His Perfect Love

Guest (Male): Pastor Matt has us think for a bit about the direction of our country and what sinful choices lead to.

We can't turn around and blame all these other things when we kicked the Bible out of schools, when we kicked God out of churches—some churches—when we've kicked God out of the universities, we kicked prayer out of the schools. I know we have a National Day of Prayer, but has everybody seen this? I mean, we wonder the repercussions of that, and we're seeing it generationally. Are things better than they were 40 years ago?

Matt VanderVen: Turn on the TV these days and it's common to see sinful behavior painted in a glamorous light, but the truth of the matter is great damage is done when we sin against God. It hinders our relationship with the Lord, for one. Today on His Perfect Love, we take you to Isaiah 59 for the truth about sin and what it leads to. There are only two paths in life: one leads to destruction and the other to life eternal. The choice is yours. Here's Pastor Matt VanderVen.

Look at chapter 59 with me here. "Behold, the Lord’s hand—" now whenever you see that in the scriptures, especially in the Hebrew, it always connotes arm, specifically when he talks about his arm, it’s always talking about power. So if you’re in the Hebrew and you ever see that and it’s talking about the Lord’s hand, you can make a note, he’s always, almost always, talking about specifically power.

"Behold, the Lord’s hand," or power, "is it not shortened that it cannot save, nor His ear heavy that it cannot hear." I don’t think it’s due to any God’s doing. I don’t think anything that’s happening right now, specifically from those that are rejecting Jesus or rejecting the truth, has anything to do with God’s doing. It’s not God’s hand of power where He’s not doing that. It’s not that God can’t save, He can. It’s not that He’s made an ear so heavy that somebody can’t hear.

He says, "No, I’m going to tell you where all this comes from." And he says, "This is real love." Real love is to tell you what you need to hear even though it might cut a little deep. Because that’s real love. "But," it’s a conjunction, it’s a reason, he’s telling you the reason, "but your iniquities have separated you from your God." He says it’s your sin and your unwillingness to choose God over your sin. He says that’s the heart of the matter.

Every time we choose sin over God, not only is that idolatry, but it’s heartbreaking. I mean, do we recognize that that’s what we’re doing? We’re breaking heart, His heart. How do you feel when somebody breaks your heart? Because I know we pay more attention when it’s about us. A little tongue in cheek there. But am I right? When it’s about us, how does it feel when somebody breaks our hearts? It messes us up, right? It hurts deeply. We can hurt God that way, too, because He’s so deeply in love with us.

So deeply that He went to Calvary to die for you and I. No one else has done that for me. No one else has done that for you. I know your parents love you, but they’ve never gone to the cross at Calvary, right? I know my parents love me; they never went to the cross. They couldn’t, they weren’t sinless. "And your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear."

Now, this is also understanding here, we’re in the Old Testament, right? It’s a different covenant. We need to recognize that as well, okay? When you’re in the New Testament, you’re part of a better covenant, specifically a covenant that was ushered in through Jesus Christ and His work on the cross in which you have a new nature. It’s not saying that God will not turn a deaf ear if He constantly has to repeat Himself. God will give you over to your will; He will do that. A debased mind, it’s called.

But God also is the same God; He’s the Ancient of Days. And He says clearly that if we reject Him, He’s a gentleman and He’ll never force Himself upon us. "For your hands are defiled with blood." Now he gets very graphic. He’s talking about innocence, he’s talking about murder, and he’s talking about how sin stains. "And your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversity," badness, gossip.

That’s what that word means here. He’s talking about gossip, slandering, talking about other people to your own people. "No one calls for justice, nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; they conceive evil and bring forth iniquity. They hatch vipers' eggs and weave the spider’s web; he who eats of their eggs dies, and from that which is crushed a viper breaks out." He says what you sow, you’re going to what? Reap.

The life we’re living can certainly hurt and disappoint not only God, but it also has a ripple effect. We can hurt other people, too, with our actions. There’s a ripple effect. That's what he's saying here, a viper breaks out. "Their webs will not become garments," right? The idea here is garments were supposed to be something that was looked at as protection or outer clothing. It was to cover and remove any what? Think in the Old Testament terms in the Jewish mind when you think of covering.

