This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Waffer, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland, County
of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
One of the greatest assaults in the last days in the evangelical
church movement is a movement towards anti-Semitism which
means that God is no longer favoring Israel and the churches
should not be interested in the favor of God in Israel because
Israel is a, from their perspective an apostate nation
and has no hope of repentance. Well, the Bible's full of God's
love for Israel throughout the Scriptures, His commitment to
Israel, his focus on Israel in the last days.
Have you ever been given directions in a small town?
You know, like drive past the traffic light, hang a left at
the railroad tracks, Then once you see the giant ice cream
cone, keep an eye out for the big oak tree.
And then you're almost there. Well, in Pastor Clark's message
today, he tells you that the signs of the times you're living
in are all around. You are living in the last days.
The Bible has given you the landmarks to look out for.
Are you seeing them? Are your eyes open to the times
you're in now? Here's Pastor Clark in Second
Timothy Chapter 4 with today's edition of Living Waters of
Grace. There's a form of godliness, but
it denies the power thereof. People will wear robes.
There'll be symbols in the church.
There still may be a cross, but a lot of the newer churches that
are being built have no cross because the pastors say that the
cross is something that will stumble people.
And you know, we don't want to offend the seekers.
Well, the Bible clearly says the cross is to them that perish
foolishness. It's a stumbling stone to them
that perish. The majority of the churches out
there nowadays do not believe that Jesus is God Incarnate.
They don't believe in the virgin birth.
They don't believe in the resurrection.
The Barn Up organization took a poll of the percentage of people
that claim to be evangelicals, and evangelicals were always
known as people that believed in the importance of being born
again, The inerrancy of Scripture, the infallibility of
God's word, the faithfulness of the truths of the gospel.
That Christ came to die for our sins according to the
scriptures. He was buried.
He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures and
he rose and he shall come again with glory to judge the quick
and the dead. His Kingdom shall have no end.
One of the statements in the nice and creed that was one time
proclaimed by all Christian churches and that's another
document that's no longer even affirmed by most churches.
The number of people that go to church without their Bibles.
I was driving up here. I had to run back home to get
something. I'm riding by a church and and I
see people going, looks like nice people just sort of walking
in, you know, just do my thing, you know, no Bible.
Why would anybody go to a Bible teaching church without a Bible?
I don't understand. I mean, whenever we don't need
the Bible, we don't need the church anymore.
It's a waste of time going to a church.
If you don't have a Bible, you need to carry your Bible to
church. If you don't take your Bible to
church, do you believe the Bible?
Now we have Bibles here, in case you forget.
I'm not trying to condemn anybody or anything like that.
The point I'm trying to make is whenever churches do not have
the focus on the Bible anymore, the people that come to church
or the pastors, it's obvious that the church has moved toward
this movement of hypostasy and the One World church.
They'll be sucked in very easily by this integration of all these
different religious systems. The greatest contributor to
apostasy today and apostasy, and you read about it in Hebrews and
other sections of the Scripture, apostate person is someone who
at one time claimed to believe and know the truth, and they
moved completely away from it. It's amazing how some scholars
of the Bible and people who once proclaimed the authority of the
Scriptures will be on their deathbed and they'll be refuting
the scriptures. They'll be saying, well, I don't
believe this stuff anymore. It was a hoax.
It's not important. I mean people at one time who
were supposedly sound in their Bible teaching.
The greatest contributor to apostasy today is this
self-centered religious movement called the faith movement and
it's run by faith teachers and faith movement.
Another name for it is a positive confession movement.
It promotes a faith devoid of moral and doctrinal content and
which promises that whatever one truly believes and confesses
with one's lips will come to pass.
You ever hear of that? It's like a mind power
visualization. The faith in yourself, not faith
in God. Your faith is more upon what you
affirm and what you say, and somehow through that power you
develop these energies to be able to receive all these
manifest blessings of heaven. Eastern mysticism and the mind.
Science cults like Christian Science and the positive
thinking of Norman Vincent Peale.
The possibility, thinking of Robert Shuler, the positive
confession teaching of Hagen and Copeland and Price and David Cho
and Osteen and others, Man, by thinking he can bring into his
experience whatever he desires, becomes little gods.
I remember one time years ago when I was a follower of Kenneth
Copeland and when I was involved in bad doctrine many years ago,
he said you're going to become like little gods.
Well, this is exactly what these faith teachers say.
We create our own world. We're partners with the
Infinite, a universal creative mind which receives the impress
of our thought upon it. Go to Second Timothy 4, three
and four, for the time will come when they will not endorse sound
doctrine. You think that's come yet?
