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.
At this great White Throne judgment, there's going to be
famous people there, there's going to be rock stars there,
there's going to be people that did great things on the earth
and the world thought they were wonderful, but these people were
heathen. They never bowed their knee to
Jesus Christ. They never repented of their
sin. They never allowed the Holy
Spirit to save them because they rebelled against the Lord.
The small and the great will be standing there and the books
will be open. The Word of God is what judges
us. When I preach on Sundays, I'm
not judging you and you're not judging me.
There is no exception to who you are on the Day of Judgement.
Every person, no matter what kind of life they lived on
earth, will have to stand face to face with their Maker an
answer for their sins. It doesn't matter what kind of
glory you lived in on this earth and how wonderful the world
thought you were if you didn't glory in the Lord before
yourself. Today Pastor Clark teaches us
that the judgment behold of each other means nothing in heaven.
It's the word that holds judgment against us.
Now here's Pastor Clark in Revelation chapter 20 with
today's edition of Living Waters of Grace, Revelation chapter 20,
verse 7. Now when the 1000 years had
expired, Satan will be released from his prison.
He will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four
corners of the earth, Gog and Magog to gather them together to
battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea.
They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the
camp of the Saints in the beloved city.
And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.
The devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and they
will be tormented night, day and night, forever and ever.
Now we see in verse 7 that the thousand year reign, we know
that Satan had been locked up. We studied that the last couple
of weeks and Christ had dominion.
Christ has dominion. Even now we don't grasp that any
way the devil can do anything is through the permissive will of
God. So the Lord is ruling and
reigning. There's never been a second in
human history or the history of the universe that Christ has not
been ruling and reigning supreme.
But we are in a world right now where the devil is loosed and
he's causing a lot of problems for people and blinding people
to their need of a savior. He's causing problems for us too
as Christians, causing us to be lukewarm and indifferent and
apathetic and lazy about following of the Lord many times
causes us to be distracted and focused on things that aren't
going to last. That's part of the battle that
we go through as Christians and the warfare.
But when these thousand years have expired, there's going to
be one more shot that Satan will have after he's been locked up
in the abyss. He's going to be let out of this
prison. And you might say, well, why
does this happen? Why would God do this?
We have to realize that there's a lot of people being born
during the Millennium, people who are born just like we are
born in sin. Many of them will grow up coming
to faith in in Messiah, but there will be some that will
refuse to believe on Christ during that millennial Kingdom.
There'll be this outward form of respect that's like the law.
OK, I don't want to break the law and get in any trouble.
But down deep inside these people will be haters of God.
And so those who are alive at the end of that thousand year
reign their whole interest and they'll they'll merge together
with the devil at that time as one last shot to overthrow the
Kingdom. They won't win.
Impossible. But this will happen.
And this is what this is discussing here.
They'll go out to deceive the nations which are in the four
corners of the earth. Gog and Magog and and this
battle is a little bit different than what you read about in
Ezekiel 37 and 38. That battle was tied in more to
toward the end of the tribulation.
We call it Armageddon. But this battle of Gog and Magog
here is going to be a war that's over as soon as it starts.
The Lord is going to pour out his vengeance and his anger upon
these people who are coming against the beloved city of
Jerusalem at this time to destroy the camp of the Saints
and fire, it says in verse 9, will come down from God out of
heaven and devour them. So it's not really even a war
that's going to be over like that.
And the devil, which is exciting here now, will finally the one
who's deceived people since the beginning of time will be cast
into the lake of fire and brimstone where you might want
to underline this, the beast and the false prophet are there's no
annihilation in hell. People that go to hell are
tormented day and night, forever and ever.
And it tells you that at the end of verse 10, they will be
tormented day and night, forever and ever.
Some people think when you die, that's it.
Some people laugh. Well, I know I'm a Sinner and no
big deal because when I die, I'm going to be with my friends.
We're going to party down there and these crazy ideas of what
the afterlife is like. But there will be no parting.
There'll be no sense of togetherness.
