His Perfect Love

Guest (Male): God's sovereignty and man's free will, both are taught in scripture.

Matt VanderVen: The Bible says very clear that God's throne is is a place of perfect justice. And and God reigns over the nations and God is seated on the holy throne, right? It's also a throne of sovereignty and holiness. It's both. So for it to be a holy throne, a pure throne, a place of righteousness, and for God himself to be a righteous judge, he can't cook the books, which is why there's an algorithm. Sovereignty and free will, and you got to have both because you take away the free will, you don't have a righteous judge. You understand with me?

Are you with me here? Do you see how anybody, even in our limited human intellect can figure that out?

Guest (Male): Welcome to His Perfect Love online at hisperfectlove.org. Pastor Matt Vanderbind is leading a study of Revelation and as we come back to chapter 4, the focus is on God's throne, the one on it, and things going on around the throne. When the Apostle John received this vision of heaven, that was the first thing that grabbed his attention, and for good reason. Pastor Matt will offer up a few observations about God's throne in the minutes ahead. For starters, it's a place of holiness and sovereignty.

Matt VanderVen: God's throne is a place of sovereignty and holiness. Psalm 47:8 and 103 Psalm 103 verse 19 tells us God reigns over the nations. Even right now in heaven, God is reigning over the nations. He allows or doesn't allow things to happen. There's nothing that's out of his control. He expresses and allows free will, but that doesn't mean that God is the author of it. There's terrible things happening around us, evil, wickedness. It's not that God is creating those things. No, God is allowing them. It's an expression of I like to call it the algorithm. God has a beautiful algorithm that we find throughout scripture.

And it's the balance and forgive me, Lord, it's not a balance. It's the perfection of sovereignty and the perfection of free will. You see, if God being a righteous judge cook the books, excuse me for saying that. I know it sounds blasphemous if I actually believed that I don't. But if anyone to say that God cook the books, you know what I mean when I say that or he he basically set some up to go to heaven and he set some up to go to hell and some kind of amalgamation thereof, we have a problem because that breaks the algorithm.

That breaks the former. Let me just allow me a moment to explain what I'm meaning. I'm a little off topic, but it's important doctrinally. Because if God is sovereign and a righteous judge and he is already predetermined who is going to heaven and hell, therefore the consequence of free will is not really of substance or significance because even though I would want to express my free will, ultimately I could not because God is going to mediate or do something in between to not allow me to express that free will. Therefore, would he be a righteous judge?

If the judge went to you, or let me back up, if judge went to the police officer and said, hey, I see Matt and he's speeding the church. That should never happen. And he's speeding the church and I know he's going to be right on the corner of Trindle and such and such Locus Point Road at 7:45 in the morning getting ready for 8:30 service, first service, and I know he's going to be there. So you go there because I know he's going to be there and he's going to commit, you know, of traffic violation, and then I want you to bring him directly to me and I'm going to convict him for that.

Now, did I have a choice whether to speed or not? Okay. But what if the judge comes back and says, you know what? No, I can't take a chance. Police officer, I want you to go and I want you to take that governor that you are installing on his engine. And I want you to have a remote button that if he's going 40 miles an hour and let's say he's approaching that corner of Trindle and Locus Point and he's not speeding to 60 miles an hour or something that I've seen him speed to, then he's going to turn around and he's going to hit that button which is going to accelerate my vehicle and make it go.

And I'm like, what's going on here? I'm not in control and I'm forced to speed and all of a sudden then the police officer, the sirens go up, he comes up to me and he says, excuse me, pastor, probably come out. Excuse me, sir, what's going on here? You're coming with me. I'm taking you in. I come in, I stand before the judge. Judge looks at me and says, speeding. Uh-huh. Well, you know what? You're guilty. And I look at him, but but officer, I didn't even have a chance to apply the brakes or the gas.

