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.
He's revealed them to us, but many of us as Christians, we're
like sitting here, die. I really don't know what he's
talking about because I haven't really seen some things.
I haven't really heard some things I haven't really seen
poured into my heart, the things that God's prepared for me
because I love them. I maybe feel bankrupt.
I feel like I'm just going through the motions, or I feel
like my Christianity is dry, or I'm backslidden.
Or we use all this terminology because it's been a long time
since we've heard the voice of God speak clearly to us.
Can we all agree it's a lot easier to doubt someone than to
trust them? Even if they were faithful for a
long time, it's easier for us to say, you know what I doubt that
you're as good as you've been in the past.
Today, Pastor Clark says we do this all the time with God.
We forget about what he's done and only look at what he's given
us. In the short term, you must
remind yourself of the goodness of God every day.
The enemy wants you to doubt him, but you must stand firm on
the truths of Scripture. Now here's Pastor Clark in
Revelation Chapter 4 with today's edition of Living Waters
of Grace. So Paul had this awesome
encounter with God, this incredible experience.
He can't even really talk about it.
He can't communicate in words he said the things he heard were
not even translatable into human language.
But it was an amazing thing. He was never ever the same after
this. And, and to the fact that God in
his mercy gave him a university to keep him humble so that he
wouldn't think he was better or more spiritual than anybody
else. And I really believe as we see
great things from God in our lives, God is obviously very
wise and cautious with what he entrusts us with so that we
don't walk around thinking we're something we're not and using
our experience to manipulate others.
I think so many of the people that we see on TV today who
claim that they've had voices from God or experiences or
whatever, if you study what they say and line it up with the
Scriptures, you'll find that it's bankrupt.
There's no experience or any encounter that I'm talking about
today. We're trying to convey that is
independent of what the scriptures teach.
Nowadays people will say, I have an experience.
Well, if the experience isn't aligned with the Scriptures, it,
I don't care what they say their experience is, it's not
biblical. That's the problem.
Nowadays people will debate their experiences over the word
of God and, and that's why people get into heresy and
delusion. But nonetheless, these people
are singing this new song and God has also given Paul as well
as the writer of Revelation, the apostle John, this experience.
If you turn to Revelation chapter 4, now I know some of
you quite well and you've told me at times where God has
revealed himself to you in very specific ways that are very
extraordinary. And it's, it's changed your
life. It says in the throne room of
heaven in Revelation 4, John saying after these things, I
looked up and behold a door standing open in heaven.
And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet
speaking with me saying, come up here and I will show you things
which, which which must take place.
After this, immediately I was in the spirit and behold a throne
set in heaven. And once sat in in the throne,
immediately I was in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit.
This out of curiosity, has anybody ever experienced
something that is not normal in the sense of what we would
consider normal in regard to your relationship with the Holy
Spirit? Raise your hand, there's quite a
few people in here who have encountered God and a very deep
way. Now that doesn't mean you're any
more spiritual any better that this means maybe you were more
hungry or more yielded or God's sovereign hand chose to reveal
or manifest something to you. Recently I was praying with a
brother and we were in a church and we were praying and we're
talking about a lot of things and I was praying and then all
of a sudden he was praying and he, he began to have some
ecstatic encounter with, with God that I, I couldn't
understand or comprehend. At first I thought he was maybe
going crazy, but he wasn't. God was just like blowing his
mind and revealing to him the Kingdom of God and its depth and
all those cloud of witnesses are with the Lord that we're
surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.
You know, in Hebrews it says, let us run with patience.
Erase it is set before us. And he said, Clark, he says, I
never experienced in my prayer life anything like I've just
experienced. Now, he couldn't really explain.
All I knew is that God met him in a very deep and profound way.
And I am encouraged to know that God desires to do that in our
lives at different times. I can't make that happen.
I can't set up that situation. But if I'm hungering and I'm
thirsting for God, he will reveal himself because God works
in the midst of what we would claim or call a supernatural,
which I don't even like using that word, but it's
extraordinary. It's outside the realm of
natural thought, right? If you turn to Acts chapter 2,
now, we're living in the last days.
And these things are occurring even now as we speak throughout
the world in different ways, in different dimensions.
Peters sermon, he's standing up preaching Christ.
And after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he says these are
not drunk as you suppose in verse 15.
It's only the third hour of the day.
But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel.
It shall come to pass. And the last day says God, that
I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, your sons and your
daughters shall prophecy. Now a lot of day, a lot of
things today people are claiming they're prophesying.
