 70 years. "You who have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury. You have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling." In other words, you have taken all that God has poured out in judgment because of your sin. And it was drained and you drained it out. You took the cup of trembling, you took the wrath of God. It's the 70 years; it's going to be over.

"There is no one to guide her among all the sons she has brought forth, nor is there any who takes her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up. These two things have come to you. Who will be sorry for you? Desolation and destruction, famine and sword. But by whom will I comfort you? Your sons have fainted. They lie at the head of all the streets like an antelope in a net. They're full of fury of the Lord, the rebuke of your God. Therefore, please hear this."

How many times has he said this now? This is the fourth time. "Please hear this." He’s such a gentleman. "Therefore, please hear this, you afflicted, and drunk but not with wine." In other words, what are you intoxicated with? Pride, self-will, self-love, idolatry, being your own god. Verse 22. "Thus says the Lord, the Lord and your God. Remember, I’m for you. Who pleads the cause of his people." God is saying, "I do."

"See, I have taken out of your hand the cup of trembling. I'm the one that's going to deliver you from the very judgment that I brought you into. The dregs of the cup of my fury, you shall no longer drink it. I'm going to take that judgment away because the judgment has served its purpose. It’s bringing correction. But I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you." Who was the one that afflicted them? What nation? Which, oh by the way, isn't even on the scene at the time this was written. Babylon. "Who have said you lie down that we may walk all over you. And you have laid your body like the ground and as the street for those who walk over."

He says, "You will submit to your enemy and you will lay on the ground and literally allow yourself to be enslaved by these people, but you won't submit yourself to the one true God who actually loves you, wants to prosper you and bless you." Does anybody here think there's something wrong with that? That's what he's really saying. And when you read these powerful chapters, when you really stop and read it together in context, especially with all the things that we're seeing today, and to just stop and pause long enough to go, "Wait a minute, Lord, you're in control. You're sovereign. You're still saving."

Even though it can look dark and it can look like things are overwhelming and our circumstances are, they're really not. Because God is absolutely in control. And yes, we may be suffering. There may be many of you out there right now that are going through very difficult things in your life and you are suffering or you're being afflicted because of your faith in Jesus Christ. And Jesus is telling you, "I see everything you're doing. I know exactly what's happening. Let me be your example because it's worth it."

One day you will look back and you will see, "I'm glad I stood in the gap because had I listened to my own countenance or my own heart, maybe I would have feared. But I don't need to fear because, again, who is really my enemy? Who is really your adversary? You don't have one that is strong enough to take you out of the hand of God. You don't have one that can do that." And that is what he wants us to understand and know because then we're not lying down, as he closed that chapter, and being the victim and being walked all over.

I'm not saying allowing our sin to put us into our own slavery, a prison of our mind. We don't have to do that. We can stand up, even if we're the only one like Abram, and stand for righteousness and faith in Christ. Amen.

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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Those of you that live 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 20 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 this same fine station where Pastor Matt will pick up where we left off in Isaiah, here on His Perfect Love.