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.
We all have a ritual, I hope in the morning, something that we
do personally be before us and our God before we leave our
homes, before we leave our families.
It's there's some place in the house that we get alone with God
where only he can see us and we get on our faces before him.
And we worship Him this way, pouring out our hearts to Him,
asking Him to examine our hearts, to search us, to know
us, to see if there's anything in us that needs to be removed
and to be taken out. Do you have that practice?
Do you have a time that's dedicated to God, where you talk
to Him and listen for His voice? As Christians, we call this a
quiet time or a devotional. Ultimately, it's just time with
Jesus, however that may look, Pastor Clark will challenge you
today to set aside a time to be with Jesus so that he could do
the work in your heart that only he can do.
He can cleanse you of sin and empower you to live a holy life
for him. Now.
Here's Pastor Clark in the Book of Ephesians, chapter one with
today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Ephesians chapter one verse 13 and 14, It says in him you also
trusted. This is regarding him, Jesus
Christ and him you also trusted after you heard the word of
truth, the gospel, your salvation, whom also having
believed says you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
who is a guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption
of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory.
So the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us.
We're sealed by the power of God through the person of the Holy
Spirit, and it's the evidence that we belong to God without
the Holy Spirit. You aren't a Christian.
And you should know if you have the Holy Spirit because whenever
you have the Holy Spirit, your life has changed, your desires
have changed, your interests, your motivation.
You have conviction now about sin in a way that you didn't
have it whenever you didn't have the Holy Spirit.
And it says in First Corinthians 12/13 for by 1 Spirit are we all
baptized into the body of Christ, the baptism of the Holy
Spirit placing us from one place outside of the Kingdom of God,
and then doing a work by his Spirit and placing us into a new
family by his Spirit and Spirit baptism.
And if you study the ancient foundational documents like the
Nicean Creed or some of these things that fought out the
truths of historic Christianity in the beginning, because of all
the heresies, says there's one Lord.
And Ephesians says there's one Lord, 1 faith, one baptism, one
God and Father of all, who's above all and in all and through
us all. And so we're sealed by the Holy
Spirit of promise. And it tells us in chapter 4,
verse 30 of Ephesians, it says, and do not grieve the Holy
Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of
redemption. How do you grieve the Holy
Spirit? It says, let all bitterness and
wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from
you with all malice and be kind to one one another, tender
hearted, forgiving one another, even as God and grace forgave
you. If we hold bitterness and anger
and any kind of attitude in our heart toward anybody, toward
God, toward any kind of situation, it says we grieve the
Holy Spirit, we hurt the Holy Spirit, we wound the Holy
Spirit. And the Holy Spirit can't just
say I'm out of here. I don't like dealing with Clark
right now. He's just like making me
miserable, you know, He just makes me feel like I don't want
to be in him anymore. With the beauty of the Holy
Spirit is he doesn't depart in the new covenant.
He dwells in US forever. We're in the Old Testament.
Remember David prayed in Psalm 51.
Take not your Holy Spirit from me.
That was his biggest fear because the indwelling, the
permanent of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit didn't occur
until Pentecost. And so these things are
important. But in Revelation 7, this is
what he's going to do for these 144,000.
He's going to mark them with the seal, the Holy Spirit.
And the ceiling is something, it's done and seen by God.
I don't see a physical mark on you or you don't see one on me.
But it's evident by how we live and how we treat each other if
we are in Christ. But Jesus says by this shall
people know you're my disciples by the love you have for one
another. And so in this sense of what God
is doing in verse 2, he is making this mark visible though
to the spirit world and all the demons of hell and the person,
the Antichrist. They're going to know for sure
that these people have been set apart by God and there will be a
certain protection given to them in the midst of all these
cataclysmic events during this time in order for them to do
what it is God's called them to do during this tribulation.
All those from the ends of the earth, the other nations, the
other people groups will be directly impacted by the
evangelistic methodology of these 144,000 during this time
of tribulation. And so in in verse 3, it says do
not harm the earth and the sea or the trees till we have sealed
the servants of our God and our forehead.
So this command is given to the angels and these angels are the
very ones that will sound the trumpet judgments as we get into
chapter 8 next week. This won't start again until
these servants of God are sealed and protected by the Lord God.
So how are people going to get saved during this time?
When you think about it, I mean, with the Antichrist ruling and
hassling people and persecuting Christians, how are people going
to be saved? Well, we'll study later on about
the two witnesses that were eventually martyred that God
will raise up. But there's going to be such
powerful testimony during this time of tribulation, in the
midst of the chaos, in the midst of the trials and the
tribulations that are going to come upon the world.
It's going to cause people to do one of two things.
They're going to move away farther and farther from God and
curse him, or they're going to move closer to him and say,
there's got to be an answer to this.