What does it mean to prophecy? Well, the clear rendering of
that gift is someone who's has the capability of edifying,
building up people, exhorting people, warning people and
comforting people. Paul says I desire that you all
prophecy but the day we've gotten out of that biblical
mandate of what true prophecy is and someone will say up thus
sayeth the Lord of hosts Bah Bah this Bah Bah, and they're just
like spewing their own thoughts and their own mind saying that
the Lord said this and it's it's very dangerous.
Jeremiah says these people in the last days will claim to be
prophets speaking for me, and God says I did not speak to
them. They're not speaking my word,
they're not speaking my truth. But nonetheless, there will be
this movement of God's Spirit in such a way that people will have
insights to be able to say things to you and to me without
them even realizing that they're prophesying.
You know, sometimes when someone sits down with me and shares
their heart and talks about something, maybe it's a
situation in the church or situation in their life or
something, and I hear their voice and what they're saying.
I know that what they're saying is coming from God.
I just have a witness in my heart and I don't say, man, you
know, you're prophesying. That's not necessary.
I like what Chuck always says be supernatural naturally, you
don't have to hype it up and and act like all spooky and weird
whenever God's moving. And and I think that the beauty
of God moving many times is he moves through one of us or some
of us, we're not even aware that he's moving right, because if we
were, we would think that we had something to do with it.
But God moves independent of our own psyche.
He speaks through all of your lives to me in different ways as
I trusted. He speaks through my life to
you. And then it says your young men
shall see visions. Now, I'm not going to ask for a
raise a hand because all of a sudden a young man raised his
hand here today and said he saw a vision.
We think he's all nuts, wouldn't we?
That's just the way people are wired nowadays.
They're like real paranoid man. You saw a vision.
You need to see a psychiatrist, you know.
But it says your young man will see visions.
What kind of vision? Maybe it's a vision of an
unreached people group in some part of the world that never has
heard the gospel yet, and you have the capacity by God's
working that you know these people need the gospel and
you're being sent and called to go.
Maybe it's a vision for a church plant.
Maybe it's a vision for a different type of ministry.
There's all kinds of things that God does in our hearts if we're
open. It says your old men shall dream
dreams. Now I'm an older man.
Now I don't consider myself an old man, but I am an older man.
I have a lot of dreams and I don't understand the dreams lots
of times. Sometimes I think it's
indigestion, something I ate the day before.
Some dreams I wish I never had right?
I say I am glad I that wasn't real because if it was I'd be in
big trouble. But dreams many times God uses
to warn, right? I remember when I first became a
Christian, I had this dream about this this person by the
name of Enoch. And I, I didn't know the Bible
too well at the time. And so I wonder, is there
anybody in the Bible by the name of Enoch, you know, or Ezra?
I had a dream about him one time.
I didn't even know these names existed.
I was so excited when I found the names in the Bible.
I thought for sure God was going to reveal his total plan for my
life now. But I read it and I was more
confused than I ever was. And why would you want me to
know this, You know, But it says that these things will come to
pass. He says on my maidservants and
on my maidservants, the men, servants and maidservants, I
will pour out my spirit in those days.
They shall prophecy. I will show wonders in heaven
above and signs in the earth beneath.
We're moving into the time of the tribulation.
As He begins to manifest the blood and fire and vapor and
smoke. The sun shall be turned to
darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great
and awesome day of the Lord, and it shall come to pass it.
Whosoever calls in the name of the Lord shall be saved.
A tremendous realization again of the working of God's Holy
Spirit. So my question today in regard
to the 144,000 experiencing this worship on Mount Zion with the
Lamb, the Lord Jesus. How alert are we today to the
witness of the Holy Spirit dwelling in US?
How really alert are we to that? All the media is taking us away
from concentrating on God's voice to my own heart.
Television, Internet, radio, satellite radio, newspapers,
magazines, periodicals, all this chatter is drowning out the
voice of God in all of our hearts.
I mean, I get excited sometimes when I come in contact with
someone that begins to share with me what God's revealing and
showing them through their study of scriptures and, and not only
that, but how he's setting out a course of action and a plan for
their life that is undeniable. And in time, I see the
realization of that come to pass down to the years in, in, in
certain people's lives. But I wonder how alert or how
hungry are we to the witness of the Holy Spirit dwelling in US?
You know, the Holy Spirit dwells in US.
You guys know that Like where, where's the Holy Spirit?
He's in US, but how much do we know him?
I mean, I've been married 39 years now, and there's things
about my wife that I'm still discovering that I don't know.
