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.
You'll receive afflictions and persecutions when you stand up
for truth. Guys, you realize that some of
you are already experiencing that.
They got rid of Jesus because of sound doctrine.
They eliminated all the apostles because of sound doctrine.
This is not fashionable. This is not culturally relevant.
This is not something that the society really is looking for.
Wow, what an indictment of our current culture.
Indeed, It is not mainstream to submit to the authority of
Scripture. It is not popular to live life
in the way that Jesus taught, being humble and giving
generously. Jesus does not offer his
disciples an easy road to walk, but He has walked this road
before us. Truth is often not easy to stand
for, and there are always consequences for going against
the grain of the culture. In today's message, Pastor Clark
reminds us that choosing Jesus is worth any cost.
Now here's Pastor Clark in Ephesians chapter 4 with today's
edition of Living Waters of Grace.
False doctrine is the invention of man, his concepts, his
interpretations and heresies. It's not rooted in the Apostolic
teaching and Ephesians 414. Paul warns them about being
carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men,
where they lie in cunning craftiness, thereby waiting and
lying, waiting to deceive. It's hard to conceive that
there's people out there that make their living under the
auspices of ministry and they're leading the flock down the path
of destruction in regard to the teaching.
And Paul warns the church there in Ephesus, don't be carried
about with all these winds of doctrines.
I get so tired of all these new moves out there today, This book
about this book and then this book about that book and this
book about it's like, try this and try.
And then the pastors, they feel pressured.
It becomes schizophrenic. Well, we need to do this because
this is in now. And when that isn't in anymore,
then we'll do this. And then let's talk about this
book and by this guy's writings. And then, you know, before, you
know, people aren't in the word anymore.
They're into some book that some man's written.
First Timothy 110 says there are things that are contrary to
sound doctrine, warning them not to be around that stuff.
First Timothy 41, it says give heed, that people will give heed
to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons and the last
days in chapter 4, verse 6, if you instruct the brethren, I
love this. It should be the life verse of
every pastor, every teacher. If you instruct the brethren in
these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ,
nourish in the words of faith and of God's doctrine which you
have carefully followed. Amen.
That's what we're all to do. Let me read that again.
This is the responsibility of anybody that teaches the word.
If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good
minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith
and of God's doctrine, which you have carefully followed.
I'll tell you the day that we stopped carefully following the
doctrine of God. Here is a day you bolt from this
church. Don't allow yourself to be
sitting here ever under any false teaching anywhere.
If you have friends or in churches and they're in places
of false doctrine or false teaching, it behooves you to
warn them and to tell them to search the Scriptures as the
Bereans did daily to see whether the things they were being
taught were so. There's too many Christians
nowadays that attend the church without their Bible.
And you come and you listen to some man rant and rave up front
for 45 minutes and you figure, well, he's a minister, he must
know what he's talking about. Don't ever take that for
granted. Your job is to study and to be
in the Scriptures along with me or anybody in this church that's
teaching something that isn't in the word.
You say very nicely. Where did you come up with that?
You keep my fire to the feet too.
It's important. It says in 413 I come, I give
attendance to doctrine. 416 Take heed unto yourself, and and unto
the doctrine. Verse 517 it says, They who
labor in the word and doctrine are worthy of double honor.
Second Timothy 43 it says, When they will not endorse sound
doctrine, Titus 210 says, that they may adorn the doctrine of
God our Savior in all things. Hebrews 13, nine says, Do not be
carried about with various and strange doctrines.
Second Timothy 42 says Exhort with all long-suffering and
doctrine. Let's read Second Timothy
chapter 4 for a moment. If you flip over there Second
Timothy chapter 4 verse one through 5, I charge you
therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will
judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom.
Preach the word, be ready in season, in and out of season,
convince, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and teaching
as yours might have, and doctrine for this time will come
when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their
own desires, because they have itching ears.
They will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn
their ears away from the truth and be turned aside the fables.
But you be watchful in all things and door afflictions.
Do the work of an evangelist for full fulfill your OR ministry.
You'll receive afflictions and persecutions when you stand up
for truth. Guys, you realize that some of
you are already experiencing that they got rid of Jesus
because of sound doctrine. They eliminated all the apostles
because of sound doctrine. This is not fashionable.
This is not culturally relevant, so this is not something that
the society really is looking for.
But if we don't use our salt and light in the days that we are
living right now, we will lose our opportunity to continually
be the church in this country. This is a day that you stand up
and you speak the truth and love.
