His Perfect Love

Larry: Pastor Matt VanderVen encouraging us to bring light to dark places.

Matt VanderVen: Church, you are supposed to be the light during these times. You're the ember. You're bringing light to darkness. This is not a time to go on holiday. This is not a time for a vacation for the church. This is the time that we've been waiting our whole lives for, to be alive for such a time as this, to be born in a generation that could actually be the generation of the Rapture.

But before the Rapture, to be here, that when everybody's running from the fire, we're running in because we have the security eternally to know this is why we were born. This is why we were made, and this is what we're here to do, and not to run from it, but to run to it, and that's the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Larry: Well, it's becoming increasingly clear that we're living in the last of the last days. So what should we be doing, and where should our focus be as the Day of the Lord's return draws near? We'll talk about it today on His Perfect Love as we go deeper into Revelation chapter 1 with an emphasis on verses 10 through 13. God has a purpose for you and His church. Let's make sure we're living in line with it as we join Pastor Matt VanderVen of Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore for today's study in the Word.

Matt VanderVen: The church was designed for a purpose, and it's to bring light to dark places. Matthew chapter 5, verses 14 through 16, if you would just turn there in your Bibles, please. God's purpose for the church is to hold forth the light. While He would ascend into heaven, we are to be light-bearers and hold that light in which He has given to us. Many tribal lands understand this policy and premise very easily because light for them is a matter of survival.

If you're in a tribal land, somewhere in New Guinea, when they make a fire, if they didn't know how to make a fire, one of the ways they would do what? They would make the fire and then they would keep a fire lit by lighting another torch, and then they would wait until that torch is almost burnt, and they would light another fire and so on and so forth. Jesus has lit the fire in all of us through the Holy Spirit that indwells us, and we are to keep that fire lit through Him, not on our own doing, but to be ambassadors of this beautiful light and fire.

He says in Matthew chapter 5, verses 14 through 16, "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all those who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." That's the whole reason we're here. That is the whole point, to bring glory and honor to God. It's not to build treasures on earth. It's not to build fiefdoms and governments and all these other things. We were very content with a theocracy at one time, or some of us were.

We're going to have it again in the Millennial Reign. There'll be no more evil as we understand it today. There'll be no more pain and suffering the way it is today. In Jesus's letter to the church of Ephesus, a church that again had left their first love, the Lord warns that they must repent. Please turn to Revelation chapter 2, verse 5. This is very important because the very first church that Jesus deals with is a church that left Him.

He's the light-bearer. He's the light to the world. He's the one that a lot of us have seen fires or we've had fire pits or we've gone to a campfire. They take the ember, and they take that ember and they put it back into the fire, and what does it do? It lights back on fire. Jesus is the source. The Holy Spirit is the source living in us. That is why the ember continues to stay lit. But if we walk away from Jesus—and He's talking to the church now; He's not talking to unbelievers out there—He's talking to you and I.

We've got to take this seriously. This is Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, the author and finisher of your faith, the one that you have claimed to have given your life to, that says, "I'll do and follow You anywhere, Jesus. I'll do it Your way, and not my will be done, Your will be done." This is what we proclaim as Christians. He tells us in Revelation 2:5, speaking to the church that left her first love, which I can only imagine how difficult this must have been for John to write this as he pastored that church. So did Paul, so did Timothy. This should have been a flagship of the denomination of the apostolic church.

And instead, 60 years later, it's a church where they took their embers and they cast them out of the fire because they began to live for all the wrong reasons. They began to follow all the wrong doctrine, and they found themselves, well, 2,000 years later, we can all relate to this. They subscribed to American Christianity, which, by the way, wasn't American first. You know where that Christianity started? We can call it European Christianity. Goodness, we don't know our church history, every one of us here.

The missionaries that came out of England, some of the greats, Scotland, right? Some of the other areas of Europe. You and I, born-again believers today, we're because missionaries were sent to this country from those countries to plant the seed, to give the gospel, giving up all expense, didn't care about money, they gave it all to the Lord. They didn't care about how things are going to work back home. They gave up that, they counted the cost, they got on boats, and they came here or railways or whatever way they could to get to this country because they knew that we needed to know Jesus, our grandparents, great-grandparents, forefathers, and in many other countries as well.