There's certain aspects of her character that God begins to
show me what a special woman she is and how I can take her so for
granted so easily. And, you know, and here's God,
the Spirit in me that I don't really know to the degree that I
know He wants me to know him. Are we just become too
comfortable in the natural realm.
I like life just to be the way it is.
Don't shake me up, God, about anything.
Don't show me anything. Don't reveal anything to me
because I sort of just like trailing with you, 1,000,000
miles behind you. Safer that way.
I don't get caught up in the responsibilities or callings or
humility, whatever it might be. We're just so used to what's
natural, right? What naturally occurs naturally.
I'm not expecting or anticipating the movement of
God, the manifestation of His glory, His Holiness, his
awesomeness. That's my prayer for this church
and your prayer. I'm sure that when we come and
gather, we want God's glory to be manifest here.
We want His Holiness to be so compelling that it causes us to
be broken and to say, Lord, forgive me my hardness, forgive
me of my anger, forgive me of my unforgiveness, my bitterness, my
backbiting, but I'm like over it.
With Christians having attitudes toward one another, there's no
excuse for it. There's no absolutely no excuse,
is there? It says we're to be kind, tender
hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake
hath forgiven us. And it's far by me how
Christians can just turn each other off or blow each other off
or or say mean things about each other, evil things or or wish
evil things upon one another, instead of loving and being
merciful and being forgiving as God has forgiven us and his
awesomeness. That's my prayer when we worship
God, that we got talented musicians, we got great voices,
we got good instruments, but it's all for naughty if we're
not caught up in how awesome God is.
We need to leave church knowing that we met with a holy,
awesome, merciful God and that we leave with strength and vigor
to face whatever it is we're going to encounter this week.
None of us know what's on the horizon.
If you flip over to 1st Corinthians chapter 2, as we
wind down, there's different groups of people that Paul
addresses when he's preaching and he talks about the the
categories of where people's hearts are, where their minds
are. The First Corinthians chapter 2
verse six, he says we speak wisdom among those who are
mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of
this age who are coming to nothing.
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom
which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none
of the rulers of this age knew, For had they known, they would
have not crucified the Lord of glory.
But as it is written, I hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have
entered into the heart of man the things which God has
prepared for those who love him. What a statement natural eye has
not seen, nor has natural ear heard, nor has entered into the
heart of man the things which God's prepared for those who
love him. But this is the mind blower.
It says in verse 10, but God has revealed them to us through his
spirit. Now the tragedy is he's given us
this inheritance and he says he's revealed them to us with
many of us as Christians. We're like sitting here, da, I
really don't know what he's talking about because I haven't
really seen some things. I haven't really heard some
things I haven't really seen poured into my heart.
The things that God's prepared for me because I love him.
I maybe feel bankrupt. I feel like I'm just going
through the motions, or I feel like my Christianity is dry or
I'm backslidden, or we use all this terminology because it's
been a long time since we've heard the voice of God speak
clearly to us. But it says God's revealed them
to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all
things, yes, the deep things of God.
For what man knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the
man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things
of God except the Spirit of God. So in order for you and me to
really know God, it has to be God's Spirit in us that reveals
God to us. I can study the Bible till I'm
blue in the face. I can memorize it.
I know people that know the Bible inside and out, but
they're bankrupt in in regard to the person of the Holy Spirit.
Some people believe that the Holy Spirit doesn't work like he
used to work. I don't know who comes up with
that. You have to take your black
marker and cross out First Corinthians 12 and 14 and and
just act like it doesn't exist anymore.
There's no evidence for the fact that the Holy Spirit is still
not moving and working within his church.
And thank God that the Spirit is working now.
It says we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the
Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have
been freely given to us by God. You know, our conversations with
each other need to be, hey, let me tell you about this cool new
thing that God revealed to me that He's freely given to me by
His Spirit that I never knew I had before, that God showed me
something and gave something to me that's freely given to me by
God. It says these things we speak
not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the
Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
Now this is the problem in verse 14.
The natural man doesn't receive the things of the Spirit of God.
So today we have people here who are natural, and usually in the
context of what this is written, this is people who are still
outside of Christ. But I believe that even as
Christians we can become so naturally compelled that we
don't receive the things of God's Spirit.
We're quenching the Spirit, we're grieving the Spirit.
They're foolishness to Him, nor can he know them because they're
spiritually discerned. But he is spiritual, judges all
things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one.
For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he might instruct
him. But we have the mind of Christ.
