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.
If I say, well, I can't do this, I'm not as good as him or I'm
not as good as her, that's sinful.
When God says he's choosing you because you're weak and foolish,
just admit it, Lord, I'm not going to compare myself with
anybody else. I'm what you tell me in your
word, I am. I'm weak, I'm foolish, but I
want to surrender this body to you for you to use for your
glory. And as God begins to use you and
work in your life and bless people through your life, you
will know it has nothing to do with you.
Comparing ourselves to others is a sinful habit that we must not
allow ourselves to fall victim to.
God didn't make us in the likeness of those around us.
He made us in the likeness of Himself, and He knows what we're
capable of. He created us all as individuals
with a purpose. When He calls us to walk in the
way He leads, we must lean into that and allow ourselves to be
moved. Today, Pastor Clark teaches us
not to be ashamed of being weak and foolish, because it's there
we find God's strength now. Here's Pastor Clark in the Book
of Revelation chapter 19 with today's edition of Living Waters
of Grace. Before crisis in our life, all
we do is just keep doing the stuff that we know we shouldn't
do. It's it comes naturally because
we're all sinful people. But when Christ comes into our
life and changes us, all the sudden we have the ability and
the power to make choices now and say, I'm not going to live
this way anymore. I'm not going to do this
anymore. We're going to have to maybe
talk to some people and say, guess what?
My relationship with you is ended as of now.
And they'll say, well, why? Because I can't live this way
anymore. I can't sleep around anymore.
I can't do this anymore because God lives in me now.
They'll probably look at you like you're nuts.
That's OK. They might ask you what do you
mean God's in you? And then you can tell them
what's happening to you. And then perhaps God will save
them as well. And it says if we live in the
Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
So that's the major difference between this teaching and
revelation regarding why is he going to destroy all this flesh
on the earth at this time? Because these people are enemies
of God. They're walking this way,
they're living this way, and they don't care.
They've heard the truth. They know the truth from the
standpoint of it being communicated to them.
But they're the kind of people that refuse to submit and
repent. And perhaps you're here today in
that camp, you're refusing to repent.
Well, God wants you to know today that if you refuse to
repent, this is what you're going to face.
And even worse, if you don't end up in this situation, you die
before this event occurs. You're going to be in hell
forever. That's a cold hard fact, but
it's the truth. You're going to be in hell
forever and ever. Philippians chapter 3 verse 3
says we're not to have any confidence in the flesh, not any
confidence in our own self ability.
And this, this is important for Christians today in our jobs and
our marriages and our raising of our children and our ministries,
whatever. If we depend upon our own
abilities and we're trusting in our own wisdom, we're having
confidence in our fallen nature, which will do nothing but mess
things up. We're not to have any confidence
in human ability. The world today teaches us about
self esteem. To be confident, feel good about
yourself, you have to love yourself.
Well, the Bible says we already do love ourselves.
I mean, that's a that's a given because all our focus is most of
the time on ourselves. It proves that we have this
insatiable love for self that we have to constantly deny.
And Jesus says if any man will follow me, let him deny himself.
That's the hardest thing to do as a human being, to deny
yourself will. But it says not to have any
confidence in your human ability.
It says Second Corinthians chapter 3, verse 5.
Not that we're sufficient of ourselves to think of anything
as being from ourselves, but our sufficiencies from God.
In other words, I receive my esteem from God.
Where God says you're beloved, you're accepted in the beloved,
holy and without blame. That should make all of us feel
fantastic. It's not what you think of me or
what I think of you or what we think of one another.
I mean, it's nice to think good things, but you don't want
anybody to hate you or not like you or disrespect you.
But it really shouldn't bother us because God says He loves you
with an everlasting love. He cares about you, He's for you
and He's not against you. He has plans for you in the days
ahead, Plans of hope and plans of a future.
John 663 says it is a spirit who gives life.
The flesh profits nothing. If I'm up here trying to
motivate you today and my own ability and my own passion and
my own desire as a human being and trying to persuade or cause
your mind to think differently through my own strength, my own
ability, it'll profit nothing. The words that I speak to you
are spirit and they are life. And that's my prayer for us as a
ministry, that it's a spirit that's speaking.
It's not the flesh, it's not human ability, it's not the
wisdom of man, but it's the wisdom of God.
First Corinthians chapter one, verse 2631.
If you flip over there for a minute and if you pick anything
up as we're studying together, pick up the difference between a
life that's directed by the Spirit and a life that's
directed by pride of fallen natures.