Lest we be ignorant of our history, brethren and sistren, if I'm making up a term, what is going on in England today? Would anybody say that England is a Christian country or kingdom? I thought that's ironic, too, because they, while not governmentally, they had a queen, now they have a king. It's not Jesus. It's just not Jesus. And do you know what they do with the churches there? They make them into discos. What's that mean? For some of us here, some of you speak multiple languages, they've made them dance clubs.

Do you know that you can go there and they have raves in the basement of churches that once men in a service like this got on their knees, Spurgeon and others quoted about the fire that came from the furnace of that church because the Spirit of God, because men got there early, women got there early, they're on their knees praying while the church service was going on. They didn't go home. They weren't worried about lunch. They weren't worried about where they had to be. They were down in the basement praying for the souls that gathered in that sanctuary, that people would get saved.

And now, hundreds of years later, there are apartments and flats. They're dance clubs and raves with alcohol and drugs. You don't believe me? Travel. Go, just travel. Get out of America for a moment. Just travel the world, please. See the things. We're so comfortable in our bubble here. Forgive me, I'm not rubbing anybody. I'm just saying we don't realize how good we have it, and we've been lulled, just as Europe's now been lulled into a sleep, we are being lulled to sleep through riches, mammon, comfort, and every other distraction we have around us.

Jobs that we stay in because they give us a financial security of a retirement. You may not even get that retirement if the Rapture happens, and we build our whole lives around it. Oh, now, Pastor, you've gone too far. Talk to our brothers and sisters, if only the grave could speak. Oh wait a minute, Jesus said something about that when Lazarus came and the rich man said, "No, just let me go talk to my brothers and warn them." He says, "If they won't listen to the gospel and the truth that's planted before them or given before them," he says, "do you really think they're going to listen to when someone else sends a messenger if they won't listen to the Messenger?"

So forgive me for my foolishness for a moment. How many of you have heard people say, "Well, if Jesus was just standing next to me, then I would believe." No, you wouldn't. That happened already. He came for His triumphal entry, right? Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the Hebrew, "Save now." They understood exactly what was going on. There was no confusion. Let us not be ignorant historically of what has happened and what we're capable of as people, humans. They could literally four days earlier just cry out, "Save now," recognizing Yeshua Messiah, knowing who He is, Jesus Christ the Messiah. They knew.

And then only days later, they are crying out, "Crucify Him," because the multitudes began to turn their back on Him. He even looks to the apostles, "Will you leave me also?" What a humble God that would turn around and say, "My apostles, the people that have been following me, you have seen these miracles: the blind made well, the lame can walk, all the things that John the Baptist said would happen that were Old Testament, last of the Old Testament prophets, prophesied in the Old Testament." And Jesus fulfilled all of them, and it still wasn't enough.

And it's not only recorded in our Bible, it's extra-biblically recorded from Josephus and historians, but it's not enough. Why? Because it's not a matter of knowing, knowledge. It's a heart issue. It's a heart attitude. Are you with me? Right, we all can say, and if we're being honest, sometimes it's my heart. My heart can deceive me. Now, maybe you don't have the same heart I do, but my Bible tells me that there is wickedness that goes on.

I don't want the lampstand removed. I need Jesus. I need the Spirit of God to be that source, to light that ember, to keep me going because I know what I'm capable of. Historically, I know what we're capable of as a country. I just saw it yesterday. I don't care where you fall in the political lines. Right, wrong, or indifferent, taking another man's life because he has a different viewpoint than yours and trying to assassinate a president—everybody should cry in unity and say that is murder or attempted murder and wrong.

And we should never want to hurt anybody else that has a different viewpoint than the Christian belief. As a matter of fact, that's one of the beauties of this country, is that we all have the freedom to exercise our beliefs. And I have a calling from my God to influence someone that doesn't believe what I believe. But it doesn't mean I'm heavy-handed. Jesus was a gentleman, and we're to be gentlemen and ladies in the way we handle the gospel. We don't chop people's heads off. We don't do these things that extremists do. No.

