His Perfect Love

Guest (Male): Well, we're nearing the finish line in our study of Isaiah. In fact, we'll wrap it all up tomorrow here on His Perfect Love. Pastor Matt VanderVen will cover chapters 64 and 65 today and unveil a heartfelt prayer and God's amazing response.

Are you surrendering to what God wants to do in your life or resisting? Consider that with us in today's message of hope and redemption. First, Isaiah is calling out to God for judgment on the wicked, and then we'll hear about the justice of God's coming judgment.

Matt VanderVen: So if you were with us last week, as we've been making our way from Genesis through Revelation and into the book of Isaiah, we read chapter 63. In the latter half of chapter 63, there was a prayer that Isaiah began to pray.

It's a beautiful prayer, and it really goes into chapter 64. I was a little bit remiss with our time last week that I had to cut our chapter 64 at that point. So we kind of got halfway through our prayer, the prayer of Isaiah.

It's interesting because if you remember, while it was a representation of the prayer of the nation of Judah, when we got to verses 16 and 17, we saw some things that probably pricked and challenged our hearts. As Isaiah was praying, and others were praying too, one of the things that they were still failing to do was take responsibility and accountability for their sin or their actions.

They were coming to God and saying, "God, you've created the heavens and earth. God, you're above and certainly in control. We love you and everything comes from you and returns to you. Our zeal and our strength is from you." They're declaring these wonderful truths. All of those things are very true, absolutely.

But then as we got to verse 16, he says, "Doubtless you are our father, though Abraham was ignorant of us and Israel did not acknowledge us. You, O Lord, are our father, our redeemer from everlasting is your name." And then in verse 17, something that I imagine was shocking for many of us, how is it possible that they can have such a beautiful prayer, declaration of who God is, His love, salvation, and yet, "O Lord, why have you made us stray from your ways and hardened our heart from your fear?"

Isn't that surprising as we read that together, that we can be so aware of who God is and His holiness? And yet, when we don't take a personal account by not examining our hearts or having God examine our hearts, we can get so far away from the reality of who we really are.

One of the things I love about the Apostle Paul is he never lost touch with the fact that outside of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, he was filthy rags. Every Christian understands that outside of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, we're filthy rags. Praise God for salvation and His righteousness.

Well, we're going to pick up with that in chapter 64, but just let that sit in your heart because that humility that brings that conviction, that truth, begins to clean out. It begins to set right the heart to be able to receive additionally what God wants to show us. Because if we put a guard up, if we put a wall up, Jesus is such a gentleman, he'll never turn around and force our will. He just won't do it. He's so gentle, he's so wonderful.

So let's look at chapter 64, verse 1. "Oh, that you would rend the heavens." That idea of "rend" is to tear. In other words, he says, "Oh, that you would rend the heavens, you would tear the heavens to pour out your judgment," is what he's talking about. He's going to connect this with His second coming.

"Oh, that you would rend the heavens, that you would come down, that the mountains might shake at your presence, as fire burns brushwood, as fire causes water to boil, to make your name known to your adversaries." Please underline that, there's a purpose in this. All judgment serves to always redirect. It's not the same thing as punishment entirely.

Judgment is being measured out by God, as we read in Revelation in the Great Tribulation, to those who willfully reject Jesus. But the whole point, as many of you were with us on Sunday mornings, the whole point of that judgment was to do what? To open the eyes of the Gentile nations and Israel to do what? To repent and call out to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. It wasn't to leave them there.

God doesn't want to leave us in this judgment that way. He wants us to be awakened from that, to be moved to repentance, and then to be moved to reconciliation and the wonderful fellowship and comfort we have from God. That's His plan, that's His fingerprint. So it was no different 2,740 years ago. It's the same thing, to make known to your adversaries, to those that are against you, God, to make you known, that the nations may tremble at your presence.

