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.
Christ sees everything and everyone, everyone of us today
are manifest before his throne. If you flip over to Hebrews
chapter 4, you know there's a lack of of the fear of God in
our day that we live. Men love darkness rather than
life because their deeds are evil.
Many times we think we can get away with certain types of
behavior and actions and no one sees it.
Well, no human as far as us, flesh and blood might be seeing
what's going on, but God sees everything.
Growing up, I was told that my mother had eyes in the back of
her head. While I eventually discovered
that to be false, she did manage to know or discover a surprising
amount of information. As informed as my mother was
about my whereabouts, Christ truly does see and know all that
happens. God is omniscient or all
knowing, and He sees everything. In today's message, Pastor Clark
discusses how we can take comfort in confession knowing
that we have nothing to hide from God.
Now here's Pastor Clark in the Book of Revelation chapter one
with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and
Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that
is called Pathmos, for the Word of God and for the testimony of
Jesus Christ. For I was in the Spirit on the
Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet,
saying, I am the Alpha and Omega, the 1st and the last.
And what you see, write in a book and send it to the seven
churches which are in Asia, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, the
Pergamus, to Thyrotyra, to Sardis, to Philadelphia and to
Laodicea. Then I turned to see the voices
that spoke with me, and having turned, I saw 7 golden
lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands one like
the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and
girded about the chest with a golden band.
His head and hair were like wool, white as wool, as white as
snow. His eyes were like a flame of
fire, his feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a
furnace, and his voice as a sound of many waters.
He had in his right hand seven stars.
Out of his mouth went a sharp 2 edged sword, and his countenance
was like the sun shining in its strength.
And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.
But he laid his right hand on me, saying to me, Do not be
afraid, I am the 1st and the last.
I am he who lives and was dead, and behold, I am alive for
evermore. Amen.
And I have the keys of Hades and of death.
Write the things which you have seen, the things which are, and
the things which will take place after this.
The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand,
and the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars are the angels
of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw
are the seven churches. John is continually teaching us
through this book that he's encountering the Lord Jesus
Christ himself personally and individually, and he's actually
hearing Christ speak to him. It must have been a wonderful
experience for the apostle John because it's been about 60 years
since he had the privilege of hearing Christ's voice speak to
him personally. It's been approximately 60 years
since Christ has ascended. And you remember John, the
beloved apostle, He was the one that laid his head on the chest,
the breast of Jesus. He was called the beloved
disciple. So he had a tremendous
relationship with the Lord. Very, very intimate, very, very
close. And to be able to hear, you
know, when you read the word, sometimes we receive what God
feels is necessary. But there's a lot of things in
between the lines. The Bible says if everything was
recorded of what Jesus both didn't do, there wouldn't be
enough books in the whole world to to contain everything.
But I would think that John was pretty excited to hear that
voice that he remembered hearing when Jesus was on earth and when
he was discipling John and showing him the way.
So John is going to do exactly what the Lord has instructed him
to do. He's going to write these things
and send this message to the seven churches.
Now, as we see in verse 12, it says he, he turns to see the
voice that spoke with me and he, he begins to have these visions
of various objects, the vision that he had.
I, I, I don't know exactly how that came about.
Was it a, a dream type state? Was it some form of ecstasy that
he was experiencing? Was he just having some kind of
thoughts in his mind of, of what the spirit was revealing to him
or whatever it was that was occurring?
It was very, very transcendent of, of this world and how the
earth communicates to the human heart.
This is God communicating in ways that only he can
communicate. And so he's manifesting truth
through various symbols here. He, he says in verse 12, he
refers to these lampstands. And these lampstands, as we see
in verse 20, they, they represent the seven churches.
And the church is supposed to be a light in the world.
Whenever the church is no longer manifesting light in the midst
of darkness, the church has lost its purpose.
Christ is always the centerpiece of the church.
Christ's in our midst. And it's his light today that
illumines every heart that is here through the teaching of his
Word. That's the way he's established
his truth to be manifest and this vision that John gets very,
very profound vision is is amazing in a sense of how it
similar similarity in Daniel Chapter 7.
If you flip over there for a minute.
