This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
He came to save us from being influenced and controlled by the
passions of the fallen nature. And if you know down deep
inside, man, I know what I should do.
But I can't help myself, Clark. I just can't get out of this.
I understand you can't. I've been there.
The only way you can get out is to get saved.
And when you get saved, God lifts you out of that control of
the flesh and puts a spirit in you.
And now the Holy Spirit enables you to overcome all the things
that are going on in your life that are destructive.
Have you hit a point in your life where you feel like no
matter how hard you try, you can't kick your sinful habits?
Every self help book you've read, every new hobby you've
taken up, every bit of counseling you sought out, and
still nothing works. At least not long term.
Today, Pastor Clark teaches you that there is one important part
missing from the change that you're striving to make.
Without Jesus, sin will continue to wage war against you, and you
will continue to fall victim to it.
Now here's Pastor Clark in Revelation Chapter 19 with
today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Revelation 19, verse 17 Then I saw an Angel standing in the
sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying, To all the birds
that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather together for the
supper of the great God, that you may eat.
The flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty
men, the flesh of horses and those who sit on them, and the
flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great.
And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and the armies
gathered together to make war against him who sat on the horse
and against his army. And then the beast was captured,
and with him the false prophet, who worked signs in his
presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of
the beast, and those who worshipped his image.
These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with
rim stone, and the rest were killed with the sword which
proceeded from the mouth of him who sat on a horse.
And the birds were filled with their flesh.
This is probably one of the most horrendous declarations of the
judgement of God on the face of the earth outside of some of the
chapters in the Old Testament we read when God went into certain
communities and wiped out every living thing because of the
decadence and the sinfulness of the people.
And I want you to understand today that God is love.
And you might read this and say, how in the world can God be
loved and do something like this?
And we'll get to that in a moment.
So we're just going to go through this verse by verse and
trust that it'll come alive and make sense to you.
As we look at it now, we see in 17 and 18 this particular Angel
that is standing in the midst of the sun.
His brightness is so powerful. The glory of God is all over
this Angel. He's a representative, a
spokesman for the glory of God and the purposes of God, and
he's the one that's declaring what is going to come to pass.
Now, the week before we studied about Christ, and he's the one
that is on this horse leading the armies of heaven to the
earth to bring destruction upon all those who are living on the
earth at this current time that are enemies of God.
People who hate God, who have made a decision in their minds
that they don't want to live for God.
They don't want to have anything to do with God.
They've already accepted the mark of the beast, which is the
mark that is the Insignia on the heart of the unbeliever
signifying that they are enemies of God and they hate the Kingdom
of God and they're enemies of Jesus Christ.
And so he's saying to all these birds that fly to prepare for
this great slaughter, which is called Armageddon.
Some of the movies you guys have seen can't come close to their
horrendous destruction of what's going to come upon the earth at
this time. Birds of the air, birds that
fly. Some people feel there's a
symbolic meaning behind some of these terms because of the
technology that we are living in these days.
I've sort of like to stay with the little rendering unless
something would cause me to the sensors.
There's something beyond that. But I I know that the Hawks, if
you see them fly around and they find something dead, doesn't
matter how small or how big it is.
Deer, whatever, they get down and they pick at it and eat it
until there's nothing left, right?
They tear all the meat off the bones and there's absolutely
nothing left of the flesh. And this is what's going to
happen. And it says this is going to
occur, the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains.
So we see all the important human beings on the face of the
earth. There is no discrimination with
God's judgement. He'll deal with the small and
the great, the famous and the those who aren't famous and the
representing. This flesh is the life.
As I read in Romans chapter 8, it's lived in sin against God.