Verse 26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many
wise according to the flesh human ability, right fallen
nature, not many mighty not many know Bo are called but God has
chosen the foolish things of the world to put the shame the wise
and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put the
shame. The things which are mighty and
base things of the world and things which are despise God
hath chosen, and the things which are not to bring to
nothing. The things that are that no
flesh should glue glory in his presence, that no flesh should
glory in his presence. But of him are you in Christ
Jesus who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption that it is written.
He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.
And so we're here today as brothers and sisters for the
most point. Most of us are Christians here
today, and God is calling all of you for some purpose.
And he's not looking for people who are highly educated.
Of course, he can use highly educated people, but he doesn't
have any kind of agenda. When he chooses people to serve
him, He chooses people who the world might say many times are
losers. He chooses the outcasts, the
downcast. He chooses the insecure.
He chooses people who know down deep inside I can't do this,
Lord. He chooses people who have
failed. And so he looks out in an
audience and he says not many wise out there today, not to put
anybody down. Not many noble, not many mighty
are called, but God has chosen the weak and the foolish things
of this world. How many of us are weak and
foolish here today? That's all of us.
So he's calling all of us to serve him and you might say,
well, I can't do this. I'm not as good as him or I'm
not as good as her. That's sinful.
When God says he's choosing you because you're weak and foolish,
just admit it, Lord, I'm not going to compare myself with
anybody else. I'm what you tell me in your
word, I am. I'm weak, I'm foolish, but I
want to surrender this body to you for you to use for your
glory. And as God begins to use you and
work in your life and bless people through your life, you
will know it has nothing to do with you.
And that's why it says there in 31.
He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.
I remember when we were training to be missionaries and my sister
in law's here today, she was with the new tribes mission in
Africa with in Senegal and boot camp was tough.
It was the second phase of the training.
We went to Bible college. We got all that great head
knowledge right. We had to memorize the book of
Ephesians. We thought we were really it,
right? I mean, we really thought we had
it together. We had a handle on the word and
all that. We go to the boot camp and we're
around these deep Christians that are training us and and
they're telling us why we got to get from what's in here down to
here because we're all in there is a bunch of immature, proud,
self willed people that are claiming that they're being
called by God to be missionaries.
And and the truth was that, yeah, God's calling us to serve
him, but there's work that needs to be done in our life before we
can serve him. They had a Tuesday night
meeting. It was an open night meeting
where you'd all sit here like this and they'd do worship and
then you'd wait on the Holy Spirit to speak.
And sometimes 10 minutes, nothing's happening.
And they'd play some more music. And then someone would come up
and they'd share the words, you know, and they'd break it.
And they'd maybe 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15, and whatever the
Holy Spirit's leading them. And, and they would be speaking
to the body. And then they'd sit down and
someone else would get up and share.
And maybe a woman would come up and sing a song or read a Psalm,
or it was powerful. And down deep inside, as you're
sitting there, you know God wants to use you too, but you're
afraid because you're thinking, what if I look like a fool?
What if I say something that's stupid?
What if I'm not correct? Or what if I blow it or
whatever, You know, and God's like that, your heart's
thumping. You know you're supposed to say
something. You don't.
You've all had those opportunities when you're in a
meeting and you know God wants to use you.
A Wednesday night's study to say something, to pray or whatever,
step out in faith. And it's scary.
And I remember the first time I went up there and I thought I
had something to say. And when I got up there, I
looked in the Bible, I realized I had nothing to say.
It was terrible. I got up there and I'm supposed
to say something, but I have absolutely nothing to say and I
could have read something here, but the Lord whisper in my ear,
you're a phony cloak. You're a phony.
If we got to deal with you're going to be humble and you're
going to be and I'm like freaking out and at the back of
the wall. It says this first to bring to
naughty the things that are that no flesh should glory in his
presence. It says in First Corinthians
1550, flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.
The part of us we war against will not be in heaven.
That's good news. The fallen sinful nature will
not follow us into the Kingdom of God.
When we get into the Kingdom of God, the former things have
passed away. There'll be no more pride,
There'll be no more selfish ambition.
There'll be no more anger or hatred or unforgiveness or
bitterness or lust. All that stuff is going to be
gone, the unyielded self life that we still struggle with and
as a pastor I have to constantly bring my will under subjection
of the Lord and say Lord not my will but your will be done in
every area of my life. That unyielded tendency in our
lives that fights against us in this body, the flesh to try to
make excuses for sin or attitude won't be in the Kingdom of
heaven. You ever have your wife or your
husband say something to you like, you know you did this and
you did that and and the first thing you want to do is justify
yourself, right? Well, no, that's not the way it
went down. That's not really what happened.