You'll be alone by yourself and your own thoughts and your own
horror, being tormented day and night forever and ever.
And some people will say, well, God is a God of life.
Why would he create such a place called hell?
Why would there have to be such a place for people to go to?
Well, we have to keep in mind it says in Matthew 2541 that the
devil, hell was created and prepared for the devil and his
angels. God never intended one of His
creatures like us to have to go to hell.
It tells us in Peter He's not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance.
But in his justice he has to be faithful and true to His
Holiness. There will be no sin in the
Kingdom of heaven now. We're all sinners here today.
Even though many of us have been born again and we know Jesus
Christ, we still sin. We don't want to sin anymore,
but we still are in this world, in this physical body, and we do
stupid things. Now, as we grow in the Lord,
we're doing less stupid things, I would trust.
We're becoming more like Christ day in and day out, and we're
becoming more conformed to the image of His Son living as
Christ lived on the earth nonetheless.
So there is this problem that the human race has, and those
who don't know Jesus Christ are going to be cast into this lake
of fire forever and ever. Now there's two judgments.
There's a judgment seat of Christ if you turn to 2nd
Corinthians 510, and there's a great white throne judgment.
And I want to make a distinction in that this morning, because
there's sometimes some confusion about these various judgments.
The Christian, the believer, won't be at the great white
throne. Judgment.
This is a judgment for unbelievers.
The judgment that you and I have to face when we leave this life.
It's appointed on demand once to die.
And after this, the judgment. Our judgment is Second
Corinthians chapter 5, verse 10. For it says, for we must all
appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may
receive the things done in the body according to what he has
done, whether good or bad. And then the next verse it says,
knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, but
we are well known to God. And I also trust our well known
to your consciences. Now when I have to stand before
the Lord and give an account of my life, I'm going to be
fearful. I'm not going to be proud or
thinking I got it all together and, and no big deal, even
though I know that Christ has saved me.
It's going to be a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the
living God because all the sudden everything will be
revealed to me very clearly of what my motives have been on
earth, why I did the ministry, why I did whatever I did.
God will test everything as with fire to see if these things were
done for the glory of Christ or for the elevation of our own
self will our own self esteem, whatever it might be.
We can fool one another, but we can't fool the Lord and the Lord
will test these things. The Bible says that some will be
saved as though by fire. If you turn over to 1st
Corinthians chapter 3, it gives a little bit more light on this
particular judgment. First Corinthians chapter 3,
verse 5, it talks about this aspect of watering, working,
serving the Lord, warning people, and as Christians, our
job, all of us is what I'm doing is I'm sowing seed, right?
It's my job to sow the seed of the Word of God.
The Holy Spirit puts it in your hearts.
Some of us will come along after this message today, and they'll
water the message. They'll say, hey, you know, we
studied about hell and we studied about lost people and
people who need a savior. And what do you think about
that? And we'll challenge each other.
We need to be praying more. We need to be more interested in
sharing our faith. We're watering what God has
already planted. And then some of us will begin
to warn people about their eternal destiny.
And Paul is saying about these different people that serve God
and different callings. He says in verse five, who then
is Paul and who is Apollos? But ministers through whom
you've believed as the Lord gave to each one.
I planted Paul saying Apollos watered, but God gives the
increase. None of us can save anybody, but
we sure can do an awful lot of other things.
And today we're planning the word of God.
We're sowing seed and hopefully all of us will water this seed
that's been planted today, but only God can give the increase.
God's anyone that can bring life out of death.
And it says in verse 7, so then neither he who plants is
anything nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
So it's a marvelous thing to realize that I'm nothing today
and you're nothing not in a sense of being not important to
God. He loves us and values us and
and is watching us to do the things that he commands us to
do, but we can't make anything happen.
It takes the pressure off of us. I don't have to try to whip you
guys up into some kind of state of emotional frenzy to try to
get you excited about the like, I can't do that.
I could do that and you might say.
Well, you know, that was good. I'm, I'm all charged up.
