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.
I mean, you just couldn't wait to tell people about what the
Lord's done for you. You were yakking and blabbing
and wanting to grab everybody and take him into heaven.
And then what happens so many months or years later?
You're. Oh yeah.
The good old days When I was born again, I remember that I
was really on fire. And boy, I wish I could go back
to those days. Well, you can go back to those
days, get rid of trying to do it in the flesh, and ask the Holy
Spirit to fill you again and control you and empower you.
When a child gets a new toy, what's the first thing they do?
They show it around to everyone, showing just how cool it is.
But what happens after a couple of days?
Well, the toy becomes old news and they forget about it.
We cannot let that happen to us when it comes to the gospel
today, Pastor Clark says when we choose to follow Jesus,
initially we want to share with the whole world, but then over
time it becomes a memory we refer to.
The Bible calls you to make disciples of all nations.
Don't take that lightly. Now here's Pastor Clark in
Galatians Chapter 3 with today's edition of Living Waters of
Grace. We get so weighed down at times
and we like all I'm just not passionate about the Lord
anymore and I don't want to read his word and and I don't, you
know, I don't, I know I should be involved or plugged in and
served and where, but I just don't have the energy and I'm
lukewarm and I'm backslidden and we make all these excuses of God
and God's like, what's your problem?
I mean, you know, what do you expect?
You think you're going to do something?
No, it's through the power of the Spirit, by faith.
And so we ask God to do for us, in us, through us, what there's
no way we could do ourselves. That's why Paul said be filled
with the Spirit, walk in the Spirit.
It's a command. Be energized in your daily life
by the Spirit, because what the flesh profits nothing.
Have you tried to prop up your humanness, your your fleshly
abilities to try to do something for God?
It doesn't work man. And it's something we all have
to fight against every day of our life because it's just, it's
just, it seems like it's endemic in human nature to somehow want
to justify itself by its so-called self righteousness.
You know when someone criticizes you for something or they make a
statement to you about something, some failing in your
life or weakness, are you insulted?
And your ire goes up and you think, well, who are they to
tell me about whatever it's self righteousness because you're
wanting to prove to someone else that you're better than you
really are, instead of just saying, hey, you're, you're
right. I'm even worse than that.
That's freeing, you know? And then say, but pray for me so
that God can work in me, so that I can be what He's intended in
me to be, not by my own abilities, but by the work of
the Holy Spirit in and through my life.
And so he says in verse 4, Have you suffered so many things in
vain? If indeed it was vain, Therefore
he who supplies a spirit to you and works miracles among you,
does he do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of
faith? The question again, just as
Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for
righteousness, therefore know that only those who are of faith
are the sons of Abraham. So when you look at all the Jews
who have ever lived throughout the course of history, those who
are part of the remnant in the Old Testament and the New
Testament who have believed in the Messiah to come by faith are
justified. Abraham for sure never proved to
you or me by his life that he was perfect, nor did he ever
make a statement that he was accepted to God, accepted by God
because of what he's done, but because of what Christ has done.
And he's noted in the book of Hebrews as the father of faith.
And so it says the Scripture foretelling that God would
justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel to Abraham
beforehand, before Christ was even born, saying in you all the
nations shall be blessed. So Abraham's out there that
night and God gives him a vision, shows him the stars.
And it says as a in this heaven, and as the grains of sand in the
sea, so shall be my descendants, those who believe in that
Messiah. This is Abraham has.
And so the scriptures for seeing this would justify the Gentiles
by faith. Preach the gospel to Abraham
beforehand, saying, in you all the nation shall be blessed.
So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing
Abraham, there's only one way to get to heaven.
And Jesus said you must be born again If you flip over to John
chapter 3. For some of us, it seems
somewhat elementary, but if you're dragging around your
human carcass trying to live the Christian life, you need to be
reminded, as I did, that you and I, if we're Christians, that
they didn't get here by something we worked up in
ourselves. It was a miracle.
