Living Waters of Grace for May 18th, 2026

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.

He came to save us from being influenced and controlled by the

passions of the fallen nature. And if you know down deep

inside, man, I know what I should do.

But I can't help myself, Clark. I just can't get out of this.

I understand you can't. I've been there.

The only way you can get out is to get saved.

And when you get saved, God lifts you out of that control of

the flesh and puts a spirit in you.

And now the Holy Spirit enables you to overcome all the things

that are going on in your life that are destructive.

Have you hit a point in your life where you feel like no

matter how hard you try, you can't kick your sinful habits?

Every self help book you've read, every new hobby you've

taken up, every bit of counseling you sought out, and

still nothing works. At least not long term.

Today, Pastor Clark teaches you that there is one important part

missing from the change that you're striving to make.

Without Jesus, sin will continue to wage war against you, and you

will continue to fall victim to it.

Now here's Pastor Clark in Revelation Chapter 19 with

Revelation 19 · chapter mention

today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.

Revelation 19, verse 17 Then I saw an Angel standing in the

Revelation 19:17

sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying, To all the birds

that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather together for the

supper of the great God, that you may eat.

The flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty

men, the flesh of horses and those who sit on them, and the

flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great.

And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and the armies

gathered together to make war against him who sat on the horse

and against his army. And then the beast was captured,

and with him the false prophet, who worked signs in his

presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of

the beast, and those who worshipped his image.

These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with

rim stone, and the rest were killed with the sword which

proceeded from the mouth of him who sat on a horse.

And the birds were filled with their flesh.

This is probably one of the most horrendous declarations of the

judgement of God on the face of the earth outside of some of the

chapters in the Old Testament we read when God went into certain

communities and wiped out every living thing because of the

decadence and the sinfulness of the people.

And I want you to understand today that God is love.

And you might read this and say, how in the world can God be

loved and do something like this?

And we'll get to that in a moment.

So we're just going to go through this verse by verse and

trust that it'll come alive and make sense to you.

As we look at it now, we see in 17 and 18 this particular Angel

that is standing in the midst of the sun.

His brightness is so powerful. The glory of God is all over

this Angel. He's a representative, a

spokesman for the glory of God and the purposes of God, and

he's the one that's declaring what is going to come to pass.

Now, the week before we studied about Christ, and he's the one

that is on this horse leading the armies of heaven to the

earth to bring destruction upon all those who are living on the

earth at this current time that are enemies of God.

People who hate God, who have made a decision in their minds

that they don't want to live for God.

They don't want to have anything to do with God.

They've already accepted the mark of the beast, which is the

mark that is the Insignia on the heart of the unbeliever

signifying that they are enemies of God and they hate the Kingdom

of God and they're enemies of Jesus Christ.

And so he's saying to all these birds that fly to prepare for

this great slaughter, which is called Armageddon.

Some of the movies you guys have seen can't come close to their

horrendous destruction of what's going to come upon the earth at

this time. Birds of the air, birds that

fly. Some people feel there's a

symbolic meaning behind some of these terms because of the

technology that we are living in these days.

I've sort of like to stay with the little rendering unless

something would cause me to the sensors.

There's something beyond that. But I I know that the Hawks, if

you see them fly around and they find something dead, doesn't

matter how small or how big it is.

Deer, whatever, they get down and they pick at it and eat it

until there's nothing left, right?

They tear all the meat off the bones and there's absolutely

nothing left of the flesh. And this is what's going to

happen. And it says this is going to

occur, the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains.

So we see all the important human beings on the face of the

earth. There is no discrimination with

God's judgement. He'll deal with the small and

the great, the famous and the those who aren't famous and the

representing. This flesh is the life.

As I read in Romans chapter 8, it's lived in sin against God.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

The flesh is an enemy of God. And I want you to flip over to

Galatians 5 for a minute so we can reflect on this a little bit

more. There's nothing evil about the

skin on my bones or yours. This is the tent that God's

given us. What's evil is the capacity of

the heart to use this body that God has created against his will

and his purposes and his truth and his word When we take this

physical body and use it for things that God has not intended

it to be used for. Now we're going to look at

Galatians 5 and it's going to talk about this war that we all

struggle with the difference between the the flesh and the

spirit. And it says in verse 16 of

Galatians 5I say, then walk in the spirit and you shall not

fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now, before we're Christians,

and some of you were adults here, some of you were younger.

So depending on how long you've lived on the earth, you, you've

experienced different things. But I can remember a time in my

life where this flesh, this desire, this wicked heart did

all kind of bad stuff. And it didn't bother me.

I mean, my conscience told me it was wrong, but I blew my

conscience off. I did what I wanted to do.