Go back all the way to Genesis. What did Adam and Eve initially feel because they realized they were exposed and it was because of their sin? What was that word? Starts with an S. That’s right, shame. You’re right, you guys know that. That’s right, shame. It says their webs will not become garments, right? You’re not going to be able to weave this into something that’s going to remove shame. "Nor will they cover themselves with their works." It’s all bankrupt.

It’s all bankrupt. "Their work are works of iniquity," sin, "and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil," they don't walk to evil, "their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths, whoever takes that way shall not know peace."

He’s telling us this is the reality. You may not like that, but that’s an argument with God. Because He’s telling you that if this is the path you go and expect to have a different result, you’re going to be sorely disappointed because it’s not going to bring you the peace that you’re hoping for. It’s not going to remove the shame that you want. It’s not going to remove the insecurity, it’s not going to remove the anxiety, it’s not going to remove the sorrow and the depression. It’s not going to turn around and remove all of these other things that we have been covering or I say we because I just put us all in this loop, you know, this bucket here, people cover.

He’s saying no, the reality is whoever takes the crooked path, they don’t walk in peace. So what’s God trying to tell us? Take the straight and the what? Narrow path. Didn’t Jesus say that? Consistent. Verse nine, "Therefore justice is far from us." Now he starts bringing this out beyond just the individual, he starts saying let’s look at how this is going to impact the nation, the government. I’m not getting political here, but he’s saying this is how this is all going to work.

It’s a ripple, okay? Look at it. He says, "Therefore justice is far from us." Now your legislatures, your judges, and oh boy, we got corruption. "Nor does righteousness overtake us. We look for light, but there is darkness." It impacts the community, the culture, society. "For brightness, but we walk in blackness. We grope for the wall like the blind, we grope as if we had no eyes; we stumble at noonday as at twilight, we are as dead men in desolate places.

"We all growl like bears—" ever seen a mama bear with her cubs? "—and moan sadly like doves," I’ve never heard that. "We look for justice, but there is none." This is what happens when society moves away from God. I can speak about the bear, I've seen a bear growl, but I've never seen a dove moan, but the idea here is that even creation testifies. Even creation around us groans and moans for salvation. "We look for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.

"For our transgressions," those are different than iniquity, that’s different than sin, "transgressions in the Hebrew means a willingness, a premeditated desire to sin. This isn’t like, okay, I was given over to my desire or I blew it because I just, this is somebody like literally saying, you know what, God, I know you say this, but I know better than you. So this is a big deal, transgressions.

Actually, in the Old Testament, there was no sacrificial offering by a priest that could be done for transgressions. There was no burnt offering. The way there was for iniquity, the way there was for sin, because it was premeditated and it was such a direct violation against God. Because effectively, you weren’t doing it out of temptation, you weren’t doing it out of lust, you weren’t doing it out of failing or missing the mark, you were literally saying, "God, You’re wrong on this, I’m right and I’m going to do it anyway."

That’s premeditated sin. That’s deep stuff. That’s transgressions. "For our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them. In transgressing and lying against the Lord," right, His witness, "and departing from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood."

I mean, God’s opening up and He’s explaining the sin of Judah, the sin of the nation. He’s capturing it for us because that way He’s coming back and giving context. Isn’t context king? It’s hard when you hear different people’s stories, right? Oh, well, someone says this, someone says that. There’s always what do we say? Two sides to every story. We know that, right? Two sides every story, but context is king.

If we, I used to like those commercials, I don't know, the NFL, the play-by-play, once in a while there was this thing where the husband and wife would be together and the husband said, "Well, I said this," and the wife says, "Oh no, you didn't, you said this." And hold on, timeout on the field, the guy throws the or the woman throws the flag, the ref comes in, he pulls up the thing, he's watching and he looks at the husband and he's like, "That's not how it happened."

You know, I think my wife probably wants one of those as most wives would or most women would in their homes. I'm probably glad they don't exist, but the point is that God is literally going by a call-by-call here. He’s literally saying, "Look, these are the sins that you are committing against Me." And He’s doing this not just for their benefit, because they’re aware of that, but He’s doing it for ours as well.

He’s showing us that He’s not this ruthless God that just comes and is just hard to please, hard to love. You know how many people walk, "Well, I’m not going to follow God." Why? "Well, he’s a dictator." Anybody that needs to have that kind of power and control, he’s a dictator. No, look at the blessings He’s trying to pour out on these people and they literally are saying, "I don’t want You." They’re rejecting.

