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.
He's come that we might have life and that we might have it
more abundantly. We get a taste of the abundant
life. We don't want the life that the
devil has to offer us. But I think too much in the
churches in these last days, we have compromised as a community
of believers and we got our foot in the heat of God and we got
our feet in the death of the devil.
And we don't have the capacity to experience life to the degree
that Christ has come to give it to us.
Jesus has come to give us life in abundance, a life that
without him we could never have. The eternal life that the Bible
promises believers doesn't have to start for us in heaven.
We can have eternal life right now, here on earth today.
Pastor Clark teaches us that many Christians can't experience
life in the capacity Jesus offers because we've made too
many compromises with the flesh. Being lukewarm Christians leaves
the door open to the enemy, pushing us farther away from
Jesus. Now here's Pastor Clark in
Revelation Chapter 20 with today's edition of Living Waters
of Grace. Our defense is only the armor of
God, and the only way we can stand against the Wiles of the
devil is with the armor of God. Verse 11 of Ephesians 6 says put
on the whole armour of God that you may be able to stand against
the Wiles of the devil. This is a definition of Wiles.
It's a trick. This is a noun, the trick, a
strategy meant to fold, to trap, to entice.
Art. 4 begaling behavior. The verb is to deceive, to
entice, to lure away from, into distracting you from the person
of Christ. How many of us are facing
distractions every day to move you away from being focused on
Jesus Christ? Every one of us.
It's a maneuver, a military strategy to trap us, to destroy
us, to ruin our lives. What the devil does?
He exaggerates the pleasures of sin while minimizing the true
nature and outcome of sin, right?
He makes sin look so alluring, so great, so attractive, but he
never tells us about the horror and the outcome of the
consequences of our sin. The devil sees an opening in our
lives through our emotions and moods.
The husband's upset, he's bummed out, he's complaining, he's, you
know this at his wit's end with everything and all of us guys,
we've been there and maybe are today.
And the devil sees the mood. He sees the emotions.
This is an opportunity for me to really 'cause some havoc here.
See, the devil can't read our hearts.
Only God knows our hearts. But the devil can see the
outcome of our attitudes, our actions.
He's able to distinguish our intentions as we move in our
attitudes. He uses other people to lead us
astray. That's why the Bible says have
no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,
but rather reprove them. Light and darkness can't walk
together. The Bible says don't, don't be
unequally yoked. So if you're with an unbeliever
and you're a believer, that unbeliever is going to lead you
astray. The master marketing agent in
the world today is the devil. He packages sin and need
attractive bundles. He makes things look so good and
so exciting. It tells us in Second
Corinthians chapter 2, verse 11, lest Satan should get an
advantage of us. For we are not ignorant of his
devices, his devices, his plots, his schemes, or his clever ways.
Are you ignorant of Satan's devices?
Raise your hand. We all are, we all are ignorant
of his devices. That's why we need the word to
show us what the deal is. If you're not in the word,
you're going to be trapped. You're going to be deceived,
you're going to be taken out and, and you got to ask yourself
today, how much time am I in the word?
How much am I hungering for the word?
How much am I thirsting for righteousness?
How much of my time in my daily life, Monday through Sunday, am
I before the Word saying God give me wisdom, give me light so
I don't get deceived by the darkness of the the enemy.
Help me to understand so that I can protect my wife and my
children. Help me to understand so I can
help my brothers and sisters not fall victim to the consequences
of the lives of the devil. We're told to have on this armor
of God in Ephesians 6, and many of you are familiar with it.
We had to memorize that in Bible college years ago, that whole
book of Ephesians, and I memorize it, but I didn't have
the foggiest idea what it was talking about.
That's why, you know, understanding the Bible is just
part of it. The Bible says we're to do the
word or we deceive ourselves. But when he tells us to have
this armor on him, just to break it out in terms that might make
more sense, we're supposed to have this belt that's girded
about the belt of truth, and that means that our life is to
be surrounded by the truth. That's why it's important to be
in church on Sundays, to be in the Word, whether you want to or
not, whether you feel like it or not, you come because God's
going to speak to your heart. He's going to show you what you
need to know, and He's going to get you back on track.
That's why we have Wednesday studies.
That's why we have intercession. You know, God bless Dave and
Janine. They're usually the only two
down there praying. And Steve, you wonder where he
goes. He's up there in the balcony
praying for me as I'm preaching. And Gary and Cathy out in
California at the time that I'm preaching, they're interceding
for this service that the word of God would go forth because
the flesh profits nothing only the spirit gives life.