I was a child of God's wrath. I wasn't a child of God at one

time. And so I just had a propensity

to do evil and wicked things. I did many of them in my life.

And the wages of sin, the Bible says is death.

And so if it wasn't for the grace of God working in my life

and turning my heart toward him and and saving me and changing

me, I would be hell bound as we speak.

So we're either walking in the power of the Holy Spirit or

we're walking in the flesh. Now that says the flesh lusts

against the Spirit means that wars against God's will, and

it's contrary to God's will that you don't do the things that you

would like to do. So if you're here today and you

don't know God and the Holy Spirit isn't in you, you're just

going to do what your flesh tells you.

If it tells you to get drunk, you're just going to get drunk.

If it tells you to be immoral, you're going to be immoral.

If it tells you to steal or to be greedy or to be vindictive or

vengeful or hateful or bitter or angry or drug addicted, it's

just going to control you. It's like a bondage.

It's like, that's why we need to be saved.

Christmas Eve, I said Jesus came to save his people from their

sins. He came to save us from being

influenced and controlled by the passions of the fallen nature.

And if you know down deep inside, man, I know what I

should do, but I can't help myself, Clark.

I just can't get out of this. I understand you can't.

I've been there. The only way you can get out is

to get saved. And when you get saved, God

lifts you out of that control of the flesh and puts a spirit in

you. And now the Holy Spirit enables

you to overcome all the things that are going on in your life

that are destructive. It says if you're led by the

Spirit, you're not under the law.

Meaning if you're without Christ today, you're going to be judged

at the judgment seat, the great white throne, the book will be

open and you'll stand there saying, well, I was good, I help

people, I did this, I did that. I didn't do this.

I didn't do that. Well, God's law is going to say,

well, did you do this? Did you hate?

Did you honor God above all things?

Did you commit adultery? And some of us might sit here

and say, well, I never did that. So I'm pretty good.

Well, the Bible says if you looked upon a woman with lust,

you've already committed adultery.

How many men here have looked at woman with lust?

Raise your hand. Every one of us.

So we've broken that law, right? We've broken that law, all of

us. So we're guilty.

We don't have a chance. We don't have a way out.

The books are open and God says you did this.

And the Bible says if you've offended God in one, you've

offended him in all. So you're guilty of everything

that the Bible says is sinful. But if you're a letter of the

Spirit, you're not under the law.

What a relief. We'll stand at the judgment and

we're accepted into the heavenly Kingdom because we're part of

his family now. The Holy Spirit dwells in US.

The Holy Spirit lives in us. We're not habitually sinning

anymore, and that doesn't mean we still don't sin.

We're tempted and, and as Christians we still fail, all of

us. But when we fail, we want to

repent, we want to get right with God.

We just don't say, well, that's just the way I am, no big deal.

Our conscience bothers us and the Holy Spirit corrects us and

brings us back into a place of obedience.

So then the more we grow in the word and the more we know the

Lord, the more we walk according to the Spirit.

We're not interested in following the following desires

anymore. They're not appealing to us.

There's no, there's no interest. The desires have been lifted out

of our hearts. What are the works of the flesh?

What does a person do if they're under the influence of their

sinful nature? What says it's evident?

Adultery, Fornication. One time someone came to me for

counseling a guy and his girlfriend, and they said, we're

in the Bible. Does it say, yeah, you can't

have sex before marriage? And I said, and I read him and

he said, well, what's that mean? Well, fornication means any kind

of sexual relationship outside the confines of marriage.

Uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery.

That word for sorcery has also been translated pharmakeia in

the Bible, meaning any kind of influence of messing around with

any kind of drugs, marijuana or whatever it is, hatred,

contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish

ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders,

drunkenness, partying around rubber leaves, the like of which

I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, and

this is the Apostle Paul warning this church in Galatia, and you

might want to underline this in your Bible, that those who

practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

So if this is your lifestyle, this is how you're living,

doesn't matter what you say you believe Christ isn't your

savior, He isn't your Lord. If you're living this way, you

won't get into the Kingdom of heaven.

Now, if you're here today and you know you're living that way,

the Lord would want you to repent.

He would want you to come clean with him and say I'm in trouble,

Lord, and I know it and I can't leave here today unless you save

me. Can't leave here today unless

you save me, Lord, because I know today that if I continue in

this way of life, I'm going to end up in hell and I don't want

to be there. And God doesn't want you to be

there. He loves you, for God so loved

this world that he gave his only begotten Son.