He’s trying to bless them and do good for them and they’re saying, "No, I don’t want Your good, I don’t want peace. I want the heartache that’s going to come." And we look at that, that’s foolishness. Why would anybody? But if God doesn’t include this, then people walk around saying, "God is hard. Man, God is a stiff-neck, he’s hard." No, he’s not. He’s long-suffering. We read these passages and we come away knowing God’s character even better and going, "Wow, Lord, there’s a little bit of us in here, if we're being honest, in every one of us."

And wow, our God is so long-suffering and so loving that in spite of who we are and the things we do, He loves us through it. He loves us through these things to bring us to righteousness. I’m glad He puts these things in here. He says, "In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. Justice is turned back, righteousness stands afar off," he began that earlier in the passage.

"For truth is fallen in the street," that's terrible, "and equity cannot enter." You know the real reason that there’s disequity and disquality? It’s because people have moved away from God. That’s the real reason it happens. You wouldn’t have to worry about how people treat other people. There’d be no racism, there’d be no gender manipulation or people trying to make one gender better than another, none of that because God’s word says we got off the boat together.

Didn’t it? It says that God took, there was an ark, went, He basically dried up all the rain, we all got off the boat together. I don’t know why anybody’s hating anybody else. I can’t figure that out for the life of me. We got off the same boat. I mean, they spent what? I forget what that study was, $5 million, $4 million, they were doing a genetic study and they went back and they said, "You know, we think all life goes back to a single individual."

I could have saved you the $5 million, just read Genesis 1 and 2. I mean, really, $5 million, $4 million later to figure these things out. And God’s telling us there’d be no hate, there’d be no disequity, there would not be the haves and have-nots if we just lived according to the scriptures. He says truth fails, that’s the real reason. We can't turn around and blame all these other things when we kicked the Bible out of schools, when we kicked God out of churches—some churches—when we've kicked God out of the universities, we kicked prayer out of the schools.

I know we have a National Day of Prayer, but has everybody seen this? I mean, we wonder the repercussions of that, and we're seeing it generationally. Are things better than they were 40 years ago? "Don’t spank, never spank, don’t ever spank," right? That’s what everybody says now, don’t do that. And I’m not talking about abuse, of course. What did God say about that? That there should be an equal measurement of a response, not in a hurtful way, but to make someone aware that there is a consequence to wrongdoing.

"Please don’t run into a street, it will not end well." And if somebody withholds you from doing that, while they may be resisting your will, they’re really loving you because they’re trying to protect you from something bad happening. And again, I know that there are extreme or even cases of abuse, I'm not talking about that. Those things are sick and should never ever happen. That’s not what God is talking about.

But the real reason is because people have given up the word of God and they’ve given up God and they’ve tried to figure it out on their own. And it’s not that we haven’t had runway, it started in the 60s. We’ve had enough runway now. Are we as a people and a species better? Do we see less psychological issues today or is the rate of anxiety higher than it’s ever been in the industrialized world? Is depression and sorrow higher than it’s ever been?

Do we have more murders, do we have more crime, do we have more issues and things going on than any other time? Oh, Pastor, the population. Do it as a percentage of the population. God’s right. God’s always right. When we do it the humanist way, our way, I mean, Frankie Sinatra had a good line there, "I did it my way." But in reality, it doesn’t end well. It doesn’t end well for anybody.

And God is appealing to Judah. He’s calling out to Judah. He’s saying, "Please, can’t you see the effects in society and everything in the culture?" He says you want to change the world, you can do it through politics, but really it begins one soul at a time. It begins one soul at a time. If everybody invests in one soul, and I’m talking real investment, not placating them, you think people are going to turn to these things if they’ve really been loved?

If they’ve felt secure or built up? He says so truth fails. "And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey." He says exactly what you’ve made yourself. "Then the Lord saw it and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor." At this point, it goes this far. He says there’s not even a single intercessor in all of Israel.

"Therefore His own arm brought—" in other words, God's saying only He can correct it. He’s actually told us this again, hasn’t He? It’s coming. What did He call it now? The Great Tribulation. "Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him," right, correction that's going to come and then judgment that follows for those that reject Jesus, all in an attempt that even during the Great Tribulation, is the gospel not going to go forward?