And if you remember back when the Holy Spirit came into you
and you were born again, wasn't life exciting the Christian
life? Wasn't it exhilarating, Huh?
I mean, you just couldn't wait to tell people about what the
Lord's done for you. You were yakking and blabbing
and wanting to grab everybody and take him into heaven.
And then what happens so many months or years later?
You're. Oh yeah.
The good old days When I was born again, I remember that I
was really on. Fire and boy, I wish I could go
back to those days. Well, you can go back to those
days, get rid of trying to do it in the flesh and ask the Holy
Spirit to fill you again and control you and empower you.
And when the Spirit here, it empowers us, life gets thrilling
again and exciting. And I can talk about this by
experience. I got saved when I was 20.
And long, long pilgrimage of ups and downs and walking in my own
humanness and my weakness and my flesh.
And I'm learning, as you know, as I go on a little more every
day, to really believe it when the Lord says it's not by Mike
Clark, not by your human ability, it's not by your power,
it's not by your intentions, it's not by your obsessive
compulsive behavior, it's not by anything but by my spirit, saith
the Lord. And it takes the pressure off me
guy, and you guys too. I mean, if you're here today and
you know, you know that it's been a long time since you've
drunk from that fountain of life that brings living water to your
soul. It's here today.
He's here, It's him, He's available.
And all you got to do is say, Lord, I've been trying to do
this myself again, and I'm giving up.
And the Lord is not going to say, what do you mean you're
giving up? You can't give up.
I'm depending on you. I need you got the Lord's a
good. Now I can take over.
Yeah, well, now we can begin to get some things accomplished
because I'm in charge, not you. So Jesus says you must be born
again. He's speaking to this guy in
verse one Pharisee name Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
And the man comes to Jesus by night and this is a Jewish
leader and he's a servant in the in the fair recidical movement.
And he addresses Jesus as rabbi teacher.
We know that you're a teacher coming from God, for no one can
do these things that you do unless God is with him.
And Jesus answered him and said, most assuredly, I say to you,
unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
He wasn't talking to him about obeying the law and fulfilling,
fulfilling the law. He was talking to him about
something he never heard in his life before.
He said, and Nicodemus says to him, how can a man be born when
he is old? Can he enter a second time into
his mother's wombs and womb and be born?
And Jesus answered most assuredly I say to you, unless
one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the
Kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit.
Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again.
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it,
but cannot tell where it comes from, where it goes.
So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.
And Nicodemus answered and said, How can these things be?
And Jesus answered to him and said to him, Are you the teacher
of Israel? And you do not know these
things? Isn't that interesting?
The blind leading the blind how many churches a day on a Sunday
throughout the earth are trying to tell the people they got to
get better, they got to work harder, They got to do this and
they got to do that and they're condemned and they're beaten
down and they're walking out. Man, I got to do that.
I'm such a loss. I just can't do it and instead
of the shepherd's taking the load off and Jesus said my yoke
is easy and my burden is light right coming to me, all you that
labor and are heavy laden. I'm that isn't my guilt trip.
That isn't what I'm giving you learn of me, for my yoke is easy
and my burden is light. And Jesus is saying you're a
teacher of Israel and you don't know these things.
Most surely I say to you, we speak what we know and we
testify what we've seen and you do not receive our witness.
And there's a struggle in society and Christian society
today of a group of people that believe in works, righteousness,
and a group of people that believe in grace.
And Paul couldn't have gone any clearer in Ephesians 289.
For by grace you've been saved right through faith.
And this is not yourselves. It's what a gift of God, not of
works, bless. Any man should boast.
We need to praise our Lord for what he's done for us.
Amen. We need to thank him for his
grace. We need to praise him for his
grace and Be Walking in Grace is a great book, if you've never
read it, called Why Grace Changes Everything.
It's the whole philosophy of what Calvary Chapel is about.