But according to their own desires, because they have
itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and
they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned
aside. The fables, but it says
exhorting us, but you be watchful on all things and door
afflictions do the working of evangelists fulfill your
ministry and verse 2 it says preach the word, be ready in
season and odysseys and convince rebuke, exhort with all
long-suffering and teaching. We need to in love point these
errors out to people because if they don't repent and see the
errors they're in, they're going to be sucked in to this apostate
world. One world church movement, this
beautiful building that the Lord bless us with at one time was a
Swedish Lutheran Church. It came over over 100 years ago
with godly people that taught the Word of God, that believed
in the importance of the Lord's Supper weekly, that believed in
the importance of repentance, that taught the Word of God
faithfully. The Church of the Lutheran
Evangelical Synod, and I don't know how many years it happened.
They no longer began to have the emphasis on the Word, but
started looking at social programs.
They began to do such things as ordination of women pastors,
which the Bible clearly deep affirms.
And nothing against women. And women are just as spiritual
as men, if not more so many times.
But the role of a pastor in a church is a male role.
It says in First Timothy chapter 3 that he desires the office of
the Bishop or pastor. Elder Shepherd desires a good
thing. It's not a female role.
But it doesn't mean that females can't serve in the church and
minister in the church. But they're not to be the
pastors. Well, this church, this movement
became ordaining women, and then it began to be open to the
homosexuality movement and ordaining homosexuals.
And this is not any happening in the Lutheran Church, but in the
Methodist Church and the Presbyterian during churches.
It's appalling what's happening in these last days that we live.
It says in the last days, First Timothy 41 people will give heed
to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons.
Second Timothy 32 says for men shall be lovers of their own
selves rather than lovers of God.
Robert Schoeller wrote a book called Self Love, the Dynamic
Force of Success, and he is impacted very deeply.
Billy Hybels of Willow Creek as well as Rick Warren and
Saddleback. I mean, why in the world that
these guys wanting to hang out and their conferences and that
kind of stuff. It's scary because it just goes
to show that any of us, including myself and pastors in
Calvary Chapel and other churches that are endeavoring to
be faithful in these last days can be sucked in by compromising
and listening to the teachings of false teachers.
It says there is a new concept and practice today.
Peter Wagner, a famous teacher on revivals.
This is interesting. Wagner has the audacity to say
Jesus and Paul in the early church fathers didn't know about
this stuff. In other words, there's new
insight, there's new revelation now, OK.
He says they now hold the key to spiritual breakthroughs and
worldwide revival. What they talk about is like
praying against territorial spirits, spiritual mapping,
ground level spiritual warfare, occult prayer warfare, strategic
level sin warfare, cosmic sin warfare, and praying through
windows. Now where in the world did you
ever see Jesus talking about this stuff or the apostles?
The Bible very clearly says resist the devil and he'll flee
from you. Jude again tells us, and this is
Michael the Archangel, one of the highest created angels in
the Kingdom of heaven. He's having this discussion.
He says yet Michael the Archangel and contending with
the devil when he disputed about the body of Moses dared not to
bring against him a revelling accusation, but said the Lord
rebuke you. How many times you've heard
people like thinking that they got some authority to twist the
devil around in their own authority in their own name.
I mean, if Michael the Archangel who's on the outside of the
throne room of God's heaven has fear and also a healthy respect
of the Prince of darkness, realizing he doesn't have the
authority. He doesn't have the power.
But the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one that has the authority
over the power of the enemy. And we have authority over that
enemy through the power of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy
Spirit who lives us. It says resist the devil and
he'll flee from you. So these delusions from the
counterfeit revival are becoming very, very big in the sense of
impacting the evangelical community.
It's just unbelievable what has happened and occurred.
They called it the Holy Laughter movement and people were barking
and acting like animals. And I mean, this stuff that had
nothing to do with any kind of biblical premises or teachings
of what real repentance is and what real Holy Spirit revival
is. You know, the counterfeit, it
looks so close, it looks so good that the Bible says it can
deceive the very elect if possible.
You know, one time I remember leaving at Kenneth Copeland
conference and I was high, but I wasn't high.
And the Holy Spirit, I was so out of my mind in the sense of
what was reality that I drove through a red light and it was a
miracle I didn't kill someone. And the counterfeit, the
delusion. And if any of you are involved
in any of these false teachings, if you're embracing any of these
counterfeit revivals, I would ask you before the Lord to
repent. Throw the books away, burn them,
get rid of them, turn your back on anything that is not the
truth. You can't mess around with light
and darkness. You can't mess around with 11.
The Bible says a little 11 a little sin will destroy the
whole body. So John talks about these
nations in verse 10. He says that there are 7 kings,
5 have fallen and one is the five that have fallen in John's
day was Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medio, Persia and Greece.
