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 either by faith repent and turn from our sins to Christ.
We pay for our sins on the cross and be forgiven and enjoy Him in
heaven forever, or we just stay in our unbelief and we follow
Satan, preparing to follow the Antichrist and worship Him.
And we perish in our sin, and we're tormented for all
eternity. All eternity.
You just don't die and that's it.
Last time I checked, the statistics of those who will die
are still 100%. So what does that mean?
Death. Do we simply cease to exist?
Do we all go into an afterlife of bliss?
Do we get a second chance at life in this world in another
form? Well, Pastor Clark makes it very
clear in today's message that when you die, you will either
spend eternity in heaven or hell.
The choice is yours. The way to spend eternity with
God in heaven only comes through personal faith and trust in
Jesus Christ. Now here's Pastor Clark in the
Book of First John, Chapter 5 with today's edition of Living
Waters of Grace. It's through the power of God's
Spirit. And if God's Spirit lives in us,
He's the one that enables us to live the Christian life.
Amen. It's God's Spirit, and that's
good news because you can't fake it.
And if you've been faking it, get the pressure off yourself
and just finally say, God, I can't do this.
I need you to be my savior. I need your Holy Spirit to live
in me to enable me to keep these commandments that I continually
have a tendency to break. For this in verse three of first
John 5 is a love of God that we keep His commandments and His
commandments are not burdensome. They're what enables us to
overcome sin. They live in victory as
Christians. They have an overcoming life.
It's the work of God's Spirit in us.
So you look at the commandments of God.
There might have been a time that you looked at in this way.
I know I did, man. There's 10 commandments.
That's just part of it, you know, and, and I, I break them
all, you know, and I, what am I going to do?
These are impossible. Did you ever look at those
things and be honest with yourself and say these are
impossible to follow? Even on your best day, you're
not going to get 10 out of 10. You're going to break some of
them. Even you and me as Christians,
we break them. We break his commandments every
day. If we don't have him above every
other God, we're committing idolatry.
And how often do we allow the things of this world to get in
the way of our relationship with God and we've become idolaters.
We have to be serious and say, Lord, work on my heart by the
power of your spirit that I will not sin against you.
You're worried if I hid in my heart that I will not sin
against you. And it's awesome when the Holy
Spirit works in our lives because we find ourselves like
sort of floating in the sense of that we're overcoming things
that in the past we never were able to overcome before.
And you might have a life besetting sin.
I know Christians that still struggle with life besetting
sins. The book of Hebrews say, says we
all have them a sin that so easily besets us.
But that doesn't mean just because it's a weakness that God
isn't able to cause us to overcome that sin if we follow
Him and obey his word. And so we ask for his mercy and
his help. And God is the one who's able,
as it says in Jude, to keep us from falling and present us
faultless before his glory with exceeding joy.
It tells us in verse 15 of Revelation 16 that Jesus is
going to come as a thief. A sudden surprising event.
It's unexpected. It's an unannounced appearance.
Many years ago when Cindy and I were first married, we didn't
have two cents to rub together, but we had paychecks and Spencer
gifts that that week. And so we were so tired and we
worked so hard. We were in this like motel room
in the winter. They run out and you know,
you're right on the beach. And and so we, we loved it and
we that's all we had. We, they had, it was furnished
and all we have is like a couple duffel bags with some clothes in
and we had money that week to actually buy some groceries, you
know, so we go to bed and we're tired.
Had one of those Polaroid instant cameras.
Remember those old cameras? You take the picture, you put
the film in and then you peel it back and then and the picture
comes alive. And you know, it was like, wow,
this is, I think it was one of the first things we got after we
got married. But, but anyway, we're asleep
and we're tired And for some reason that night, I, I, I don't
remember putting the chain on the door.
It was weird. I just turned the lock on the
door. So we're sound asleep all of the
sudden in the room, I felt God woke me up, the Holy Spirit woke
me up and I felt this darkness in the room and, and I and I
opened my eyes and I sat up and I saw this guy Crouch down the
bottom of my bed. It freaked me out.
I mean, just having someone in your room that you weren't
expecting to be there, an unannounced guest and someone
who's visiting, you know, and you weren't inviting them.
And our hearts are pounding and all I know is that I started
getting up. I yelled something.
I just started getting up. Guy could have had a knife and
killed me and raped my wife or whatever, and it could have been
horrible. But by the grace of God, that
guy took off and I went outside to see where which way he went
and he was completely gone. And I'll tell you, that night
was so difficult to go back to sleep because every time we fell
back to sleep, we'd wake up, we'd be stirred thinking he's
here again, he's here again, he's in the room, he's here.