I don't want to have to deal with this.
I need mercy. I need grace.
And many of those people will remember the things that you and
I had told them while we were alive, prior to us being caught
up in the air. I don't know about you, but as a
unbeliever prior to coming to Christ, what drew me to Christ
was trials and tribulation. It was the lifestyle I was
living. It was the condemnation and the
guilt and the darkness. It was all about me from my drug
induced hippie stage. And I, I just, I cried out to
God I didn't know existed and I asked for His help and I asked
him if he was real, that he would reveal himself to me and
show me who He was. And he did.
And it put me on the beginning path of my salvation.
I, I look at people in life and I know that God uses trials for
both groups. He uses trials and believers
lives to cause us to get on our face and say, Lord, I want to
move towards you, not away from you.
And for unbelievers, he causes trials to come on their lives to
break them so that they would repent and turn to God for mercy
and for grace. So God the Holy Spirit, as we
talked about last week, last week, he is everywhere present
and he fills all things. When the church is taken out at
the rapture, the Holy Spirit as a a person is in us.
He goes with us to the Kingdom. But at the same time, the Holy
Spirit is a spirit. He's God, he's omnipresent, he's
everywhere present. So doesn't mean because he goes
up with us, he's nowhere else. He's everywhere.
And the only way this work of God can be occurring on the face
of the earth this time with these 100 and 44,000, is through
the power of the Holy Spirit. John 16-8 And this is prior to
the Holy Spirit being poured out in Pentecost.
This is what the Lord says about the person, the Holy Spirit.
It says He will convict the world of sin.
He'll still be doing that during the tribulation and of
righteousness and of judgment of sin because they do not believe
in me of righteousness because I go to my father and you see me
no more. And of judgment because the
ruler of this world is judged. Of course, that's the the
Antichrist. So we we began to pick it up
here in verse 4 and it says and I heard the number of those who
were sealed. 144,000 of all the tribes of the children of
Israel, verse 5, the tribe of Judah, 12,000 were sealed.
Of the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 were sealed.
Of the tribe of Gad, 12,000 were sealed.
Of the tribe of Asher, 12,000 were sealed.
Of the tribe of Neptali, 12,000 were sealed.
Of the tribe of Manasseh, 12,000 were sealed.
Of the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 were sealed.
Of the tribe of Levi, 12,000 were sealed.
The tribe of Issachar 12,000 were sealed.
The tribe of Zebulun 12,000 were sealed.
The tribe of Joseph 12,000 were sealed.
The tribe of Benjamin 12,000 were sealed.
So we see this tremendous move of God's spirit.
And what's what's amazing is if you ask a Jewish person today,
what tribe are you descending of?
They don't have a clue. They've lost all record of their
historical setup in the in that place of the world.
But God knows, he knows our lineage.
Of course, we're all descendants of Adam and Eve.
That's that's a fairly easy one for even us to understand,
right? But the tribes are real specific
and they'll be used to give God glory throughout the Book of
Revelation. And so we see the specific names
of these tribes. Now, some of you are Bible
scholars in here and you might say, well, there, there's a
couple mistakes in there. Clark, why isn't the why isn't
some of these other guys mentioned in here, like Dan, the
tribe of Dan, It was mentioned in the Old Testament.
Well, some people, you know, there's sometimes some things in
the scripture. What are you going to do make it
up and just say, well, I think it, you know, sometimes it's
better to say, I don't know. But God has a reason, though.
He God doesn't make any mistakes in his word.
There's a reason why there was a couple of adjustments and, and,
and this tribe of Dan, Some people believe the reason it
wasn't included. This is conjecture, but it's a
possibility that the Antichrist will come up through the the
tribe of Dan. I don't know, but one of the
other interesting things here is that we see the the tribe of
Levi's mentioned here and they weren't given a inheritance in
the sense of an earthly Kingdom. Whenever they're their reign was
going on, they were the priests unto God and the and the temple
and their inheritance was a heavenly blessing.
Their inheritance was the Lord. But here they show up again.
And then you have Joseph who had, you know, two sons,
Manasseh and Ephraim. Well, for whatever reason here
we see Manasseh mentioned, but we don't see Ephraim mentioned,
but we see Joseph mentioned so that the number still comes down
to be the same. But all these guys, they're,
they're descendants of Jacob and historical, why God's doing this
that we'll get into a little bit later as we move on in
Revelation 2112, after the Millennium and the new heaven
and the new earth and the new Jerusalem, there's going to be
12 gates in this new Jerusalem, and each one will bear the name
of one of the tribes of Israel. It's going to be fascinating.
And there will be that great door of Judah representing the
line of the tribe of Judah, our Savior Jesus Christ.