Why did he give Him? So that we wouldn't have to go

to hell, that we could be forgiven, and that we could

become descendants of God and have nature like God and live

like God, and be sons and daughters of God and do godly

things, not ungodly things. And it says those who are Christ

have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

It means they don't have the ability to influence and control

you anymore. If you really belong to Christ,

the Lord has overcome in your life through the power of the

Holy Spirit that you don't have to submit to the temptation and

the desire. Some people say, well, I have a

drinking problem. Well, if you have Christ in your

heart, you're not going to have a drinking problem anymore.

You're just not going to drink. You're not going to want to.

The Holy Spirit's going to give you the ability and the power

not to drink. But if you say, I've asked, but

he won't help me and I keep doing it and I, well, there's

something wrong there. Because if the Spirit of God is

in you, you're not going to have to be under the control of that

influence anymore. And that's in every area of our

life. Some men struggle with

pornography, or some people struggle with drug addiction, or

some people struggle with being lazy on their job or bitter or

whatever it is. You don't have to allow any of

this sinful nature to control you anymore.

So that's what's great about being a Christian.

You're free from sin. You don't have to sin anymore,

and you actually have the capacity to not sin.

I mean, when that begins to sink in and you realize that you're

free, it's incredible. Yeah.

It makes you a whole new creation, a whole different type

of human being. Because before crisis in our

life, all we do is just keep doing the stuff that we know we

shouldn't do. It's it comes naturally because

we're all sinful people. But when Christ comes into our

life and changes us, all of a sudden we have the ability and

the power to make choices now and say, I'm not going to live

this way anymore. I'm not going to do this

anymore. We're going to have to maybe

talk to some people and say, guess what?

My relationship with you is ended as of now.

And they'll say, well, why? Because I can't live this way

anymore. I can't sleep around anymore.

I can't do this anymore because God lives in me now.

They'll probably look at you like you're nuts.

That's OK. They might ask you, what do you

mean God's in you? And then you can tell them

what's happened to you. And then perhaps God will save

them as well. And it says if we live in the

Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

So that's the major difference between this teaching and

revelation regarding why is he going to destroy all this flesh

on the earth at this time? Because these people are enemies

of God. They're walking this way,

they're living this way, and they don't care.

They've heard the truth. They know the truth from the

standpoint of it being communicated to them.

But they're the kind of people that refuse to submit and

repent. And perhaps you're here today in

that camp, you're refusing to repent.

Well, God wants you to know today that if you refuse to

repent, this is what you're going to face.

And even worse, if you don't end up in this situation, you die

before this event occurs. You're going to be in hell

forever. That's a cold hard fact, but

it's the truth. You're going to be in hell

forever and ever. Philippians chapter 3 verse 3

Philippians 3:3

says we're not to have any confidence in the flesh, not any

confidence in our own self ability.

And this, this is important for Christians today in our jobs, in

our marriages and our raising of our children and our ministries,

whatever. If we depend upon our own

abilities and we're trusting in our own wisdom, we're having

confidence in our fallen nature, which will do nothing but mess

things up. We're not to have any confidence

in human ability. The world today teaches us about

self esteem. To be confident, feel good about

yourself, you have to love yourself.

Well, the Bible says we already do love ourselves.

I mean that's a that's a given because all our focus is most of

the time on ourselves. So it proves that we have this

insatiable love for self that we have to constantly deny.

Jesus says if any man will follow me, let him deny himself.

That's the hardest thing to do as a human being, to deny

yourself will. But it says not to have any

confidence in your human ability.

It says Second Corinthians chapter 3, verse 5.

2 Corinthians 3:5

Not that we're sufficient of ourselves to think of anything

as being from ourselves, but our sufficiencies from God.

In other words, I receive my esteem from God.

Where God says you're beloved, you're accepted in the beloved,

holy and without blame. That should make all of us feel

fantastic. It's not what you think of me or

what I think of you or what we think of one another.

I mean, it's nice to think good things about you.

Don't want anybody to hate you or not like you or disrespect

you. But it really shouldn't bother

us because God says He loves you with an everlasting love.

He cares about you, He's for you and He's not against you.

He has plans for you in the days ahead, plans of hope and plans

of a future. John 663 says it is a spirit who

gives life. The flesh profits nothing.

If I'm up here trying to motivate you today and my own

ability and my own passion and my own desire as a human being

and trying to persuade or cause your mind to think differently

through my own strength, my own ability, it'll profit nothing.

The words that I speak to your Spirit and they are life.

And that's my prayer for us as a ministry, that it's a spirit

that's speaking. It's not the flesh, it's not

human ability, it's not the wisdom of man, but it's the

wisdom of God. First Corinthians chapter one,

verse 2631. If you flip over there for a

minute and if you pick anything up as we're studying together,

pick up the difference between a life that's directed by the

Spirit and a life that's directed by pride of fallen

natures. Verse 26 for you see your

calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh

human ability, right fallen nature, not many mighty not many

know Bo are called but God has chosen the foolish things of the

world to put the shame the wise and God has chosen the weak

things of the world to put the shame.

