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.
God in his mercy and his grace, at the end of time there will be
no more remembrance of the former things for the former
shall not be remembered or ever come to mind.
But now we live in this time when someone dies that we love
and we're not sure of their eternal destiny.
And it's very, very difficult. All I can hope and pray for in
the few last moments of a soul's life that they hear once again
Jesus saying, come to me, the Lord reaching out to them one
last time. It's a sad thought to think that
the ones we hold dear in our hearts may not make it to
heaven. We pray that the Lord can draw
them near so that we will see them again.
We hold on to this worry and often wonder if we will be
waiting in angst for them today. Pastor Clark teaches us the
beautiful measure of God's mercy and grace.
God will give us a new mind that will not allow us to remember
the former things of this world. There will be no worry or
heartache over things we cannot control, only joy.
Now here's Pastor Clark in Revelation Chapter 21 with
today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Revelation Chapter 21 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
for the 1st heaven and the first earth had passed away.
Also there was no more sea. Then I, John saw the holy city,
New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as
a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from
heaven saying, Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with men,
and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people.
God Himself will be with them and be their God, and God shall
wipe away every tear from their eyes.
There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.
There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed
away. Then he who sat on the throne
said, Behold, I make all things new.
And he said to me, write, for these words are true and
faithful. And he said to me, It is done.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him
who thirst. He who overcomes shall inherit
all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable murders, sexually
immoral sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their
part in the lake, which burns with fire and brimstone, which
is a second death. If you'd also turn over to
Second Peter, this is a prelude to this section of scripture.
This will shed a little bit more light on what's actually
transpiring here in this section of Revelation, Second Peter,
chapter 3. It's wonderful that the
scriptures interpret the Scriptures right?
We don't have to depend on man's wisdom or his insight in regard
to understanding what the Word of God teaches.
We study line upon line, precept upon precept.
And so we'll see here already in Peter as he's prophesying and
Speaking of the things that are yet to come, the things that
we're still waiting for starting in verse 7.
But the heavens and the earth, which are now preserved by the
same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and
perdition of ungodly men. But beloved, do not forget this
one thing, that with the Lord one day is 1000 years, and 1000
years is 1 day. The Lord is not slack concerning
His promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering
toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance. Verse 10.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief.
In the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a
great noise, and the elements will melt with fervor and heat,
both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned
up. Therefore, since all these
things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to
be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and
hastening the coming day of God, because of which the heavens
will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt
with fervor, heat. Nevertheless, we, according to
this promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which
righteousness dwells. So we start in chapter 21 today,
and you might wonder, well, how does this happen?
What happened to the old heaven and the old earth?
Well, we've just read in Peter that they're going to be
destroyed. God will burn them with fire,
and He will start a brand new civilization in the Kingdom of
heaven made-up of His people who have believed in Him since the
beginning of time. There'll be no sin in the
Kingdom of heaven, no more suffering, no more pain.
How different that is from what we read about in the Garden of
Eden in Genesis chapter 3 verse 19.
It says in the sweat of your face ye shall eat bread till you
return to the ground, for out of it you were taken.
For dust you are, and the dust she shall return.
Take a look at your body for a moment.
Just look at your skin. Just hold your skin.
It's hard to believe our minds can't grasp this, but this is
all going to turn to dust one day.
Somehow we're wired to think that this body in its present
state is going to just go on and on and on.
But it isn't. As we know, as we attend Funeral
services of loved ones and friends, we we look at them in
the casket or the cremation bowl, they're already dust.
And we always feel sorry for people when they pass away.
I don't know why we feel sorry for people, Christians who pass
away because they've passed from death unto life.
They're in glorified waiting for their glorified bodies.
They're in a temporal body waiting for their final
resurrection. But we stand around and and we
lament the passing of someone, not realizing that it one day
it's going to be us or it's inevitable, right?
All of us. And Genesis clearly shows us
that this is what has transpired because of our sin, because of
the fall. Revelation verse 4, chapter 21
says, But God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.
There shall be no more pain. For the former, things have
passed away. The most difficult thing for us
as human beings to have to go through is having someone we
love pass away, isn't it? We cry, we grieve.
The grieving sometimes goes on for days, weeks, months, years.
There's sorrow, there's a sense of loss.
But in this Kingdom, God will wipe away all of our tears.
There won't be any more physical death.
There won't be any sorrow. There'll be no more crying.
There'll be no more pain. For the former, things have
passed away after the fall of man because of sin.
Today we are living in a present state of sorrow.
