His Perfect Love

Guest (Male): Pastor Matt says, even during the tribulation, God will still be saving many souls and reaching out in his grace.

Matt VanderVen: What we see so uniquely and so many times is skipped over. The fourth trumpet judgment isn't so much just about the cosmic disturbances. It's once again God saying there's still time. Very little time. There's only 4 billion of the 8 billion alive, but you have an opportunity to humble yourself and receive Jesus Christ as Lord. You can do that right now in the great tribulation for those that will be alive. Those maybe that are prodigals. Maybe we have prodigals in here. Friends, family members that reject Jesus right now. We've been praying for them. Well, the Lord raptures us out and all of a sudden they find themselves in the great tribulation.

Do not give up hope because Jesus didn't.

Guest (Female): This is his perfect love. The word goes out. This is what real love looks like in truth and grace. This is his perfect love.

Guest (Male): Pastor Matt Vander Benden is leading a study of Revelation here on His Perfect Love. Won't you join us? We'll be in chapter 8 verses 12 and 13 today. The fourth trumpet is about to sound and it affects the sun, moon, and stars. Now, these cosmic disturbances will have a dramatic impact, but Pastor Matt says God is sending another powerful message and that is that there's still time. Here he is to explain in this message first delivered at Calvary Chapel, Harrisburg, West Shore.

Guest (Female): This is his perfect love.

Matt VanderVen: So chapter 8 verse 12 I'll begin here in verse 12 together. Then the fourth angel sounded and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, third of the stars so that a third of them were darkened and a third of the day did not shine and likewise the night. And I looked and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven saying with a loud voice, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound.

So a few a few things here. In verse 13 depending on the translation you're using here, you might see the word eagle instead of angel. If you look down in the footnote in your Bible, if you're using a Textus Receptus manuscript, which would be a King James or New King James Bible here, you can look down in verse 13 you'll see it says NU text, M text reads eagle. Talk a little bit more about that. Well, let's just ground ourselves where we are in the word of God. At this point we are moving into the fourth trumpet judgment.

The angel himself blows the trumpet, but very uniquely and different than the other judgments that we've been reading about because when the trumpet was blown, there was a massive amount of judgment brought, for example, to the third of the seas, right? Which is the oceans. And we saw that a third of the wildlife, the fish, and all the death that occurred because of that. We read even before that the grass, the grasslands, all the grass on the earth would be, you know, burned up that way. We then read about a third of the fresh water.

So I I think of springs and places, aquifers where we get our water from today in abundance. A third of that's going to be destroyed. And so as I closed out last week just for those that maybe weren't with us or if you've been reading through, it's the most I mean terrible time any human could imagine. You're not able to breathe very well because first of all the oxygen from the trees being destroyed, the plankton in the water which predominantly provides oxygen, carbon dioxide exchange. So 20% it's been estimated, uh uh reduction in 20% of the oxygen saturation within your bodies.

I mean some have said it's even that high. So think about it. Those at 100 would be breathing at an 80. You know, that's a very big concern right now. A lot of times that's uh reason to visit the hospital if that should happen, right? When your oxygenation goes down that level. Not on top of that even when you can breathe, the stench is unbelievable because this isn't regional. This is worldwide. All around the world, a third of the seas. So the smell from rotting fish. I want you to think about what that does biologically.

Death and bacteria and some of you studied microbiology when you were in in college or in high school and it's terrible. I mean it's going to it's going to basically uh change the whole microbiome as we understand it within our our certainly our stomachs and our our even our oral uh our oral cavity, our mouths. Why is that a big deal? Because 70% of your immune system's found where? Any doctor will tell you it's in your immune system, right? Your gut, excuse me, I mean to say. So this is a direct impact also on the overall health if you do remain alive.

Also by this time we've had the sealed judgments and we know by the fourth judgment of sealed judgment we had what? A quarter of the population destroyed. So out of 8 billion people if we were to use today's numbers, that's 2 billion people. That means there's only 6 billion people left on the earth at that point. And then we went through and read the first and second trumpet judgment. By the end of the third trumpet judgment, we know that there's another third that have died. So I can do the math and so can you, right?

