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.
Our goal is to love people, to have opportunity to share the
gospel with people that think differently than we do, right?
To have patience with people and to listen to them and not to put
them down, but to be able to dialogue with people so that
they might have an opportunity to hear the truth and come to
the knowledge of the truth and then repent, right?
Because there was a time in our lives that we didn't believe
this stuff. As Christians, there's a fine
line between living in the world and living of the world.
Jesus lived this dichotomy perfectly.
He loved sinners, dined with tax collectors, prayed for his
enemies, and was kind to a Roman centurion, all while living a
sinless life. We may not be able to achieve
perfection, but today Pastor Clark encourages us to be active
in the lives of non believers. They need to see Jesus and hear
the gospel through US. Everyone is yearning for the
hope that only Jesus can offer now.
Here's Pastor Clark in the book of Acts Chapter 28 with today's
edition of Living Waters of Grace.
I get strength of being with you guys and I can leave here today
and be encouraged that we're not alone.
We are not the minority of the world says we are.
We are really a majority in the sense of God's Kingdom
eventually going to be coming on earth as it already is in
heaven. So we have every reason to be
joyful and happy people, right? And not be down and discouraged
and complaining about the condition of the world.
Jesus said in the world you will have tribulation, but be of good
cheer. I have overcome the world.
He has Amen. He's overcome the world and we
can be overcomers, walking by faith, staying in the word,
being prayerful people and looking for opportunities in
this life to speak into the laws of people who are hopeless or
may be searching for an answer. And so now when he came to Rome,
he eventually gets to Rome. The centurion delivered the
prisoners to the captain of the guards.
So all these people that survived this incident and
Lennon and Malta are now in Rome and every one of them are
accounted for. And Paul was permitted to dwell
by himself with the soldier who guarded him.
So again, God's favor. Paul wasn't a vicious murderer
or someone who had committed some horrific crime.
He committed no crime. So he's able to live in his own
house, but he's chained to someone six hours and God takes
a break. Someone else chained to him for
six hours. This is just how he's permitted
to dwell. And so the soldier says, guarded
him. And it came to pass after three
days, verse 17, that Paul called the leaders of the Jews
together. So when they had come together,
he said to the men and brethren, though I've done nothing against
our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered as
a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans, who
when they had examined me, wanted to let me go because
there was no cause for putting me to death.
So he's emphasizing again that he's not guilty of anything, and
he's with these Jewish people that really don't know a lot
about anything yet in regard to the gospel.
All they know is by hearsay. There's this sect called The
Way, which is the move of what is now known as Christianity,
Christians. So Paul's expecting them to have
all these complaints about who he is.
And when the Jews spoke against it, I was compelled to appeal to
Caesar. Not that I had anything of which
to accuse my nation. So Paul made it clear I was
never against the nation of Israel, and I never said
anything derogatory about the Kingdom of the city, the plan of
God. For this reason, therefore, I've
called for you to see you and speak with you, because for the
hope of Israel, I'm bound with this chain.
Now the hope of Israel is the Messiah who is to come, the
Messiah, Lord Jesus. Today the hope of Israel still
is a Messiah. But unfortunately majority of
Jewish people don't believe that Jesus is a Messiah.
They're waiting for Messiah who will come, who will come as a
conquering king to rule and reign in Jerusalem and and put
everything in this world in place.
The way we know prophetically it will be put in place when Jesus
comes the second time and he's he lands on the feet of the
Mount of Olives and he sets up and establishes Kingdom for the
millennial reign of 1000 years that will come to pass at that
point in time when Jesus comes again the second time, they'll
be this technology. We already have it now we're
we're going to be able to see through TV and media and
iPhones, whatever. What's that object coming from
the middle of the universe? What's that bright light moving
and and this crowd of looks like an army with him.
That's the Lord Jesus coming back with his Saints, and he's
going to land. And the Bible says every eye
shall see him. And the Jews in Jerusalem, it
says when they see him, they will see him is the one whom
they've pierced. And at that point in time,
they'll realize that Christ is a Messiah.
And a lot of people will come to be born again at that time, to
come to be saved at the second coming of Jesus Christ.
So Paul's reasoning with them and to explain to them this, I'm
bound because I'm telling you guys that Jesus Christ is the
Messiah, the hope of Israel. Then they said to him, this is
interesting. We neither receive letters from
Judea concerning you, nor have any of the brethren came and
reported or spoken evil of you. So everything that was made to
be like a big deal when he was in Jerusalem and they wanted to
kill him and martyr to him, martyr him.
Now he's in the situation where no one's got any complaints.