I'm going to go do this for God, you know and all.
That but then you go out and about 5 minutes down the road if
this goes down because the flesh can't profit anything, only the
Spirit gives life and so again it's God.
To God be the glory for great things he has done.
It says that he who plants and he who waters are one.
We're one and the same thing. God isn't saying, because I'm
pastoring today and I'm planning the word, that I'm any more
important than the one who's going to water.
Each one will receive his own reward according to his own
labor. For we are God's fellow workers,
and you are God's field. You are God's building.
So we're all in this together, serving the Lord together
according to the grace of God which was given to me as a wise
master Builder Laid the foundation, another builds on
it. But let each one take heed how
he builds on it. For no other foundation can
anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
And in this church, the only foundation is Jesus Christ.
We're all building upon him. We're not building upon my
ministry or the guy that will take over someday when I'm no
longer here. It's Jesus Christ, we're laying
upon him and him alone. It says that if anyone builds on
this foundation with gold, silver and precious stone or
wood, hay and straw, each one's work will become clear for the
day, will declare it because it will be revealed by fire and the
fire will test each one's work of what sort it is.
So in my own mind, at times I've had this analogy of like a
conveyor belt and I'm sitting on this belt and I see this big
oven ahead of me. Now it's not going to destroy my
soul because I'm saved, right? But everything's going to be
like an MRI. God's going to be able to see
every little nuance of my thought life, my heart.
I mean, it's all clear. And I'm like trembling because
I'm thinking, what does he know that I don't know at this point
in time? And he knows everything that I
don't know, right? He knows the end from the
beginning. And so I'm going in through this
samurai, the spiritual MRI of gods.
And my prayer is that when I go through that, oh Lord, I pray
there's some value to the short life I've lived on this earth,
that somehow I know I wasted a lot of years.
I've done a lot of dumb things. But I pray I finish well so that
when I come out, there isn't this big puff of smoke and
there's nothing. He looks at me and I look at him
and it's just like, and the Bible says there'll be tears.
And I believe the tears are going to come for those of us
who suffer great loss because it's going to dawn on us.
We had this time on earth to serve him.
We wasted our life. We squandered it, we blew it.
And there's nothing to give to him for all eternity.
And then by the grace of God, if I come out of the other end and
all of a sudden I see these jewels, gold, silver, precious
stone laying around my body there, it isn't to bring any
glory to me. It's the Lord is saying, Clark,
I was able to use your life to give me glory.
And all these things that you see are representative of things
that are going to last throughout all eternity.
And the beautiful thing is I don't wear these things and I
don't put them on. And and someone says, well, he
counted for eternity, but he did none of that.
We'll take those things and we'll lay them at the Lord's
feet. What a blessing that will be
that we come out of that spiritual MRI and we have some
sense of substance for the the life we live.
It says if anyone's work in verse 14, which he had built on
it indoors, he will receive a reward.
If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself
will be saved yet so as through fire.
I pray there's none of us here that are thinking, well, the
least I'm going to be saved. That's good enough.
No, you don't want to. You don't want to live with that
kind of focus. You want to live so that there's
this fruit coming out of your life.
And so we go back to Revelation and we look at this great white
throne judgment, which is extremely sobering.
We see that in verse 11. I see this great white throne
and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the
heaven fled away and there was found no place for them at the
end of time. The elements are going to burn
this present world, the heavens and the earth, it won't exist
anymore. So there's no place to run and
hide at that time. We can't hide behind a mountain
or a tree or everybody's in the open here at this great white
throne judgment preparing for this final judgment.
Next week we'll look at the beauty of the new heaven and the
new earth that Christ will establish.
And because it says the first earth has passed away in
Revelation 21 verse one, but the small and the great, it says in
verse 12 are standing before God and the books are open.
Now today we got all these great athletes we're going to watch.
Some of them are born again. Some of them know Christ.
Some of them are going to play for the glory of God and some of
them are going to play for the glory themselves.