And that's sort of how we have to think about the presence of
God. He's here, He's here again, He's
in this room, He's with us, He's watching us, He sees us.
We have time, guys, to deal with our hearts.
We have time to have our lives change.
We have time to forsake sin. He's going to come as a thief in
the night. Sudden, surprising, unexpected.
And so this is endorsement by God's word that you would keep
your heart clean, that you would keep your garments clean through
holiness and repentance. You would be living for God and
not living for sin. And when he comes back, we
wouldn't be ashamed at what he might find us living for, right?
That he would come back and we could smile and say, man, I'm
glad you came today because the day's a good day with you, Lord,
I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.
I'm in the place that I'm supposed to be.
I'm I had a good devotional day and I had a, a day of maybe I
shared my faith or I honored my boss or I love my wife or I love
my kids the way the Bible teaches me, or I'm, I'm seeking
the things which are above and not the things which are below.
And, and, and how awesome will it be when the Lord comes for us
in the rapture and for those he comes forth the second coming
that have gotten saved in that tribulation period, that he, he
finds us doing the things that he told us to do versus finding
us doing things that we shouldn't be doing.
I mean, if we're saved by God's grace, we're still going to be
saved. But I want to be ready, don't
you, that He, the Master, finds me doing as a Scripture, say
what he told me to do. And so just as the first coming
of Christ involved many phases over a 33 year period of
Christ's life, from the Annunciation to the Ascension of
Christ, the second coming of Christ encompasses phases that
take place before, during, and beyond the seven-year
tribulation. We covered phase one several
times in the Book of Revelation and Thessalonians where Christ
comes from the church at the rapture.
First Thessalonians, chapter 4, verse 13 and 18.
You can review that and look at that again later.
Phase two of this movement of God in these last days was when
when Christ comes to judge the rebellious nations remaining on
the earth during the Tribulation.
And he does that through the seal judgment, through the
trumpet judgments and the and the bold plagues from Revelation
chapter 6 through Revelation chapter 18.
Phase 3 is when Christ comes to destroy the Antichrist and his
massive armies at Armageddon. And we'll get into that
Revelation chapter 1911 in phase 4.
The final phase is when Christ comes and establishes on earth
the prophesized millennial Kingdom of God.
And we read about in Matthew 25 and Daniel chapter 2.
So we see in verse 15 for all of those who are awaiting this
event, whether those of us right now who are waiting for the
rapture of the church or those who are living in the time of
the tribulation to become Christians that will go through
this battle of Armageddon at the end of the tribulation.
Verse 16 through 18. And they gathered them together
to the place called in Hebrew Armageddon.
And the 7th Angel poured out his bowl into the air and a loud
voice came out of the temple of heaven from the throne saying it
is done. And here we have described
what's spoken about in the book of Joel chapter 3.
The armies of the antichrists are ascending down to Armageddon
and in the valley plain of Jordan and that this huge piece
of real estate approximately 10 by 40 miles from northwest to
southeast, the gateway to Jerusalem.
This is where this battle will occur.
And we know from Revelation chapter 14, verse 19, it talks
about the great winepress of the wrath of God.
This is where this is going to happen.
This would be the most cataclysmic battle in human
history on the face of the earth 17 to 21.
It speaks now about the 7th Angel pouring out this final
bowl into the air and a loud voice came out of the temple of
Heaven from the throne room saying it is done.
So this is the last major horrendous judgement that's
coming out from the the throne of God prior to this great
battle of Armageddon. He says it is done just like
Jesus said it is finished when he's on the cross.
No more wrath of God to be poured out on those who come to
Christ. The wrath of God is only to be
poured out on those who reject Jesus Christ.
And we see here the 7th bowl is concluding with these
cataclysmic events here. It speaks about this in verse
18. Noises and thunderings and
lightnings and great earthquakes.
Such a mighty and great earthquake has had not occurred
since men were on the face of the earth.
Now the great city was divided into 3 parts, and the cities of
the nation fell, and great Babylon was remembered before
God to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His
wrath. Again speaking about this this
judgement of God's wine press. Every island fled away, and the
mountains were not found, and great hail from heaven fell upon
men. Each hailstone about the weight
of a talent, approximately 90 lbs.
Men blasphemy God because of the plague of the hail, since the
plague was exceeding great. And so we see this gigantic
hail, worldwide earthquakes, destruction of the Antichrist,
his reign and his role. These lightnings and thunders
that are spoken about in verse 18 remind us of what we read
about in Exodus chapter 19 as Moses began to come down off the
mountain and it says the people trembled because of the sound of
their Thunder and the brightness of the lightning.