If you flip over to 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, verse 16
through 18, therefore we did not lose heart.
Now how many in here are going through a time that you're
losing some heart? Raise your hand.
I lose heart sometimes, guys, I really do, and I'm a pastor.
I'm called to do what I do. And at this, because I'm called
to do it does not mean that I don't have the same struggles
that everybody else has or the fears.
Sometimes I get really, really discouraged.
But Paul says, therefore we do not lose heart, even though our
outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is renewed day by
day. You know, the Holy Spirit in US
wants to excite us with God, his joy, his presence being renewed,
getting stronger spiritually, even though physically or
emotionally or psychologically we're becoming beaten up because
of life. It says for our light
affliction, which is, but for a movement is working for us a far
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
So whatever you're going through right now, the Bible says it's a
light affliction. You might say, well, Paul
doesn't know about mine. Mine's a heavy in spite of what
we think. It's temporal and it's going to
pass through. You know, I remember when I had
babies in my house and I'd be stressed.
I'd be thinking like, how in the world am I going to raise these
kids? I'm a kid myself.
How am I going to pay for them? How am I going to do this?
How am I worried about all this stuff?
Right now my daughters are growing up in the two wonderful
women of God. They love their children.
They love their husbands. I had nothing really to do with
that. God took care of it.
He worked in spite of me. But He's gracious and He's
merciful and he, He accomplishes His will from eternity past.
But all the things that I worried about were stupid,
because none of the things I really worried about came to
pass. And today I got a different set
of worries. I'm worried about will Social
Security still be around? I worry about will I have
health? I worry about will my job still
be there next week? I mean, you know, typical stuff.
And chances are those years will come and go and I'll sit back
and God will speak to me with his gentle voice and say, you
know, those things you were worried about five years ago,
Clark, it's a waste of energy, wasn't it?
Because you weren't expecting or trusting me to work at the time
you were trying to figure it out.
It says while we do not look at the things which you're seeing
and the things which you're seeing, guys are natural,
they're temporary, they're passing, right?
It says we're not the ones that are looking at what's seen, but
at the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things
which are not seen are eternal. We need God to give us a vision
in our ministries, in our church and our families of what's
eternal, never taking your experiences, your encounters
outside the boundaries of God's word.
If you do, you'll fall into delusion and heresy.
The God in the Book of Revelation is unveiling things
that are too great for us to at times even fathom.
But as God unveils, and that's what the word revelation means,
the unveiling, the uncovering is to give you me discernment.
And I and I can't help today but to tell you that as I was
thinking about those 144,000 witnesses singing on the earth
on top of Mount Sinai, but somehow being ushered into the
presence in the throne room of God, that whet my appetite for
deeper encounters with God myself.
And I don't know where that leaves you.
It might just like who cares, but I trust that you will press
in to want to experience and encounter the Lord in deeper
ways. Jeremiah 33 Three the promised
call to me, and I will answer you and show you great and
mighty things which you do not know.
You want the Lord to show you great and mighty things which
you don't know. Anybody up for that?
Do you want Him to show you maybe what it is you've been
praying about for a long time, it hasn't come to pass yet.
Because maybe you're praying, not believing, not trusting, not
hoping. But allow God to give you a word
Himself for your own life, that what seems impossible today will
be transformed by the working of His Holy Spirit.
The job you're hoping for, or the person you want to meet, or
the situation with a family member that you think's
impossible or a Co worker, call upon him.
He'll answer you and show you great and mighty things which
you do not know. In our praise and worship the
Holy Spirit can transport us before the very throne of God,
if my sin can get me into the presence of God, Having
therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place, by
the blood of Jesus, God accepts me with me, carrying my weight
of sin before Him, to find mercy and grace and forgiveness.
How much more praising him. Psalm 22.
Three says, But you are holy, O you who are seated among the
praises of Israel His people. Another version, King James
Version says, but thou art holy, O thou that inhabiteth the
praises of Israel, the nation, the people, the remnant, the
elect God inhabits that in some way that is beyond our ability
to comprehend. Charles Spurgeon says as I close
to be wrapped or be rapture in the praise to God is the highest
state of the soul To receive the mercy for which we praise God
for is something, but to be holy clothed with praise to God for
mercy received is far more Why praise is heaven and heaven is
praise. To pray is heaven.
To pray is heaven below, but praise is the essence of heaven
above. When you bow in adoration, you
are at the very highest. 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 that it can feel a bit harrowing
for those who don't believe. Come hear more next time on
Living Waters of Grace.