The saddest thing to read about is men who played in the Super
Bowl years ago. They have a ring that are
selling their ring on the streets to pay bills or to get
drugs. It's tragic that you can have
all that glory and all that fame and all that success and no one
remembers you anymore. It's it's a tragic thing.
And at this great white throne judgement, there's going to be
famous people there. There's going to be rock stars
there. There's going to be people that
did great things on the earth and the world thought they were
wonderful, but these people were heathen.
They never bowed their knee to Jesus Christ.
They never repented of their sin.
They never allow the Holy Spirit to save them because they
rebelled against the Lord. The small and the great will be
standing there and the books will be open.
The Word of God is what judges us.
When I preach on Sundays, I'm not judging you and you're not
judging me. The Word is what judges us all
and sets us all in line with what we need to consider and
repent of and be established. And these books are open, it
says. And another book was open, which
is the Book of life. And the dead were judged
according to their works by the things which were written in the
books as unbelievers. It doesn't take a whole lot of
time for God to reveal to you or me, if we're still lost, that
we're guilty before God. We know it in our hearts.
The Holy Spirit convicts us. We can blow it off and say,
well, I can get saved later. I don't want to get saved now.
I don't think I need. We can have all kind of mental
gymnastics in our minds for putting off the inevitable, but
one day the inevitable will occur.
And this is when there's no place of any appeal.
There's one judge, and he's Jesus Christ.
There is no jury. There's no defense attorney at
this judgement. There's any prosecution and
there's a verdict. You're guilty.
And whosoever is found not written in this book will be
cast into the lake of fire. That's the verdict.
And there is no appeal. You can't say, oh, wait a
minute, this isn't fair, I don't like this.
There's no ability to say anything.
Every mouth will be stopped and every tongue and every knee will
bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father.
What a horrible thing to understand that in its fullest
sense at that point in time, and then only know that you have all
eternity to suffer and be in torment and hell.
Paul says today is a day of salvation.
If you hear his voice today, repent today.
You might be here without a Savior, without Christ, and
you're hearing the Holy Spirit say something to you that you
need to be saved today. You can't leave this place
unless you let Jesus Christ save you it.
It's very, very clear for your heart knows it.
And Paul says don't put off tomorrow what you know you need
to do today. Repent and ask Christ to be your
Lord and be your Savior today. If you hear his voice, it says
in Hebrews 47, Harden not your hearts.
Wherefore in Hebrews chapter 3 verse 7, as the Holy Ghost saith
today, if you will hear his voice.
Second, Peter 39 says Christ is not willing that any should
perish, but that all shall come to repentance.
So let's look at some verses regarding hell today.
So we're all on the same page. Hell is not a fashionable
subject to preach on. Many evangelical churches are
trying to downplay the reality of hell because they don't want
people not to come to church. Hell makes people uncomfortable,
it makes unbelievers fearful, and it makes believers convicted
because we know maybe we're not sharing the gospel.
And so pastors seem to think, well, it's better that we don't
really talk about this subject a whole lot.
Let's talk about some things that are more positive, you
know, but the, the Bible is full of warnings.
And this morning we are in this text and we have to be faithful
to see what it is that the Lord wants us to all understand.
So that when we leave here today, there's not one of us
that are going to leave here not knowing that hell is literally a
real place. And we're going to read the
descriptions of what the Bible says regarding this place.
Hell. The first place I want you to go
to is Mark Chapter 9, verse 44. Look at the context.
He's talking about Jesus warning of offenses.
Whoever causes in verse 42, one of these little ones who believe
in me to stumble, be better for him if a millstone were hung
around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
It is better for you to enter into life maimed rather than
having two hands to go to hell into the fire that shall never
be quenched. Where in verse 44 their worm
does not die and the fire is not quenched.
It's an everlasting fire continually, forever and ever
and ever. I mean, I don't know about you,
but when it's really, really hot, I don't like being in real
hot temperature for a long period of time.