I was really doing this and the person's like looking at you
like you're lying. But in our minds, we're
justifying our behavior, right? I'll give you an illustration of
my own life. Last night.
My grandson comes to spend the night with us, and I love
hanging out with my grandkids. But I told you guys I'm going to
add it to the computer when I have to investigate something to
buy something. So I'm busy studying about
netbook computers because I need it for my job.
It's different than a laptop. They're smaller and they're
cheaper and they're, you know, whatever.
So I'm like doing this extensive research that I think is real
important because I got to get this thing soon.
I got all this pressure on my life next week to serve all this
data and all these reports and everything.
I need to have this device. And, you know, my conscious is
telling me get out there and play with Logan.
You know, get out there and play with Logan.
I kept like, well, I'll get out there in a little bit, right?
And then they watched a movie and I figured I can be back here
now because they're watching a movie.
I'm justifying myself. Then I come out and we're going
to play kids Monopoly. And then we were going to read a
book and I was real tired. And I said, why don't you read a
book to us? That way you can put Papa to
sleep while you're reading, you know, so he's so cute.
He's laying beside me reading this book.
And it's amazing to see how this kid reads at first grade.
I mean, all I could read was see spot run Jack and Joe up the
hill. Remember that?
And they're reading way beyond what we could read back when we
were in school in first grade. Cindy and I are talking and and
she just said, you know, you blew it last night.
He doesn't get up here that often, right?
So honey, I was in there studying.
I was doing my sermon too, you know, and she says all the time
I said, well, no, no, but a lot of the time I'm trying to
justify here, wait a little bit. I'm not really.
Finally I realized that I did blow it.
I was convicted. But it's interesting how we want
to justify the flesh. And you can't make excuses for
the flesh. It is what it is.
It's despicable, it's self willed, it's selfish, it's our
enemy, you know. And so thank God, you know, as
I, you know, dealt with my heart there, he was playing with a
puzzle. And I redeemed some time.
I sat down. I'm not good at puzzles, but I
sat down and I was able to put five pieces in with him.
And, you know, we had a nice time.
We connected there. And next time he comes up, I'll
be more sensitive to, you know, turn the computer off and, you
know, hang out with him. But you know, this tendency that
we have to constantly crucify the desires of our own self will
and our own passions, our own desires.
And that wasn't an evil desire to do that research.
I got to do it, you know, regardless.
But I can pick the times when I can do certain things, you know.
And so we're to walk in the Spirit.
We're to be controlled by God and everything we do.
Now, when you read the book of Genesis and the way the world
was and the way Adam and Eve were before, the fall is the way
we're going to be in the Kingdom of heaven.
God's going to restore everything to the way he
initially wanted it to be. And I can't wait for that time.
It's going to be glorious. But sin is this enemy right now
in this life and it manifests itself through, as I said, this
body and these fallen desires. Again, the difference between an
unbeliever is all they can do is be held captive to the fallen
desires over and over and over again.
The difference with a Christian and a believer is we have the
ability now to overcome what is attacking us and what is
tempting us and what is happening that is wrong.
We don't have to allow it to control us.
We can ask God to give us strength and we can overcome it,
and we don't have to be victim to it anymore.
Now God says that the foolishness of man is evident,
and what we're seeing in Revelation here in chapter 19 is
the foolishness of man warring against God in 19 and 21, and we
see the consequences of these world leaders at the time.
You have the unholy Trinity, you have the devil, the Antichrist,
the beast and the false prophet. And in 19 it says, when I saw
the beast, the kings of the earth and the armies gathered
together to make war against him, Capital H making war
against Christ himself who sat on the horse and against his
army. How foolish to think that man
can ever win a battle against God.
You know, there was a time in our lives today as Christians
that we were like these people here that are preparing to do
battle against God. You may be here today and you
are fighting against God. You're his enemy.
And it says in Ephesians chapter 2, in him we were made alive who
were dead once in trespasses and sins, in which time we also
walked according to the course of this world, according to the
Prince of the power of the year. Our allegiance was to the devil
and the demons. That was our whole life and we
didn't even realize it. It says among whom also we had
our manner of life, our conversation and time passed
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and we're
by nature the children of wrath. Even as others.
Ron and I talked about this. Ron teaches immense study on
Saturday. What he came out of, like maybe
a lot of us was was really bad, wasn't it, Fulfilling the
desires of the flesh and of the mind.