The flesh is an enemy of God. And I want you to flip over to
Galatians 5 for a minute so we can reflect on this a little bit
more. There's nothing evil about the
skin on my bones or yours. This is the tent that God's
given us. What's evil is the capacity of
the heart to use this body that God has created against his will
and his purposes and his truth and his word When we take this
physical body and use it for things that God has not intended
it to be used for. Now we're going to look at
Galatians 5 and it's going to talk about this war that we all
struggle with the difference between the the flesh and the
spirit. And it says in verse 16 of
Galatians 5I say, then walk in the spirit and you shall not
fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now, before we're Christians,
and some of you were adults here, some of you were younger.
So depending on how long you've lived on the earth, you, you've
experienced different things. But I can remember a time in my
life where this flesh, this desire, this wicked heart did
all kind of bad stuff. And it didn't bother me.
I mean, my conscience told me it was wrong, but I blew my
conscience off. I did what I wanted to do.
I was a child of God's wrath. I wasn't a child of God at one
time. And so I just had a propensity
to do evil and wicked things. I did many of them in my life.
And the wages of sin, the Bible says is death.
And so if it wasn't for the grace of God working in my life
and turning my heart toward him and and saving me and changing
me, I would be hell bound as we speak.
So we're either walking in the power of the Holy Spirit or
we're walking in the flesh. Now that says the flesh lusts
against the Spirit means that wars against God's will, and
it's contrary to God's will that you don't do the things that you
would like to do. So if you're here today and you
don't know God and the Holy Spirit isn't in you, you're just
going to do what your flesh tells you.
If it tells you to get drunk, you're just going to get drunk.
If it tells you to be immoral, you're going to be immoral.
If it tells you to steal or to be greedy or to be vindictive or
vengeful or hateful or bitter or angry or drug addicted, it's
just going to control you. It's like a bondage.
It's like, that's why we need to be saved.
Christmas Eve, I said Jesus came to save his people from their
sins. He came to save us from being
influenced and controlled by the passions of the fallen nature.
And if you know down deep inside, man, I know what I
should do, but I can't help myself, Clark.
I just can't get out of this. I understand you can't.
I've been there. The only way you can get out is
to get saved. And when you get saved, God
lifts you out of that control of the flesh and puts a spirit in
you. And now the Holy Spirit enables
you to overcome all the things that are going on in your life
that are destructive. It says if you're led by the
Spirit, you're not under the law.
Meaning if you're without Christ today, you're going to be judged
at the judgment seat, the great white throne, the book will be
open and you'll stand there saying, well, I was good, I help
people, I did this, I did that. I didn't do this.
I didn't do that. Well, God's law is going to say,
well, did you do this? Did you hate?
Did you honor God above all things?
Did you commit adultery? And some of us might sit here
and say, well, I never did that. So I'm pretty good.
Well, the Bible says if you looked upon a woman with lust,
you've already committed adultery.
How many men here have looked at woman with lust?
Raise your hand. Every one of us.
So we've broken that law, right? We've broken that law, all of
us. So we're guilty.
We don't have a chance. We don't have a way out.
The books are open and God says you did this.
And the Bible says if you've offended God in one, you've
offended him in all. So you're guilty of everything
that the Bible says is sinful. But if you're a letter of the
Spirit, you're not under the law.
What a relief. We'll stand at the judgment and
we're accepted into the heavenly Kingdom because we're part of
his family now. The Holy Spirit dwells in US.
The Holy Spirit lives in us. We're not habitually sinning
anymore, and that doesn't mean we still don't sin.
We're tempted and, and as Christians we still fail, all of
us. But when we fail, we want to
repent, we want to get right with God.
We just don't say, well, that's just the way I am, no big deal.
Our conscience bothers us and the Holy Spirit corrects us and
brings us back into a place of obedience.
So then the more we grow in the word and the more we know the
Lord, the more we walk according to the Spirit.
We're not interested in following the following desires
anymore. They're not appealing to us.
There's no, there's no interest. The desires have been lifted out
of our hearts. What are the works of the flesh?
What does a person do if they're under the influence of their
sinful nature? What says it's evident?