And I encourage you to read that book if you haven't read it yet
because we can forget. And Paul wrote the book of
Galatians to Christians in Galatia who were starting to
forget that they were saved by grace and they were trying to
get back in God's good graces by the energy of the flesh.
And that's why he said, oh, foolish Galatians, who deceived
you? So he says, no one has ascended
to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is the Son of
man who's in heaven as Moses was lifted up, as Moses lifted up
the serpent and the wilderness, Even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but
have eternal life. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life.
This is a good news for you and me today.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the
world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not
believe is condemned already because he's not believed in the
name of the only begotten Son of God.
So today there's two groups of people here.
We have the condemned and the free.
If you're here in Christ today, you're forgiven, you're under
his mercy and his grace, and you're free.
But if you're here today and you reject the message of Christ,
you're condemned already because there's no other way to be saved
but through the miracle of new birth.
And you might sit here and say, well, I don't know if I've ever
had that happen to me. If you're, if you're saying that
today it hasn't happened to you, but it can happen to you.
And there's many here that can testify of the power of the
spirit and, and the experience of being born again.
I remember when I was 2020, I was living at the shore and I
was working in a parking lot and I was just coming out of hippie
thing. And, you know, I, I still, you
know, thought that way and that I was slowly changing because
the Holy Spirit had come into my heart and my bedroom.
I was reading the Bible and I was saying, God, if there's, if
this is real, I need you to reveal yourself to me because I
think I'm going to lose my mind from the abuse of drugs in my
life. And I started with Matthew and I
went through Mark and I went through Luke and I went through
John. And by the time I got to John, I
was in love with this person, Jesus Christ.
I said, I've never met or discovered or read about anybody
like him. He was cool all the time.
He handled every situation perfectly.
He had a love that I wanted to emulate my life for people.
And when his love apprehended me, it changed my life.
The beginning of the road that leads to life.
And so I, these guys are saying, you know, you go to this church,
man, it, you know, it's good down there.
And that's a church, man. I've been in church.
I'm not interested in church. You know, I've been in these
dead churches. I don't, I'm not into the
instant American, you know, I'm not into the institutional
church and had such a disdain for it that Cindy and I refused
to get married in a church. We had to get married outside of
church because of what it had represented to us growing up,
both of us. So I remember, you know, they
said we'll get down here, man, it's cool.
You know, there's people down there talking about Jesus and
I'm thinking people in church actually talking about Jesus and
they love him and they want to follow him.
You know, I'm thinking that I've never seen anything like that.
So I went in and right across the top of the church, big
Brownwood statement, you must be born again.
I walked in. I was like, that's what happened
to me. That's what happened to me.
You know, my hair is jumping down and I had my multi colored
quarter away pants on. And people are like, yeah, man,
you know. But the pastor, he, he just like
he, he knew what it was about. He knew what had happened in my
life. And so he began to mentor me and
eventually Cindy and and you know, so if you haven't been
born again, I highly recommend it.
Acts chapter 4 again, this is the power of the Holy Spirit
through the apostle and he's preaching and this is the the
power of God through this man's life.
Peter and verse 8 filled with the Holy Spirit said to them in
verse 8 of chapter 4, rulers of the people and elders of Israel.
If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless
man, by what means has he been made?
Well they just the Lord just healed.
This guy says let it be known to you all and to all the people of
Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you
crucified, whom God raised from the dead by him, this man stands
here before you whole. This is a stone which was
rejected by you builders, which has become the chief
cornerstone. Nor is there salvation in any
other, for there is no other name under heaven given among
men whereby we must be saved. So the the authority of the
Apostle Peter, a born again Jew, filled with the power of the
Holy Spirit, speaking to his own people.
You guys missed it. You're trying to build these
tabernacles and do all this religious worship and, and all
this stuff you're trying to be so precise with and so detailed
with. And the main thing that makes us
all work is Jesus Christ. And you've just pushed him
aside. And so your structure and your
building and everything you've stand stood upon in regards to
your spirituality is going to fall and be decimated because it
can't stand up against the truth of the person of Jesus Christ.