Isn't that amazing? They can't even accuse him of
anything. And sometimes you think in life
when stuff happens that in the moment is is really overwhelming
maybe, and you don't know how to maneuver and how to deal with
it. Give it some time, because in
time things aren't going to be quite as bleak or as difficult
as they might seem right now. Time heals, and we see God's
perspective differently after we have a chance to reflect on
something we're really counting on that maybe didn't come to
pass and we're discouraged. And then all of a sudden we see
days, weeks, months, years later.
Oh, now I see. That was good that that didn't
turn out the way I was hoping it would turn out.
God, you had a better plan, didn't he?
God's plan is always better than what our plan is.
So Paul was anticipating this uproar, this upheaval and there
is none. But they did have a question
verse 22. But we desire to hear from you
what you think for concerning this sect.
We know that it is spoken against everywhere.
It's still being spoken about against everywhere.
I'm I'm appalled, they're shocked.
I shouldn't be, but how there's people in our own country that
say that we are as Christians, we're white supremacists, we're
dangerous to the to the society, we're Zionists.
I mean, put all these various terms on on us that aren't even
true. Instead of the same way Jesus
said by this people will know you're my disciples by the love
you have for one another. And that's what I sense when I'm
with now you got extreme groups everywhere.
I get it. A true believer is not someone
who's interested in anarchy or turning over governments or
persecuting people that don't believe the same way we do.
Our goal is to love people, to have opportunity to share the
gospel with people that think differently than we do, right?
To have patience with people and to listen to them and not to put
them down, but to be able to dialogue with people so that
they might have an opportunity to hear the truth and come to
the knowledge of the truth and then repent, right?
Because there was a time in our lives that we didn't believe
this stuff, that we thought that people that did what we did,
where I thought they were fanatics, I thought it was some
kind of cult. I grew up in a Presbyterian
Church of frozen, frozen chosen, right.
We, we didn't, we went, but we didn't talk about what we, why
we went or what we believe. And then I'm not putting
Presbyterian Church down, just different culture.
And so whenever I graduated from high school and I wanted to go
party and, you know, get in trouble and misbehave, right,
like a typical 18 year old. And I hope you young ladies are
graduated and aren't thinking that way.
But if you are, guaranteed God will catch up with you.
I get off the bus in Norfolk, West Virginia.
I leave Irwin which is 100% white.
I'm in the bus and me and my buddy are the only white people
on the bus. I realize there's a whole
different culture group that I never even knew anything about.
Didn't have any prejudice. I just never was around black
people before and I found out they're just like me, just like
you. And so we get off the bus and
we're a minority and we're invited to a Christian coffee
house. And I didn't know it was a
Christian coffee house. These people just were real
nice. Hey, we got some food.
You want to come over and have something to eat?
And I only had like about 6 bucks in my pocket.
I figured well, if I stuff myself, I might not have to
worry about the what I have to buy later on for dinner.
So I got in there and these people were sitting there, right
here, down here. And they're they're sitting
there all clean cut and have Bibles on the table.
And I'm thinking like, what is this?
What is this like Jehovah Witness or what is this?
I knew that that was weird, you know, So they started, you know,
giving us this food and the food wasn't that great.
It was like steel Donuts and kool-aid.
So it wasn't. And I said to my buddy, they
were talking to us and I said, you know, we got to get out of
here. These people are weird there.
There's something wrong with these people here.
And I could tell it was getting to him.
He was considering what they were saying about Jesus, but I
had no interest. I thought I was OK because I was
a Presbyterian, right. So we, we get off the bus and we
get get back on the bus and I go down to, to carry on in Virginia
Beach because it was you could drink beer at 1832 beer.
You had to drink twice as much to get a buzz.
But I was OK. And so I, I went there and I, I
go into the men's room and, and I got to go to the bathroom and
wouldn't you know it, right on top of the toilet lid, there's
these Bible tracts about sin, about God, about death.
You know, they had the words of Jesus and red and the words of
sin and black and Oliver B Green track.
If you remember him, save a soul that's near as hell.
That's what he'd always say on his radio program.
But anyway, I, I just like, I couldn't get away.
The Holy Spirit was grabbing me, drawing me, prompting me,
speaking to me. And I, I was running.
I didn't want to hear. And when you think about people
in the culture and people that Paul was going to begin to talk
with now, not everybody's going to believe right away.
Not everybody's going to be open, are they?
And maybe you're here today and you've never heard or never
believed and you're still not ready to believe.
But God will never give up on working to convince you by life
circumstances or through the word of God that you need a
Savior. Jesus loves you and he wants to
let you know that he died and forgave you of your sins, that
you might have eternal life. But anyway, Paul says they asked
him about this cult. So when they had appointed him a
day, many came to him at his lodging to whom he explained and
solemnly testified of the Kingdom of God persuading them
concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets
from morning to evening. So he gave him a day, Hey, meet
me at my place. The place was super PAC.