Daniel is a another amazing book because it it parallels what we
what we read in Revelation and almost verbatim here some of the
words and concepts that John used or also used by Daniel and
Chapter 7 verse 9. It says I watched till Thrones
were put in place and the Ancient of Days was seated.
His garment was white as snow. The hair of his head was like
pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame,
its wheels a burning fire. A fiery stream issued came forth
from before him. 1000 thousands ministered to him. 10,000 *
10,000 stood before him. The court was seated and the
books were opened. I watched them because of the
sound of the pompous words which the horn was speaking.
I watched till the beast was slain and its body destroyed and
given to the burning flame as the rest of the beast.
They had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were
prolonged for a season and time. I was watching in the night
visions, and behold one like the Son of Man coming with clouds of
heaven, He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him
near before him. And then to him was given
dominion and glory, and a Kingdom that all peoples,
nations, and languages should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass
away, and His Kingdom, the one which shall not be destroyed.
So amazing that the parallels prophetically that are given
from Daniel himself, given to Daniel himself, just like they
were given to the apostle John in the Book of Revelation.
So we see the garments that Christ is wearing, verse 13,
They're they're priestly garments.
We don't wear those kind of things in our church tradition.
Our our priestly garments are blue jeans and sweaters and
T-shirts, you know, but there was such a majesty in the Old
Testament in regard to how God was worshipped in the midst of
the temple with the priest. The robes weren't worn to draw
attention to human beings. They were warned to represent
and a type pictorially what the glory of heaven is like and the
beauty of heaven and the symbolism.
Sometime we have a chance. We'll, we'll look at those
things in more detail. But they're marvelous.
Some churches, they actually still use a vestments, they call
them or priestly robes. And unfortunately, for the most
part, it's become to say a tradition and the the people
really don't even understand the purpose of why the people would
wear these things. It's been this loss with the
deadness of of modern day religion.
But it refers to these garments as being one who would also be
represented as the judge of all men and the King of kings and
Lord of Lords. In verse 14, it says his head
and his hair were like white wool, as white as snow.
And the white hair represents the eternality of the ages that
Christ is and was and always has been.
There is no beginning and no end.
He is the Ancient of Days as it says in both Daniel and
Revelation and verse 14, it refers to his eyes.
His eyes are like a flame of fire.
Christ sees everything and everyone, everyone of us today
are manifest before His throne. If you flip over to Hebrews
chapter 4, you know there's a lack of of the fear of God in
our day that we live. Men love darkness rather than
life because their deeds are evil.
Many times we think we can get away with certain types of
behavior and actions and no one sees it.
Well, no human as far as us, flesh and blood might be seeing
what's going on, but God sees everything.
Everything we do, everything we think God is aware of, and it
tells us. In Hebrews 412, the Word of God
is living and powerful and sharper than any 2 edged sword.
It's able to Pierce even to the division of soul and spirit, of
joints and marrow. As a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart, I think of that sword as it goes
into our hearts this morning, as the Word is being preached.
There's nothing. It's hidden here and on any of
our hearts. And if we think we're hiding
something, if we're not revealing it before the face of
God and repenting of it, God will dig away until you're real
aware that He's exposing you. Now the Bible tells us that if
we repent of our sins, the Lord covers our sins.
But if we try to hide our sins, God will eventually expose them
and make them evident. It says in verse 13 there is no
creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and
open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.
Every one of us one day will stand before the Lord and give
an account of our lives for the things we've done in our body,
whether they be good or evil. The Bible tells us a fearful
thing in Hebrews to fall into the hands of the living God.
That's why I urgently implore you each week, as well as
myself, that we must repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at
hand. I don't know when I'm going to
leave this world. Neither do you.
But when I leave, I want to be leaving in a state of
repentance. I think of the years that the
Lord gives us to live on this earth.
Some of us have longer years than others, but as a fallen
human being, and these days in my own life, I want to repent
even more for the things I've done in my life, but also for
the things that I still do. The things I think at times, the
attitudes, the judgments, the criticisms, all the things that
our human heart is capable of manifesting.
I want to be able to see those things as they occur in my
heart. I want the Lord to search my
heart. I want him to try my thoughts.