So you start taking a third of 6 billion and you get another 2 billion and so that means that you're really down to half of the original population from just months to a year earlier. Everybody getting the picture of how severe this is. It's why it's called the great tribulation because out of 8 billion humans that were alive on the earth if this should happen today within a series of months thus like at the most a year, you're going to have a population of 4 billion people. I want you to think about what that means and how catastrophic that is.

There's nobody that should be sitting here or hearing this on the radio or online that's sitting there going I can handle this on my own. I can go buy a cabin in the mountain. I can go find and forge for food. No. The entire food supply is going to change. It's going to die off because it's a circle of life and the things they eat are going to die and then eventually the things we eat, vegetables, meat, animals are going to be gone. And so the population of the earth. Well, that brings us to this fourth trumpet.

And what's interesting is when this fourth angel stands up to blow or if you have eagle, we will talk about that. When he blows the trumpet, what's really interesting is we read of cosmic disturbances, right? It says a sun was struck, a third of the moon, a third of the stars, and a third of them were darkened. Okay, so the sky. Okay, we understand that. It says a third of the day did not shine likewise the night. So I want you to think about the frigid temperatures that are going to come because less sun, especially people living near the equator that are used to high levels of vitamin D, sort of people that are, you know, where we live or for a vitamin D deficient most of us.

So I want you to want you to think about what this is going to do to again the overall human anatomy, physiology, the body. But not only that, what's it going to be like if you don't have a third of the daylight that you're used to having? That is going to affect your food production, isn't it? Cuz you're not going to have as much sun to help with the grow or sustenance of food to grow. So it 's going to have dramatic impacts. So as I was starting to study this, I'm I'm going where is while I understand the enormity of it, it's not like the other judgments where you saw okay a third of all the trees.

Well, I can understand the immediate impact of that. But this, the moon, the stars, the celestial Okay, you know, cosmically I can understand that's but where is the enormity of it initially? I I don't get there initially in the fourth trumpet book. And then I start looking a little clearer and I you know more detail and I start saying that's not really what this that's not really what this judgment's about. It it's very different than the other trumpet judgments to this point. And I hope you'll look at this with me in in some great detail because I start asking questions probably like some of you as Bereans.

Okay, well, are a third of the stores destroyed? It says that, but are but it says they're struck down. Does that mean destroyed necessarily or does that mean they fall from orbit or where they were? How about the brightness of the celestial bodies, right? It's dim by a third. What it what could it be more specifically that what's happening? And why is this judgment so horrific? Again, what is the significance of an eagle if that's the translation you have in front of you or an angel for using a Textus Receptus? And what is the where is the midst of heaven?

If I said you oh yeah, meet you at the midst of heaven, you're like oh yeah, we'll meet there, right? Where is that? What is that mean? That's very significant. I mean these are certainly general questions that as Bereans we should probably want to answer this morning rather than just casually moving on through the scripture. And some of you may be looking at me strange because I did say eagle and you're like what is he talking about? I have angel. How what what do we mean eagle? Well, no, I haven't lost my mind yet. If you look in your Bible, you might says as I said look down in the footnote, please do that, you should see if you have a reputable Bible, you should see a footnote that very clearly says the NU text.

Well, what is that? Well, that that refers to a variation of the traditional text. It's it generally represents what we would know as the Alexandrian or the Egyptian type of text. It's found in the critical edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek if you're following what I 'm talking about. In other words there's well over 5,000 manuscripts. Is there an original? Do we have an original any longer? No. Do you know what they call the original? It's not actually a manuscript. The manuscripts are the copies, just for information. The original is called an autograph. You wonder how we got to use that term.

Somebody signs a baseball for you or a football, an autograph. It was an original. And that's exactly what the term meant and always had to do with when you talk about manuscripts. And why am I breaking such a big deal about this? Because how many people have you heard question God because of the reliability of scripture? They've come back and said oh, scripture's not reliable. Oh, this is Do you realize that in all 5,000 plus manuscripts that we have access to today, there's less than a 1% variation? Did you know that? Statistically speaking, do you know how minuscule that is out of 5,000?