People were aware this was not a normal weather pattern.
This was the holiness of God shaking the foundations of the
earth. And this great earthquakes.
All these great scientists in the face of the earth, they're
bright, they're brilliant, they study, they know certain things.
Unfortunately, many of them aren't understanding the signs
of the times of the seasons. They don't believe that the
Bible is real and they don't believe that Jesus Christ is
God. And, and they got a lot of a lot
of problems, but nonetheless, this is one thing that many of
them agree on. There's this geologic fault line
and it's amazing how far this thing extends.
It extends through Palestine, Jordan Valley, down into Africa
and through the California coast.
I pity people who are moving to California.
I'm glad for people who are moving away from California.
I'm just kid Randy's here going to California.
Gary and Cather are moving from California.
You need to talk to us brother about the prophecies that are
coming up. But Calvary Chapel is all
through Southern California and we'll be we'll be take we'll be
taken out before these things are occurring.
Praise God. But the move of God that will
give way of what sinners have believed supported them all the
all the people on their face of the earth right now.
They they ignore God for the most part.
They walk around the world like it's their own.
They don't understand or acknowledge a creator.
They could care less even if there was 1.
They're not going to pay attention to them or listen to
them. And they're standing on this
ground saying this is stable. This I got control.
I have, I have energy, I have wealth, I have materialism, I
have great gain. I'm the master of my domain.
I'm the king of my household and nothing's going to change that.
I'm in charge when this earthquake begins to occur, the
massive earthquake like the world has never known.
And I haven't ever been through an earthquake.
But people that have been, they tell you it's like a horror,
that you don't want to go through it.
It's extremely frightening. Your whole world begins to fall
out from under you, literally. Those who ignore this at this
time will be the ones that will realize that they laughed at us
because we have a crutch. They call our faith in Jesus
Christ. You guys need it because you're
weak. You need a crutch.
They're going to wish they could find a crutch during that time
of the earthquake because there'll be nothing that will be
able to hold them up but the mercy of God.
And it seems that the majority of people will Still, as we read
last week at the end of verse 11, they did not repent of their
deeds. So this great city's divided, it
says into three parts, Babylon. Some people think Babylon's an
ancient Rome, the revived Roman Empire.
Some people think it's Baghdad. You know, it doesn't really
matter where it is or what it is.
It is a literal place and it'll be revealed in the in the last
days. But it it it's also symbolic of
the corrupt world system led by the Antichrist.
And this earthquake is going to split this city in three parts.
And we'll get into that in more detail next week in chapter 17
and 18. In verse 20, it talks about
these islands and mountains that are affected by this earthquake.
Some people think that this will occur when Jesus comes back and
lands literally on earth and his feet touch the Mount of Olives
and this the holiness of God touching this wicked world.
That's when everything will begin to just break apart and
his Messiah's triumphant millennial reign.
It will eventually be set up as we read in Psalm chapter 2, the
weight of this stone, these hailstones coming out of heaven
that says uses this word talent, which is parallel to the weight
measure 95 lbs. So you can imagine something 95
lbs coming down out of the heavens.
The damage and the death it'll cause will be incalculable.
I, I don't want to be there and I won't be there.
And I pray if you're here today and you're still on the fence
about your need of a Savior and salvation, you don't stick
around for this. I really believe that these
things are sooner than later just because of what's going on
in the world. I mean, there's never, you know,
people talk about the stars being lined up when when Christ
comes back, it seems like everything is just falling into
place and the prophecies. It says in the last days people
will be lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God.
It's apparent everywhere. People will go to churches to
have their ears tickled. You know, they want to have
things that will tell them how the wonderful they are, make
them feel good and know what they would perceive as
negativity or, and no down or a message.
You know, just make, tell me how great I am and, and make me feel
good and comfortable in my sin and what I want to do.
And then don't bother me. Don't don't say anything that
would cause me to be convicted or something.
But God, God, you know, he's so patient and so merciful.
It's a wonder he hasn't done this already to everybody.
But in his mercy he has a body, a bride, a group of people, the
elect that he loves and he cherishes.
And and he's come to this world that has not received him and
rejected him. And he came to his own and his
own received him not. And yet he comes with love to
save the world from their sin. And very few people and the
populace from the beginning of time to the end of time come to
him. It's, it's a mystery.
And so these people, when all this is happening, Can you
imagine this weight of these hailstones coming down?
There's no place to go, no place to run, no place to hide.
And they're still cursing God, They're blaspheming him.