You don't hold back, you don't hide it, you don't hide your
light under a bushel. You speak the truth and the top
of the mountain. And I believe in these days the
Lord is stirring A remnant around the earth, not only in
the church, but within the confines of the political arena.
People are getting fed up with the destruction of our moral
fiber in our country. People are getting tired of
liberal agendas. People are getting tired of
conservative values being pushed down the drain for the sake of
the liberal tendencies of the ungodly.
The founders of our constitution, the majority of
those men that wrote that declaration were ministers.
And we as a church need to understand that doctrine
pervades not only what we believe in the church, but how
we live in the culture. Amen.
Your faith stands with you wherever you go, and if you
don't have sound doctrine, you won't know how to stand.
So here in Pergamos, the very things that the church is warned
against, the doctrines that Jesus hates, are infiltrating
the church. The Nicolaitans.
The word means to rule the people.
The doctrine of Balaam means to Lord it over the people, Lord it
over the flock and lead them astray.
The the pressure of leaders to put pressure upon the people and
try to manipulate them and control them and make them feel
second to them because they have a disagreement or a different
perspective regarding something that the Word teaches.
Whenever the pastor isn't willing to be challenged about
something in the church and he isn't willing to listen and
consider what the body is sensing, it's very, very
dangerous. You're in a situation where you
are being controlled and manipulated.
It's the Church of Jesus Christ, not the Church of Calvary Chapel
or the Church of any other name. Christ is the head of the
church, and we are all accountable to him alone.
He is Lord. The pastors aren't Lord, but the
Nicolaitans and the Balamites were the type of people that
they were very controlling and manipulating.
They lorded it over the flock and as a result they led the
people astray. Balaam, interesting about him.
He was a true prophet but he sold his gifts for money.
He was hired by King Balak to cure people, curse people of
Israel, and God prevented this in one sense.
Yeah, 24,000 people died because of the compromise and the Jews
ended up worshipping at Pagan altars and they ended up
committing fornication. You know the Bible says come out
from among them and be separate, saith the Lord.
Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,
but rather reprove them. If you and I are in ungodly
places, hanging out with ungodly people, slowly our own moral
fiber will be eroded and we'll find ourselves doing the very
things that the nature of the people who are lost are doing.
Christians fall and Christians still sin, and that's why we're
warned not to be around things that are ungodly.
It says light and darkness cannot coexist.
Again, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness, but rather reprove them.
In other words, preach about what's right and what's wrong.
Let your conviction be heard. If someone asks you your opinion
about something regarding you know the gay lifestyle or
abortion, let your voice be heard.
Speak up about what you know the word teaches and what the truth
is. James chapter 4, it's gives us
warning if you flip over there for a minute.
James chapter 4 regarding our relationship in this world.
James chapter 4 verse one, it says where do wars and fights
come from among you? Do they not come from your
desires for pleasure? That war in your members you
lust, you do not have, you murder and you covet and cannot
obtain. You fight and you war, yet you
do not have because you do not ask, you ask and you do not
receive, because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your
pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses, do
you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with
God? Whoever, therefore wants to be a
friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Or who do you think that the Scripture says in vain?
The Spirit who dwells in US yearns, jealous, jealously.
We want to be friends with this world that's destroying, being
destroyed and falling apart, and we want to hang out in the
places that the world goes to. We're jeopardizing our walk in
our testimony before the lost. If you and I get alongside of
people that are on their way to hell and we sit beside them and
we don't tell them about why they're going to hell.
That's the the, the tragedy of tragedies, isn't it?
That we just endorse what they do and how they live, and we
never tell them that there's a better way and that there's a
Savior that can change their heart.
See, the lost people, you and I know, our friends, our
neighbors, our relatives, the way they, the reason they are,
the way they are is because they don't have the heart that you
have. And so all they can do is act
the way they do because they don't know that there's a
different way to live. We're not better than them.
We're just changed, right? We've been cleansed, we've been
forgiven, we've been given mercy, and the cross of Jesus
Christ has changed our hearts and our lives.
So in order for these people to know the difference, some of us
have to have the guts to say, hey, I need to tell you about
what Jesus has done for me. Whether they want to listen or
hear it or not, tell them anyway in a loving, humble, gracious
way. If they ask why you don't run in
the same excess that you used to run with them, tell them I can't
because Christ has changed my life and I can't pattern in my
life after what this world patterns itself after anymore
because I'm no longer part of this world.