There's no other living work that we have from the beginning of time, whether it survived or or copyists uh you know uh not in its original format. We still don't have any type of documentation or text that is old as the earth or as old as the word of God that has even just a minimal 1% variation which often can have to do with copyist errors and I and E, something missing like that. That doesn't change the profound meaning of the scripture. Why am I telling you all this? Cuz I want you to trust your Bibles.

I want you to trust the word of God and what you have in front of you. And next time somebody comes and tells you that, you should ask them to tell you the full story. Like oh by the way, how many manuscripts are there? Oh, 5,200 plus. That's right. And what is the variation any of them? Did you know it's 1%? Because I think the more you talk to them about that, the more unlikely they're going to start to do what? Trust their Bibles. Because they'll realize just how uh statistical uh what an anomaly it would be for this not to be accurate, not to mention all the prophetic aspects, all the things that we see in uh around us as they continue to excavate and dig and they finding all these things and they're dated and I mean there's just evidence upon evidence.

We don't need that, but it's interesting. So I'm bringing this out because I want us to understand we're Bereans, but um you know that's part of apologetics is understanding how to defend the faith. You know we're told to be able to give a defense for the defense of life for the hope that lies within us. But then you also have another footnote and you see that's the M text. Now, that's interesting because this isn't just referring to the Alexandrian or Eastern type of text, right? Which you could say is more regionalized. The M text actually stands for the majority text.

And the reason they use the M text is because M text means if you took the 5,000 trans manuscripts and you were to take an average, which they have done of different words and terms and usage of those words, they've come out to what they call a majority. So if I go through and I do a as a textual critic, if I come to a Greek word and I look at the Greek manuscripts which I do, I primarily start my study in my Greek and then I come to English. If I do that, I will turn around and I will look at a word and I'll say oh, how many times has this word been used fluency?

I want to understand where it's used, how it's used. I want to understand the ophthalmology, where it comes from, what was its root meaning, all the things that you do and your Greek lexicon can help you do. When you look at the M text, what it's saying is this word has been used in the majority of text. And when it's been used in the majority of text, it's actually been used to reference an eagle, not an angel. But here's the question cuz you're using a Textus Receptus right now. Just because you have more of something, does that make it better or more accurate?

It just means the copyist copied that more times if that was the original word. And we'll talk about that because that word's anglos, which you know and her very use me use that word in the Greek before. What does anglos mean? And it's been used every other time in scripture to mean what? Angel, messenger, sent one. So I I I clearly believe that's what it's it's talking about. But for those that believe and use a different translation, I'll talk a little bit more about that. Well, back back to our scripture here, right? What about another question?

Why does this eagle, if you prefer or angel, give an advance warning of coming woes? We don't see another angel that's standing up blowing a trumpet or giving a sealed judgment that comes through and sort of pauses and gives a forewarning almost like a harbinger of what is to come, right? The additional judgment that's coming. As we've been reading, the reason that people are in this judgment to begin with is because they have rejected Jesus Christ. They're a Christ rejecting world. They have committed the sin of idolatry. They've even made themselves a God or they've worshipped other gods and they have rejected Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

So this angel stops and says woe, woe, woe. It's all the inhabitants of the earth. Why would God do that? There should not be another human soul in this room right now that doesn't look at God, that doesn't look at Jesus and say he is a God of love, mercy, and grace. Because just as we saw in chapter 7, if you remember when the 144,000 were sealed and anointed on their foreheads. Do you remember we read that? And then they went forth. What did they go forth with? Remind me. The gospel. And where did they take that gospel?

To nations, tribes, tongues, and peoples. What we see so uniquely and so many times is skipped over. The fourth trumpet judgment isn't so much just about the cosmic disturbances. It's once again God saying there's still time. Very little time. There's only 4 billion of the 8 billion alive, but you have an opportunity to humble yourself and receive Jesus Christ as Lord. You can do that right now in the great tribulation for those that will be alive. Those maybe that are our prodigals. Maybe we have prodigals in here. Friends, family members that reject Jesus right now.

