Living Waters of Grace for May 4th, 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.

You can't do it by the energy of your human ability and your

flesh. It's through the power of God's

Spirit. And if God's Spirit lives in US,

he's the one that enables us to live the Christian life.

Amen. It's God's Spirit.

And that's good news because you can't fake it.

And if you've been faking it, get the pressure off yourself

and just finally say, God, I can't do this.

I need you to be my Savior. I need Your Holy Spirit to live

in me to enable me to keep these commandments that I continually

have a tendency to break. Picks your little kid helping

his dad mow the lawn. Sure, he's walking behind the

mower with his hands on the handlebars and the grass is

getting cut, but his dad is the one who's actually pushing the

mower and doing the work. In today's message, Pastor Clark

teaches you that you can't follow Christ in your own

strength, but it's the Spirit of God within you who empowers you.

The Christian life cannot be lived in the flesh, but you must

walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now here's Pastor Clark in Revelation Chapter 16 with

Revelation 16 · chapter mention

today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.

We're all blind until Christ comes into our life.

Christ is the one that gives us true vision.

He's the one that gives us the ability to see into the

spiritual dimension. And when our eyes are anointed

by the Spirit of God and we're able to see things for the first

time, all of a sudden we know our lives have changed.

You remember the guy in the gospel, they're asking him what

happened to him when he met Jesus and he didn't know a lot

about the Bible and he didn't know much about theology or

doctrine. He said, hey, this is all I can

tell you. This is all I know.

I was blind and now I see. And so for us here today that

have had that encounter, we can say Amen to that.

And we see at that time also the love that we're to have for

Jesus Christ. If He's truly awakened us and

caused us to be able to see what he sees and what he ordained and

what He knows, then we have this hatred in our lives for sin.

God hates sin, and He hates it so much that He put his Son on

the cross and He allowed him to be crucified on behalf of all of

us. That's how much He loves us.

And so we should love him because of what he's done for

us. A matter of fact, the Bible says

we love him because he first loved us.

And we need to love what God loves and we need to hate what

God hates. And so that's why he gives the

admonition to the church in Laodicea.

Be zealous therefore, and repent.

Be zealous, therefore, and repent.

There isn't a week that goes by in this church that the subject

of repentance isn't spoken about him and brought up.

Why? Because we need to be zealous

and repent. We are part of this Laodicean

movement in these last days, and we're doing everything we can by

the grace and the power of God to be less likely to be numbered

with that church. We want to be like the church in

Philadelphia that had still a little faith and was faithful

and remain faithful to the end. But we need to be zealous.

And to be zealous means to be fired up.

It means not emotionally stirring and jumping around like

a fanatic, but having a tenacity in our hearts and our lives that

we are seeing. Serious about the gospel.

We're serious about holiness. We're serious about repentance.

We're serious about living the way the Bible tells us that

we're to live. And so as a result, when things

come up in our lives that are inappropriate, we don't mess

around with it. We repent of it.

We ask the Lord for his mercy. We ask him to cleanse us and to

forgive us from our unrighteousness.

And when we repent, as I said last week, we stop going this

way and we start going God's way.

And every time we're tempted to move back a little bit or we we

struggle or we stumble, we, we, we don't stay there.

We just keep getting up by the grace of God in his mercy, and

we just keep walking toward him. In continual metanoia, which is

an active verb tense, which means to continually live in

repentance, moment by moment by moment by moment by moment.

Someone might say, well, is there a time when I don't have

to repent? Yeah, when you're in heaven.

But until that time, you repent continually.

And it's a wonderful thing to have that blessing to be able to

recognize and acknowledge our wrongdoings in turn from them,

because God will cleanse us and strengthen us and restore us to

to fellowship with him. This is something that Jesus

says in John 14 verse 15. If you love me, keep my

John 14:15

commandments. If you love me, keep my

commandments. So the adverse would be, if you

don't love me, you won't keep my commandments.

So that's a a heart check for all of us.

You just say to yourself today, do I really love God?

If I do, it should be reflected in me keeping his word.

If I'm not keeping his word, I don't love God.

Who am I trying to kid? I certainly can't kid him.