Adultery, Fornication. One time someone came to me for
counseling a guy and his girlfriend, and they said, we're
in the Bible. Does it say, yeah, you can't
have sex before marriage? And I said, and I read him and
he said, well, what's that mean? Well, fornication means any kind
of sexual relationship outside the confines of marriage.
Uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery.
That word for sorcery has also been translated pharmakeia in
the Bible, meaning any kind of influence of messing around with
any kind of drugs, marijuana or whatever it is, hatred,
contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish
ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders,
drunkenness, partying around rubber leaves, the like of which
I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, and
this is the Apostle Paul warning this church in Galatia, and you
might want to underline this in your Bible, that those who
practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
So if this is your lifestyle, this is how you're living,
doesn't matter what you say you believe Christ isn't your
savior, He isn't your Lord. If you're living this way, you
won't get into the Kingdom of heaven.
Now, if you're here today and you know you're living that way,
the Lord would want you to repent.
He would want you to come clean with him and say I'm in trouble,
Lord, and I know it and I can't leave here today unless you save
me. Can't leave here today unless
you save me, Lord, because I know today that if I continue in
this way of life, I'm going to end up in hell and I don't want
to be there. And God doesn't want you to be
there. He loves you, for God so loved
this world that he gave his only begotten Son.
Why did he give Him? So that we wouldn't have to go
to hell, that we could be forgiven, and that we could
become descendants of God and have nature like God and live
like God, and be sons and daughters of God and do godly
things, not ungodly things. And it says those who are Christ
have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
It means they don't have the ability to influence and control
you anymore. If you really belong to Christ,
the Lord has overcome in your life through the power of the
Holy Spirit that you don't have to submit to the temptation and
the desire. Some people say, well, I have a
drinking problem. Well, if you have Christ in your
heart, you're not going to have a drinking problem anymore.
You're just not going to drink. You're not going to want to.
The Holy Spirit's going to give you the ability and the power
not to drink. But if you say, I've asked, but
he won't help me and I keep doing it and I, well, there's
something wrong there. Because if the Spirit of God is
in you, you're not going to have to be under the control of that
influence anymore. And that's in every area of our
life. Some men struggle with
pornography, or some people struggle with drug addiction, or
some people struggle with being lazy on their job or bitter or
whatever it is. You don't have to allow any of
this sinful nature to control you anymore.
So that's what's great about being a Christian.
You're free from sin. You don't have to sin anymore,
and you actually have the capacity to not sin.
I mean, when that begins to sink in and you realize that you're
free, it's incredible. Yeah.
It makes you a whole new creation, a whole different type
of human being. Because before crisis in our
life, all we do is just keep doing the stuff that we know we
shouldn't do. It's it comes naturally because
we're all sinful people. But when Christ comes into our
life and changes us, all of a sudden we have the ability and
the power to make choices now and say, I'm not going to live
this way anymore. I'm not going to do this
anymore. We're going to have to maybe
talk to some people and say, guess what?
My relationship with you is ended as of now.
And they'll say, well, why? Because I can't live this way
anymore. I can't sleep around anymore.
I can't do this anymore because God lives in me now.
They'll probably look at you like you're nuts.
That's OK. They might ask you, what do you
mean God's in you? And then you can tell them
what's happened to you. And then perhaps God will save
them as well. And it says if we live in the
Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
So that's the major difference between this teaching and
revelation regarding why is he going to destroy all this flesh
on the earth at this time? Because these people are enemies
of God. They're walking this way,
they're living this way, and they don't care.
They've heard the truth. They know the truth from the
standpoint of it being communicated to them.
But they're the kind of people that refuse to submit and
repent. And perhaps you're here today in
that camp, you're refusing to repent.
Well, God wants you to know today that if you refuse to
repent, this is what you're going to face.
And even worse, if you don't end up in this situation, you die
before this event occurs. You're going to be in hell
forever. That's a cold hard fact, but
it's the truth. You're going to be in hell
forever and ever. Philippians chapter 3 verse 3
says we're not to have any confidence in the flesh, not any
confidence in our own self ability.