These inquirers came interested about like this sect and and he
was teaching them because they didn't have a New Testament at
the time. He was teaching them from the
prophets in the Old Testament and the Law of Moses.
He's an expert in these things. And so he's, it's not a short
study like the day, maybe 45 to 50 minutes.
Can you imagine being here till night?
I'd probably be the only one here.
Some of you are sleeping already.
You're getting ready for bed and it's not even 9:00 at night yet.
You're sleeping here. But you wouldn't last, you know,
you wouldn't last that long. So and so some were persuaded by
the things which were spoken and some disbelieved.
So that's in any audience. Anytime you're sharing, some are
going to believe. Praise God.
There was a time when you and I believed and we got saved,
right? But then there was a time where
we heard this and we weren't interested, right?
You know, we had to hear it more than one time to believe.
And so when they did not agree among themselves, they departed
after Paul had said one word. The Holy Spirit spoke rightly
through the Isaiah, the prophet to our Father.
So, so Paul is there getting ready to leave and all that kind
of stuff. Paul brings this verse out from
from the book of Isaiah. He's going to speak to them
about what God said prophetically regarding how
people would respond to what it is that they're hearing.
And Jesus used this many times in the Gospels and it was also
used in the book of the Acts before prophet Isaiah said, go
to this people and say hearing you will hear and shall not
understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive.
Isn't that interesting people here maybe you're hearing today
and you think I'm nuts. That's OK and and you don't
understand what what there was this guy flapping his jaws about
up there doesn't make sense and seeing you see the worship, you
see the cross, you see the dove that represents the Holy Spirit.
You see people worshiping God, praising God says seeing you
will see and not perceive and that's OK because all of us were
that way at one time. Only God can open your eyes
believe in to see and understand him and trust for the hearts of
this people have grown dull and their ears are hard of ears are
hard of hearing what happens in life.
It wears you down. It caused you to be cynical the
older you get. That's why they say, you know,
get saved when you're young, when your heart's open and
you're not jaded by life and, and many times unfortunate by
Christians or churches, whatever that you are hearing and you
want to hear what Jesus is saying and you want to know.
But the the longer you wait and the Jewish people were putting
this off and still are putting it off.
It's really hard to penetrate the heart of someone whose heart
is like stone. Of course God can penetrate any
heart, but it's not making it easier for you and your, your,
your doll spirit. You have no sense spiritually.
And their eyes, they have closed.
Some of your eyes have are closed here today.
Why are your eyes closed? Didn't you get enough sleep last
night? You know, they didn't even want
to deal with us. Let's say should see with their
eyes and hear with their ears. Let's say should understand with
our hearts and turns that I should heal them.
And so tragic. The Lord's got his arms out.
You won't come unto me. Come unto me.
He's calling us to come to Him. He wants us to, to follow him,
to know him, to trust him, to believe in him.
He wants to gather it's like chicks, like a mother hen,
because he wants to protect us and bless us and keep us from
destroying our lives with sin. He knows what sin does to people
he had to die for. He knew their hatred, the
murder, the rape, the all the different things that happened
in life, the the thievery, the the, the extortion, the, the,
you know, the stealing, all the things that human beings are
capable of. He sees what's happening to the
world as it goes on. It's becoming more and more
godless, more and more Antichrist, more and more anti
scripture, more and more self-centered men being lovers
of themselves rather than lovers of God.
Materialism is the idol that we all struggle with.
Nothing wrong with having stuff, but when the stuff begins to
control you and consume you and that's all you think about, then
you got a different God than the God of the Bible.
And so he, he wants people to turn to him, let's say, should
understand with their hearts and turns that I should heal them.
And whenever you come to Jesus Christ and you put your faith in
him and you ask him to forgive you, he will give you a brand
new life. And seriously, he'll radically
change your way of thinking, your internal mechanism of how
you dialogue with other people in the world.
Your, your, your focus would be now more on eternal values and
what will last forever as opposed to things that are
perishing and are going to end and die.
You have no more guilt. He takes your guilt, he takes
the condemnation you have on your life because of the things
you've done. You wish you wouldn't have done
that you if you had a chance to do it over again, you, you
wouldn't do. He cleans all that up.
He washes, he gives you a clean slate so that you can now have a
relationship with God and have peace in your life and not chaos
and this guilt ridden and depression and all the different
terrible things that are consequences of of turning away
from God. I mean God's plans good, but the
plan of this world is is unfortunately perishing.
Therefore let it be known to you verse 28 that the salvation of
God has been sent to the Gentiles and they will hear it.