I want him to see the wicked ways in me and reveal them to me
and lead me in the way everlasting.
I want my heart to be purified. I want it to be cleansed.
And when God points his finger and says, Clark, this has to go,
this has to change. I want to be like David and say
create in me a clean heart, O God, which after you is created
in righteousness and true holiness.
If we're exposed by the Spirit of God, it's not to make us
miserable, it's to free us. Because everything that the Lord
touches and everything that he wants to change in your heart is
to make you more like Himself, right?
It's to give you joy. It's to give you peace.
And so allow the Lord to do what he wants to do in your heart.
And I love what he says. Seeing then we have a great high
priest after God exposes all this stuff that we need to
repent of, who has passed through the heavens.
Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession.
For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our
weakness. The Lord knows us, doesn't He?
He knows our struggles, He knows the areas that each of us have
that are so prone to failing, and He wants to work in our
hearts so that we begin to have victory.
And as we trust in Him to change us, He will.
It says He was an all points tempted as we are, yet without
sin. So let us therefore come boldly
to the throne of grace. And I pray that your attitude on
Sundays when you take the supper, you come boldly to the
throne of grace, knowing that you have a right to come before
the throne of God, and you may obtain mercy and find grace to
help in your time of need. And the Lord will always be
faithful to gently shepherd you and to love you and to restore
you to that place of communion and fellowship with him.
And so then he refers to this aspect of feet burning his
brass. And this represents a foundation
that can't be broken. It's not like the feet of clay
of the nations in the last days where they rise up and they act
like they got it all together and they're mighty and they're
strong. And as persecution and trials
and tribulations begin to come, the nations of the earth begin
to crumble. No, the feet of Christ, the
burning brass represents again judgment that he's the judge of
all the churches. In verse 15, it talks about his,
his voice being the sound of many waters.
I love to sit by the ocean when there's no one there and no
distractions. And I love this to close my eyes
and just hear the waves crashing this continual, There's no
silence, It's just continual noise.
And every wave seems to have a different sound effect in my
ear. Every wave that flows in is not
exactly the same as the wave that came before it.
And it's just a continuation of this, an outpouring of the, the
sound and crashing of, of the surf upon the sand.
And God's sound, his voice is like the sound of everlasting
waters. If you ever been to Niagara
Falls and you stood at the base of the falls, you're in the Maid
of the mist. You just hear the, the crushing
sound of the water this relentlessly coming down off the
the cliffs there into the into the pond or lake, a stream
there. It's just continue.
It's the sound of His absolute power and authority.
I think of a storm at night, a thunderstorm or a lightning
storm or a hailstorm, and just the sound of the Thunder is so
crushing and at times it shakes you.
It makes you fearful. The fact that God is so
magnificent and so powerful that he could wipe any of us out in a
second, and it's just overwhelming.
And then you think of the sound of earthquakes or tornadoes or
hurricanes or typhoons, The tremendous power that God has in
the midst of this universe, it would cause you to to fall on
your face and be broken, as we will see John here in a few
moments, falling on his face. But no one can stop these sounds
but God. No one can stop the fury of the
Thunder and the lightning and the hurricane and the
earthquakes. But God, He has control over
this whole universe. Nothing occurs outside of His
will in His plan. Someone mentioned recently about
the crisis in Haiti. How could a loving God allow
such a horrible situation to occur there?
God's judgment, and I'm not saying Haiti is God's judgment
it but it says in the last days there will be birth pangs and a
frequency of cataclysmic events occurring on the face of the
earth to cause men and women and children to begin to look up and
to wonder about is there a God? And if there is a God, am I
ready to meet him? Am I ready to stand before him?
This sound of the voice in heaven speaks with power and
authority and it says in verse 16 that out of his mouth when a
sharp 2 edged sword. We read in Hebrews that the word
of God is sharper than any 2 edged sword, piercing, dividing
asunder of soul and spirit and is a very discerner of the
thoughts and intense of the heart.
It's just so wonderful when you sit down, you're reading through
the Bible this year and and as you read it, it's purifying you.
It's it's convicting you. You see your own life and the
life of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Sarah and Hagar and
all these people in the scripture.
