This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Waffer, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland, County
of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
John says in the 2nd chapter of first John first one he says
however, if any man sin, which we all still do, we have an
advocate with the Father, our attorney, our defense attorney
is Jesus Christ the righteous 1 and he declares you and me
justified and innocent before the throne of God and the
devil's thrown all those railing accusations and lies.
Jesus is there is our advocate against the accuser of the
brethren. If you've been accused of a
horrible crime, you need a lawyer, an advocate.
You need someone to help you deal with the accusation.
Without an advocate, you'll be at the mercy of the court and
subject to the power of the prosecutor.
As we just heard from Pastor Clark, Jesus is our advocate.
His death and resurrection are the payment for our sins.
Without that atonement, you are without hope.
You'll learn today just how much of A blessing this advocacy that
Jesus provides truly is now. Here's Pastor Clark in
Revelation chapter 12 with today's edition of Living Waters
of Grace. The cross is a place of the
enemy actually having all his powers spoiled.
It says in our Colossians that Christ spoiled and disconnected,
so to speak, the satanic dominion of the enemy on the
hearts and souls of human beings.
Because once Christ rose again from the dead, he said it's
finished. He conquered all these
influences, and so it isn't the same now.
And you need to remember that. I think sometimes people get
very paranoid about the devil. Some churches have more focus on
the devil than they do the Lord. They're always talking about
rebuking the devil or casting the demons out or doing this and
that. And Paul never said that.
He said, what do we do? Look unto Jesus, the author and
finisher of our faith, right? For the joy that was set down
before him. Despise the cross, yet endured
the shame. You know we're more than
conquerors right in Christ Jesus so we don't have to worry about
the evil 1 The Bible says resist the devil and he will what flee
from you. I don't have to do battle with
him. It's it's interesting that the
Archangel Michael and and Jude verse nine said whenever a lot
of things were going on, they were disputing about the
whereabouts of Moses body and all the false teachings that
Jude talks about. He said he would not bring a
railing accusation against the devil right himself.
And he's in charge of the angelic host in the sense of
under the authority of Jesus Christ, Michael the Archangel,
he said, the Lord rebuke you. And I, I'm very fearful when I
hear people standing out there and shaking their hand at the
devil and thinking that they somehow have the influence to in
their own power, in their own name and by their own faith,
make the devil run. And the devil, you know, he'll
laugh, he'll say, like you said in the book of the Acts, you
know Peter, I know, Paul, I know.
But who are you? You don't want to mess with that
stuff, right? You want to pray and resist the
devil. And the Bible's clear that
that's our responsibility and the evil one will flee from us.
So we see in verse 5 that this male child who was to rule all
nations, as I said earlier, is the one who will rule with a rod
of iron during the millennial Kingdom.
And this is interesting. And her child was caught up to
to God and his throne. So again, the parenthetical time
period of of the future and at the same time the past when
Christ ascended and the book of the Acts is sit at the right
hand of the father where he ever lives to make intercession for
us before the throne of God night and day.
In verse 6 it talks about the the woman fleeing into the
wilderness. You know in Matthew chapter 25.
It gives the warning when this time comes to pass, it says, you
know, don't be with child. I trust your journey won't be in
the winter because this will be the worst time that any kind of
event has ever occurred against the nation of Israel to destroy
them. And so we see this group spoken
about in verse 6 is the remnant of Israel.
These are the ones that are elect by God's grace that don't
even know at this particular point in time.
Many of them that they'll be part of the body of the bride of
Christ. They don't understand the
concept yet. They still don't know who
Messiah is. Many of these people, but God's
going to spare many people and also those who come to Christ
during that time and and Gentiles as well.
And so God will protect this, this remnant of people, and he
has a place that's prepared for them.
I like this word prepared. She has a place prepared by God.
Jesus says in my Father's house are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you.
And that I told you, I go to prepare a place for you, that
where I am, you may be also. So every one of us have a place
in heaven prepared by the Lord awaiting for us.
And that should give you tremendous comfort.
You might not have the mansion you were hoping you'd get in
this earth, but in my Father's house are many mansions.
And the Bible says I have not seen nor ear heard, nor entered
into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those
who love Him. I mean, it's going to blow our
minds when we see what God has prepared for us, but we see that
He's also preparing a place for His remnant of those He's set
aside. And even though they're being
persecuted by the Antichrist during this time, you know,
during the Holocaust, 6 out of 10 Jews were were martyred.
The Scriptures define this period of time of a great loss
of life. And it's pretty much going to be
one out of three that survived this terrible time of
tribulation. But God will spare approximately
1/3 of this race that will not take the mark of the beast.