Is God not going to try to get people saved in the great, of course He is. We just read the book of Revelation, Revelation 7, Revelation 11. God’s desire is never to throw anybody out. It’s to redeem and restore and to build back up. Don’t let anybody convince you of an alternate gospel. "Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him, and His own righteousness, it sustained Him. For He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on His head; He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing and was clad with zeal as a cloak.

"According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay: fury to His adversaries, recompense to His enemies; the coastlands He will fully repay." Jesus will repay. How’s He going to do that? He brings judgment only as far as it needs to be brought and then once repentance and reconciliation happens, then we've talked about it, Isaiah's already told us, comfort comes. So what’s the depths in which it’s going to take for the Jewish people as a nation, a whole nation, to call out and said, "Blessed be the name of the Lord"?

Because we read in scripture, that’s exactly what they’re going to say and Jesus is going to come back. So what’s it going to take to make that happen? You all have the answer, it’s going to take a Great Tribulation, the depths of nothing unlike anything that’s ever happened on this entire earth. And please remember, as we go back even historically, every single one of the things that God has said—and this isn't just me, you be a Berean, you go search these things out—every single one of God’s promises or prophecy, 27% of your Bible’s prophecy.

It’s not I’m getting away with anything up here. You all can go search this yourselves. 27% of the Bible’s prophecy, that means foretelling, future telling. You have over 1,500, 1,200 to 1,500 promises that God said very specifically. He has not been wrong on one of them. He has not gotten one of them wrong. And I’m not just saying, oh yeah, I go to the Bible and then I can look at this fulfilled, I’m saying even extra-biblically, go to your history books.

God wrote in the Bible "Cyrus," 140 years, we're in Isaiah, before he was even born. Go look in your history books when there was a man, Cyrus, who was over the Persians. You can confirm it right at the dating and you know Isaiah we can go back to the Hebrew because they kept excellent genealogical records, find out when he existed. How do you think we know 740 to 720, even in the, how do you think we know that that’s when he was alive during that time?

And just look at it. These are not, this is not a blind faith. This is not a blind faith if we just go back. And the reason I’m bringing this up is because God is saying this is what’s going to happen. And he’s telling us the next event that’s going to happen on the biblical timeline is a rapture for those that are born-again believers in Christ because he’s not going to beat the bride. Why would he ever do that?

He’s saved us, He’s redeemed us, He’s going to take us to heaven. And then what’s going to happen on this earth? A Great Tribulation like no one else has seen. And what is the whole point of the Great Tribulation? Just to take His judgment and recompense out, as we’re reading here? Well, what’s He say here? "Fury to His adversaries, recompense to His enemies; the coastlands He will fully repay. So they shall what? Fear the name of the Lord from the west and His glory from the rising of the sun; when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him."

Evil and wickedness will never win. And then what’s he say? Look at verse 20, he’s talking about Messiah. "The Redeemer will come to Zion," Jerusalem, "and to those who turn from their transgressions in Jacob," says the Lord. But it’s going to take this captivity that they’re going to go in. They’re going to go into a Babylon captivity and we know this even extra-biblically. 605 BC, 586 BC, right?

We know that they went into captivity. 70 years later, they were released from their captivity, went back into the land, the Jewish people, Judah specifically, and began to have that city rebuilt. And all of it. And then even Ezekiel where it says the dry bones will live, you’ve heard me mention it a number of times. Well, what’s that mean, dry bones live? He says once where you had life is going to become dry and withered.

And that’s exactly what happened to Israel. He says, "But they will live again." Well, that’s interesting. Because how do the people live again? When they were removed from the land, you had a time where Islam and the Muslims came through and destroyed. Then you had a time that the Catholic Church came through, right? And destroyed, right? And I don’t just call them out, it was Christians. And they were removed from the land for 600, 700, 800 years.

There were no Jews back in Israel like we go and take trips over to Israel there, we take it for granted. That didn't exist. It had become a barren wasteland, it's a desert. And then in 1948, God says, "Now those dry bones will live." They’re the third largest exporter of fruits and vegetables in a desert, in a desert. Because God said so and it’s in, there’s even writings of Ezekiel and other writings in scripture that said how plentiful it would be, how it would be so wonderful like it is now. These are all miracles and God’s calling the ball. He’s saying this is what’s going to happen hundreds of years before it happened. He wrote this.

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.

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 that live in the Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania 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 Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. 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.