But the more we pray and the more we seek God, the more we're
aware of the lies of the devil. Charles Spurgeon people would
come up a wonderful man, preacher of God and the Lord
moves in that church in Metropolitan Tabernacle and
many, many people were saved and and their lives were transformed
and and they would come to Charles after the service and
ask, you know, what is, is the deal here in this place?
Where is the power coming from? How's all this stuff happening?
And Charles said, come on, I want to take you down to the
furnace room. And they think a furnace room.
What's he talking about? The place where the heat and the
fire of God is took him down into the lower parts of the
church. And there was many, many people
on their knees praying for the Word of God as it went forth.
If we're not praying for the Word of God going forth here,
you'll hear the voice of a fool. You'll hear the voice of a man.
But if you pray and you ask God to work and to move and to
speak, you'll hear God's voice. And that's the only voice it can
save and transform our lives. It says our heart is to be
covered with Christ's righteousness.
The breastplate of righteousness represents the righteousness of
Jesus Christ. Our heart.
Is our heart soft today or is it hard?
The shield of faith, we're supposed to hold it up, and
that's having a walk of faith and authority that we are where
we're supposed to be with the Lord so that when the devil's
shooting all his lies and arrows to discourage us and destroy our
lives, we can see them bounce off of us because we have the
faith that God has given to us to overcome.
We have the helmet of salvation on.
That means that your mind is to be renewed.
You're to have the mind of Christ, right?
Spending more time in the Word and in prayer is what causes you
to think the way God thinks. Spending more time in the world
causes you to think the way the devil thinks.
We're supposed to have the sword of the Spirit, which is this,
the word of God. This is our defense.
This is what's able to quench all the lies of the devil.
It says we're to pray always in the power of the Spirit.
Pray always. Why?
Because the flesh profits nothing.
Only the Spirit gives life. Have you ever started to pray in
your prayer life? And you're just praying because
you know you're supposed to pray?
You need to say it to get your conscience, OK?
OK. God, I spoke to you.
I prayed with my wife. I prayed with my kids.
I prayed for dinner. I ask God for this.
I ask God for that. But I mean praying fervently.
God, help my brothers and sisters, help me.
Help us help all the believers in the world today to overcome
the lies of the devil. Help us to be salt and light in
these last days. Help us not to be the kind of
people that hide the light under the bushel so that no one can
understand or see that we have a king, that we serve and that we
follow. John 1010.
This is from Jesus own words. The thief cometh not, but for to
steal and to kill and to destroy.
I have come that you may have life and that you might have it
more abundantly. I'm not going to ask anybody to
raise their hands on this one. But some of you know that the
devil has come and knocked on your door and he's doing
everything he can to steal everything you have, to destroy
every relationship you have, and to take you out physically,
emotionally, spiritually. Some of us here know that He's
come, that we might have life and that we might have it more
abundantly. We get a taste of the abundant
life. We don't want the life that the
devil has to offer us. But I think too much in the
churches in these last days, we have compromised as a community
of believers, and we got our foot in the heat of God and we
got our feet in the death of the devil.
And we don't have the capacity to experience life to the degree
that Christ has come to give it to us.
The devil shoots thoughts at us like arrows and darts.
And the day he shot thoughts, Clark's a little bit different
today. He's a little bit crazy.
He's a little bit worked up. I've heard him preach a lot of
times that I don't know if I've heard him this intense.
So it's probably not a normal Sunday.
So don't really think too much about it.
It'll go he'll, he'll come back and be the same, the dead guy we
had last week, maybe the same boring guy we had for the month
before. I pray that's not the case.
But believe me, apart from God's Spirit and apart from these kind
of things, we will just have another church like any other
church on any given Sunday where we do our quote religious duty
and go home and I'll try to forget about whatever it is that
we might have received. God's Spirit has to bring
conviction. The devil's work is to influence
us to disobey God's truth, just like in Genesis.
Hath not God said the Eve twisting the Word?
And I was thinking as I was preparing for this, I don't even
think that's the tactic the devil has to use anymore to
twist the Word. You know why?
Because we're not even in the Word, right?
Why does he have to twist the Word?
We're not in the Scriptures, we're not studying, we're not
feeding on the Word. So he'll use all kind of other
tactics. A lot of us don't even know what
the word says about things anymore because we haven't
studied it. And Jesus, he says to all of us
today, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things
that I say. Now this is a life of obedience.