I want to find air conditioning. I get in the car, I want to put
the air on. I don't like sitting in the seat
when your back sticking to the seat and the sweat's rolling
down your brow. You know you're cutting the
grass and it's a real hot day and all you can think is I just
need a glass of water to quench my thirst.
In hell, there will be no water to quench your thirst.
It'll be constant torment forever and ever and ever.
I go to the Y and work out a couple times a week.
I go into the steam room and all the guys are sitting around in
there and we just sort of talked and I can't take it very long.
I mean, some of those guys, it just seemed like they can stay
in there forever. And after maybe 5 minutes, I
can't wait to get out of that place.
I couldn't imagine to be in hell, which is going to be a
million times worse than the hottest steam bath that you
could ever be in, that you don't get any relief.
That is ongoing onward forever and ever.
Now I have relatives that still don't know Jesus Christ.
We eat with them, we have holidays with them, we love
them, and they still will not come to Christ.
I need to be able to see them in that hell now so that somehow no
matter what happens, I need to keep telling them they need
Jesus not to ignore the subject because it makes them
uncomfortable. Or maybe we've covered it before
many, many times and they didn't repent.
So you just figure I'm just going to give up.
There's no sense talking to him. I don't see Jesus or the
apostles ever stopping warning people about their need of a
Savior. They never grew weary.
They never got tired of telling people they need to repent for
the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.
The next section is Luke chapter 16, verse 23.
This is the story of the rich man, the Lazarus.
I'll start in 19. There was a certain rich man who
was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously
every day. And there was a certain beggar
named Lazarus, full of swords, who was laid at his gate,
desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich
man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and
licked the swords. So it was that the beggar died
and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom.
The rich man also died and was buried, and being in torment in
Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and
Lazarus in his bosom. Now before the gospel and before
the resurrection, there's this holding place where the Old
Testament believers were. It was called the bosom of
Abraham. And the other side was the
compartment, if you may, of a prison called Haiti.
So all the unbelievers were in there, and they're still there
waiting for the final judgment. And so this rich man is able to
see this beggar, and he is in torment, it says in verse 23.
And in being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and
saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom.
And he cried, and he said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me
and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in the
water and cool my tongue, for I'm tormented in this flame.
Think about the day that you had the greatest thirst, that you
were begging for water. I had my appendix out when I was
in 9th grade. They couldn't give me water
because I had perinitis all through my body and they had
tubes running in. They almost died and I remember
making promises to God. I hear the bells at Seton Hill.
I didn't even know who God was at the time, but I heard the
bells in the conviction. I said, God, if you get me
through this, I'll follow you. All the days of my life I lie.
When I got out of that hospital, I went back to my sinful ways.
Thanks for being with us today here on Living Waters of Grace.
We are in the Book of Revelation, and we find it
fascinating how influential and involved the angels are in this
book. They bring about whatever it is
that God has instructed them to do, but it's through their
actions that much of the judgements come on the earth.
The angels are in submission to God as their authority, but He
utilizes them in unique ways throughout this book.
Like angels have a specific purpose from God, you have a
unique purpose and plan too. God wants to use you in your
life as a testimony to others and to bring others who are
currently lost into the fold of God.
God would love more than anything for all who are willing
to come to Him for salvation, but he wants it to be their
choice, not a forced situation. This is the way God works, not
forcing himself on anyone, but giving each person free will.
If you're interested in learning about this choice that's free
and that it's a gift, go to calvarychapelonline.com and
click on the About Us tab and then find the link for what we
believe. We'd love to be a help and a
resource for you as you walk through what it means to be a
follower of Jesus. If you find the contact tab on
our website, you can get in touch with us or submit a prayer
request. We'd love to hear from you.
That's all for today's edition in Revelation, but there's much
more that Pastor Clark plans to share with us from this
culminating book of the Bible. Stay tuned for that and make
sure to mention this radio program to others.
Invite them to tune into Grace FM 91.7 FM and they can stream
worldwide at Grace Radio dot FM. This has been living waters of
grace.