It was like my car just took over and I was not in control of any of that. And the judge goes, I don't know what you're talking about. First of all, he'd be lying. Secondly, what would the judge be doing at that point? He is an accomplished to a crime, right? Which would we would would you call someone that is an accomplice in a crime, justice or a good judge or a righteous holy judge or would we call them a criminal? We'd call them a criminal because they're an accomplice to a crime. So if God turned around and forced my gas and I'm right there and then he turns around says, now you're guilty.

You're going to jail and that's it. I it's a traffic ticket. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, not for you. No, this day has been coming. You know, 50 years ago, whatever, 49 years, I knew this day would come and I orchestrated all of this. You don't think I'd be looking at the judge and going, you mean to tell me you set this whole thing up? You're a righteous judge. How is that right when you never even gave me an opportunity to do the right thing? Do do you see what I'm saying? This is really important because the Bible says very clear that God's throne is is a place of perfect justice.

And and God reigns over the nations and God is seated on the holy throne, right? It's also a throne of sovereignty and holiness. It's both. So for it to be a holy throne, a pure throne, a place of righteousness, and for God himself to be a righteous judge, he can't cook the books, which is why there's an algorithm. Sovereignty and free will, and you got to have both because you take away the free will, you don't have a righteous judge. You understand with me? Are you with me here? Do you see how anybody, even in our limited human intellect can cook that out?

It's logic, right? Anybody attorneys in here, you took exam on logic. This is logical, right? Right? We we before our bar exam, we we give an exam to see before they even attorneys get into law school, can they process logic? Right? This is logical. And so we see clearly that God is also communicating to us a throne that he is a he's in charge. He's even over the nations. Even today when we see all these terrible things going on, the reason God is allowing it is because he has to allow the expression of free will.

But he also has to be the righteous judge that those who choose to explore wickedness, evil will one day be judged for their wicked evil doings. Nobody gets away with anything. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus is Lord. Please remember this is temporary. It's all going to burn here. This isn't the final place. This isn't the this isn't the the it's nobody's getting away. It's the eternity we're talking about and that where he's the righteous judge. Certainly over today and in the future. The fifth thing, God's throne is a place of praise.

We just read it this morning, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. Please memorize that. Don't embarrass me when you get there, please. I don't want him to go to pastor didn't tell you know, come on, please. God's throne is a place of praise, right? John's vision of heaven includes a scene in which a new song is sung also. We'll learn about it when we get to Revelation chapter 14:3 we'll all memorize it. We should sing it. Don't choirs practice and everything. We should we should know these things.

God's throne is also a place of purity, number six if you're keeping notes. Only the redeemed, those who have been granted the righteousness of Christ will have the right to stand before his throne. And we also read that in Revelation 14:5. No one will ever be able to stand before the throne of God, before the throne of Jesus Christ without being born again. There's those that can enter into the throne room, but to stand into the close presence of God that only became possible because the righteousness of Jesus Christ in his shed blood. We are forgiven.

We are forgiven. He no longer sees our sin and even put a bow around the throne room to remind himself and all of us that when we see that emerald green bow, we're redeemed man. We're redeemed. Which brings me to the next point seven. God's throne is a place of eternal life. God is the source of life in heaven. John sees the rivers of water as clear as crystal flowing through the throne of God and of the Lamb, Revelation 22 verse one. And finally, friends, God's throne is a place of grace. You can't miss this.

Don't miss this here. Not only does the throne of God represent judgment for the unbeliever, but it also represents mercy and grace for his children. Don't we read in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 16, let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may have received mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. You know, I'm always remarked, have we received everything that we are going to receive spiritually speaking? Yes, we have. He's even given us the Holy Spirit. It's our down payment. He already gave us that which is remarkable because he gave us the gift.

Why is he giving us the down payment? But he's just a good good God and he's he just keeps giving to his children. So we're born again, we get saved. He's still he's sealed us. He's given us the Holy Spirit. The only thing that we read that happens is part of the rapture plan or eventually when the rapture does happen because 2 Corinthians 5:8 says absent with the body, present with the Lord. So if we should die before the rapture, our spirit goes immediately to be with Jesus Christ. Our body is either uh you know, cremated and God's good at puzzles or it goes into the ground and you know, God turns around and you know, ash to ashes, dust to dust.