We've been praying for them. Well, the Lord raptures us out and all of a sudden they find themselves in the great tribulation. Do not give up hope because Jesus didn't. And he literally tells us in this fourth trumpet here that while these cosmic disturbances are going on and there's a reason that he uses cosmic disturbances again, we have to think in our minds when was the last time we read that? We read about that in the what judgment? Seal judgment. Specifically what judgment of the seal judgment? The sixth judgment. And what was the reaction when God did the same thing?

The moon turned like blood. You might remember the passage I'm talking about. We'll get there in a minute, but the idea behind it is God is trying to communicate to people to say I'm God, I'm on the throne, and I can save you from all of this madness. Place your trust and faith in me. What a good God. Then in the middle of the punishment, in the middle of the judgment he stops and says no. Please. You're running out of time. It just shows you his heart. There should be no one that doesn't think of God as a God of love even in discipline, even in punishment.

For whom the Lord loves he corrects. He's told us over and over again this is his character. Okay. Well, let's talk about what we know for certain, okay? We know that uh this fourth trumpet affects the sun, the moon, the stars, and it reduces the light by 1/3. Check. We all agree. Now, when you reduce light, what does that increase? If what is the absence of light? What do we call that? Darkness, darkness. Okay. Why would God send darkness? And has he done that before? Yeah, of course he has in scripture, right? What is darkness commonly referred to or a symbol of in scripture?

What if I told you it was terror and fear? Would everybody would everybody No, Pastor, you're crazy. Would you No, you'd say I agree, but I hope everyone would you one of you would say to me prove it. I really need your wisdom. I don't care what you think. What does the Bible say? And I would say well done. Turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 6. I want to draw your attention to verse 12. Revelation chapter 6 verse 12. You have read this already if you were with us and you have looked at this and this was the sixth seal that was part of the cosmic disturbances.

He says I looked and when he opened the sixth seal and behold there was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth of air and the moon became like blood and the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its late figs when it's shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it's rolled up and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. Wow. Okay. A lot of cosmic disturbances, much of like what we just read here in Revelation chapter 8. Now, what's the reaction to the people that are alive at that time?

What do they do? They just keep on keeping on just about their business? No, let's look what it says. Verse 15. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave, every free men We we've included everybody, right? Everybody all good, that's all inclusive. What did they do? They hid themselves. Right? In the cave, in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains, speaking inanimate objects, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne from the what? The judgment, punishment, wrath of the Lamb.

They know exactly what this is for. Well, if I said to you this is for judgment and punishment, are you going to go I don't understand why is this happening? No, you're going to And they clearly understood who was the author of it. They didn't say it was Satan, Lucifer. They didn't say it was the Antichrist. They didn't say it was bad people living on the earth and wicked and evil people. No, they all know. They're looking up at the sky. They're talking inanimate inanimate objects cuz they're losing their mind and they're literally turning around and saying hide us in this mountain from who?

God. That's exactly what they're saying. Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the They're saying hide. Why? It's going to make sense in a little bit how he even describes later on in this passage when he said inhabitants, that Greek word. We're going to come to that. There's so much meat in this. Again, so many times we read over these and we totally miss what he's trying to really communicate to you and I today and to those people that will be in the great tribulation. He's invoking fear. Pain has a natural reflex in response, doesn't it?

When you're in pain, you want the pain to what? Stop, go away, whatever you want to say, halt, whatever you need to do. If you got a terrible migraine or headache, you take a aspirin, a Tylenol, a Motrin, whatever you take, right? Cuz you want the pain to do what? Stop. It is an It is an effective tutor. It is an effective tutor. Well, this darkness that he's allowing a third, this is now going to be happening. And what do you think it's going to do? It's going to instill fear. It's going to make people stop for a moment and it's going to cause them to go wait a minute.