I'm waiting for the new heaven and the new earth where I really
belong. The world, this world isn't our
home, is it guys? It really isn't.
If you're a true Christian, a true believer in Christ, you
know this isn't your final dwelling place.
And that's why the early church, man, they were so excited.
Maranatha, come quickly. Lord Jesus, the early church,
every day they were living like Christ was going to come
tomorrow. It says about those people in
Hebrews. They look for a city and builder
whose maker was God. They lived in tents, temporary
dwellings, not considering this world their home, but they look
for a city whose builder and maker is God and tip us.
He's just mentioned there this once one name, one person, no
background information, but this guy would not compromise and it
cost him his life and God favored him by putting his name
in the scriptures to be remembered down through the
centuries. Many others caved into Rome's
whims and edicts and and you know, unfortunately that they
would say before the throne and the false incense that Caesar is
Lord. They had no testimony.
And I wonder how many of us today we need to bring this down
to where we are today. We trying to advance our careers
by ungodly compromise by hiding Jesus.
Well, I really can't let the boss really know my convictions.
So I'll go to this place with them or I'll go to this meeting
or this affair and I'll just sort of hang out there with them
even though I don't want to be there.
But I, you know, I got to do it because of business.
No, guys and gals, you don't do it because of business.
You make a stand and you say, you know, be honest with I can't
really be comfortable there. But you know, you go, you have a
nice time, but why don't you want to go?
You religious or something, though?
I'm not religious, but I have a relationship with Christ, and
this goes against my convictions.
I can't compromise my spiritual values.
And the boss might say, well, you know, that might cost you
your career. You might not get that
advancement. You know, it might not get that
raise. Well, let it be right.
Let it be. I remember a man in
Philadelphia. He was a supervisor in the US
Post Office and he was an evangelist.
And he would share his faith on his job.
And they warned him not to do it, that he did it anyway.
And he kept doing it and they gave him I think 3 warnings and
said it would cost his him his job.
He had a livelihood, a family, a house, a mortgage, but he could
not stop telling people about their need of Christ.
He was fired, he lost his job, but the Lord had something
better for him. He's now one of the pastors that
did Calvary Chapel in Philly. So God will always reward you
when you stand up for him. It might seem like a set back,
but it isn't. God is very, very blessed and
pleased with us, and we're not afraid of what this world can
throw at us. So Pergamus, the word means to
be married. And they were unfortunately
being married to Caesar instead of understanding their marriage
to Christ. And the world is seen in this
Book of Revelation as a defiled harlot.
We'll get to it later on. And the church is to be seen as
a pure, chaste virgin bride. Being unfaithful to the Lord,
James tells us, is spiritual adultery.
We know how bad adultery is. Some of us have committed it,
and the Lord has been merciful to us.
But spiritual adultery is even worse because it's when we're
defaming the blood and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Spiritual adultery is very, very serious.
You know, the sin of one of us effects all of us.
If I decide to walk in secret sin and come into this church
and preach the word and tell you guys about Jesus, it might all
line up with everything the scriptures say that it's a
unpure sacrifice and my sin will affect you in your walk.
Your sin the day will affect brothers and sisters around you.
If we had the bubonic plague in Greensburg today, we'd make sure
that this place was quarantined and isolated from anybody that
might have it. But if we found one person
sitting in here with that bubonic plague, all of us would
be compromised, right? The Bible tells us that the sin
of one of us effects all. That's why we need to live in
continual repentance, continual asking the Lord to cleanse us,
not willingly walking in sin, not allowing our heart to be
hard because we've been embittered by someone or
challenged by someone or hurt by someone.
We need to lay down our feelings and our emotions for the sake of
Christ and His church and His Bride.
Jesus refers to His voice and His Word as a sword coming out
of his mouth, the sword of Christ, and it references
Hebrews chapter 412, The sword being the word of God.
The word of God is sharper than any 2 edged sword.
It's able to Pierce and divide asunder of soul and spirit and
is a very discerner of the thoughts and intents of the
heart. I have no idea what God's doing
with this message today in your hearts, but He does, and He
knows where to put that sword in and move away some area there
and cut out the sin, the cancer that can so easily end up in any
of our hearts at any given time. His word is a liberating word, a
cleansing word, a purifying word, and the present judgment
on this church and Pergamus that Jesus is referring to, that it
must listen to what He has to say, have an ear to hear what
the Spirit is saying to the church.
And when the church is disobedient to the Word of God,
then God does bring judgment. And it says in the last days
that judgment has to begin first with us, right?