You know, either way it's going to he's going to take that and that says the dead in Christ rise first. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, right again. So we know that God will in a twinkling of an eye will receive our glorified bodies. If we died first, if we're raptured, we're translated right then and there. That's how it works. That's what the Bible teaches, okay? So if we understand that, this is this is really important. If we're going to stand before the throne room other than the glorified body which is going to defy physics, no longer we in this tent or suit, right?

This earth suit. Other than that glorified body which has us to be able to I guess when Jesus was resurrected, he was in a glorified body. He could walk through doors. He could appear to 500 one here, one there. We are going to probably have that same similar capability if not identical to that. Okay? Because that was only part of the glorified body. But the spirit has already been made whole and complete. So when we stand before God in the throne room of God, are we going to receive an extra helping a spirit? Like are we going to get anything different in our spirit?

Or if we've been already born again and have a new spirit? Isn't God said that he's come and dwelt in us? The spirit of God lives in us. Our bodies have become the holy temple of God, it says. It's no longer a building, right? Remember remember back in the Old Testament when God got fed up with the people because of their sin and idolatry, he took his presence off and remember it said that the Shekinah glory left it the smoke it left the temple. Not so with you and I, born again believers. You know what that makes me understand and and please don't be upset with me here this morning.

You pray, you look at these things. But if we're already intact and spiritually full and we see that we are going to stand before God and we are able to present in a and come to God in perfect grace, right? What is that telling us? It tells us that we have that capacity now. What that means is the next time we look at somebody and think the worst of them, that's our choice. We're not forced to do that. We're not ill-equipped that we can not do that, but we're choosing to do that. And it just makes us me and us very aware of how God wants us to behave and if we're born again, we have that capacity.

Romans 6. We have the capacity not to give into that sin. And I can't wait till we all stand together and I mean on this earth and say I am tired of Christians putting other Christians down or belittling other Christians. You know, it's such divisiveness. It's it is like being somebody else's Holy Spirit. I'm so thankful that we don't need to do those things. If God needs to correct something, he's going to correct it. He's faithful and just. But right now, we can stand in the presence of Jesus Christ with grace upon grace and God is so good to you and me that he forgave us and treats us graciously.

How much should we turn around and treat each other with that same grace? You see, that's what it means to be a disciple. It means to follow one so we can talk a good game. It's called Christianese. We could even play Christian by going to church on Sundays. Play the hypocrite is the term. It means an actor. It's exact Greek translation of the term that you and I know is the English term for hypocrite. Means one that plays the actor. But when we read passages like this and we see that we're going to stand in front of a a throne and we read passages like Hebrews 4:16 and it says, let us approach God's throne of grace with confidence so we may receive the mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Well, if we can find that grace and receive that help and mercy in our time of need, how much more can we who have the living God living in us and give that grace and mercy to others who need that encouragement and strength for their time of need. Amen. That's what we're talking about here. One day all creation is going to bow again. God's throne. Philippians 2 9 11. The regal brings surrounding the throne of God in Revelation 4 10 and 11 we're going to read, they lay their crowns before the throne and say, you are worthy, oh Lord and God, to receive glory, honor, and power.

And I just love that. I I just think that's incredible. Uh let's look at verse three here. And he who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance and there was a rainbow around the throne in appearance like an emerald. Okay. So now John begins to move off the throne, which is the very first thing that just captivated his eyes, and he actually starts to move to one who is on the throne and then some of the things going on around the throne, right? So John begins to describe his appearance, the one.

I I believe it's Jesus. It could be the Godhead. We don't really don't divide over this. But the one who sat there, he says he was an appearance like a jasper and a sardius stone or a ruby. Okay. So John is using the idea of appearance. Simply he's saying what he looks like to John. That's his again not an identical perfect match. We understand that. He's doing the best he can, but he's told right down what you see or hear. Can you imagine any one of us being called to such a a task such as this?