And this, this is important for Christians today in our jobs, in
our marriages and our raising of our children and our ministries,
whatever. If we depend upon our own
abilities and we're trusting in our own wisdom, we're having
confidence in our fallen nature, which will do nothing but mess
things up. We're not to have any confidence
in human ability. The world today teaches us about
self esteem. To be confident, feel good about
yourself, you have to love yourself.
Well, the Bible says we already do love ourselves.
I mean that's a that's a given because all our focus is most of
the time on ourselves. So it proves that we have this
insatiable love for self that we have to constantly deny.
Jesus says if any man will follow me, let him deny himself.
That's the hardest thing to do as a human being, to deny
yourself will. But it says not to have any
confidence in your human ability.
It says Second Corinthians chapter 3, verse 5.
Not that we're sufficient of ourselves to think of anything
as being from ourselves, but our sufficiencies from God.
In other words, I receive my esteem from God.
Where God says you're beloved, you're accepted in the beloved,
holy and without blame. That should make all of us feel
fantastic. It's not what you think of me or
what I think of you or what we think of one another.
I mean, it's nice to think good things about you.
Don't want anybody to hate you or not like you or disrespect
you. But it really shouldn't bother
us because God says He loves you with an everlasting love.
He cares about you, He's for you and He's not against you.
He has plans for you in the days ahead, plans of hope and plans
of a future. John 663 says it is a spirit who
gives life. The flesh profits nothing.
If I'm up here trying to motivate you today and my own
ability and my own passion and my own desire as a human being
and trying to persuade or cause your mind to think differently
through my own strength, my own ability, it'll profit nothing.
The words that I speak to your Spirit and they are life.
And that's my prayer for us as a ministry, that it's a spirit
that's speaking. It's not the flesh, it's not
human ability, it's not the wisdom of man, but it's the
wisdom of God. First Corinthians chapter one,
verse 2631. If you flip over there for a
minute and if you pick anything up as we're studying together,
pick up the difference between a life that's directed by the
Spirit and a life that's directed by pride of fallen
natures. Verse 26 for you see your
calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh
human ability, right fallen nature, not many mighty not many
know Bo are called but God has chosen the foolish things of the
world to put the shame the wise and God has chosen the weak
things of the world to put the shame.
The things which are mighty and base things of the world and
things which are despise God hath chosen, and the things
which are not to bring to nothing.
The things that are that no flesh should glory in his
presence, that no flesh should glory in his presence.
But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom
from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption
that it is written. He who glories, let him glory in
the Lord. And so we're here today as
brothers and sisters for the most point.
Most of us are Christians here today, and God is calling all of
you for some purpose. And he's not looking for people
who are highly educated. Of course, he can use highly
educated people, but he doesn't have any kind of agenda.
When he chooses people to serve him, He chooses people who the
world might say many times are losers.
He chooses the outcast, the downcast.
He chooses the insecure. He chooses people who know down
deep inside I can't do this, Lord.
He chooses people who have failed.
And so he looks out in an audience and he says not many
wise out there today, not to put anybody down.
Not many noble, not many mighty are called, but God has chosen
the weak and the foolish things of this world.
How many of us are weak and foolish here today?
That's all of us. So he's calling all of us to
serve him. And you might say, well, I can't
do this. I'm not as good as him or I'm
not as good as her. That's sinful.
When God says he's choosing you because you're weak and foolish,
just admit it, Lord. I'm not going to compare myself
with anybody else. I'm what you tell me in your
word, I am. I'm weak, I'm foolish, but I
want to surrender this body to you for you to use for your
glory. And as God begins to use you and
work in your life and bless people through your life, you
will know it has nothing to do with you.
And that's why it says there in 31.
He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.
I remember when we were training to be missionaries and my sister
in law's here today, she was with the new trials mission in
Africa with in Senegal and boot camp was tough.
It was the second phase of the training.