So Paul was called to be the apostle to the Gentiles even
though he was Jewish, he loved the Jews and any chance he had a
chance, he would preach the gospel to the Jews, but he knew
they weren't going to be open to it like the Gentiles.
And because of that, the gospel then went into the Roman Empire
and then eventually to all the rest of the world.
And the majority of the church is made-up of Gentiles today,
people like us. Aren't you glad that the Lord
had a plan for the gospel to be for the whole world and not this
one people group? He loves the whole world.
For God so loved the world, the whole world, that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life.
And later on down that gospel, he says God did not send his Son
into the world to condemn the world, but that the world
through him might be saved. That's how we have to be with
the world and people in it that don't believe, that don't
understand, to give them grace, to give them space, to give them
time to process, to think, to reflect, not to condemn, not to
guilt, not to judge, not to hate.
We're to be known as people that are merciful and patient and
gracious because God has been that way to us.
And verse 29, as we wind down. And when he had said these
words, the Jews departed and had a great dispute among
themselves. And I'm sure it was a dispute.
Some of them are probably saying, man, I, I never heard
that before. Do you?
Did you hear what the apostle said?
I believe I know Jesus is a Messiah.
You're crazy, man. Those people are called that
guy's nuts. You know, he, he used to be a
Pharisee and he, he must have had a breakdown.
And so he's saying stuff and teaching stuff that's not even
true. And and so they had this
dispute, great dispute among themselves.
Then Paul dwelt 2 whole years in his own rented house and
received all who came to him preaching the Kingdom of God and
teaching the things which concerned the Lord Jesus Christ
with all confidence, no one forbidding him.
So Paul had this open audience. He wasn't in some dank prison at
this time. He had this nice home.
He was able to receive people. They believe that Nero did not
martyr him at this time. Night is probably 63 AD.
He wasn't martyred till 6768 AD. So he was in prison in this
house for two years. When they found out that he was
not guilty. Then they let him free and
supposedly he was there for another couple years.
According to tradition, he actually went back to Ephesus.
He wrote Ephesus, the book of Colossians, the book of
Philippians in the book of Philemon while he was in Rome in
that house prison. So thank God he had time to
write those books for us. But in second Timothy is pastor
Lewis took us through recently. He was eventually in a really
cold, dark prison where his life was in jeopardy.
And then he said no one stood with him at that time.
Everybody was sort of getting away from him because it became
obvious he was going to be martyred and he was beheaded.
But this guy gave it all for the Lord Jesus.
I mean, you know, he, his, his life was the Lord's and all he
wanted to do was to be used by the Lord 24/7.
Whoever wanted to knock on the door, no matter what time of the
day it was. He was there to preach the
Kingdom of God and teach the things which concern the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he taught with all
confidence, totally dependent upon the truth of the word of
God, and no one forbid him. And we live in a time right now
where we have the opportunity to be able to do what we do without
consequences. Thank God.
And I pray it'll continually be that way and that we'll have the
freedom to to share our faith where people can come and go in
churches and worship God around our nation without fear of
reprisal and persecution. And we have to take the time
that we have right now, all of us with neighbors, friends,
relatives, Co workers, to gently sow the seed and share the faith
of the gospel. Not pushing it on him, but just
talking about Jesus, right? Telling him what he's done, what
he continually does, what he's willing to do, what he's willing
to do for people that don't believe.
And well, all we're doing is throwing seed out there, right?
Little by little, day by day, 11 by 1, we got a radio station in
Greensburg, 100.3 FM that goes out and preaches this kind of
stuff 24/7 through men of God and eventually on 91.7
throughout the Pittsburgh area. And the privilege we have and
the time that we live is to do what we do right.
And this is what we do teach the word, learning everyone of the
judgment that's to come and that people can flee judgment and the
anger and wrath of God becoming the faith in Jesus Christ.
Amen. Thanks for joining us on this
journey through Acts. On today's edition of Living
Waters of Grace, Pastor Clark shares that one of the most
remarkable things about the book of Acts is how it shows the
disciples transformation. The followers of Jesus we meet
here are very different from the often confused and fearful
disciples in the Gospels. After Jesus's death and
resurrection, and especially through the power of the Holy
Spirit, the apostles experienced a profound change in their
hearts and boldness. Their faith became unwavering,
and they moved forward with courage to spread the gospel
despite opposition and hardship. Acts reminds us that the same
Spirit who empowered them is at work in US today, shaping our
hearts and giving us strength to live boldly for Christ.
Living Waters of Grace is a ministry of Calvary Chapel
Westmoreland. If you're in the Greensburg, PA
area, we invite you to join us this Sunday at 10:30 AM at 400 E
Pittsburgh St. Unit 6B.
Visit calvarychapelonline.com For more information, where you
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If you are in the Greensburg area, you can listen to Grace FM
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