In verse 9 it says, after these things I looked and behold, a
great multitude which no one could number of all the nations,
tribes, peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and
before the Lamb closed with white robes, with palm branches
in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice saying,
salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne into the
Lamb. What a tremendous picture here
of hope that in spite of the hell that's going to be poured
out into the world during the Tribulation, you're going to
have all these people from all over the world that are going to
come to know Christ during this time.
Part of this vision that John is having is that many Gentiles
will be saved, a great multitude.
There's so many people here, he can't even begin to describe the
number. And that should give us hope
because there will be some of our loved ones that won't make
it out in the Rapture with us, but that doesn't mean it's over
for them. And that might be a good
conversation to have with some family, some friends.
Hey, you might not buy into this.
You don't want to believe it right now.
That's between you and God. But when this does happen,
remember that there's still hope that you can still believe.
It'll be tougher to believe them because you will most likely
face true death and martyrdom to make your stand for Jesus
Christ. And it says they're going to
have white robes on. And the significance of these
robes is a beautiful situation here where it talks about these
robes that are washed and they're made white in the blood
of the Lamb. Only the blood of Jesus Christ,
Amen, can make us clean, not by works of righteousness, which we
have done, but according to His mercy.
He saved us without the shedding of blood.
There is no remission of sins. It's not my good life that I
think I live or you live our good works, although our works
are in evidence of our relationship with Christ.
As the old hymn said, nothing in my hands I bring only to the
cross I cling. And so the blood of Jesus Christ
upon every one of us today. And we all know what we are,
don't we? Down deep inside we know what we
still are and what we need to become by the grace of God.
But that God in his mercy looks at us and he sees this blood
that's been shed and that we're his children, that we're covered
by this blood, not having a righteousness of our own, Amen,
but the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
That should give you such hope today and such confidence and
such comfort that as He sees you, He chooses to see you
clothed in the righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ.
And we need to be reminded of that when we look at each other
and we see the warts and the stains and the failings and the
struggles. Try to ask the Lord to give you
a vision of one another that you're wearing a robe that's
white and it's pure and you're not looking at all the
inconsistencies or the weaknesses of one another's
lives, but you're looking at each other as God sees you
holding him without blame before him in love.
And they're waving these palms and these palms are symbols of
rejoicing and gladness and, and they and they begin to sing and
all this worship that's going on in the Kingdom of heaven, as
Rick talked about it, says they're crying with a loud voice
saying salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne into
the lamb. Salvation belongs to our God, no
one else. Only God has the authority and
the ability to save us. All the angels stood around the
throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and they
fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God,
saying Amen, blessings and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and
honor and power, and might be to our God forever and ever.
Amen. I know so little about this kind
of worship, but I long to experience it more alone with
God. We all have a ritual, I hope in
the morning, something that we do personally be before us and
our God before we leave our homes, before we leave our
families. It's there's some place in the
house that we get alone with God where only He can see us, and we
get on our faces before Him. And we worship him this way,
pouring out our hearts to Him, asking him to examine our
hearts, to search us, to know us, to see if there's anything
in us that needs to be removed and to be taken out.
And this is true worship, guys. I mean, as good as this worship
is here this morning, right? It can't come faintly close to
what this worship is like in the throne room of heaven.
I think the beautiful thing is when we enter into that place,
we're not going to have to look around and say, what are they
doing? How do you do this?
We're all going to be in unison. We're all going to be on our
face and it's just going to all come together because worthy is
the Lamb that's slain before the foundation of the earth.
We'll see him and we'll all fall on our face and worship Him.
True worship. We see here adoration and
Thanksgiving and prayer, praise. And I think just to throw this
out to you, what is our worship like?
Is it too casual? Is there ever a time in your
life or mine that it's it's OK to fall on our face before him?
I mean, if they do it here, I would think it would be OK to do
it here too, right at home. You got all these pews in a way
it's tough to get on your face when the pews are in a way, you
know, the first church had no pews when they, when they do the
historical study of the, the original church places of
gathering, of course they worshipped in homes whenever
they began to have places of assembly.
There was no such thing as pews. There was no such thing as
chairs. People stood like whenever Esau
whenever help me guys, was it Esau that was proclaiming the
word and everybody stood up Ezra, I'm sorry.
Good. Your guys are listening here.
You're paying attention. But you know, they all stood up
to hear the word of God and they stood up for hours.
They weren't like man, I'm tired.
Can't I sit down? No, they they stood up to hear
the word all day through Ezra the servant as Nehemiah was also
involved in that. And so there was there was room
to to fall on the face of of on our faces before God.
Sometimes we give people an opportunity to end to the
service, to come up and get before the Lord on their faces.
Our culture is, is too, I don't know, smooth nowadays That that
may be in most places isn't looked upon as being something
that's reasonable. Because what, what would someone
think if I did that? I'm messed up.