We went to Bible college. We got all that great head
knowledge, right. We had to memorize the book of
Ephesians. We thought we were really it
right? I mean, we really thought we had
it together. We had a handle on the word and
all that. We go to the boot camp and we're
around these deep Christians that are training us and, and
they're telling us why we got to get from what's in here down to
here because we're all in. There is a bunch of immature,
proud, self willed people that are claiming that they're being
called by God to be missionaries.
And, and the truth was that, yeah, God's calling us to serve
him, but there's work that needs to be done in our life before we
can serve him. They had a Tuesday night
meeting. It was an open night meeting
where you'd all sit here like this and they do worship.
And then you'd wait on the Holy Spirit to speak.
And sometimes 10 minutes, nothing's happening.
And they'd play some more music. And then someone would come up
and they'd share the words, you know, and they'd break it.
And they'd maybe 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15, and whatever the
Holy Spirit's leading them. And, and they would be speaking
to the body. And then they'd sit down and
someone else would get up and share.
And maybe a woman would come up and sing a song or read a Psalm
or it was powerful and dine deep inside.
As you're sitting there, you know God wants to use you too,
that you're afraid because you're thinking, what if I look
like a fool? What if I say something that's
stupid? What if I'm not correct?
Or what if I blow it or whatever, you know, and God's
like that, your heart's thumping.
You know you're supposed to say something.
You don't. You've all had those
opportunities when you're in a meeting and you know God wants
to use you at Wednesday night study to say something, to pray
or whatever, step out in faith. And it's scary.
And I remember the first time I went up there and I thought I
had something to say When I got up there, I looked in the Bible,
I realized I had nothing to say. It was terrible.
I got up there and I'm supposed to say something.
I have absolutely nothing to say and I could have read something
here, but the Lord whisper in my ear, you're a phony clerk.
You're a phony. If we got to deal with you're
going to be humble and you're going to be and I'm like
freaking out and at the back of the wall.
It says this first to bring to naughty the things that are that
no flesh should glory in his presence.
It says in First Corinthians 1550, flesh and blood cannot
inherit the Kingdom of God. The part of us we war against
will not be in heaven. That's good news.
The fallen sinful nature will not follow us into the Kingdom
of God. When we get into the Kingdom of
God, the former things that pass away, there'll be no more pride,
there'll be no more selfish ambition.
There'll be no more anger or hatred or unforgiveness or
bitterness or lust. All that stuff is going to be
gone, the unyielded self life that we still struggle with and
as a pastor I have to constantly bring my will under subjection
of the Lord and say Lord not my will but your will be done in
every area of my life. That unyielded tendency in our
lives that fights against us in this body, the flesh, to try to
make excuses for sin or attitude won't be in the Kingdom of
heaven. In the Book of Revelation,
Pastor Clark is taking us through all kinds of events and
happenings that are predicted for the future.
But for those who believe and follow Jesus, there's much to
look forward to in heaven with Jesus.
However, for those who are here on earth during the Tribulation,
there's all kinds of chaos that will unfold.
The Bible talks about an Antichrist, a false prophet, and
of course that evil enemy Satan. You see how there are such
clever attempts for the enemy to disguise himself as God and even
the Trinity, the true Savior of the world is God and how he
comes to rescue through his triune nature, God the Father,
Jesus the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Just like Satan tried to take over for God in heaven and was
cast out, Satan will try to convince people on earth that he
is the triune God to be worshipped instead of the
legitimate God in heaven. It's an attempt, and although he
will capture plenty in his schemes, he will not win.
The true God wins, and Revelation unpacks how that will
all happen in detail. Be encouraged because there's a
way out for all of this madness that will ensue on this earth.
But you don't want to wait indefinitely to make that
decision about Jesus. We don't know when the church
will be raptured, and you want to be ready to be with Jesus.
To learn more about this, head over to calvarychapelonline.com.
We're so glad you've been with us today.
And if you'd like to connect further with this ministry, find
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app at calvarychapelonline.com. Be sure to join us for weekly
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This has been living waters of grace.