You say, boy, that person reminds me of me a little bit,
you know, and it, it shows you God's action and intervention in
their lives and his mercy and his grace and his forgiveness.
And you're, you're encouraged, you know, the fact that God is
such a compassionate, loving, merciful God in spite of the
foolishness of the human race, in spite of the foolishness of
the human heart. And this sword that's coming out
of his mouth speaks with authority.
It's the living word of God. Ephesians tells us that it's the
sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
He gives us a description also of the of the seven stars in
verse 16, and these seven stars are descriptive of perhaps he
refers to the name Angel. Angel means messenger.
We prayed this morning before we came up here that God's angels
would protect this place, surround it from the attacks of
the evil. 1 And God has sent forth his army of angels in the
midst of these days that we live.
I love what it tells us in Hebrews, the beginning of
Hebrews, about the angelic creatures, aren't they
ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who are the
heirs of salvation? You have a guardian Angel.
Do you know that? Do you believe that?
Well, the Scriptures declare that you do.
And that poor Angel, what they've had to put up with,
right with all of us. I'm sure my Angel would love to
trade places with one of you guys.
He's been with me for 58 years now.
But even the angelic beings, whenever the word of God is
proclaimed and preached, they like to hang around in the
atmosphere because they never get tired of listening in and
hearing the mystery that's revealed through the church, the
gospel of God's salvation. The angels could also in some
commentaries refer to the pastors of the churches because
we're messengers, we're responsible to declare to the
community, the body, the the message of the the word of God.
In verse 16, it refers to his confidence.
It says his countenance was like the sun shining in its strength,
the sun SUN. When you look up in certain
times of the day, you wouldn't dare gaze into the brightness of
the sun, because you'd burn. Your retina, but in certain
times a day you can sunset, you can look at it, look at the
beauty, and it isn't as bright, but the continents of Christ is
like the fullness of the brightness of the sun at its
greatest point, at its fullest of strength.
That was experienced by Peter, James, and John whenever they
were at the base of the Mount of Transfiguration, when Christ
appeared in his glorified state and the brightness of His glory
was exceedingly manifest. And Peter and James and John, it
was so bright they had to fall on their face.
And this is the way our Savior is now.
He's transfigured, He's changed, and John is actually able to
experience this again. He's before them.
His face shines like the sun. His clothes become white as the
light. The ancient teachers of the Word
described as light as uncreated light.
You know when God said let there be light and he created the moon
by night and the sun by day and the stars by night.
The light that is manifest in the Holy Trinity is always
existing, it's self existent. It never had a start and never
had a beginning. And that's why the Word tells us
that God is light and in Him is no darkness or shadow of
turning. Psalm 8411 says, for the Lord
God is a son, SUN, and a shield, a purifier and a protector.
So it's a wonderful thing to know that God's brightness, the
exceeding image of his glory and his perfection as it reveals to
us our sin, convicts us that we can repent and be purified and
be made as gold, pure gold. But he's also the protector that
he knows how much we can deal with in any given moment.
If he turned all the light on on me in one nanosecond, I would be
completely pulverized and non existent.
But God understands what we're able to deal with.
And so he comes in the midst of his glory to John with a heart
that is full and also heavy and broken because of the state of
his church in the days that this was being written.
And his heart is still heavy today for the state of the
church today. Christ, we see in this
revelation here is no longer the quiet Carpenter, is he?
He's no longer the obscure and lowly servant.
He's now risen, glorified, and manifest in His full authority
to prepare to judge the nations first.
Peter 417 says for the time has come for judgment to begin at
the House of God. This is what's occurring here.
Jesus is revealing to John the revelation of Himself in the
midst of His church in the last days.
Peter says for the time has come for judgment to begin at the
House of God. It has to begin here, guys, with
you and me, doesn't it? Our judgments, our concerns
about those without Christ are important.
To pray for God to save our families, our neighbors, our
loved ones. But we must come clean before
the Lord ourselves, not be living double ways, not be
living one way in church and another way outside of church.
We must realize that God has to deal with our hearts, the House
of God. If it begins with us first, what
will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?
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 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.
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.