And as these results, these, these prophecies and these
events about this Antichrist coming to pass, it's if you
think about the the rocks coming down upon the earth, think about
the Rocky Mountains. Some of you guys are on a
hunting trip recently out that way.
And they're huge. I mean, if you fly from here
over to the West Coast, it just seems like forever you're flying
over the Rockies. I mean, it's, it's a fascinating
part of God's creation to see the Rocky Mountains completely
decimated and flattened during this time.
You see Mount Everest, as big as it is, completely flattened by
the anger and the wrath of God, The buildings in the world, the
the largest building, completely crumbling like they're toys.
And as I was studying this, I couldn't help to think about the
World Trade Tower. We all saw that on TV.
It was almost like something out of a sci-fi movie, wasn't it?
And they were just planes with some, you know, gasoline that
exploded in their bombs, whatever.
And look what it did. It's nothing compared to the
hand of God. When you looked at those towers
and the flames, people were saying, yeah, I wonder how to
put that fire on, you know, eventually to go out or
whatever. I mean, I, in my wildest dreams
didn't believe. I literally see those things
crumble. Did you?
I was in shock when I saw that. My mouth was wide open.
You didn't know how to describe what you were seeing.
It just crumbled, like it didn't exists, like it had no support
and it went completely to the ground.
Both those towers. I think about all these church
buildings in the world and so many of them now are apostate.
So many of them don't preach the gospel anymore.
The great churches that were built in Europe during the time
of the Reformation are now empty.
Very few people go to the churches.
The real estate, though, the churches from all around the
world right now is approximately $120 billion, are tied up in
buildings and real estate for churches.
It's all going to be wiped out. So there's one of two choices
for us in the midst of all this. There's only two choices.
We either by faith repent and turn from our sins to Christ who
paid for our sins on the cross. And be forgiven and enjoy him in
heaven forever. Or we just stay in our unbelief.
And we follow Satan, preparing to follow the Antichrist and
worship him. And we perish in our sin and
we're tormented for all eternity, all eternity.
You just don't die and that's it.
And go to sleep in a grave and there's nothing else.
You live forever. You'll leave this body and the
Christian gets a new body one day and they'll live in heaven
forever and joy and bliss and beauty and perfection with the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit and all those who have gone before
us who love the Lord and are his.
And it's going to be amazing. So amazing that the Bible says 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.
On your bad, on your worst day, guys and gals, when you're
really struggling and you think life is just a drag and you're
upset at everything and you're discouraged and nothing's going
right, and you wonder sometimes where the Lord is in the midst
of what you're going through. Be encouraged.
This is nothing. The best is yet to come.
I hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of
man the things that God hath prepared for those who love Him.
And so today I love him, and I know many of you love him.
So that's an exciting thing to anticipate, isn't it?
The things that He's prepared for us.
We can't even begin to imagine how great it is, but it's
waiting for us. And then if you're here today
and you don't have the Lord in your life and you're following
sin and you're living in sin and you're dying in your own sin,
what you have to look forward to is nothing but torment and all
eternity forever. It says with a worm dieth not
where the fire isn't quenched, where the fires of hell burn and
torment you and they don't burn you up.
You're just the heat is so intense.
Some people say it's the heat of God's holiness.
It's continually in your face throughout all eternity.
And you know you made the wrong decision and you have to face
the brightness of that light and the glory of His Majesty.
And it's just galling you. It's, it's infuriating you.
And there's nothing you can do to change it or get away from
it. All you know your whole life is
that you hate God and you'll live with that hatred throughout
all eternity, being miserable and tormented and tortured.
And you'll be by yourself. You won't be with your friends
and your buddies like some people say, Oh, hell would be
great. I'll be down there with my
drinking buddies. No, Hell is a separate place for
every individual that's there. They have no communication with
any other living creature except their own torment inside,
forever and ever and ever. So I would think that it would
make sense, but it isn't common sense.
It brings us to Christ. It's the work of God's Spirit
that brings us to Christ. Jesus says that no man can come
to me except the Father draw him.
But I believe in any time the gospel goes out and when it's
preached that the Holy Spirit is convicting people and drawing
them to himself, he's speaking in the quietness of your heart,
saying today is a day of salvation.
You know, the day you need a Savior.
You don't want to face this stuff.
This stuff's real. It's true.
It's going to happen just like Christ's first coming, his
birth, his life, his crucifixion, his resurrection,
his ascension occurred. His second coming is going to
occur. And if you wait, it could be too
late. So I just as Paul said, I
beseech you, I exhort you, today is the day of salvation.
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.