He talked about the struggle because people were becoming
Christians that he loved and they started telling him what
happened to him and it gave him conflict and he knew this is
what he needed. But the devil and the flesh
wanted him to stay in the bondage of the old life, send
them to hell. But God in his grace
miraculously broke through it says the next verse in Ephesians
2. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were dead
in trespasses and sins, that's all of us, hath quickened us
together with Christ by grace. Are you saved?
And now he's a man of God, has a woman of God as his wife, and
young children of God. Amazing how God can turn our
lives around. A young man told me about his
addictions to drugs and how horrible it was, and how he's
been clean now for a couple years, and how he was baptized
and now he's a new creation. If any man is in Christ, he's a
new creation. Old things are passed away.
Behold, all things are become new.
Some of us here today have things we have to turn over to
Christ in order that we can see Him save us.
Armageddon. It's the vengeance of God
against the ultimate arrogance of man.
We see the beast and the false prophet, the enemies of God, the
leaders of the ungodly Kingdom. They're cast into the lake of
fire before the great White Throne judgment.
Now, next week we're going to look at chapter.
The next several chapters are astounding as we close the Book
of Revelation up. But these two characters were
cast into the lake of fire even before the final judgment.
The beast and the false prophet, the devil will be cast into this
fire after the thousand year millennial reign, which will
occur after the second coming of Christ.
And we'll look at that in Revelation 2015.
Now, the lake of fire, as we begin to conclude, is hell.
And it's for anyone that's not found written in the book of
life will be cast into the lake of fire.
God has a book. That book is open.
And if you're his today, you're born again.
You're a believer in Christ. Your name's written in that
book. And when God opens the book, it
isn't like God needs a memory. I wonder if Clark's in here.
Let me see here. Oh, yeah, Yeah.
He's back there in 1971. He got born.
And God knows everything about everybody.
He knows those who are his and those who aren't.
But hell is not prepared, as I said earlier, for you.
It's prepared for the devil and his angels.
Matthew 2541 tells us that it's a place where the fire is not
quenched. And Mark Chapter 9, it's a place
of regret and torment and fire, and there's no water to quench
your thirst. Luke chapter 16 in Revelation,
it speaks about hell, where the smoke of those tormented there
goes up forever and they find no rest.
As I told you in Galatians 5, those who practice sin will not
inherit the Kingdom of God. You have to stop the desire to
sin, and the only way you can stop that is by coming to
Christ. And He'll take that desire away.
Some of you here today I know are on the edge of coming to
Christ, and the truth is pulling you towards the Lord and the
devil and the demons and the sin is pulling you away from God.
It's a conflict, but Christ wants to free you from that
conflict. John chapter 3 Nicodemus is a
Pharisee, a a roller, a teacher of the Jews.
He comes to Jesus by night and says to him, Rabbi, we know that
you're a teacher, come from God. For no one can do these signs
that you do unless God is with him.
And Jesus answered and said to him, most surely I say to you,
unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he's old?
Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?
And Jesus answered most assuredly.
I say to you, unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he
cannot enter the Kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is
flesh. In other words, our first birth
through our mother is the first birth, and that's born of human
flesh. And that which is born of
spirit, capital S Holy Spirit is Spirit.
Talking about a need to be born again, have a second birth.
Then Aunt Marvel, I say to you, you must be born again.
And you might sit here and say that sounds really confusing.
How does that all work out? Well, Jesus says the wind blows
where it wishes. You hear the sound of the wind,
but you can't tell where it's coming from and where it goes.
So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.
The way we're born again is to repent from our sin and to turn
to Jesus Christ. You can't get born again through
baptism. You can't get born again through
taking the Lord's Supper. You can't get born again by
saying, I'm going to turn over a new leaf.
I'm going to try harder. You can't get born again through
a priest or a pastor. You only can get born again
through the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is the one
who has the power to bring you into this second birth.
And if you're not born again, you won't enter into the Kingdom
of heaven. It isn't about coming to church.
Coming to church is a good thing.
That's where you hear about these things.
But church attendance can't save you.
Nothing can save you except for Jesus Christ.
He's the only one who can save us.
And so my prayer today is we've studied about this horrible
situation in Revelation and the end of chapter 19.
What's going to come upon the earth?
There's one reason to teach these things.
God tells us to teach his Word. But the main reason is that we
find ourselves either on one side of the bat or the other.
We're either part of God's family today or we're not, and
we all have to come the same way.
We have to humble ourselves and say, Lord, I need to get saved
today. I need to get born again.
I need you to come into my life and change me.
God wants to save people. He's come to seek and to save
that which is lost yield to Him. He wants to save you.
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 for 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 judgments 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.