We're living in a present state of pain and of loss and of
crying and how we should long as the apostles and the end of the
Book of Revelation when it says Maranatha, come quickly, Lord
Jesus, why would we want to see the coming of the Lord prolong
longer when we see the suffering on the face of the earth in
these days that we live, we should all look forward to this
day. Even creation longs for this
day, the trees and the everything that's been created
by God over there in Romans chapter 8.
Turn there for a minute Romans chapter 8, it tells you how the
creation is also suffering, waiting for this glory to be
revealed. For the apostle Paul says in
verse 18, I consider that the sufferings of this present time
are not worthy to be compared with the glory that should be
revealed in US. For the earnest expectation of
the creation eagerly awaits for the revealing of the sons of
God. For the creation was subjected
to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it
in hope. Because the creation itself also
will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the
glorious liberty of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation groans and laborers
with birth bangs together until now.
Not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of the
Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, eagerly
waiting for the adoption, for the redemption of the body.
So that should be the desire of all of us as Christian.
We're to enjoy our life now and be thankful for what God has
done and is doing for all of us and our families.
But we should have this longing to be with the Lord.
The early church had this desire to be absent in the body, to be
present with the Lord. It's good news, I think of the
winter season when it comes and fall's a beautiful time of year
and all the leaves fall. It's glorious.
But it's so stark, isn't it? Right now when you drive down
the highway and all you see is sticks.
There's no color. It's just drab.
It's, it's ugly, basically that you're waiting.
Wow. I can't wait to see green on
those trees again. And, and this is the blue sky
and the sun. That's that's something God's
put in us because out of death comes life.
And as we look at death this time of year, even the trees
every year, I believe now a tree isn't a, a human being like us,
but it has this desire because God's created that way to be
able to bear trees forever and never lose 1 leaf.
And I believe that the trees in the season of the fall are sad
because all their beauty is gone, all their leaves are
dropped and many of them end up dying.
How God has created this whole universe to anticipate this
glorious return, it tells us in Isaiah 6517.
For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former
shall not be remembered or come to mind.
Someone called me the other day and had a very profound
question. They said, Clark, what will it
be like when we're in heaven and we're all rejoicing to be with
the Lord? But then we're thinking about
our loved ones and our family and our friends who aren't there
that are in hell. How can we be able to live with
that throughout all eternity knowing that they won't be with
the Lord in glory? Well, the good news is for us,
it says in Isaiah, the former shall not be remembered or come
to mind. How great God is, because it
wouldn't be heaven if all we did was remember our loved ones that
didn't come into the Kingdom. That would be hell, wouldn't it?
But God, in his mercy and his grace, at the end of time, there
will be no more remembrance of the former things for the former
shall not be remembered or ever come to mind.
But now we live in this time when someone dies that we love
and we're not sure of their eternal destiny.
And it's very, very difficult. All I can hope and pray for in
the few last moments of a soul's life that they hear once again
Jesus saying, come to me, the Lord reaching out to them one
last time, believe. And none of us know who repents
on their deathbed, who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ for the
forgiveness of their sins at the last few seconds of their life.
But it's devastating to see someone pass away that has
rejected Jesus Christ. But in verse 3 we see this holy
city and it's described in verse 2 as a holy city because there
is no sin in it anymore. This holy city is coming down
and God will dwell with His people.
It says in verse 3, behold, the Tabernacle of God is with men
and he will dwell with them, and they shall be His people.
God Himself will be with them and be their God.
We look in the book of Genesis and it says that God walked with
His creation, Adam and Eve, initially in the cold of the
morning. He walked with them in the
garden until they sinned and they weren't able to hear His
voice audibly anymore because they separated themselves from
His wonder and His glory. And God began to reveal and
speak then through the written word to people.
We see in the Old Testament that God dwelt with Israel in the
Tabernacle and later in the temple.
We know as the children of Israel move through bondage of
of Pharaoh and God out of Egypt that that God manifested himself
at night in a pillar of fire and a cloud by day.
And when the pillar of fire began to move or the cloud, the
people knew that it was time to move into the next location.
It was very clear evidence that God was in their midst and yet
they still sinned and did foolish things.
And then Christ comes to dwell among us today, not in temples
like buildings, churches made by hands, but He lives inside our
hearts, the bodies of His people and His church.
If you turn to 1st Corinthians chapter 6, this will reinforce
that truth to you today, First Corinthians chapter 6.
And I think this is something we all forget.
Now, this is tied into the issue of sinning, whether it's
immorality or drunkenness or stupid things that we can still
unfortunately do as followers of God.
