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 can never anticipate or even think about things like this
unless you go to a movie and see some kind of science fiction
movie like Iron Man or something and you you sort of get a
picture through Hollywood of what cataclysmic events can be
like. The only thing I can sort of
compare this kind of destruction to is whenever we had to decide
to drop the bomb, the atomic bomb and Hiroshima and the the
results of what happened to that country and to the people that
were exposed to the radiation. Just unbelievable.
One of the most devastating things I've ever seen is footage
from the detonation of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. The power that was unleashed
feels like it's from another world, and the devastation that
it caused is nearly unspeakable. Sadly, as we just heard from
Pastor Clark, there's coming a time when a similar event will
happen again on Earth. This is directly related to the
End Times, the very last days as we know it here on Earth.
Now. Here's Pastor Clark in
Revelation Chapter 9 with today's edition of Living Waters
of Grace. I want to be an encouragement to
you guys in your daily life and all that you you struggle with
and deal with. But you know, when you're in
this book, it's right straight up with regarding what's going
to happen to the human race that doesn't know Jesus Christ.
And so I pray that as we study this, we're grateful that we're
not going to be here for this. But at the same time, we're
thinking about family members or neighbors or friends or Co
workers or relatives that need to hear about the gospel.
That's really what this is all about as we study this.
It just isn't like, wow, this is fascinating and it's
interesting, but we don't want anybody to have to go through
this, right? That's got to be the key when we
study this. So it's not to intellectually
stimulate us, but it's to burden us for for people that need the
love of Jesus Christ. So as we're studying this now,
this is again the time period when the Antichrist is on the
face of the earth, rolling and reigning the earth.
The seven-year tribulation period is going to be the most
horrendous time on the face of the Earth for the human race.
But the first 3 1/2 years of that period are going to be very
deceptive. Because right now, as I think
about the world economy and what's going on in the world,
and what is going to bring some degree of sanity to the
financial markets isn't legislation or printing more
money, that kind of stuff. It's going to be someone who's
going to rise on the scene, that's going to have an
incredible answer to bring the stability to the markets again
so that the world can prosper almost like this.
This idea of Nirvana, like we finally found this society and
culture. It's going to be peaceful and
it's going to be perfect and it's going to be heaven on earth
type of thing. And the only person that's going
to be able to do that temporarily is this person
Antichrist. He's going to come on the scene
with fascinating, charismatic communication skills.
He's going to have the ability to stabilize the tension that's
in the world because of political, geophysical stress on
the societies and the financial markets.
He's going to have incredible ideas and he's going to be able
to have the ability to bring people together in meetings
where everything's going to make sense.
And I'll tell you, if we were ever close to a time like that,
we are so close now. I mean, the experts, the
financial, monetary experts that we all look to show us what to
do and how we get through these things.
They don't know what to do. All they can think about is this
artificially having these bailouts that are just temporal.
The all they're doing is pushing the cataclysmic events of
financial meltdown into the future, right?
If it isn't what we're going to face individually, our kids or
our grandkids are definitely going to have to face these
problems. So the first 3 1/2 years are
going to be pretty mesmerizing for people on the earth.
They're not going to be thinking about deception.
They're just going to be thinking, Wow, life's better
than it's ever been, make them more money, things are great,
you know, the world's at peace. This is wonderful.
But then God's judgments will begin to start to be poured out,
especially right after the first period of this tribulation.
So we're going to look at these verses step by step here.
This is sort of bring some kind of sense to what is going to be
occurring. Now, we went through the seven
seals previous to this study, the first signs of God's
impending judgment, but they're getting increasingly more
intense and difficult as we move through this book.
Now we're in this time of these trumpet judgments, 7 of them,
and then we'll move into the bowls of wrath, which are also
numbered in numbered in sevens. But in this first one, we see
the first Angel sounds as trumpet.
It's a warning and hail and fire follow, mingled with blood.
And they were thrown to the earth and a third of the trees
were burned up and all the green grass was burned up.
So when this first judgment comes, this picture like today's
a beautiful day out there, the scenery, the trees, the green
grass. This take, Greensburg, if you
may, not the whole world, it will be the whole world.
But this take where we live, where it would affect us if we
were here for such a time that there would be such a horrendous
outpouring from heaven of of some kind of cataclysmic
apocalyptic event that 1/3 of everything out there is burnt.
The trees, the grass, any kind of vegetation, herbs, flowers,
they're destroyed by this first judgment.
And it echoes what it said in Joel chapter 2, verse 31.
The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon into blood
before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.
It reminds us of the the plagues in Egypt when God was dealing
with Pharaoh. Remember, anybody watch the 10
Commandments? Remember that even if you're not
a believer here today, I'm sure you probably saw that movie.