So again, you can't get saved through Buddha, Krishna,
Muhammad, any everybody but Jesus Christ Jesus said I am the
way, I am the truth, I'm the life.
No man comes to the Father but through me.
So today in Revelation 1217 we see the Jewish remnant and to
the day as we think about Israel, they're filled with
unbelief for the most part. As I said earlier, the virtually
the whole world is anti Israel and the stage is being set in
these last days for the tribulation events that are
going to come upon the small nation of whom the Lord loves
Iran of Jennidad, however he pronounces his name.
That guy thinks daily his purpose in life is to wipe
Israel off the face of the earth.
He's he's not a fool. This guy is focused, he's
determined and he's not going to let anything set him aside from
his goal. Now we're thankful God's
sovereign and and it's not going to happen the way he predicts,
but nonetheless, he could be used by the evil one that caused
great chaos in this nation. And every day there's pressure,
the mounting in that part of the world because of what's going on
in that part of the nation. Now, what's God's heart for
Israel? If you turn to Luke chapter 13,
as we begin to wind down, it's real important to get a picture
of how the Lord feels about this country, how he loves it.
Luke chapter 13, Luke chapter 13, verse 34 and 35.
This is Jesus lamenting over his beloved city, Jerusalem.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and
stones those who are sent to her.
Think about all the Old Testament scriptures where they
rejected God's prophets and his messengers.
How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hand
gathers her brood under her wings.
But you were not willing. See, your house is left to you
to desolate. And assuredly I say to you, you
shall not see me until the time comes when you say, blessed is
he who comes in the name of the Lord.
The Bible says when Christ returns at the second coming,
every eye will see him coming down out of the clouds of glory.
And the Jews, the remnant, all the people who are on the face
of the earth, it says they will look up and see him whom they've
pierced and realize He's their Messiah.
And there'll be a great in gathering of multitudes of
people into the heavenly Kingdom at that time.
Now flip over to Romans Chapter 11, Romans Chapter 11, verse 23.
And they also, if they do not continue and unbelief will be
grafted in, for God is able to graft them in.
Again, this is talking about the nation of Israel.
OK, they they rejected Christ and it appears that there's no
interest, but that's not the way it ends.
This is what the Lord's able to do if they don't continue an
unbelief. In other words, if they begin to
become believers and and there are many born again Jews over
the last since 1948 when the nation was restored.
There's this movement toward the homeland and and Jewish people
all over the world. It's like a magnet.
They're not a they don't understand why all of a sudden
they want to go to Israel, but God has put it in their heart.
That's their homeland, that's their, their birth land.
And so there's this movement of, of immigration into this nation
from all over the world. But the Lord has a heart and a
purpose. And he says that he can graft
them in again. For if you were cut off of the
olive tree, which is wild by nature and were grafted contrary
to nature into cultivated olive tree, how much more will these
who are natural branches be grafted into their own olive
tree? So the wild branches where they
Gentiles people like us that God in his mercy transformed us and
made us fit into his eternal plan.
But he didn't set aside the nation of Israel, his remnant,
his people and he's going to be able to graft them in again.
Who are the the natural born people that God has intended to
save from the beginning and verse 25 for I do not desire
brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery.
And so the Lord telling us today his brothers and sisters in
Christ here at Calvary. He doesn't want to us to be like
confused about this stuff mixed up.
I mean, it's amazing how many evangelical churches that they
have different opinions about this subject.
Lest you should be wise in your own opinion.
That blindness, in part, has happened to Israel until the
fullness of the time of the Gentiles has come in.
And so now we see that the body of Christ is the Gentile
movement. The time of the fullness of the
Gentiles is when that last person gets saved as as the
gospel goes into the ends of the earth, when that bride of Christ
is complete, then we're taken out.