By the grace of God, we overcome sin, we overcome temptation, but
sometimes we don't. And we have to learn to
continually live in repentance. We have to turn from the things
that are destroying our lives. And today, if you're here and
you're stuck in a life besetting sin, as a Christian, I pray
today that you turn from that and say enough's enough.
I don't want to live this way anymore.
This is pulling me down. It's pulling my family down.
It's pulling my life down. God, you don't want me to live
this way. And the danger of living in a
way, even though we think we know the Lord and we believe
he's forgiven us. Galatians makes it clear, as I
say many times that if we continue in these sins, if their
life besetting sins, they're dominating our lives.
It says we won't inherit the Kingdom of God even if we we say
we believe if we really believe and we are saved and Christ is
in our life. We want to turn from the sin.
We don't want to live under its dominance anymore.
And the apostle is speaking to this in the Corinthians.
He says, do you not know in verse 19 that your body is a
temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God
and you're not your own, for you were bought with a price.
Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which
are gods. So Christ bought us with his
blood. He paid for us.
We don't own ourselves anymore. We belong to him.
And so the Holy Spirit lives in my life today.
I trust the Holy Spirit is the one that's ministering to you
today through my life and that you're listening to the word of
God through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives and dwells
in you. But how often do we forget that
the Holy Spirit lives in us? We get up on Monday morning all
ready to go and we're thinking, oh man, I got to do this and do
that. And all this stuff's in front of
us and we're wondering how we're going to do it and how we're
going to make it. And somehow we get our weary
bodies up and chug a couple gallons of coffee down our
throat and we get in our car and we're starting to go and, and
man, you know, it's just not really working that well.
We don't feel real motivated and real excited and we're not
anticipating God doing anything because we think God's up there
somewhere. And the mystery is God is on his
throne and at the same time he's in us.
In him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
I love an ancient prayer. It says, O heavenly King, O
Comforter, the Spirit of truth are in all places and fill us
all things. Treasury of good things and
giver of life, come and dwell in US and cleanse us from every
stain and save our souls. O gracious Lord, you know the
Holy Spirit resides in the body of Christ.
He doesn't depart like he did in the Old Testament when David
cried out to the Father. Please do not take your Holy
Spirit from me. If you're in Christ and you
belong to Christ, the Holy Spirit is in you until the day
you're taken to be with Him in glory.
But let's be honest this morning, do you ever forget that
the Holy Spirit lives in you? Raise your hands.
It's about every one of us. Now, if we go out to our car
after church and we see the gas gauge on empty, we realize we
have to go get fuel, right? We're not going to drive around
and think that gas gauge is lying.
It's not real. I have faith I'm going to keep
driving because eventually the car is going to sputter and it's
not going to have the capacity to go forward anymore.
That's the way it is with us as Christians.
But the good news is God, the Spirit doesn't diminish in US
ever. He's the fullness of the Father
dwelled and manifests in us. But we leak and the way we leak
is sin, pride, self will, independence.
And so all of a sudden we have this sense that we don't have
any empowerment in our life. And that's when we have to
repent and we just say, Lord, I've gotten off track somehow
and I want to come back and get things right.
And the way we get things right is humbling ourselves again and
again and again and again and repenting again and again and
again and again, and be restored to the Lord so he can restore to
us the joy of our salvation. And as we humble ourselves, as
we yield, as we repent, the Spirit of God begins to well up
within us and begin to take control and begin to cause our
senses to be under his leadership.
And our mind begins to be renewed and our heart has a joy,
joy and a strength and a stability.
And, and all of a sudden we realize, like Paul, we can do
all things through Christ who strengthens us.
Amen. That's the good news.
Now we have to realize that the Christian life has not been
designed to live without the Spirit of God.
It's foolishness. But we're told in the Scriptures
that we quench the Spirit of God, we grieve the Spirit of
God. And when we quench the Spirit of
God, it's basically saying, I don't need your help.
I can do this myself, which is pride and will fall.
We can grieve the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's saying, don't
do that, I don't want you to act that way.
I don't want you to do this or think that.
And we're blowing them off and we're just going to do what we
want to do. And it breaks his heart.
We grieve him. And so all the sudden, the sense
of his presence is not alive. We don't sense his nearness.
We don't sense his leading, his guidance, his blessing, and how
foolish that is to, to live in a way that the Holy Spirit is not
dominating our lives. And the purpose of the church,
you know, isn't like Sunday, OK, got to go to church.
You know, it's the right thing to do.
And I, I show up, I come to church and I hope you come to
church to be corrected and redirected all the time.