And I yeah, I mean, I need to. Sometimes I just want to come up
here and fall on my face because God is worthy to be on my face
before. And maybe I'm reminded that I
need to do that corporately with my brothers and sisters.
I mean, no pressure on anybody, but that's something that we, we
provide here for, for people to do.
But I think about this, this worship and I, I long to be in
this, this kind of worship one day in the throne room of
heaven. And as we worship God on this
earth in this way, God scans our hearts and he reveals our
motives. I find it very, very important
when I'm alone with God, he shows me my, my heart.
He shows me what I need to see that I can't see.
If I don't put myself in this position of a brokenness and
humility before him, if I'm too busy discharging out and running
and just doing what I think I'm going to do, I'm missing.
What God wants to say to me, and that's still quiet moment.
I'm too busy, I'm distracted. But I encourage you to to do
something in the morning or at night, whatever is best for you,
where you have that time to give God an opportunity to to speak
to you, but also a time where you can begin to worship God in
a new way and not so much, Lord, I got this problem.
I need your help. And how about I do?
But can we just say, Lord, you're worthy, worthy of you,
and we just repeat these things. Amen.
Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power
and might be to our God forever and ever, Amen.
That's a great thing to be praying, isn't it?
Make that part of your prayer. Doesn't get any better than
that. That's the word of God.
And verse 13 and one of the elders answered saying to me,
who are these arrayed in white robes and where do they come
from? And I said to him, Sir, you know
they came out of the great tribulation, this end time
period which will eventually end prior to the second coming of
Christ. Verse chapter 24 of Matthew,
verse 31. It says, For then shall be great
tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world
to this time, nor shall ever be. Therefore they are before the
throne of God in verse 15 and serve him day and night in his
temple, and he who sits in the throne will dwell among them.
That again, at this astounding picture of the throne room of
God, the privilege that these folks have to be before his
throne, serving Him day and night in his temple.
We won't need sleep in heaven. We're going to have new bodies.
We're going to have energy that we never could imagine.
And here's this Lamb of God sitting on the throne who will
be dwelling among us. They shall neither hunger
anymore. We're now we're going to eat in
heaven, guys, don't be discouraged about that.
We're going to have that great marriage supper, the lamb.
We're all going to be able to eat, you know, but you're not
going to be up there starving. When are we going to eat?
There's not going to be any more thirst.
The sun shall not strike us down, nor any heat.
For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them
and lead them to living fountains of waters.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes so that
we're going to have this safety in heaven.
And we're going to be continually immersed in the
blood of Jesus Christ that never loses its power, the fountain of
God that washes us and keeps us pure for all eternity.
There'll be no more tears. What's that going to be like?
I still cry, don't you? There's still things that affect
me. There's still things I'm
burdened over. There's still things I'm
concerned about or I don't understand.
And sometimes when you're alone and you're, you're crying out to
God, there's only one person who can comfort you.
Your friends can give you solace.
Your loved ones can put their arm around you.
But there's only one that can really touch your heart and tell
you it's going to be OK. And he's faithful to do that.
But one day when we get in his throne room, all the stuff that
we've been through in this world and this life, all the
injustices are the things we didn't understand why they
happened the way they happened. It won't matter because he's
going to wipe away the tears. And he says there'll be no more.
Later on in Revelation, there'll be no more remembrance of the
former things for the former things have all passed away.
What a day that'll be. I have a lot of celebrating to
do throughout all eternity. This has been Living Waters of
Grace with Pastor Clark. We're going through the
challenging and also intriguing Book of Revelation.
Whether you're a fan of reading ahead in books of fiction,
there's such a benefit to reading ahead in the Bible to
read about how it all ends. But in an interesting turn of
events, the Book of Revelation is not really the end, but
rather the beginning. Life as we know it here on
earth. But there's so much to look
forward to. But what comes after all?
The judgement of the earth and those who reject God?
There's a lot to work through, and it can be heartbreaking to
read through the intense judgements and wrath that will
come on those who hate God with all their might.
The thing is, God has given chance upon chance to these
people. They don't want it.
So the outcome is that there are judgments and consequences for
those who've rejected the good news and the gift of salvation
that's offered through Jesus's death and resurrection.
Are you one who has heard about these things but doesn't really
want it because you want to live life on your terms?
Trust me, living for Jesus is so much better.
That doesn't mean it will be easy, but as you listen and read
through Revelation with us, you'll come to a stark
realization that you don't want to be on earth when the
apocalypse happens. So check out Calvary Chapel
online.com to learn how to come to a saving grace through faith
that will allow you to be with Jesus for eternity.
We'd also love to meet you in person at Calvary Chapel
Westmoreland. Come join us at 400 E Pittsburgh
St. Ste. 6B in Greensburg, PA 15601.
This has been living waters of Grace.