Jesus warned the church of Ephesus and us, a church that had left its first love. The Lord warns that unless they repent, He will come to them and what will He do? He will remove your lampstand from its place. In other words, the church was in danger of losing an opportunity to testify of Christ in their community. Do you realize that's our privilege? That's why this morning I sat there and I thought about the finances and the different things we needed to talk about. And I say, "Here we go, VBS and everything," and something inside me is like, "Don't do it, you don't like to talk about that stuff." No.

There's work that needs to be done in the kingdom. I'm not going to be shy about it. I'm not embarrassed of my Jesus, and neither are you. He didn't give us ten acres so that we could have a country club and play golf in the back. He gave us ten acres so we can fill that whole land and get people saved, discipled, take care of people. Because when hearts start failing, and oh they will, if it continues to get worse and the Bible said these things need to be, and the intensity, which is why I brought up Matthew 24. What do you think's going to happen?

What happened in 9/11? If history's anything of a teacher, the churches were packed. Why? Because everybody's attention was peaked or perked or pricked at that time, wasn't it? What's happening? There wasn't even standing room in many churches. Friends, you don't think that's going to happen again when we start seeing the evil being unleashed and people doing what's right in their own eyes in a capacity that we have not seen generationally since the time of Domitian, 2,000 years ago? And it's only going to get even worse than that.

And we might be here for a portion of that before the Rapture. You don't think people are going to be going, "What's going to happen?" And they're going to want truth because they've looked everywhere else. And their government failed them, their leader failed them, all the other people that they're looking for in a political savior's going to fail them. Only Jesus won't fail them. And they're going to find that out the hard way, like you and I, many of us had to find that out the hard way through drugs, addiction, and all other kinds of things.

I went through and maybe some of you went through before I found the one true God, instead of making drugs my God, mammon my God, materialism my God, work. Work was my God. All these things I'd relate back and I'm like, "Lord, you're trying to warn us, you're trying... what else can You do? You're so good to us. You're trying to wake us up." Because if not, we're going to look like Europe. This is not going to only not be a Christian nation, but there's going to be no evidence. Well, they already started that. We're ripping statues down.

We're ripping history down. We're tearing history apart. It happened in DC, it's happening all around us. I'm not saying there's not terrible things that we have done in this country, absolutely, and nobody here can deny it. We know our history. There needs to be a repentance for those things, no doubt about it. But at the end of the day, a Judeo-Christian nation built our laws, our democracy, our republic is built on the Word of God.

You can't read this Bible and not see what our forefathers were intending to do within this nation to be a Bible-believing nation where morality would reign in this day, and that a brother and sister could live freely and safely without fear of being shot because you simply open your mouth and share a different viewpoint than your neighbor. If you don't think it's happening again, again, Ronald Reagan, the last time. We're there, it's happening. I don't need to convince you. Read your Bibles as we're going to read through these things. We're in the last of the last days, the intensity.

Ladies, raise your hand in here, ladies, please. I literally mean if you're a lady, raise your hand. You can do it. I just want to make sure we know who we are. All right, good. You passed that first test. All right, next test. If you're a lady and you've had a child, raise your hand. Okay, keep your hand up for a second, please. You can put your hands down. Thank you. First of all, thank you, ladies, because without you, none of us would be here. Jesus used you powerfully to do something that men couldn't do. I don't know how else to say it.

Every single time, four times in a row, each time I was like, other than feeling the grip and I was like, "Get back!" I didn't know what was happening. There's something just very special and abnormal when you watch something beautiful like this, the baby come out of this person that you married, and you don't... how? You're just overwhelmed, and you do everything not to pass out because you want to be tough, guys. Tough. Meanwhile, we're like... now, ladies, you know where it's at. And guys, we know where it's at, too.

So where was I going with that? The point I was making with ladies, and God bless you, is that the labor pains, I have a simple question, please correct me if I'm wrong in here or my misunderstanding of Matthew 24 or any part of Scripture. When you were in labor, as it progressed, it didn't get slower and slower and slower and you went, "Wow, I don't feel the pain as intensely anymore." Anybody? Please correct me if I'm wrong biblically of understanding what Jesus meant by labor pains, using something that almost every human being can at least know someone or understand what it would be, even guys who don't have babies.