How does one begin to illustrate God in appearance? An emerald. Have you ever thought about this task that John was given? Again, no doubt words would fall short. The best you can do is compare God's brilliance to the most beautiful and dazzling gems that we have ever seen. He says the one sitting on the throne was a brilliant as a gemstone. That's what he's trying to say. Like jasper or what we know also is a carnelian if you know what that is. And the glow of the of the emerald, this green circled his throne like a rainbow.

Now let's talk about jasper first. Has anybody ever seen a jasper stone or jasper? Um nobody. Okay. Um it's this gemstone that's so precious that is as clear as crystal. Okay. No fingerprints on the crystal. As clear as crystal like like radiant, magnifying, bouncing off of it. Like that is exactly what we're talking about. Revelation 21 11 and and a ruby or a sardius uh carnelian, they're red. So I want you to think about something. I'm from the land of ice and snow or at least used to be, Rochester, New York, right? We got three, four feet.

We'd get that every year. It was beautiful. The snow would fall. It was so clean, pure. Everything looked beautiful with the first snowfall, right? The virgin snow that way before the mud and the road and all the nastiness that comes when everything comes after that. So I want your mind's eye to go maybe to Harrisburg, this area where you grow up. Okay. West Shore, East Shore. And I want you to think about that first snowfall when we actually used to get some snow like 2015 or something like that. I think our big largest big storm.

And I want you to imagine how beautiful and pure white, fluffy white snow, clean, pure. And then I want you to imagine and I'm not trying to bring anything here that's going to bring a negative image to your mind. But let's say you're playing outside and you were making something and oops, you accidentally kind of cut your finger a little bit. Okay? Now what comes out of that is red, right? We know that normally our blood is what color inside of our veins? Blue. That's right. And then when it touches oxygen, it turns to the color of red that we understand today, right?

So oops, okay, a little blood comes out uh or maybe you have a nose bleed. Maybe that's just a simpler one. You're playing around, you get hit with a snowball in the face and the blood starts coming. When you see blood next to the snow with the white, it is such a contrast, a beautiful red ruby view with this beautiful white clean snow. It is in such a contrast that it is meant your eyes to just That's what's being painted here in regards to the one. He is like jasper, like like like crystal perfect, and then this ruby red.

Now I want you to picture all the walls in heaven, right? When we'll get there, they're all going to radiate. As a matter of fact, there's no u n. There's only the s o n, right? The son, Jesus. And we're going to see in a moment as we read that he appears uh and he's dressed in a robe of light. As a matter of fact, turn in your Bibles really quick. Psalm 104, look at verse two. He's actually dressed in a robe of light. Anybody here have a robe of light? You might get smelly Ds, but that is not a robe of light, right?

And certainly this idea of light with crystal I mean, when I was a kid, many years ago, we used to have and I don't know if they call them sun catchers, light refractors. I I don't know the term for them. Forgive me. I think first service somebody helped me out with that. But we used to paint these with like watercolors or something like that. I remember my mother, you know, you'd bring them home for Mother's Day or something like that or Father's Day or whatever it was or Grandma's Day. You just bring it and you put it up on the window and I can remember walking into our kitchen and when the sun would hit this and I'm talking about the s u n, not the s o n, when the sun would hit this, I can remember just being a little boy and looking all around because in the kitchen it would cause a contrast.

All these colors on the ceiling, on the walls, and it was just you know what it was like? It was like mesmerizing. I'd look at it and I just maybe I was simple, but I just thought, wow, this is beautiful. And then I read passages like this where it describes Jesus wearing a robe of light that he looks like jasper, the purest, most radiant, reflective material. Now certainly it's not saying that he's translucent. It's giving us the idea of the beauty and purity. And then there's also this ruby color to to him some in some capacity or aspect.