When you did an awesome thing for which we did not look, you came down and the mountains shook at your presence. He is saying, "Listen, I will do whatever is necessary when I come back to remind the world that it belongs to God." That's God's faithfulness. He says the nations may tremble at your presence, and when you did awesome things for which we did not look, you came down and the mountains shook at your presence.

The world knows. Talking about His second coming, "For since the beginning of the world, men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen any God besides you, who acts for the one who waits for him." He says since the beginning of creation, when Adam and Eve were in the garden, there was no other god present. There was nobody else that even claimed to be a god.

Satan even at that time did not claim to be God. He's a fallen angel. What did he claim to do? He said, "You can be like God. You can know good and evil." But even at that time, there was nobody that's ever presented, and certainly for thousands of years thereafter, people came and little gods, but no one has ever seen. Have you ever seen my god over here, and that god actually talked to them?

Only Yahweh, only Jehovah, the one true God has spoken from the mountaintops, from the earth as we read through the Old Testament Scriptures with Moses, the burning bush, presented in the ark and His presence as he was brought in and out. He was led by fire and by a cloud during the day, a pillar during the day and fire by night. Literally, the Lord has been with His people.

He says, "Who are you worshipping? Who acts for the one who waits for him? Only the living God. You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, who remembers you in your ways. You are indeed angry, for we have sinned." It's almost like a little confessional there, isn't it? Isaiah is having a moment, and he says, "You're upset with us, Lord. You're angry with us because we're sinning and we're missing the mark. We're not doing righteousness," as he said at the beginning of verse 5.

Lest we forget that we've been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ apart from God's righteousness, we would fall into this same camp as well. In these ways we continue, as God works while we wait. In these ways we continue and we need to be saved. Even early on, there was an understanding, even before Jesus Christ came to this earth at Calvary, there was an understanding of humanity that we needed salvation. We needed saving.

This wasn't a new concept that Jesus Christ introduced on this earth 2,000 years ago. This is something the patriarchs and the prophets had been looking for, the redeeming one, the seed that would set everything right again since the time of Genesis, specifically the time of the garden and original sin in chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis.

"But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags." That looks familiar, doesn't it? Paul the Apostle, have you ever wondered where his heart was when he was praying those things and writing as the Holy Spirit was leading him? Isaiah was well aware of this as well. He saw the reality of who he was apart from God, apart from Jesus Christ. He realized that apart from God, he was filthy rags.

But with God in salvation, he became the righteousness of God. You and I have become the righteousness of God. We all fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. We get caught up in our sin. And there is no one who calls on your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of you, for you have hidden your face from us and have consumed us because of our iniquities.

And now we see this transition in verse 8. "But now, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay and you are our potter, and all we are the work of your hand." In other words, Isaiah is declaring we have gotten to this place of submission. Not all of Judah did, but Isaiah certainly as a prophet, as a mouthpiece of God, he was acknowledging this and proclaiming this. He's saying, "God, you are the master craftsman. Our lives belong to you. We don't even know what we are to be apart from God. It's only through God that we are formed and molded."

By the way, it's a lifetime. So often, I don't know if your life's anything like my life, I've watched... there's this beautiful brother. He does pottery and clay. He came up to Rochester, New York. He's actually in PA here not too far away, Brownsville in Pennsylvania. Not too far away. He's a beautiful brother, pastor up there, and he does this beautiful pottery.

Maybe we ought to have him here sometime. He will sit and he's teaching the Word of God, but he'll go over to this wheel, they use a wheel for the pottery, and he'll put it on there and he'll begin working this pottery. It starts to build and it starts to look so beautiful. He's almost making this vessel and it's starting to come together.

As he's teaching through the Scripture, it's perfect for this passage. As he's teaching through the Scripture, I think all of us are watching him, but we're also listening to the word. Next thing you know, it's this glory with handles and it looks perfect. It looks like it's there and it's arrived and it's everything that we would ever have wanted it to be. We'd be happy to take it and place it in our homes. We could find use for it. It would be beautiful to have something like this in our homes.