And the one it was at that particular time was Rome.
The other is yet to come, the one world empire to come, a
revival of the Roman Empire. Verse 11 he says the beast that
was and is not is himself also the 8th and is also of the seven
and is going to perdition. So we see the manifestation of
this individual called Antichrist who will have control
over this one world religion, one world government, one world
financial and banking system. As we talked last week, the 10
horns which you saw are 10 kings who have received no Kingdom as
yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the
beast. These are of one mind and they
will give their power and authority to the beast.
So in other words, the Beast is going to use this false
religious system to accomplish his goals up until a certain
time. Once he accomplishes what he
wants to accomplish, he could care less about that group of
people and their religion. Matter of fact, he's going to
come against it and destroy it. These will make war with the
Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of Lords
and King of kings, and those who are with him are called chosen
and faithful. So the Lord Jesus Christ, when
he comes back at that final battle of Armageddon, will come
against all these false religious movements as well as
the authority of the One World Government and the Kingdom of
the Antichrist. And then he said to me, the
waters which you saw where the harlot sits are peoples,
multitudes, nations and tongues. So there's going to be a
tremendous amount of people that are in this deception where this
one world religious ruler and government will rule and reign
for a period of time. And it says in verse 16, and the
10 horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the
harlot, make her desolation naked, eat her flesh and burn
with fire. So we see all the sudden the
uptight feelings of all these nations that thought that they
were in good with this world ruler.
He commits treason against them. He doesn't want them and said
now they're angry and they're going to try to come after him
to destroy his system. And this is what's interesting
here again with God's sovereignty and Providence in
verse 17. For God has put it into their
hearts to fulfill His purpose to be of one mind and to give their
Kingdom to the beast until the words of God are fulfilled.
So everything's under control. Whenever you see all this crazy
stuff happening in the world, don't panic, don't worry, don't
get upset, don't get fearful. Get closer to the Lord.
Deal with your own heart, but look up.
Your redemption's drawing nigh because God has everything under
control. Aren't you glad?
You don't have to worry. You don't have to fear what's
going to come upon the world. Doesn't mean there won't be some
difficulty, perhaps for us, our persecution or trial, some
degree of tribulation in the world.
You will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, he says.
I have overcome the world. So we see verses 12 through 15.
These 10 kings allude to the 10 nation confederation.
This is also talked about in Daniel chapter 224 and 25.
These 10 European powers are subject to the anti Christian
powers shall make war against Christ.
Europe is spiritually right now as we speak, bankrupt with
regard to believing and living the gospel of Jesus Christ. the
Reformation had occurred that was a wonderful movement of God
and needed to occur because of the abuses of the teachings of
Rome is now a faint memory in Europe and Wales and London and
England and Scotland, the birth place of the Reformation, less
than 3% of the population attends any church on any given
Sunday. So Europe is primed already to
just give devotion to this false spiritual movement that is in
the process of developing now and growing stronger and
stronger and stronger. If you go into your Barnes and
Noble, your Borders bookstore now, you know, the Christian
section, which you usually check out, the New Age movement, the
occult and spiritist movement is almost about the same amount of
space that they give to the Christian teachings in these
stores. And it's growing more and more
every day. We see the movement in 1957, and
this is interesting. I don't hear much about it now,
but it still exists. It's called the European
Economic Community and in 1957 they got together to combine
their nuclear, coal and economic resources.
And of all places they met in Rome.
They signed a treaty. It's called the Treaty of Rome.
And the European Economic Community has a flag and it's
prominent as any other national flag in some of the European
countries today. This euro dollar coin, on the
back of it there's a woman riding a multi headed beast.
I mean, the symbolism is this astounding of what's occurring,
and most of us are clueless to these things.
Now, you know, what do we do with this stuff as we study
these things? As I try to say many times when
we're studying the Book of Revelation, it's a fascinating
book. It's exciting.
It's all about the prophecy and the return of the Lord.
What's going to happen in the last days?
But what's more important is what's happening to you in the
last days. Where's your heart with the
Lord? Where's your life?
Where's your priorities? What are you focusing on?
What are you believing? What are you feeding on?
What are you participating in? Jesus says His Kingdom is not of
this world, but we can't have it both ways, guys and gals.
We can't be friends with the world and and try to be
disciples of Jesus Christ. We have to have a real solid
focus and commitment to what the truth of Jesus Christ is.
We we need to live like the apostles lived in the sense of
their zeal and their thirst and their hunger for Jesus Christ.
Paul said follow me like I follow Jesus Christ.