It's already Think about it. What we read in just a moment ago in the sixth seal cosmic disturbances, they already just experienced the darkening and more darkness on the earth. So already there's a So now it's being darkened and darkened again because it's ramping up. And that's what he's first of all communicating. His judgments are ramping up. It's getting more intense, which makes sense why the angel heralds and says woe, woe, woe. He's talking about the next three judgments that are coming. He's not talking about that existing judgment we just read here in verse 12 and 13.

He doesn't say once in here that it's that judgment. What's he pointing to? The future next three judgments that are coming that we'll get when we get to 11 we'll finally get to the seventh seal of the trumpet, right? So let's think about this. Have we seen this or read this in scripture before? And we should say yes if we have because Exodus chapter 10 verse 20 through 21 we have seen this like the trumpet judgment except this was more regionalized. It was unnatural darkness that was part of the plague of darkness that came to Egypt and Pharaoh.

So we've seen God use it, this same idea and same model before with wickedness and sin. And he did it with Pharaoh, okay? There are some similarities between again this judgment and the sixth seal. We just talked about the sixth seal and and certainly this one. In both cases we read the sun, the moon, and the stars are affected, right? But in the sixth seal it appears that the darkening of the entire sun is due, right, to an earthquake, maybe a volcano. We just read that a moment ago. It's maybe it was spewing ash or something like that and it's covering you know in the atmosphere so people that are alive at that time that it's going to look dark because it's that way.

Um we read that the moon turned blood red again maybe for the same reason because the the the ash of the volcano. The stars of heaven fall to the earth. It said like a fig tree drops. Uh it's unripe figs that are shaken in a high wind. I mean certainly this could be a description of a meteor or asteroid. We just saw in the last week actually the thing was three or four days ago in the news they were talking about how they just saw a near what looks like would be a collision with earth for a orbiting or however you prefer to say it, an asteroid that's coming through uh a meteor that way.

And they're saying well now it looks like maybe not, but there was some a lot of people paying a lot of attention to this just in the last few days. This was a really big deal, but as we read in this fourth trumpet judgment, it seems that the Lord himself touches the celestial object to actually. It doesn't say the angel does that. Please look there. It does not say that the angel brings that. He the angel doesn't touch the sun, the moon, or the stars. The angel blows the trumpet and then the angel says woe, woe, woe.

Why? Why is this one angel doing what is so fundamentally different than the previous three angels that have blown the trumpet? And why is this angel doing different than what the seventh seal judgment angels did? I think we got to ask that question. Um again he's reducing light, he's causing terror, fearness, darkness again. And if you said to me well, Pastor, what's the best commentary in the Bible? I would tell you the Bible. And so if you'd like some scriptures to just look at that, I'd say Amos chapter 5 verse 18. It says it was prophetic, Amos the prophet.

He was told that the day of the Lord will be as darkness, not as light. Do you know how many thousands of years ago that was written before John authored this book inspired by the Holy Spirit in 8095? It's been 2,000 plus years for us.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Matt Vander Benden on His Perfect Love. You can hear the study from Revelation again when you visit hisperfectlove.org. That's hisperfectlove.org. We've expanded our podcast too. Look for us on oneplace.com and most of the major podcast platforms. The Calvary Chapel Harrisburg mobile app is another great way to listen to Pastor Matt's messages shortly after they're delivered. We can help you get started when you visit hisperfectlove.org. 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. And whether you live in or around Mechanicsburg, PA or we'll be visiting the area soon, we'd love to have you join us for a service at Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. Sunday morning services begin at 8:30 and 10:30. We have a midweek service too, Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m.

You'll find us at 28 North Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, PA. Go to ccharrisburg.org for more information. 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.

Guest (Female): This is his perfect love.

Guest (Male): His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore.

Guest (Female): Let the word go out. The perfect love of Christ to shine. Our lives will shout. I am my beloved and he is my. Every heart is in his hands. We'll never stop reaching out. This is his perfect love. The word goes out. This is what real love looks like in truth and grace. This is his perfect love.