This is what a life of obedience will represent.
You'll be separated unto the Lord.
You'll have peace and you'll have well-being in your life.
If you're obedient, the Lord will bless you.
You will know you're doing His will.
You won't ruin your life. He'll guard your life
spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.
He'll give you honor. He'll give you discernment.
Some of us are like, what's God's plan?
What's His will? If you walk on obedience, I
guarantee 100% you will know God's purpose and will for your
life. You'll have nothing to fear if
you obey Him. You'll have reduced levels of
anxiety. You'll be wise in heart.
You'll release God's power in your life and your prayers will
have power. The Bible says the fervent
prayers of a righteous person avails much.
If you're disobedient, you'll be separated from the Lord in the
sense of your relationship will be dry and barren.
You'll go to pray in the heavens will seem like brass.
I'm just like not getting anywhere.
There'll be no sense of His presence in your life because
you're grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit.
You're in danger of shipwreck, meaning your life is on the
verge of complete destruction. Your life will be spiritually
wasted at the end when you stand to give an account of yourself
at the judgment seat of Christ, where believers go, not the
great white throne judgment. We go to the judgment seat of
Christ where God will test our works as though by fire, and
we'll look at our life and we'll say it was a complete waste.
I live for everything but what you wanted me to live for.
Lord. Other lives will be in danger
for walking in disobedience. The years that I walked in
willful disobedience, I didn't know this at the time, but I was
turning my wife and my children over to the devil to work, to
get a foothold in the home and the family.
If we're in disobedience, our sin effects others.
You might think, well, my attitude, my actions, my
bitterness, my complacency, my apathy, my coldness, my
lukewarmness doesn't affect anybody else but me.
But no, your life effects everyone else.
If you're living a disobedience, you're hardened to the lordship
of Jesus Christ in your life, you've lost all spiritual
sensitivity, you have anxiety in your life, you have fear in your
life, you have worry in your life, and you have chaos in your
life. Abundant life comes from the
Greek word parason, meaning exceedingly very highly beyond
measure, more a quantity so abundant as to be considerably
more than one would expect or anticipate.
Isn't that the kind of life you want to have unto him who is
able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask
or think, according to the power that works within us.
Jesus promised us a life far better than we could ever
imagine. And Jesus says our life doesn't
consist in the abundance of the things we possess.
And many of us have compromised with what we spend our money on.
And we've gotten this to try to find life, and we've bought that
to try to find meaning. We've done this to try to find
excitement. And Jesus is like shaking his
head. When will you just come to me?
Because I'm the one that gives you life.
Come to me that you might find life and that you might find it
more abundantly. That's why the apostle Paul said
that Christ is our life and as a group of Christians, as a body
of believers here, God wants us to find Christ being our All in
all our everything, our focus. You know, you get a couple
people in this church. I know we have many more than a
couple. You guys are amazing, but just
get a few people that are saying I don't want that anymore.
I want what he wants. I don't want my will.
I want God's will. I don't want to walk in two
worlds. I don't want to compromise.
I don't want to be cold. I don't want to be indifferent.
I want to do what God says. I want to say to my husband,
honey, we got to do what the word says and, and the father of
the husband says, guys, we're going to do what God's word says
regardless of the consequences. We're going to stake everything
we are, everything we have on the lordship of Jesus Christ in
our home. We're going to be as Joshua
said, As for me in my house, we will serve the Lord.
Colossians chapter 3, as we begin to conclude here, it says
if you then are raised with Christ, seek the things which
are above where Christ is sitting on the right hand of
God. And I want to have some prayer
today, guys, and I pray this altar is filled with us and I'll
be here myself. I mean, we got to really say I
want to be seeking what's above, not on things on the earth.
And believe me, the way the church is today and these last
days, the heat is not up, it's down.
And so pastors are trying to figure out how we can fill our
churches up and make the people feel good and feel comfortable.
And meanwhile, what's happening in the church today is that
there is a famine for the word of God.
And so we're trying to make everybody feel OK.
Well, you really don't have to seek what's above.
Seek, you know what's below. We're all doing that.
We're all the same. We're all in the same boat.
You know, we don't have anybody around us making us.
What would you call uncomfortable?
Paul says seek the things which are above where Christ is
sitting at the right hand of God.
So one of the prayers today is we come to praise that Lord.
I don't want to keep seeking what's below.