They will run and flee from the hand of the Antichrist and God
will protect them for 1260 days. That's basically 30 day months
which equate from the Jewish perspective of looking at times
in the ancient days of 3 1/2 years, which is the last part of
the tribulation. And we see in verse 5 that
Christ has ascended. And as I said, though, the
parenthetical section here between 5:00 and 6:00 six is yet
to occur events. So we see we right now we're in
between two of these events. Christ is ascended.
We're waiting for his return. He hasn't come back yet.
And so we're in this age, what we call the church age, the
period of time where God is bringing new believers into his
Kingdom since the crucifixion and the descending of the Holy
Spirit in the book of the Acts, which is the beginning of the
church age up until the time of the rapture of the church.
And that is the conclusion of the Church age and and the
beginning of the seven-year tribulation.
Of course as I said before, a different people have different
views on end time summer pre Trib.
The church is taken out before the Trib.
Some are mid Trib in the middle, some are post Trib.
Some are all millennial believing that the next major
event is the second coming of Christ and no literal rapture.
I'm not concerned about too many of these things personally.
I know that Christ said he's coming back and that's good
enough for me. You know how all the details
work out. I'm not up here trying to give
you any kind of mathematical formulas.
You know, times and seasons. Jesus says only the Father
knows. But there's enough insight in
the Scriptures if we do, I believe, interpret things in
light of, you know, good hermeneutics.
Hermeneutics is a word that when the plain Scriptures make common
sense, don't seek any other sense but take every word.
It's normal literal meaning unless studied in the light of
related passages. It indicates something
otherwise. And the danger of jumping around
the Bible like some people do. There you'll go, a little couple
of verses here and then I'll go over there.
And they never teach things in context.
So the benefit of going through the chapters verse by verse,
expositionally is that myself as well as you can be tied into
what the intention of the writer was the apostle, right?
And not like my thoughts or your thoughts.
I mean, my thoughts aren't really of any value or yours.
I mean, I can appreciate insights that people might have
about things, but I'm interested in what the scriptures teach,
right? Not what someone has suspected
or conjecture or whatever. So we go into the conflict in
verse 7 and 8 and this is when the war between Michael and the
dragon begins to develop. And this is at the midpoint in
the tribulation where God begins to turn judgment against Satan
no longer having access to the heaven.
So verse 7 it says and a war broke out in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought with the dragon and the dragon
and his angels fought, but they did not prevail nor was a place
found for them in heaven any longer.
And so we see the faithfulness of God and his authority that
the devil has its day and his his dominion is, is going to be
destroyed. And eventually one day it'll be
completely finished when he's cast into the lake of fire at
the end of Book of Revelation forever and ever at the final
judgment. And we see this battle going on
between the godly angels and the evil angels.
And as I said in Ephesians 6, it says we're not wrestling against
flesh and blood sometimes like Cindy and I are, you know,
married 39 years. And sometimes we'll have some
arguments, you know, and different perspectives on
things. I'm always right.
She doesn't realize that. But pray for her.
She's usually right. That's the humiliating thing.
But sometimes though we're caught up in the energy of the
opinion, she cops an attitude and and I'm like trying to get
her to open her heart. What's your problem?
You know, what did I do this time?
What don't you like? You know, she has a tendency
sometimes to generalize like I think we all do.
Well, you always do this right? Always.
I mean, like, come on, give me a break, you know, So I try to get
some good points in there to get some kind of credit.
You know, I hate getting a complete F.
Can I get AC here or maybe AB plus or something?
But anyway, we'll be going at it sometimes about like something.
Usually the most stupidest things right there are, there
really are. It's always like pride or ego,
you know. And so we'll sit there and then
I'll say, honey, you know, I said we got to step back from
this for a couple minutes here. We got to realize that we're
servants to the Lord as you guys are.
We all are. And as we desire to press into
the Lord in our lives and really walk with Him and obey Him and
serve him, conflict will begin to be worked up by the evil 1.
And I'll think my problem is her.
She'll think her problem's me. And you got three enemies, the
world, the flesh and the devil. So sometimes it is our own
problem. It's because our own sin, our
pride or whatever are the forces of this, the fallen nature of
mankind. That just gets you in some kind
of ire. But then also the evil 1.
And we have to be sensitive. When does spiritual warfare
begin to actually be in place? Instead of us fighting about
stupid things, we need to step back and say we're not wrestling
against flesh and blood. It isn't her, it's my problem or
me. That's her problem.
But sometimes as God gives us discernment, we have to know
it's an attack by the evil one that cause discouragement in our
lives to cause us to get our eyes off of Christ to begin to
be hopeless or to begin to be bitter or unbelieving, whatever
it might be. And so we then we pray and we
open our hearts to the Lord and to each other.
And if I've offended her, I ask for forgiveness or vice versa.
And we, we make sure that we're dealing with that so that
there's no sin in our lives that can be used as a vice to
separate our relationship. And I'll tell you, it's a
marvelous one when we pray and we see things that way, The
strongholds are broken down immediately.
There's a sense of peace. And you just step back and say,
wow, you know, and I just encourage you to have your
antenna up. Sometimes when you're having a
bad day at work or you're getting a ticket when you're
driving or so, you know, all kind of crazy things happen all
at one time. Just don't think it's
coincidental or this is just life or you're having bad luck
today. Step back and pray and say,
Lord, this is a little bit over the top today.
I'm under some kind of spiritual attack and I'm going to get
covered by you. And that's why Paul says in
Ephesians 6 to put on the armor of God, that you may be able to
stand against the Wiles of the devil and you're familiar with
all those different types of body armor that we're supposed
to put on. But this, this war is going on
between these angelic beings and it's going to be a quite an
interesting battle when it occurs.
I don't know literally if people on earth at that time are going
to be able to sense what's going on in the heavenlies to any
great extent, but it's nonetheless this is going to be
accomplished. And and in verse 9, it says the
great dragon was cast out, the serpent of old called the devil
and Satan who deceives the whole world and he was cast to the
earth and his angels were cast out with him.
So that's that event that is yet to come.
They won't have that dominion and that ability.
Everything will be earthbound. They'll be be no more accusing
of the brethren before the throne, because Satan won't have
access anymore and everything will be much more tangible and
clear as to the devices of the evil. 1 And then I heard a loud
voice saying in heaven, verse 10 Now salvation and strength in
the Kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come
for the accuser of our brethren, whose accusing before our God
day and night has been cast down.
Hallelujah, huh? It's no fun being condemned are
accused right our own temperament at times we we give
ourselves more trouble sometimes and the devil doesn't have to
worry about maybe accusing you because you're accusing yourself
all the time. You're you're living in guilt or
self condemnation. He's thinking, man, they're like
really wrapped up in their own whatever, I'll go find someone
that is understanding the grace of God and the victory that
there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
That's who I'm going to try to target to get them to be second
guessing themselves. Or am I really saved or, you
know, I feel condemned. You know, I think about
something in the past and I can't get by it because you know
what the Bible clearly says, there's no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus. Right before Christ died on the
cross for our sins, we were all condemned, right?
We were all guilty. We had no atonement, no blood to
cover our sins, no forgiveness. Yet we were looking for that in
the future, as the Old Testament Saints did.
And so until that finished work of Christ was accomplished, it
was a real difficult thing to deal with everyday sin.
That's why the Jews had, on the Day of Atonement, once a year,
the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies to put the
blood on the altar to make temporal covering of the sins of
the nation of Israel. But it wasn't sufficient to get
rid of the guilt and the condemnation.
It wasn't until the blood of Christ was shed that we were
free from our guilt and from our condemnation.
And so because of what Christ has done, I don't have to be
condemned now. And you don't either if you're a
believer. I when I stand before God, there
is no judgment. That's on me.
It was placed on Christ. And that's something that's
really awesome to consider because before Christ did that,
you were guilty. You would stand without a
Savior. And if you're here today and you
don't have a Savior, you are under God's anger.
In His wrath. You are condemned to stand
before Him in judgment. If you don't receive His Son,
His Son is the only sacrifice for sin.
His Son is the only one that can cover your sin and forgive you
and cleanse you from your unrighteousness.
And so the good news is, is that Christ has accomplished this on
behalf of all those who will believe in and trust in Him.
But the evil that is in this world that is continually being
thwarted toward the world, the lost, and also toward the bride
of Christ will one day be be finished.
And the Bible describes 4 different falls of Satan.
We covered one of them several weeks ago when he initially
fell. When Jesus said I saw Satan fall
from heaven, you know, the disciples were all excited that
they could cast demons out and do different miracles.
And Jesus said, don't rejoice that you have power over the
devil, but rejoice that your name is written in the Lamb's
book of life, right? And then he said I saw Satan
fall from heaven. So we know in Ezekiel chapter 28
verses 14 through 16, that was when he fought fell initially
from his glorified position to the earth to be the serpent in
the garden. And then the next fall we see
him having access to heaven, as I said earlier.
And Job when he went before the the Lord God and and asked to be
able to hassle Job. This is the time of His work on
earth and then the 3rd fall from earth to the bondage of the
bottomless pit for the 1000 years in Revelation 20.
What a day that will be when He will be cast into that pit and
Christ will roll and reign for 1000 years and then the final
fall of Satan will be from that pit to the lake of fire as I
said earlier in Revelation 20. Then I heard a loud voice saying
in heaven now salvation and strength.
Verse 10 in the Kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ
has come for the accuser of our brethren who accused them before
God day and night has been cast down.
I mean, if that doesn't make you want to shout Hallelujah, I
don't know. You're, you're pretty, you're
pretty dead. You know, I mean that that's
just phenomenal. And they overcame him by the
blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.
And they did not love their lives to death.
Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them.
Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea, for the devil
has come down to you having great wrath because he knows
that he has a short time. So this joyful declaration in
verses 10 through 12 is, is, is being read clearly this morning
to make us understand the magnificence and the greatness
of the glory of our great King and Savior Jesus Christ.
I love the promise in first John that if we say we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in US.
And it says if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. Hold on to that verse guys, when
the devil's lying and making you feel guilty.
And this hold on to the truth of that verse, that He is faithful
and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. Jesus says as far as the East is
from the West. That separate you from your
sins. I cast them to the bottom of the
sea never to see them again. So we have to continually have
that word near to our heart. But I love what John says in the
2nd chapter of first John first one.
He says, however, if any man sin, which we all still do.
We have an advocate with the Father, our attorney, our
defense attorney is Jesus Christ the righteous. 1 And he declares
you and me justified and innocent before the throne of
God. When the devil's thrown all
those railing accusations and lies, Jesus is there as our
advocate against the accuser of the brethren.
And it says that these people who are alive at this time are
overcoming in their life by the blood of the Lamb, in other
words, their faith in what Christ has done.
And many of them will stand and have to give a defense of why
they're following Christ. And that defense will cost many
of them their lives. Many of them will be martyred.
Many of them will be killed during this time.
And yet the Lord says about these people, they did not love
their life to the end. In other words, their life, the
short life that God gives us all, is seen from the
perspective of understanding that my life has value because
of what Christ has done for you and for me.
And my life is not based upon what's in this body which will
one day end. Our lives are based upon the
eternal state that God has given to you and me as believers, the
promise of, of everlasting life. And I think about all those in
the concentration camps and, and the times of the Holocaust.
I think of people in Russia in the prior time to Lenin that
were dragged out of their homes, the pastors and all the people
that were taken to the, to the gulag and destroyed, You know,
the, the, the regime of, of that nation at different times.
I wanted to stamp out the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ
and Christianity. And So what they would do, they
would kill and martyr anybody that had belief in Jesus of
Christ. And many of these people were
put in terrible, terrible prison camps.
I got a video recently I just ordered on the horror of the
Romanian Christians and what they went through for the stand
in Christ. And as they would stand there
and defend their faith and speak about their faith in Jesus
Christ, they would be beaten unmercifully and just many of
them believed to death. And to this day, we have people
like this in the world that are going through these things.
We forget that at times we don't pray enough for the persecuted
church, those who are in foreign lands.
A day that tomorrow will not see the light of this world because
their lives will be a given for their faith in Jesus Christ.
They'll be martyred. And in the Sudan and Indonesia
and Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, the the the horror of what's
going on because of Islam regime and influence that we're
considered infidels and infidels need to be destroyed.
And we need to pray for our brothers and sisters that have
are going through these things and, and pray for our country
that the Lord will spare us as a nation that will still have
freedom, right of religion, what freedom of speech that we'll be
able to continually give the good news of Jesus Christ out to
a a lost and dying world. And and many people in the US
are still without a Savior. So we, we need to, you know,
take advantage of the time that the Lord's given us in these in
these last days. 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
judgements and consequences for those who've rejected the good
news and the gift of salvation that's offered through Jesus's
death and resurrection. Are you one who has heard about
these things but doesn't really want it because you want to live
life on your terms? Trust me, living for Jesus is so
much better. That doesn't mean it will be
easy, but as you listen and read through Revelation with us,
you'll come to a stark realization that you don't want
to be on earth when the apocalypse happens.
So check out Calvary Chapel online.com to learn how to come
to a saving grace through faith that will allow you to be with
Jesus for eternity. We'd also love to meet you in
person at Calvary Chapel Westmoreland.
Come join us at 400 E Pittsburgh St.
Ste. 6B in Greensburg, PA 15601. This has been living waters of
grace.