No, it intensifies. It picks up. Every time judgment was being brought to a nation, a country, or a people, it always intensified. Pastor, I don't believe you. Good. 721 BC, what happened? What invasion? Correct, the Assyrian invasion. You can read that in your Bible in the Old Testament. 605 BC, it starts with the first of three, 586 the last of three. What invasion? Babylonian invasion. That's right. You can read it in your Bible. Rome, on and on and on. Look at the history. The history doesn't lie.

It intensifies in such a way that once that propulsion starts moving, it doesn't slow down. Jesus was not grammatically challenged and He doesn't stutter. He said it would be like labor pains, and we're starting to see just the beginning, just the beginning. But oh boy, ladies, you can teach us when it starts coming and you feel it, you can go, "Well, it's ten minutes," or I don't know the time, it's different for everybody, but eventually you're going to get to the point where you say, "No, no, no, it's four minutes. We need to get in the car. We got to go."

Where are you heading? Maybe you were heading to the hospital, whatever, or to the room in the house where you had it prepared for that to give birth. We're in the labor pains, the intensity of the things that He describes in Matthew 24 and the frequency have already begun. And what He's telling us is church, you are supposed to be the light during these times. You're the ember. You're bringing light to darkness. This is not a time to go on holiday. This is not a time for a vacation for the church.

This is the time that we've been waiting our whole lives for, to be alive for such a time as this, to be born in a generation that could actually be the generation of the Rapture. But before the Rapture, to be here, that when everybody's running from the fire, we're running in because we have the security eternally to know this is why we were born. This is why we were made, and this is what we're here to do, and not to run from it, but to run to it, and that's the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Paul said a good soldier does not entangle himself in the affairs of this world, but he rises above that and understands his calling and purpose. Every one of you are priests, and every one of you are kings. You have read the Scriptures I read. You know the truth. You have realized it yourself. We are a people and a church that's been called. In John's vision, Jesus Christ stands at the center of these seven golden lampstands. Please notice me: He's in the midst of His people. Jesus is here right now.

I understand you may not be able to physically stand up, touch Him, whatever. He's here right now. Does God lie? Does Jesus lie? If He says He's in the midst of His lampstands and we are the church, is He not here? Boy, that took the weight off, didn't it? Because all of a sudden, I got you guys all pumped up. You're like, "Yeah, let's do it!" And you don't know what to do. What's poured in is poured out. Everything that's happening here right now is so that when you walk out of this door, it's not so I can go to brunch, which is nice and thank you for the invitations, but it's so that you can go and reach a lost and dying world. Because the end is coming, and it's very soon.

Larry: That is Pastor Matt VanderVen on His Perfect Love. We're going through Revelation at the present time, and I'll remind you that you can hear the program again when you visit HisPerfectLove.org. That's HisPerfectLove.org. We're also at OnePlace.com and look for us wherever you get your podcasts. And Pastor Matt is back with us now. Matt, you encouraged us today to be a light in a dark world. But what might that look like practically speaking?

Matt VanderVen: Larry, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John chapter 1, verses 4 and 5 teaches us that. Jesus Christ came to bring light of God's life into a spiritually dark and dying world. In the New Testament, light and darkness are common symbols of good and evil. Darkness is the absence of light, the lack of God. It represents the power of evil, sin, and unbelief in this world, all of which lead to eternal death.

Jesus told us in John chapter 12, verse 36, "While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of the light." So the first thing that we're to do to be light in a lost and dying world is to love Jesus Christ and shine His light and gospel to this lost and dying world. The second thing and the second way we can shine that light in a dark world is by loving one another, loving others, others-focused, that we can shine that light into the darkness.

Again, he tells us in 1 John chapter 2, verses 8 through 11, "Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes." So love Jesus, love others, and be bold in the faith without compromise.

Larry: Thanks again, Pastor Matt. We can't thank you enough for your prayers for this ministry. Please pray that as God's Word goes forward, that lives will be greatly impacted for the glory of God and people would grow by His grace and love or even enter into a relationship with Him. And if you have a prayer request, please send that our way. You can email that to us through our website at HisPerfectLove.org.

If you live in the Mechanicsburg, PA area, we hope you'll stop by for a visit. Just like you hear 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 gathering on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. We're located at 28 North Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, PA. Go to CCHarrisburg.org for more information. And then join us next time when Pastor Matt will pick up where we left off in Revelation here on His Perfect Love.