Give me grace and help me. And guys, I know it's hard.
I want to seek what's above. I'm sick of seeking what's below
because all it's doing is ripping me off.
Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth.
How many of us have our things on this earth?
Raise your hand. We do.
Our minds are on the things of this earth, for you died and
your life is hidden with Christ and God.
When Christ, who is our life appears, and you also will
appear with him and glory. Therefore put to death your
members which are on earth. The fornication.
That's the sex outside of marriage.
Stop it. If you're doing it, stop it.
Uncleanness, passion, evil desire, greed, covetousness,
which is idolatry. Because of these things, the
wrath of God is going to come upon the sons of disobedience,
in which you yourselves also once walked when you lived in
them, but now you yourselves are to put off all these anger.
If you guys are living in anger, you got to put it off.
If you're living in wrath, you got to put it off.
If you're living in malice or blasphemy or filthy language,
get it out of your mouth. If you're lying to one another,
if you're lying to God, if you're lying to one another,
stop it, since you've put off the old man with its deeds and
put on the new man which is renewed in the knowledge
according to the image of him who created him.
It says in verse 12, therefore, is the elect of God and an elect
means a chosen of God, which the majority of us here today are
believers. I, I know it says holy and
beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness and
long-suffering, and you might be going through something right
now that you don't know how you're going to have the
patience to deal with it. God says long-suffering comes
from the spirit. And so, Lord, as I abide, as I
look to you, as I surrender my will, my life to you, I will
have all the patience in the world to wait upon you bearing
with one another. Don't give up on each other.
Don't make threats against one another.
Don't say, Clark, if you preach another message like this, I'm
never coming back to the church again.
Hang in with me. Forgive one another.
If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ
forgave you, so you also must do.
If any of us in here in the church have an attitude against
anybody, we need to forgive each other.
And above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of
perfection. Love covers a multitude of sins
and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which you are
called in one body, and be thankful.
I love this. Let the word of Christ dwell in
you richly, and all wisdom right, teaching and admonishing
one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
That's what Rick and the team does every week.
And whatever you do in Word of deed, do all in the name of our
Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him the
Christian home. Wives, submit to your own
husbands as fitting to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do
not be bitter toward them. Husbands, if you're bitter
toward your wives, deal with it. Let the devil's stronghold be
broken in the name of Jesus today.
Let the Lord have freedom. The only thing that's going to
keep you from coming up here today is your pride and your
arrogance, your indifference in your hardness of heart.
Let it go. The word is convicted all of us
today. Children, if you're here today,
obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the
Lord. If you're not obeying your
parents, you got real heartache ahead of you.
Fathers, don't provoke your children unless they become
discouraged bondservants. Obey in all things your masters
according to the flesh, not with eye services, men pleasers, but
in sincerity of the heart, fearing God.
So at work we're working for people maybe we don't like, we
don't respect to drive us nuts. Hey, that's not the issue.
Our issue is to serve God in that job, not with looking with
what people are going to say about us, but we're serving God
to glorify him. And it says, and whatever you
do, do it hardly as to the Lord and not unto men, knowing that
from the Lord you will receive your reward of the inheritance
for you serve the Lord Christ for he who does wrong will be
repaid for what he has done. And there is no partiality.
I think this is a really important time today, guys, let
the strongholds be broken. The devil has created enough
havoc in our lives, hasn't he, in our homes, our marriages and
our families. And maybe you're OK today.
Maybe like everything, you're, you're on track with God and and
this sermon, you might say, well, Clark, I heard you today
and I understand what you said, but I don't have any issues.
I'm living 100% like the word says.
And so, well, that's great. If you're there, I'd like to
talk to you and tell me how you're making that happen.
But if you are, I mean, if it's well with your soul and I pray
it is, then pray for some other people today.
Come up and pray for some other families.
Pray for people that aren't here today or people you know in your
life that are getting torn up by the devil.
You know, Jesus, when he looks from his throne, that's like
when he looked over the city of Jerusalem, he wept, didn't he?
He was broken. He saw the people as being sheep
without a shepherd. As a church, you know,
everything that we do isn't just about us.
It's about the city that we're in.
It's about our families, our neighbors, our relatives.
It's about the broken relationships and families,
lives everywhere. And what happens is when we
pray, God sees our brokenness. He sees our humility and what he
does. He breaks the strongholds and he
causes us to begin to walk in a new way, a whole different way
of life. 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.