And that's part and and then he's the s o n and he's got a robe of light so you can just a picture the beauty of all of heaven and the lights and and with these limited eyes that we see so dimly here. When we're in heaven and we've got that glorified body and our eyes let and we start seeing the refraction of light and the gorgeousness of all of this. Are you just pieced out yet? You letting the video run? And to think that all of heaven doesn't you know why you don't need an s u n?

Cuz you have the s o n sitting in the throne room of heaven that's going to radiate all the light through all of heaven which is going to bring the whatever's needed thermally so we don't have uh frostbite or anything like that. It's remarkable what's waiting for us. Remarkable what's waiting for us.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to His Perfect Love with Matt Vanderbind and a study all about the throne of God and the one seated on it. Hear it again at hisperfectlove.org or oneplace.com. Pastor Matt is back with us now and Matt, today we heard all about John's vision of heaven. And as you know, there have been quite a number of people who claim to have had a near death experience, got a glimpse of heaven and lived to tell about it. There have been many books and movies about this in recent years. What are your thoughts about that?

Matt VanderVen: A near death experience, many call it an NDE, is an incident in which a person who is at the brink of death is revived, right? It's certainly not a resurrection. We know it is a resuscitation. And upon recovery, they report a spiritual experience during the time that maybe they had some type of uh vision or something uh as they were approaching death or they believe they were dead. You know, the memories are often vivid and involve out of body experiences, a meeting with sometimes dead family members, seeing a white light or some sort of vision of of heaven or hell.

However, I want to be really clear that there is no specific scriptural support for near death experiences. You know, some people try to use 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 2 through 4 as a biblical proof text for a near death experience where Paul talks about the heavens. He said, you know, whether I was in a vision, I'm not sure or unaware of eluding to himself, most believe. He said there was a certain man, you know, but he's he's we most scholars believe he's eluding to himself. He was he was trying to or many try to apply that passage of Paul's experience to a modern concept of an NDE or near death experience.

But I believe that's taking the passage completely out of context. There's nothing in the text that says that Paul was near death or even actually dead um when he when he found himself in heaven. Paul is simply relating a vision that God gave him in heaven or of heaven. And assuming that this was a near death experience, it goes beyond what the scripture says. With that being said, I also want to be clear that it's not impossible for God to give someone a near death vision or uh experience of heaven. If God wants to relate some information to a person uh suffering trauma, you know, he clearly has that in his ability.

He's God. I just want to point out that uh with the entire council of God we have today, all 66 books of the Bible, we really shouldn't expect these visions to be sort of norm for the Christian. We need to be extremely careful of how we validate these experiences. I think the most important test of any experience is comparing it with the Bible. You know, Satan is always ready to deceive and twist people's thinking. Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 2 Corinthians chapter 11:14 tells us that. So I believe the unchanging word of God must take precedent over anyone's experience, no matter how real they may it may seem to them.

And I I like to personally use a simple test. Uh does the person that's having this near death experience, uh this NDE, does anything they're telling me, anything they say contradict any part of the word of God? If so, I simply dismiss it. I know it not to be true because the Holy Spirit, uh God himself, he's not going to contradict his word. Any description of a near death experience should be held up against the truth of scripture. If if such an experience comes from God, it will line up with his word, the revealed word of God that we have within the 66 books, the council of God.

And ultimately it's going to bring him glory glory to the name of Jesus Christ.

Guest (Male): Thanks Pastor Matt. We're thankful for the listeners that come alongside of us with their prayers and financial support. If you're interested in supporting this radio ministry, there's a place to do that at hisperfectlove.org. Together we can reach people with the love and truth of God in these last days. Pastor Matt loves to hear from his listeners. Even just a quick hello telling him where you hear the program and how you're blessed by it means a lot. Email us there at the website hisperfectlove.org. Well, that'll do it for today, but come back next time when Pastor Matt will again study the book of Revelation with us here on His Perfect Love.

Matt VanderVen: His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore.