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.
Sometimes we read all these poor people, they refuse to repent of
their sin, they won't acknowledge the Creator, they
blasphemy of the Creator. And many times I look and I look
at the image of the Church of Jesus Christ today and I say, do
we look any different than those who will have to face that
eternity of hell? Are we the kind of people that
are refusing to repent of our sins?
Are we walking around in self righteousness saying I have no
sin? Isn't it better to take a look
at ourselves before we point out the fault of others?
Have you ever gone to point out to a friend the spinach in his
teeth only to have it pointed out that you had some toilet
paper on your shoe or something worse?
It's pretty embarrassing, right? It is.
Message. Today, Pastor Clark expresses to
you the importance of examining your own life.
Of course the world is going to act like, well, the world.
But what is your life like? What do you see when you look
into the mirror of God's Word? Now here's Pastor Clark,
beginning in the book of Exodus chapter 10.
He'll continue into Revelation 16 on this edition of Living
Waters of Grace. It reminds us of what happened
in Exodus chapter 1021 and 22. The darkness was so thick, it
says that God extended that through the hands of Moses so
that the darkness would be felt. Sometimes you've been in a
situation where you've just felt darkness.
Maybe you felt the darkness of the evil 1, the oppression, the
attacks of the evil 1 I have. It is so thick, it is so dark.
It is so real. You almost feel you can touch
it. Or maybe you've been out in the
woods some night and the stars are overcast.
You can't see the the moon and and you're trying to find your
way in a path and it is so dark that you know you better not go
anywhere. You'll really get lost.
So you just stay in the place that you are.
It was such a thick darkness in Exodus.
It lasted for three days and it says it was so dark that the
people had not the ability to see one another, neither anyone
rose from the place that they were in.
It also says that they nod their tongues in verse 10 because of
the pain of the sores and the heat from the sun.
And it reminds us of what it says in Matthew 2530.
And he casts the unprofitable servant into outer darkness.
And there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
This is a preview of hell. Hell is a literal place.
It is a place designed by God for the devil and his angels.
God never intended that man, his creation, would have to be in
hell. But because of our own hardness,
the own wickedness of our own hearts and our refusal to repent
and submit to God, we we'll have to enter into that place.
If we don't have Christ, it's not any our Savior, but our
Lord. And so he says in verse 11 that
they did not repent of their deed.
I'd like to read something to you.
This is something that's just been on my conscience the last
couple weeks. It's from a devotional I've been
looking at, and it says my brother and deem it all joy.
Whenever you fall into diverse temptations or trials, knowing
that the testing of your faith works out patience.
God has a purpose for trials and adversity.
It's to cause us to be humbled and to be broken and to repent
and to turn toward him. With these words from his
general epistle, James, the brother of the Lord, reminds us
that the various afflictions we encounter in our daily lives can
be of great benefit. And we know, as Paul reminds us,
that those who love God, all things work together for good in
Romans 828. Now listen to this and see if
this applies to you. I know it does to me.
The demands of today's secular, humanistic, ego worshipping
society, where personal comfort and pleasure reign supreme, have
often caused many, if not most of us to take our focus off of
striving to live the Gospel of Christ.
Does that affect any of you guys?
However, unlike Peter, who, having taken his eyes off of his
Lord and having begun to sink into the sea, immediately cried
out to Jesus to save him, we seem to be either unaware of or
indifferent to the fact that we are focusing upon and sinking
within the toward sea of this temporal life.
And thus we become bait for the many demonic passions lurking
therein, seeking to devour our souls.
This is why God and His limitless love for us will
permit us to experience various tribulations so that we will
wake up and cry out to him for help, so that we can again fix
the eyes of our souls upon Him. I believe we have to wake up in
these days. The church is dead everywhere,
the Church of Jesus Christ in these last days.
The Bible says there's a great falling away.
Men will be lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God.
And we're living in those days and we're fighting against those
days, all of us, for our families, for our marriages, for
our children. And as I said earlier when we
prepared for the Supper, the apostle John who wrote the Book
of Revelation also says that if we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
So we're studying about all these poor people in the Book of
Revelation today. Sometimes we read all these poor
people. They refuse to repent of their
sin. They won't acknowledge the
Creator. They blasphemy the Creator.
And many times I look and I look at the image of the Church of
Jesus Christ today and I say, do we look any different than those
who will have to face that eternity of hell?
Are we the kind of people that are refusing to repent of our
sins? Are we walking around in self
righteousness saying I have no sin, I'm judging other people's
sins, but I'm not judging my own sins.
It says if we hate, say that we have not sinned, we make him a
liar and His word is not in US. The purpose, one of the roles of
the Holy Spirit, God, the Holy Spirit, is to convict you and me
of sin. He does that perfectly well.
He makes it very clear to my conscience and yours whenever
we're behaving in an inappropriate way, when we're
thinking things we shouldn't, when we're doing things we know
we shouldn't. He makes it very clear about
where we're at in our lives in regard to sin.
First, Peter chapter 4 says for the time has come for judgment
to begin. Where?
At the House of God. Now we're studying about the
judgment and revelation, right? Well, revelation hasn't
fulfilled yet in the sense of the prophetical vision of John
in the days ahead. It's going to come to pass, but
I have to live right now. And so I'm thinking about
judgment and revelation, but I first of all have to realize
that judgment has to 1st begin with me and with this House of
God. And if it begins with us first,
what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of
God? And that's what we read about in
Revelation. What will be the end of those in
that book who will not obey the gospel of God?
It says there will be 9 of teeth.
Now if the righteous 1 is scarcely saved, where will the
ungodly in the Sinner appear? Peter asked that question.
James tells us that we're to draw near to God and he will
draw near to you. That's repentance.
Repentance is turning away from walking away from God in my own
path of destruction and selfish and foolishness and delusion and
turning to the Lord, drawing near to Him.
And if I turn from my sin and repent and draw near to God, God
doesn't run the other way. I'm the one that's running the
other way. Am I rebellious sin?
Right? I'm the one that's running away
from God. And I've been there and you've
been there. And we got loved ones that are
running from God. But whenever we come to our
senses like the prodigal, and we turn and we know we want to go
to the House of the Father, we turn towards God and he runs
toward us. He comes to us and embraces US.
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
And as we're drawing near to God, the responsibility that we
have, James says we're to cleanse our hands.
He says cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts.
You double minded. The double minded person is
going this way and going this way and going this way and going
this way and going this way and going this way and we don't know
which way we're going. We get nowhere.
God's calling us. We know our conscience is
affected, but the sin in us, we love that sometimes more.
And we're going this way and, and, and we're like spiritual
schizophrenics where we have no rest, we have no peace because
we have this constant tension of holiness in our own desire for
what we think we want and what's best for us.
James also tells us that we're confess our trespasses, our sins
to one another, and to pray for one another that you may be
healed. The sin causes siritual
sickness. It causes death.
You know, sometimes we know what it's like to be obviously
physically I'll. We get flu shots to protect
ourselves from the flu. We get different inoculations.
We take vitamins to protect ourselves from disease and
illness. We try to eat properly so we
have the proper nutrition so that we stay healthy.
Not realizing, though, that that's all in vain if we're
living a life of habitual sin. Because no matter how many
inoculations you get and how many vaccinations you get, how
many flu shots you get, how many vitamins you get intake and how
so you try to eat and work out, the wages of sin is death.
You're going to die. You can't stop that.
You can't prevent it. You can't help yourself and you
can't help anybody else from the process of physical death.
The wages of sin is death. And so he calls the church, he
calls Christians together and James that we get together and
we pray for one another and confess our sins to one another
that we might get the help that we need.
There's nothing more tragic than a church that listens to a
message and goes home and there's no confession, there's
no repentance, there's no praying for one another.
It's, it's, it's not even a church.
It's an institution, it's a business.
It's just, I don't know what you would call it.
It's, it's nothing. It's dead.
And if we go out without repentance, if we go out without
confession, if we go out without praying for one another, we are
walking out sick and we are walking out dead.
James says sin causes spiritual sickness and death.
This past Wednesday we had a wonderful Bible study and I
encourage you if you can come on Wednesday's, occasionally come.
It's different than Sunday's we, we gather together and there's
different men that teach the word here that are gifted to
teach the word. And at the end, we, we, we this
last Wednesday, everybody came up and we we gathered together
and we asked if anybody was afflicted because Steve was
teaching us on the purpose of afflictions from Psalm 119 and
Job, we shared with our struggles and different people
stood up and crying out to God about what would they were they
were struggling with, whether it was fears or broken heartedness
or whatever. And, and, and as they asked for
help, different people prayed for one another.
And what was wonderful was is the people prayed for one
another. The people were forgiven, the
burdens were lifted and they were healed.
One person told me today I said, how you doing?
Because I knew Wendy was a rough night.
She said to me today, I'm doing great.
The Lord works through repentance and through humility
and through prayer, and we got to get over our egos and our
pride, acting like we have it all together and we don't need
prayer. We all need prayer.
And I need prayer more than anybody because I'm the pastor
and I, God help me if I don't ask for prayer, if I don't get
prayer, I have nothing to give to you.
If I don't humble myself before the Lord and realize my own
spiritual sickness and how I need God's grace to continually
bring healing to my soul. So the purpose of the supper is
a healing move of God's Spirit. We just don't take it as a
ritual, the cup and the bread, and OK, we move on to the next
thing. If we take an understanding what
it is, Jesus said this is my body which is broken for you.
The apostle Paul said this is the blood that was shed for you.
If we take it examining ourselves and not taking in an
unworthy manner, then we're not going to be weak spiritually.
We're not going to be sick spiritually.
We're going to have the strength of God in US.
Repentance transforms us from living in sin to living in
purity and holiness. John Morris taught us an immense
study this morning the importance of living in a holy
way, being holy as he is holy. Repentance changes us from
having a propensity to be unholy, to be pure and to be
holy. The Bible says without holiness,
no man shall see the Lord. And so I'm going to say why pray
to prayer? I asked Jesus that came into my
heart and be my savior. Well, it it doesn't work that
way. If we aren't following Christ,
not only his Savior, but his Lord will be terribly
disappointed at the judgment when he says to me, depart from
you cursed and I never knew you and we'll say, well, why?
I prayed a prayer. I asked you to come into my
heart and save me. But Jesus said, why do you call
me Lord Lord and do not do the things that I say?
He says, if you love me, you will keep my word.
Repentance is unending until we die.
Some people think, well, I just repent when I get saved.
Well, that's the beginning of repentance.
I mean, once you come to know Christ and he's in your life,
you become very aware of your inadequacy spiritually.
You become very clearly aware of your weaknesses and you realize
your need of God's strength and His help.
And so you are sensitive if you've offended someone, if you
judge someone, or if you've been critical, if you've been
lustful, you've been bitter, you've been angry, you've been
greedy. You can't disallow that, that
cesspool sin to circulate in your heart without being very,
very disturbed and bothered. And you don't have rest and you
don't have peace until you repent and say, Lord, that was
wrong. Forgive me and cleanse me.
And if you have to, you go make the amends with the people that
you've hurt and offended. Each time we see our thoughts
and our hearts, they convict us many times of some sin.
And it's not to condemn us that the Lord does that.
It's that we might take the medicine to repentance seriously
and be restored to communion and fellowship with God.
First, John 19 tells us that we might be cleansed from all
unrighteousness if we confess our sins.
James 48 says cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify
your hearts. That's the purpose of
repentance. I'm so grateful for repentance.
I don't know what I would do without repentance.
I remember there was a time in my life I didn't think I needed
to repent. I don't know.
I was under some bad teaching and I thought, well, I got saved
and, and you know, I'm on my way to heaven and this is good as it
gets in. And I never thought about my
offenses toward God. And I would live day in and day
out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and
year out in delusion, living in perpetual sin, thinking I was OK
and meanwhile having an unrest in my heart, having a sense of
impurity, knowing something was wrong.
But I'm with my brothers and sisters and all of us are in the
same boat, trying to make each other feel good in our sin,
trying to make each other feel OK.
That it's a weakness in man's nature to be drawn to
pornography. It's a weakness in everyone's
heart. Sin is a sickness and it isn't
OK for men to be in pornography. And just because two other
brothers tell you they struggle with it doesn't mean that that's
OK. Someone there has to be a
brother saying I used to struggle with pornography, but
by the grace of God I don't anymore.
And this is what the Lord did for me.
This is how he changed my heart and this is how he set me free.
Purity of heart. And we look at Psalm 122 two, it
says my help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
The Lord is our helper. But we all are affected by this
law of sin. It exists within all of us.
If you're a Christian here today, you are not sinless.
You still battle with sin in your life.
And it's a law, it's a principle, and it affects every
one of us. And apart from the blood of
Jesus Christ, every one of us are doomed.
Amen. If it wasn't for the blood of
Christ, there would be no remission of sins.
And the word of God is what our weapon is against the sin.
It's still within our hearts. That's why the psalmist said thy
word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee?
We don't memorize scripture to impress people of our great
knowledge of the Scripture. If you memorize Scripture for
no, no other reason, I pray This is why you memorize it, so that
you are protected from sin. And that's a good enough reason
to memorize it. Without the word of God, the
enemy will Vanquish and capture you as a spiritual struggler.
And some of you today, I'm sure, are being vanquished by the
enemy. You're being beat down.
You're struggling in your sin. You don't have the ability to
overcome it because you don't. It's been so long since you've
drawn near to God. You've been running from God.
And it's been so long since you've drawn near to God, you've
forgotten that if you draw near to him, he'll draw near to you.
And without the word of God, the enemy will mess you up.
He'll strip you of the divine weapons that God's given you.
He'll drag your life into a horrible pit of sin, of sorrow,
of heartache, of bondage and destruction.
And as a pastor, that's what breaks my heart because I see
people that come and go here that refuse to repent and they
want to have life their own way and they don't realize that.
They think they can get away with it, but eventually their
life will tragically be destroyed by sorrow and
heartache. The heartache that they'll
receive themselves and the heartache that they're going to
cause other people because of their bondage to sin and the
destruction it has occurred in their life.
I think sometimes Cindy and I, we pray for loved ones and
people we care about, brothers and sisters and, and I and I'm
learning to be patient and gone upon God.
It might not be today that someone gets busted.
It might not be next week, next month, next year, but they'll
come a time when someone's going to call you up and say I need
help. I got a bad medical report.
My wife left me, my kids on drugs, I lost my job.
I'm in the pits of despair and despondency.
I don't know which way to turn. There'll come a time of crushing
and breaking by the mercy of God that that person will then begin
to say I'm waking up. There's got to be more to life.
I want to get my house in order because the consequences of my
life to this point, if I die today, I'm not real sure I would
be with the Lord because of the way I've lived my life.
All the distressing events and consequences that are occurring
in this world today, in this human life, are the result of
one purpose, one reason, and that's sin.
When tragedy happens and adversity happens in people's
lives, what's the first thing they do?
They complain. God, why?
They blasphemed, just like the people in Revelation.
The sun's too hot, the sores are too painful.
Why are you doing this? I hate you.
Why don't you just get out of my life?
Why don't you leave me alone? Why don't you leave all of us
alone? Not understanding that the God
of creation created us to be in communion, to have a life of
peace and love and grace and joy with the Lord.
Yet in the midst of these adversities of life, God will
work everything out for good for those who love God and are
called according to His purpose. I don't care what adversity you
have today, what trial, what tribulation, what you're facing.
God promises everything will work for good to those who love
Him and are called according to His purpose in Romans 828.
I think today as I look at this message and I say to myself,
does God find repentance in US today as He looks over this
congregation? Does he find repentance here
today? Have you said or do you say or
even as you're listening to this message, are you saying I have
sinned against heaven and against you, Lord?
Do you hate the sin that's working to destroy your own
life? Are you getting to the point
that you hate sin? Because when you start hating
sin, you'll start to flee sin. When you start to hate sin as
God hates it, you'll begin to draw near to Him and draw away
from the sin. Are you willing to turn deeper
into the ways of God, forsaking the path that you might be on
now? There has to come a time in all
of our lives that we say enough's enough.
I've wasted too many days, too many hours, too much money, too
much heartache because I wanted it my way.
And now I want to turn to the Lord and forsake the foolish
path I'm on and go deeper in His ways.
I've been a pastor now for 14 years, and it's been 14 years
that I've decided by the grace of God, to walk in a path that
is deeper. But there was a time of my life
that I was asleep. I was not awake.
I thought I was OK. The nominal Christian life is
hey, show up for church once in a while, put a few bucks on your
offering plate, say a few prayers, and then live your life
the way you want. That's not what Christ came to
give us. He came to give us a vital,
intimate, deep relationship with the living God, so that once you
get a taste of that relationship, everything else is
secondary, that you begin to lay your head down the pillow at
night and you say, Lord, I want life, your life more than my
life. I want you, Lord, more than life
itself. That's what his desire is for
all of us. In the Book of Revelation,
Pastor Clark is taking us through all kinds of events and
happenings that are predicted for the future, but for those
who believe and follow Jesus, there's much to look forward to
in heaven with Jesus. However, for those who are here
on earth during the Tribulation, there's all kinds of chaos that
will unfold. The Bible talks about an
Antichrist, a false prophet, and of course that evil enemy Satan.
Do you see how there are such clever attempts for the enemy to
disguise himself as God and even the Trinity?
The true Savior of the world is God and how He comes to rescue
through his triune nature God the Father, Jesus the Son, and
God the Holy Spirit. Just like Satan tried to take
over for God in heaven and was cast out, Satan will try to
convince people on earth that he is the triune God to be
worshipped instead of the legitimate God in heaven.
It's an attempt, and although he will capture plenty in his
schemes, he will not win. The true God wins, and
Revelation unpacks how that will all happen in detail.
Be encouraged because there's a way out for all of this madness
that will ensue on this earth. But you don't want to wait
indefinitely to make that decision about Jesus.
We don't know when the church will be raptured, and you want
to be ready to be with Jesus. To learn more about this, head
over to calvarychapelonline.com. We're so glad you've been with
us today. And if you'd like to connect
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You can also download our mobile app at calvarychapelonline.com.
Be sure to join us for weekly services at 400 E Pittsburgh St.
Ste. 6B in Greensburg, PA 15601. This has been living waters of
grace.