And then he gets to this passage, or like we do, we read something like this where we recognize we're not in control of our own lives, but that Jesus Christ is the master craftsman. He continues to form us and reform us. He comes over to this beautiful work, and what took maybe 20-25 minutes to make and it looks just amazing, he says, "And then God says, 'I have something new for you.'" And he pushes this whole thing down back to this lump of clay again.

Every time he does this, somebody in the seats goes, "Oh, what did you do? This was amazing! You're so gifted! Why?" And then by the next 30 minutes, by the end of the service, he's reformed something that, while you thought that first one was beautiful, the piece of pottery that comes from what he forms next is remarkable. Not only is the intricate detail there with the handles, but everything.

That's exactly what God does in our lives. There's moments in our lives when we think, "Okay, Lord, I'm here. I'm where you want me to be. I've got my Scripture memorized. Lord, let's do this." And we take a step of faith and all of a sudden something didn't exactly go the way we thought it would. And we feel like that lump of clay again.

"Lord, how did I come this far? Things were progressing, things seemed so much better, things were different. I look back historically and I'm away from the sin, I'm not doing the things I used to do. I've got Christian brothers and sisters now and I'm fellowshipping and we're eating together." And maybe God's saying, "Yes, but I want you to reach a lost and dying world for my namesake."

"You've got a different piece of clay, Lord. That's not this clay." And God says, "No, it is. You just don't know it yet." And then he takes and he reforms. I imagine if that clay, that inanimate object, could speak, it would say, "What are you doing? What's going on? This is not part of the plan."

Am I the only one that's ever said that in my Christian walk? "This is not part of the plan. Things were going so well. Look what you created, God." Only to find out he's just beginning. Salvation is in a moment; sanctification is a lifetime. While we might think it's a step back, it's not. It's Christian progress, it's spiritual progress, because it begins in a lump and it only becomes what the Master wants it to be if we're willing.

"But now, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay." Let's get these things in right order, God. "You are our potter and all we are the work of your hands. Do not be furious, O Lord, nor remember iniquity forever. Please have mercy. Indeed, please look, we all are your people." Maybe you're like me and you've prayed that prayer, "Lord, don't give up on me." He won't. He'll never give up on you.

"Your holy cities are a wilderness. Zion is a wilderness. Jerusalem a desolation. Look around me, Lord. Everything that I see with my eyes, I'm dismayed. Everything is falling apart around me. The bills aren't getting paid. The house is a mess. We're barely getting home at night. You're working all day very diligently just to make the ends meet. The kids have been playing, they get home from school, your house is a mess."

"To you it's a mess, to me it's probably immaculate, but to you it's a mess. You get in there and things are everywhere and you and your wife or husband, or if you're single or widowed or divorced, you're just holding it together. You're looking all around and you say, 'Is this a mess or what?' Our holy and beautiful temple, where our fathers praised you, is burned up with fire and all our pleasant things are laid waste."

When you get in that place and everything's going wrong, or at least you think it's going wrong, you're real teachable at that moment. You're real humble and you're crying out to God, "God, help me because apart from you coming in and being a part of my life and literally fixing all of this, I have no hope." It's in those moments when we're so broken that we're so teachable.

Over the years of counseling, it's amazing. When some of you I've been privileged to talk to you when you come into the office and you're in a broken state—whether it's a loss of a job, a loss of a loved one, a child or adult, a divorce, or something just horrific and terrible that you didn't expect or see coming—in that moment, I could literally say, "Turn to the Bible," and the pages are moving. Every Scripture, let's look at more, Pastor, more.

And then the Lord is so faithful. He meets you in your Bible studies, he meets you in your times of worship. He's singing to you when you're in the shower. He's ministering to you when you're dreaming and sleeping and you're having visions. His Holy Spirit, His praises are upon His people. He's just lifting you up, encouraging you, bringing new fresh wind into your lungs so that you feel there's hope.

You start to feel good. You're stood up. You can see now with your own eyes it looks like there's a path of how this is all going to work out. All of a sudden you're praising the Lord. And then the next week, "Man, you were on fire for the Lord. How's your Bible study going?"

"Oh, I got really busy at work and projects and my friends called up and they said, 'Let's go out.' I haven't seen them in a while because I was going through that difficult time." It's like, where did God go? You were so on fire for the Lord and while you were so broken and so hurting, God was doing amazing things in your life.

I got to see it, the pastors got to see it, your brothers and sisters got to see it here. You may not even know that we're watching, but we get to see it because there's something different about you. You're on fire for the Lord and you've been literally that fire, he salts it and it's just refining. It's refining and it's changing and you're alive.

It's a beautiful thing to see when God's working, and I know there's a brokenness to it and "Pastor, this is too hard, Lord. I don't know." And then weeks go by or months go by and where did the fire go? Where did the desire and intent of the heart for the Lord go? All of a sudden you stop showing up for Sunday night prayer, stop praying at home, stop coming out for fellowship.

You don't think Judah, you don't think Isaiah's seeing this in the people of Judah? These are God's holy people, His chosen people. They were on fire for the Lord and now they find themselves in such desperation as their temple's burned. They're looking at all the things around and they're saying this is all going to end this way.

There's no hope for us. Meanwhile, we've been reading the chapters where God says, "I'm going to bring you into this judgment, but then I'm going to bring you out and I'm going to establish new for you. And one day I'm going to come again. And oh by the way, when I do that, I'm going to give you new hearts. You're going to believe on me and I'm going to set all things new permanently in a new heaven and a new earth."

And God's saying, "I'm your only hope. Will you place your faith and trust in me? Will you believe me? Will you refrain yourself because of these things, O Lord? Will you hold your peace and afflict us severely?" Listen to what he says, "and afflict us severely." We deserve all judgment, don't we friends? I've come to the conclusion all judgment I ever receive, I deserve all of it, and I pray for His righteousness.

Guest (Male): You're listening to His Perfect Love with Pastor Matt VanderVen. Don't go away, Matt will peek into Isaiah chapter 65 when he returns in just a moment. If you enjoyed today's message, we'd like to know. Email us at our website, hisperfectlove.org. Be sure to include your prayer requests.

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If you'd like to support this ministry with a one-time gift or ongoing monthly support, you can do so through the website at hisperfectlove.org. Thank you in advance. We want all of our listeners to have access to the Word of God. So if you're in need of a Bible, we'd like to get one into your hands. Just email us through our website and ask for the free Bible offer. Here's our web address again, hisperfectlove.org. And now let's take a brief look into Isaiah 65.

Matt VanderVen: Chapter 65, God answers now. God's going to speak back to this prayer from the nations and the people in Isaiah. It's beautiful how God speaks. God says, "I was sought by those who did not ask for me. I was found by those who did not seek me." What He's saying is I've received disrespect from my own people.

Do you see that? Disrespect from my own people. "I was sought by those who did not ask for me." Who's He talking about? The Gentiles. "I was found by those who did not seek me." Again, you can read Romans 10; He talks all about this. He's basically going to say the Gentiles treated me better than you did, Judah.

"I said, 'Here I am, here I am,' to a nation that was not called by my name. I have stretched out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good according to their own thoughts." He's telling us this is God's heart here, friends, tonight. This is God's heart for us where it's on display. God has given us literally an LED screen where we can let God speak to our hearts. He's giving us an action sermon. He's showing us His heart, His thoughts. He speaks to the people. He's the Ancient of Days. He doesn't change, His heart doesn't change on these things.

Guest (Male): We have a couple of chapters remaining in Isaiah. We'll have that for you on our next two programs on His Perfect Love with Pastor Matt. We'll see you tomorrow. His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. Let the word go out, the perfect love of Christ to shine. Our lives will shout. I am my beloved's and he is mine. Every heart is in his hand, we'll never stop reaching out. This is his perfect love.