It's incredible. The special effects are amazing.
You think those special effects are good?
Hollywood wait to see God's special effects.
It won't come any. I mean, they're so far beyond
what a human being could even fathom or come up with.
But the the plagues in Egypt, the hail, when it came out, the
7th plague destroyed every herb of the field and broke every
tree of the field. Now that was just a temporal
thing. Things were restored eventually
and brought back to a semblance of order.
But these judgments, they're in, in the sense of the degree of
intensity, they're just the beginning stage of what's going
to happen. It's only 1/3 of the world
that's going to be impacted by this judgment, but eventually as
we get into the judgments that will come later on, it won't
just be part of the world, it's going to be the entire world
that's impacted by this. In verse 8 it says then the
second Angel sounds and something like a great mountain
burns with fire was thrown into the sea, and the third of the
sea became blood, and the third of the living creatures in the
sea died. And the third of the ships were
destroyed. And the third Angel sounded.
And a great star fell from heaven burning like a torch.
And it fell on 1/3 of the rivers and on the springs of water, the
name of the stars Wormwood. 1/3 of the waters became Wormwood.
And many men died from the water because it was made bitter.
So now we see not only the vegetation, but the waters are
being destroyed. We see that they're being turned
to blood. And when God allows these
judgments to come from heaven and the waters are turned to
blood, all the fish are going to die that are exposed to these
waters that are being judged. All the lobster that you like,
the flounder and all the shrimp and the scallops that we all
love to eat, that we feed on that provide sustenance and and
food and nourishment for the masses of civilization of people
are going to be destroyed and it's going to cause cataclysmic
events for the food to supply and the water is going to be
undrinkable. It's interesting, not only the
ocean water, but in verse 9, the waters of the rivers and our
water, it doesn't come out of the air, only the sky.
It comes from the streams, what's already settled and
stable. And we use different filtering
systems to use that water to make it possible to drink.
But it's going to be so bad, the water is going to be
undrinkable. Now, when you read about this
mountain, this is a fascinating concept that it isn't this
mountain that's going to be uprooted and thrown into the
water as it causes problem. But some of the commentators
believe it's going to be a meteorite shower.
And already at different times and civilization, there's been
meteors that have come from heaven and have caused
destruction and disaster where they've landed.
But in this case, this is specific being sent from heaven
to 'cause this problem in the drinking water and not only the
fish, but the maritime commerce, 1/3 of the ships will be
destroyed during this judgment and the approximation.
I have some numbers here that are interesting that right now
there's probably an estimate in the waters of around 60,000
ships that are out there cruising the waterways, doing
business, supplying different countries with different
products. Well, 1/3 of them are going to
be destroyed. That's about 20,000 ships.
Over a half a million people will die in that battle from
this judgment from heaven and the death of these people and
the explosion of these ships and these bodies.
Again, the blood will be everywhere.
This is something that in your wildest dreams or your thoughts
could. You can never anticipate or even
think about things like this unless you go to a movie and see
some kind of science fiction movie like Iron Man or something
and you sort of get a picture through Hollywood of what
cataclysmic events can be like. The only thing I consider
compare this kind of destruction to is whenever we had to decide
to drop the bomb, the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and the the
results of what happened to that country and to the people that
were exposed to the radiation. This unbelievable and so we see
these judgments occurring and in verse 10 it says the third Angel
sounds and a great star falls from heaven burning like a torch
and it fell on 1/3 of the rivers and on the springs of the
weather in the name of the stars Wormwood, 1/3 of the waters
became Wormwood and many men died from the water because it
was bitter again like the Egyptian plague.
You can make some comparisons to God's authority and his ability
to judge when he judged Pharaoh and the people of Egypt because
of their hard heartedness and their hatred toward the children
of Israel. And we again, we see this great
star, it's believed again, possibly a meteor, maybe some
kind of space vehicle descending, loaded up with all
kind of biological and chemical potential destructive elements
of warfare. Some people say it could be some
kind of a parachuted illuminated bomb that's sent up from a rogue
nation. But what it's going to do,
again, it's going to supply, destroy about 1/3 of the water
supply. It'll make it undrinkable.
And when you compare this to what is discussed in Revelation
16, that again, this is only 1/3 of the earth.
And Revelation 16 will make it clear that it'll be the entire
earth when the third bowl of wrath ruins the drinking water
everywhere and people can't drink at all now, in spite of
all these things happening. And just like in Egypt, whenever
these things were going on, these plagues, the people for
the most part, as we read in Exodus, didn't repent.
They actually became harder and hated God more.