Has to start with me and you before we can have an effect on
the world. The world just looks at all
those people inside those buildings on Sunday.
All they do is live in delusion. They talk about a Kingdom and
they talk about a Savior, but they live like they're pagans,
and we have no influence in this world but praise God by His
grace and by the power of His Spirit.
When you guys leave here today, I trust you're going to be
walking out with brightness in your face, with light in your
eyes. And when you're in the midst of
other people, in the presence of other people, they're going to
know, as they knew in the book of the Acts, that these people
have been with Jesus. He speaks about the man in the
wilderness. Interesting insight here.
Back in those days there was a pot that they put in the ark of
the covenant that had man in. And Jesus is speaking that he
will provide them food in the midst of this persecution and
wilderness, that they don't have to be afraid or worry.
Jesus is referred to as being the bread of life, right?
You feed on him, you eat and partake of his life.
His life is your life. That's why Jesus said unless
you're willing to eat in my flesh and drinking my blood, my
life is not in you. Not cannibalism, the spiritual
nurturing that comes from the person of God himself.
It's mystical, it's hard to grasp, it's hard to understand,
but as you digest this word, the Bible says your word.
Have you hid in your heart that you will not sin against them,
against him? Not the sacrifices to idols
which Pergamus was making. He refers to this interesting
item at the end here of this whitestone some people think is
ties in with the Urim and Thummim.
In the Old Testament it was a 2 stones that were used to pass
out judgment, the Blackstone or white acquittal.
But Jesus is referring to the situation in these days.
If you didn't have a pass, you couldn't get into the feast.
And why would you want to pass to go into the feast of idols?
Jesus is talking about giving them entrance into an admission
to a feast that will last forever.
And one day we will feast with the glory, Jesus Christ in
heaven forever, the marriage supper, the lamb.
Do you have admission to that? The admission comes through the
blood of Jesus Christ. Have you received Christ Himself
that you might have admission into His Kingdom?
The wonderful thing is for you and me today that I am no longer
guilty. I know I'm a Sinner still, and
you know you're still sinners. But when Christ atones for your
sin, and when He shed His blood for you, and you receive that
sacrifice by faith, it means that you have been made
righteous, and that you have no more guilt and no more stain,
and no condemnation. It's a wondrous thing that He
does, and that Whitestone represents the righteousness of
Christ that he imparts to us in our heart.
And he no longer sees in you a depraved individual who is
guilty before his throne. He sees now a son and a
daughter, a St. that has received his blood and has been
acquitted and declared righteous by grace through faith in Jesus
Christ. And we also have received this
invitation to feed on Him today and throughout eternity.
I love the Lord's Supper every week.
It nurtures me. It feeds me when I can partake
in this mystical way of His body and His blood.
It transforms me like no other dinner or meal that I can get
because it purifies me. I can't take that with Him or
before you, unless I've first dealt with my own heart as you,
I trust, have dealt with yours. And I celebrate that Supper
every Sunday, as I trust you do. The early church met daily in
the Apostles doctrine in fellowship and prayers in the
Lord's Supper, and the Lord added daily to the church such
as should be saved. This has been Living Waters of
Grace with Pastor Clark. We're going through the
challenging and also intriguing Book of Revelation.
Whether you're a fan of reading ahead in books of fiction,
there's such a benefit to reading ahead in the Bible to
read about how it all ends. But in an interesting turn of
events, the Book of Revelation is not really the end, but
rather the beginning. It's the end of life as we know
it here on earth, but there's so much to look forward to.
But what comes after all? The judgement of the earth and
those who reject God. There's a lot to work through,
and it can be heartbreaking to read through the intense
judgements and wrath that will come on those who hate God with
all their might. The thing is, God has given
chance upon chance to these people.
They don't want it. So the outcome is that there are
judgements and consequences for those who've rejected the good
news and the gift of salvation that's offered through Jesus's
death and resurrection. Are you one who has heard about
these things but doesn't really want it because you want to live
life on your terms? Trust me, living for Jesus is so
much better. That doesn't mean it will be
easy, but as you listen and read through Revelation with us,
you'll come to a stark realization that you don't want
to be on earth when the apocalypse happens.
So check out Calvary Chapel online.com to learn how to come
to a saving grace through faith that will allow you to be with
Jesus for eternity. We'd also love to meet you in
person at Calvary Chapel Westmoreland.
Come join us at 400 E Pittsburgh St.
Ste. 6B in Greensburg, PA 15601. This has been living waters of
grace.