My mind is brought back to the main focus of where it needs to
be and I get filled up with the presence of God, the Spirit of
God. I have a stability in my life if
I'm faithful in my study of God's Word and doing what God
says to me to do in His Word when I want to be with
believers. When I want to pray with
Christians, when I want to be in the Word, when I want to gather.
That's why Paul said don't forsake the assembling of
yourselves. And so many think they can take
church or leave it. I know what happened in my life
when I started blowing church off.
I mean, it messed my life up. It mess my marriage up, it mess
my kids up. I mean, you got to be
disciplined. You got to be focused.
You got to be committed to the things that the Lord says He
wants you to be committed to. He says these things to keep us
protected. He says if you forsake the
assembling of yourselves as a man, or some do, He says a root
of bitterness will spring up among you and you'll start to
get hard in your heart and you'll begin to start judging
people and you'll think everybody's hypocrites.
Why would I want to go to that church?
They're a bunch of hypocrites. Well, we come to church because
we know we're hypocrites, right? We repent of our hypocrisy.
We ask God to change us and to break us and to cleanse us and
to fill us so that we become more like Christ.
We don't come to church because we're perfect, do we?
The church is designed to be a hospital for sinners, not a
museum for the Saints. The early church understood that
the church was a place of restoration to heal broken lives
that have been destroyed through sin and have been ruined through
sin. That's why we have an altar call
here every week. It's not a tradition.
It's a place we're coming down lame spiritually.
We're coming down hobbling to the front.
Maybe we don't look like that physically, but inwardly we are.
We're saying, Lord, I'm here again at this place of
brokenness and repentance. Revive me again, Lord, give me
hope, give me victory. Give me strength, keep me from
doing the things that I did last week that were unpleasing in
your sight, making my life a drag for people that have been
around me. You know, the Christian life is
a life of being positive, excited, joyful, overcoming, and
that comes by the Word of God and confession of our sins to
God and to one another. But even though the Spirit of
God dwells within us, which we all know, we don't grasp this
like we will one day when we see the Holy Trinity before our very
eyes in the throne room of heaven.
Everything today that I'm speaking about to you and you're
listening, you have to receive it by faith.
I can't prove anything to you other than my own life hopefully
being somewhat of an example and yours to me.
I can look in your lies and see Christ alive.
And the Bible says we're living epistles known and read of men.
It isn't hard to to know when you meet a Christian, is it?
You just know by the way they act, the way they talk, the
smile on their face, their gratitude, their gratefulness,
their thankfulness, their humility.
It just dawns on you that this person is a believer.
And you know what it's like when you're with someone who doesn't
have the Spirit of God in them. Matter of fact, Paul says their
spirit bears witness with our spirit that we're the sons and
the daughters of God. You know, when someone comes to
the church here the first time, I've never seen them before.
I feel immediate connection when I know that the Spirit of God's
in them, it's like I've known him my whole life.
They're my brothers, they're my sisters.
And I might not know where they live or what their names are
yet, or what their interests are or what their likes or dislikes
are, But there's this fellowship in this community of oneness
that occurs by the Spirit of God that tells us his Spirit bears
witness with our Spirit that we belong to Him.
There's no division in the body of Christ from God's
perspective. There's no caste system.
It's all the oneness and the fullness of God.
In the Book of Revelation, Pastor Clark is taking us
through all kinds of events and happenings that are predicted
for the future. But for those who believe and
follow Jesus, there's much to look forward to in heaven with
Jesus. However, for those who are here
on earth during the Tribulation, there's all kinds of chaos that
will unfold. The Bible talks about an
Antichrist, a false prophet, and of course that evil enemy Satan.
Do you see how there are such clever attempts for the enemy to
disguise himself as God and even the Trinity?
The true Savior of the world is God and how He comes to rescue
through his triune nature God the Father, Jesus the Son, and
God the Holy Spirit. Just like Satan tried to take
over for God in heaven was cast out, Satan will try to convince
people on earth that he is the triune God to be worshipped
instead of the legitimate God in heaven.
It's an attempt, and although he will capture plenty in his
schemes, he will not win. The true God wins, and
Revelation unpacks how that will all happen in detail.
Be encouraged because there's a way out for all of this madness
that will ensue on this earth. But you don't want to wait
indefinitely to make that decision about Jesus.
We don't know when the church will be raptured, and you want
to be ready to be with Jesus. To learn more about this, head
over to calvarychapelonline.com. We're so glad you've been with
us today. And if you'd like to connect
further with this ministry, find us on Facebook or YouTube.
You can also download our mobile app at calvarychapelonline.com.
Be sure to join us for weekly services at 400 E Pittsburgh St.
Ste. 6B in Greensburg, PA 15601. This has been living waters of
grace.