You would think that if things like this begin to occur, that
people would look up and ask God for help or his mercy, which he
will still supply to the human race if they call upon him,
He'll still save people during that tribulation.
But people's hearts are so hard and wicked that they'll reach up
their hand and and curse God. They curse God.
Now when things are great, right, something doesn't go
their way. And the human race has a
tendency to blame God for every issue that happens in life.
And we also have that tendency. We have a trial or something go
happen in our life and the first thing we usually say, God, why
me? Why did this have to happen to
me? Why am I going through this
instead of all the times that God blesses us and does so many
wonderful things and then we stop and say, God this thank you
for how good you are to me. Thank you for the the simple
things I take for granted. I mean, even as Christians,
right? We're hard hearted.
We take so much for granted from God's mercy and his grace.
But you take a group of people that are living on the earth at
this time that are God's enemies, that are already hard,
that become more embittered and more hard no matter what God
does. And he gives them the test. 1/3
right now, not the whole earth. 1/3 It's a warning to turn to
me. And so many still will not turn
to him. The, the human race is proud,
right? First of all, it denies that God
exists. I run into people all the time.
I don't believe it. There's a God.
There's no way, you know, we, this is evolution that this came
together. It's, this is what we have.
This is all we have and it's it's not going to get any
better. Human beings also think they're
in control. They can control the
circumstances of life. Our presidents, the leaders of
our nation, they somehow have this delusion that no matter
what they encounter, they can have a meeting and somehow, with
collective wisdom, figure out what to do in a crisis
situation. The world's destiny right now is
so hard hearted that they'll still refuse to acknowledge that
there's a creator God that loves them and cares for them.
And believe me, right now, the goodness of God is what leads us
to repentance. All these years since Christ
ascended after his crucifixion, His resurrection sense to the
heaven, to the Father and the angels that appear at the
ascension say to the world that's looking and seeing this
physical ascension of Christ, wondering where he's going, He's
being lifted up. They said, why are you looking
up into heaven? The same Jesus who's being taken
up from you shall descend and like manner.
And the disciples at the time were asking, was this a sign of
the end? Is this the end?
And Jesus says only the Father who's in heaven knows the time.
But what did he say? Go into all the world and preach
the gospel to every living creature, teaching them all
things whatsoever I've commanded you, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.
So his heart, all these years, over 2000 years, is that people
like us who have come to know Christ, to know his grace, his
love, his mercy, his gentleness, his kindness, that we would have
a desire and a willingness to tell a lost world about who he
is and why he came and why he died.
He doesn't want people to have to go through this.
But even when we tell people about who he is and what he's
done, there's something inherent in the human heart that wants to
push back the love of God and reject him.
And it's only the grace of God that humbles us and breaks us to
realize, Yeah, Jesus is who I need, and I need him to be my
Lord and Savior, to forgive me and my sin.
But most of the people during this tribulation will refuse to
acknowledge their sin and their need of Jesus.
Yet some will come to believe that's the marvel of God's
grace. But we're living in a time right
now where nuclear or biological weapons are so readily available
that it would be very, very simple to contaminate the water
supply someone from al Qaeda gets in our country.
Just as they suppose these Pakistani guys up in this plan
to blow up this vehicle in Times Square and to cause chaos.
Believe me, there is this influence in this world today to
bring a lot of hurt and harm to the human race and it only takes
a couple people to be involved in this to cause cataclysmic
events back in the 60s. This is an interesting piece of
information. I I found there was this Air
Force pilot that was flying maneuvers.
Government had them testing some things regarding nerve gas and,
and they were out there in the in the deserts of Nevada and he
was told to hit this particular target and they were testing the
capability and power of this of nerve gas.
He had 320 gallons of nerve gas in this plane and as he was
flying to drop the amount of gas that they were told to drop and
it was only about 5% of the total load.
As he was flying to drop it, there was a slight shift in the
winds. The winds began to to blow off
course. And this is, this is staggering.
And he, he, he was about 20 to 30 miles off the target with
this and this a little amount of it settled on 1000 thousands of
grazing sheep. It killed 6400 of them instantly
like that. So what would it take, right for
a terrorist to cause a lot of catastrophe?
And the catastrophes we're talking about here are mixed in
the sense of those who are sent directly and sense of heavenly
miraculous events that will cause chaos.
But also during this time, things are going to be also
targeted by demonic human beings who are are in cahoots with the
evil one, moving up toward the eventual destruction, trying to
destroy the earth in the last days before Christ returns.
But these catastrophic biological weapons of mass
destruction already exist. Iran, who knows where they are
right now. We know their intentions is to
try to destroy the nation of Israel.
I don't know about you. Every day I get up, I got to do
my job like you work, all that stuff.