The Bible says in the last days there's going to be scoffers
that aren't going to believe in the coming of the Lord.
Someone told me yesterday in the men's meeting a good friend of
theirs, it goes to a Baptist Church is saying that there is
no such thing as a rapture and denying about the catching up of
the believers and and doesn't believe.
You're basically scoffing at it. One of the greatest assaults in
the last days in the evangelical church movement is a movement
towards anti-Semitism which means that God is no longer
favoring Israel and the churches should not be interested in the
favor of God in Israel because Israel is a, from their
perspective an apostate nation and has no hope of repentance.
Well, the Bible is full of God's love for Israel throughout the
Scriptures, His commitment to Israel, his focus on Israel in
the last days, the focus of many Jewish people coming to Christ
in the last days. The Christ of all places, when
he returns, is not going to land in any other spot or any other
place but the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
And so that is one assault against the truth in these last
days by those who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ.
There's also an assault against the teachings of of the rapture
of the church. And the enemy does not want
people to believe that Christ can come at any moment.
One of the wonderful things about the teachings of the soon
coming of the Lord in the rapture is that the Bible says
every man that hath his hope in himself purifieth himself even
as he is pure. So that means for me and for you
that every day I need to expect that Christ could come.
I need to allow my heart to be searched and turn away from
anything that would be unpleasing in the sight of the
Lord, so that when He comes, He'll find me busy doing what He
told me and you to do. If you don't think that the Lord
could come any moment, it's real easy to become LAX in your
Christian life. You have no anticipation, no
fervor to work out your salvation with fear and
trembling as the Bible commands us.
Knowing that it's God who works in us both to will and to do
with his good pleasure. The importance of holiness and
purity in the church in the last days is critical.
And yet the church in the last days is becoming unholy and
unpure. And so as a result of that,
people are being very, very complacent and very
lackadaisical and very superficial in their walk with
the Lord. And so as a result, for you and
me as a church, Calvary Chapel and his members of one another,
mother and this body, the Bible says that we're to exhort one
another. And so much the more as we see
today approaching right when we get together, we have fun, we
have fellowship, we enjoy each other's company, But our focus
is to encourage each other to move closer to the Lord, not
move away from the Lord, deal with our priorities in our life,
not spending time and foolish endeavors and wasting our
resources and our lives for what's going to perish and not
last, but to focus our attention on what will last forever.
And so as we study this book, I pray that we're examining our
own lives. What are we living for?
Is my marriage what it needs to be?
Am I loving my wife like Christ loves the church?
Am I training up my kids in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord? Am I working for my boss?
Is work unto the Lord and not unto men?
As a man, am I keeping my eyes focused on the finished goal on
the cross and not looking to the left to the right?
Am I monitoring what's being watched on my television in my
home or what's being listened to on the airwaves of my computer
or my radio in my car? Looking at my finances and
asking God what is it that He wants me to use my finances for
in these last days? The Bible tells us layout and
offer yourselves treasures on earth where a moth and rust does
corrupt and thieves break in and steal away.
But layout for yourselves treasures in heaven, where a
moth and rust does not corrupt, nor thieves just break in to
steal away. As we study these things
together, they are very, very serious, very, very important.
We're to be sober minded. We're to be full of the joy of
the Lord, the joy of the Lord's, our strength.
But we're to be sober minded, not to be double minded, right?
James told us in that section. Don't be double minded.
Have any of you been guilty of being double minded in your
life? I have I don't want to be double
minded. Whatever is holding you back
from giving your all and on all to Christ, don't, don't let
another day or a week go by where you're not going to say
Lord, not my will, but your will be done.
If you have talents, if you have gifts, if you have abilities, if
you have a calling on your life, don't hold back to say Lord.
I don't know what you want to do with it or what you want to use
it for, but I'm willing to use it.
If you're being called to this church, then allow the Lord to
use you in this church so that you're busy about what the Lord
wants you to be busy to you about in the last days.
The evidence of God's Spirit working in the church is when
people become people of prayer. For Jesus says my house shall be
a House of prayer. And some people say, well, I can
pray at home. I can pray in my bed on my knees
beside. Yeah, you can.
But I know lots of times we don't.
When the Holy Spirit is working in the church and through the
message and through the worship, there's a level of conviction
and a level of intensity that God puts upon us that now is the
time to deal with salvation. Now's the time to deal with
commitment and sacrifice. The Lord and the more of us that
come together and pray and say and we see each other pushing in
and not pushing away, it encourages the church and the
body that to become a place of prayer.
The most important thing for us to be as a Church of prayer and
the most important thing for us to be as a people of prayer to
humble ourselves before Him. 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 and 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.