The things which are mighty and base things of the world and

things which are despise God hath chosen, and the things

which are not to bring to nothing.

The things that are that no flesh should glory in his

presence, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom

from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption

that it is written. He who glories, let him glory in

the Lord. And so we're here today as

brothers and sisters for the most point.

Most of us are Christians here today, and God is calling all of

you for some purpose. And he's not looking for people

who are highly educated. Of course, he can use highly

educated people, but he doesn't have any kind of agenda.

When he chooses people to serve him, He chooses people who the

world might say many times are losers.

He chooses the outcast, the downcast.

He chooses the insecure. He chooses people who know down

deep inside I can't do this, Lord.

He chooses people who have failed.

And so he looks out in an audience and he says not many

wise out there today, not to put anybody down.

Not many noble, not many mighty are called, but God has chosen

the weak and the foolish things of this world.

How many of us are weak and foolish here today?

That's all of us. So he's calling all of us to

serve him. And you might say, well, I can't

do this. I'm not as good as him or I'm

not as good as her. That's sinful.

When God says he's choosing you because you're weak and foolish,

just admit it, Lord. I'm not going to compare myself

with anybody else. I'm what you tell me in your

word, I am. I'm weak, I'm foolish, but I

want to surrender this body to you for you to use for your

glory. And as God begins to use you and

work in your life and bless people through your life, you

will know it has nothing to do with you.

And that's why it says there in 31.

He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.

I remember when we were training to be missionaries and my sister

in law's here today, she was with the new trials mission in

Africa with in Senegal and boot camp was tough.

It was the second phase of the training.

We went to Bible college. We got all that great head

knowledge, right. We had to memorize the book of

Ephesians. We thought we were really it

right? I mean, we really thought we had

it together. We had a handle on the word and

all that. We go to the boot camp and we're

around these deep Christians that are training us and, and

they're telling us why we got to get from what's in here down to

here because we're all in. There is a bunch of immature,

proud, self willed people that are claiming that they're being

called by God to be missionaries.

And, and the truth was that, yeah, God's calling us to serve

him, but there's work that needs to be done in our life before we

can serve him. They had a Tuesday night

meeting. It was an open night meeting

where you'd all sit here like this and they do worship.

And then you'd wait on the Holy Spirit to speak.

And sometimes 10 minutes, nothing's happening.

And they'd play some more music. And then someone would come up

and they'd share the words, you know, and they'd break it.

And they'd maybe 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15, and whatever the

Holy Spirit's leading them. And, and they would be speaking

to the body. And then they'd sit down and

someone else would get up and share.

And maybe a woman would come up and sing a song or read a Psalm

or it was powerful and dine deep inside.

As you're sitting there, you know God wants to use you too,

that you're afraid because you're thinking, what if I look

like a fool? What if I say something that's

stupid? What if I'm not correct?

Or what if I blow it or whatever, you know, and God's

like that, your heart's thumping.

You know you're supposed to say something.

You don't. You've all had those

opportunities when you're in a meeting and you know God wants

to use you at Wednesday night study to say something, to pray

or whatever, step out in faith. And it's scary.

And I remember the first time I went up there and I thought I

had something to say When I got up there, I looked in the Bible,

I realized I had nothing to say. It was terrible.

I got up there and I'm supposed to say something.

I have absolutely nothing to say and I could have read something

here, but the Lord whisper in my ear, you're a phony clerk.

You're a phony. If we got to deal with you're

going to be humble and you're going to be and I'm like

freaking out and at the back of the wall.

It says this first to bring to naughty the things that are that

no flesh should glory in his presence.

It says in First Corinthians 1550, flesh and blood cannot

inherit the Kingdom of God. The part of us we war against

will not be in heaven. That's good news.

The fallen sinful nature will not follow us into the Kingdom

of God. When we get into the Kingdom of

God, the former things that pass away, there'll be no more pride,

there'll be no more selfish ambition.

There'll be no more anger or hatred or unforgiveness or

bitterness or lust. All that stuff is going to be

gone, the unyielded self life that we still struggle with and

as a pastor I have to constantly bring my will under subjection

of the Lord and say Lord not my will but your will be done in

every area of my life. That unyielded tendency in our

lives that fights against us in this body, the flesh, to try to

make excuses for sin or attitude won't be in the Kingdom of

heaven. 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. 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 further with this ministry, find

us on Facebook or YouTube. 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.