But I look at the headlines of the news, and someday we're
going to begin to read some things that we're not going to
imagine are potentially capable of happening in our own time.
Who would have ever thought on September 10th, that day we got
up, that our country would face what we faced on September 11th,
right? It's still.
You look back all these years and you see the events of that
World Trade Tower falling, and it's almost like that it really
happened. I mean, I can't believe that
this happened, but it did happen and only took a few people with
incredible planning to destroy those towers and to try to
destroy our financial markets and all those lives that were
lost during that time. In verse 12 it says the 4th
Angel sounded and the third of the sun was struck, 1/3 of the
moon, 1/3 of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened,
1/3 of the day did not shine, and likewise the night.
And I looked and I heard an Angel flying through the midst
of heaven saying with a loud voice, woe, woe, woe to the
inhabitants of the earth because of the remaining blasts of the
trumpets of the three angels who are about the sound.
You think about Egypt again when we go back to God's dealing
through Moses with Pharaoh. And there was three day period
of complete darkness in the 9th plague in Exodus 10.
But what's being described here is an unnatural darkness, and
it's one of the signs of the end of the days.
And Mark 13, it describes the sun being darkened and the moon
shall not give light. The darkening of the sun and the
moon and the stars portrays A cosmic catastrophe.
We think of what happened during the crucifixion in Luke
30/23/44. Now it was about the 6th hour,
that's 12 noon. And there was darkness over all
the earth until the 9th hour 3:00 that's the time of Christ
crucifixion. The sun was darkened and the
veil in the temple was torn in 2.
So we see this judgment of God that if you could imagine today,
you know, I don't know, we get sunrise is, I don't know,
probably what, around 6 O clock or something.
And we still have some daylight up to around 9 O clock.
Now days are getting longer that you cut that by 2/3 and you only
have 1/3 of the day that's emitting light from sunshine.
What that will do to the crops and the food ecosystem, food
markets, it's just again going to be catastrophic.
And again, this is the the power of God trying to get the
attention of the hard hearted human race.
We see the 1st 4 seals that we studied a few weeks ago.
They were identified by horses, meaning the swiftness of the
judgments of God moving upon the earth during this time of
tribulation. These judgments that we just
studied, the first four are clear enough and the indication
of God's desire to get the attention of the human race, but
the next three are going to be even worse than the first four.
And they're called woes, meaning intense severity.
Now as time moves on in this particular book we're studying,
as I said, things will get even more horrendous.
And Chapter 9, we're just going to go through a few verses here
this morning. We'll pick it up again next
week, but already read the verses.
But there's going to be the star that falls from heaven.
And this, this individual is a person that is going to be given
a key to the bottomless pit. Now, what happens to everybody
who dies right now? If you're a believer, the Bible
says to be absent in the bodies, to be present with the Lord.
So our soul goes to be with Christ in his present, but our
body is laid in the grave until the final resurrection, when
Christ will actually raise those bodies out of the graves and
will be given new bodies in the heaven.
That's the final resurrection. But those who without Christ
will go into the place of holding until that final
judgment. And it's the element of hell,
but not to the degree of what will be experienced at the final
judgment when the Bible says that whoever's name is not
found, and in God's Lamb book of life, that book that holds the
names of all those who belong to him, whoever doesn't have their
name in that book will be cast into that final judgement, which
is the lake of fire. Thanks for being with us today
here on Living Waters of Grace. We are in the Book of
Revelation, and we find it fascinating how influential and
involved the angels are in this book.
They bring about whatever it is that God has instructed them to
do, but it's through their actions that much of the
judgements come on the earth. The angels are in submission to
God as their authority, but He utilizes them in unique ways
throughout this book. Like angels have a specific
purpose from God, you have a unique purpose and plan too.
God wants to use you in your life as a testimony to others
and to bring others who are currently lost into the fold of
God. God would love more than
anything for all who are willing to come to Him for salvation,
but he wants it to be their choice, not a forced situation.
This is the way God works, not forcing himself on anyone, but
giving each person free will. If you're interested in learning
about this choice that's free and that it's a gift, go to
calvarychapelonline.com and click on the About Us tab and
then find the link for what we believe.
We'd love to be a help and a resource for you as you walk
through what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
If you find the contact tab on our website, you can get in
touch with us or submit a prayer request.
We'd love to hear from you. That's all for today's edition
and Revelation, but there's much more that Pastor Clark plans to
share with us from this culminating book of the Bible.
Stay tuned for that and make sure to mention this radio
program to others. Invite them to tune into Grace
FM 91.7 FM and they can stream worldwide at Grace Radio dot FM.
This has been living waters of grace.