The rapture occurs. But the Lord is not finished
with Israel though. And the good news is that Israel
was set aside for a period of time so that God can have his
perfect will and work and our hearts and lives.
Now Revelation 17 flip over there.
We're going through a lot of flipping around today, but
that's good because that way you'll get familiar with these
things and you can share them with other people.
Revelation 17 says Behold, he's coming with clouds, every eye
will see him, even they who pierced him, and all the tribes
of the earth, referring to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob of the earth, will mourn because of him.
Even so, Amen. They pierced him.
They rejected him. Zechariah chapter 12 refers and
details the ones who are identified as the ones who
pierced him as the House of David and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem. And he prophesized that they
will have tears of true repentance because of what they
did to their Messiah. And it says here in Revelation
17, all the tribes will mourn. Zechariah 12/10 says, And I will
pour on the House of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the spirit of grace and supplication.
Spirit of grace. That's what we need, isn't it?
All of us. I pray that this place is a
spirit of grace for you, that God's Holy Spirit pours out on
you and builds you up and strengthens you and encourages
you in the grace of God. For there's nothing else that
can sustain you and me but by the grace of God.
And then they will look on him whom they Pierce.
I like to end in reading Psalm 122 tremendous messianic Psalm
prophetical that will one day be completely fulfilled.
It says I was glad when they said to me, let us go into the
House of the Lord. Our feet have been standing
within your gates of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is built as a city
that is compact together where the tribes go up, the tribes of
the Lord to the testimony of Israel to give thanks to the
name of the Lord. For Thrones are set there for
judgment. The Thrones of the House of
David. Pray for the peace from
Jerusalem. We support the ministries in
Jerusalem. We pray for the peace of
Jerusalem, because until there's peace in Jerusalem, there will
be no peace on this earth. Peace be within your walls,
prosperity within your palaces. For the sake of my brethren and
companions, I will now say peace be within you.
Because of the House of the Lord our God.
I will seek your good. Does God have a plan for Israel?
Amen. He sure does.
Does he have a plan for us? Yes, he does, as I have not seen
nor ear heard nor entered into the heart of man the things that
God has prepared for those who love him.
If I was a dancing pastor up here, I'd be dancing all around
like a maniac. I'm psyched today.
I mean, I just, I mean, this, this stuff, if it doesn't like
wake us up out of our complacency and lethargy, man,
what do we need? We need a blood transfusion,
right? Not a human blood transfusion,
but a Holy Spirit poured out. Holy Ghost Jesus, blood
transfusion. Amen.
We are digging into the Book of Revelation here on Living Waters
of Grace. Pastor Clark is tackling this
challenging book as we try to discern the messages that are
within its pages. There's so much imagery and at
times you're not always sure what's literal and what's
metaphorical. At one point there's a reference
to an adulterous woman riding on a beast.
And as someone else mentioned, at one point it almost sounds
like a rodeo from hell. And in actuality it kind of is.
You learn about the downfall and demise of a sinful and
rebellious world, falling down in worship to someone who is the
anti hero, the enemy, Satan working his insidious ways into
the minds of fallen people. It's sad and it's heartbreaking,
but it's a classic story of good versus evil.
Thankfully, we know how this story ends.
Jesus wins, Jesus reigns, and evil is conquered once and for
all. We pray and trust you've
received Jesus as your Savior. But if you haven't, don't wait
until the events in Revelation become what's happening on the
streets. None of us wants you to be there
at that time. Instead, we'd love for you to be
with us in heaven as we celebrate the marriage supper
with Jesus as his bridegroom. To get a better understanding of
where we are in the Book of Revelation, to listen to any
messages before or after this one, you can find them at our
website, calvarychapelonline.com.
That's it for today's edition, but we hope you'll want to hear
Pastor Clark teach more from the Book of Revelation.
It can be exciting to think about the future for believers,
but it can feel a bit harrowing for those who don't believe.
Come hear more next time on Living Waters of Grace.