That's how he tests me. If you love me, Clark, you'll do

what I tell you to do. You'll you'll follow my word,

you'll follow my ways. Another translation says if you

love me, you will keep my commandments.

It isn't a like this question he's asking will you love me

keep my commandments? It's an imperative statement

that if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

He says in first John chapter 5 verse 2.

1 John 5:2

By this we know and the importance of being short of

your salvation, not being nervous about well boy, I hope

I'm saved. I think I'm saved.

You can know that you're saved if this life reflects what he

says is true in this first John chapter 5 verse 2.

1 John 5:2

By this we know that we love the children of God.

By this we know you could say it this way.

We know we're part of the family or we're in the family of God

when we love God and keep his commandments.

Now, we're a body here today. And if some of us are here today

not loving our brothers and sisters here today, which is the

first Test of being a true Christian, and we aren't loving

God and keeping his commandments, then we don't

know. We're uncertain, we're unsure.

And some of us here today might be in a place in our life where

we're wondering, are we really Christians?

Well, you can test yourself. You love the brothers and

sisters. Do you love God or you keeping

His word? If you are by His grace and by

the work of His Holy Spirit in you, you know that you're in His

family. You know that you belong to Him.

But if you're not doing that, you're not living that way, be

concerned, be nervous, be paranoid, be uptight, because

your life is weighing in the balance of heaven and hell, and

you need to allow the Lord to transform your life.

And this is something none of us can do ourselves.

We need the work of God's grace and his Holy Spirit to transform

us. We can't this well, I'm going to

do better this week and I'm going to promise God I'll do

this and I'll, you know, you can't do it by the energy of

your human ability and your flesh.

It's through the power of God's Spirit.

And if God's Spirit lives in US, he's the one that enables us to

live of the Christian life. Amen.

It's God's Spirit. And that's good news because you

can't fake it. And if you've been faking it,

get the pressure off yourself and just finally say, God, I

can't do this. I need you to be my savior.

I need your Holy Spirit to live in me to enable me to keep these

commandments that I continually have a tendency to break.

For this in verse three of first John 5 is the love of God that

we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burden

burdensome. They're what enables us to

overcome sin. They live in victory as

Christians. They have an overcoming life.

It's the work of God's Spirit in us.

So you look at the commandments of God.

There might have been a time that you looked at in this way.

I know I did man those 10 commandments.

That's just part of it, you know, and, and I, I break them

all, you know, and I, what am I going to do?

These are impossible. Did you ever look at those

things and be honest with yourself and say these are

impossible to follow? Even on your best day, you're

not going to get 10 out of 10. You're going to break some of

them. Even you and me as Christians,

we break them. We break his commandments every

day. If we don't have him above every

other God, we're committing idolatry.

And how often do we allow the things of this world to get in

the way of our relationship with God and we've become idolaters.

We have to be serious and say, Lord, work on my heart by the

power of your spirit that I will not sin against you.

You're worried, Have I hid in my heart that I will not sin

against you? And it's awesome when the Holy

Spirit works in our lives because we find ourselves like

sort of floating in the sense of that we're overcoming things

that in the past we never were able to overcome before.

And and you might have a life besetting sin.

I know Christians that still struggle with life besetting

sins. The book of Hebrews say says we

all have them. A sin is so easily besets us,

but that doesn't mean just because it's a weakness that God

isn't able to cause us to overcome that sin if we follow

Him and obey His Word. So we ask for His mercy and His

help, and God is the one who's able, as it says in Jude, to

keep us from falling and present us faultless before His glory

with exceeding joy. It tells us in verse 15 of

Revelation 16 that Jesus is going to come as a thief.

A sudden surprising event. It's unexpected.

It's an unannounced appearance. Many years ago, when Cindy and I

were first married, we didn't have two cents to rub together,

but we had paychecks from Spencer gifts that that week.

And so we were so tired and it worked so hard.

We were in this like motel room in the winter, they run out and,

you know, you're right on the beach.

And, and so we, we loved it and we, that's all we had.

We they had, it was furnished and all we have is like a couple

duffel bags with some clothes in.

And we had money that week to actually buy some groceries, you

know, so we go to bed and we're tired.

Had one of those Polaroid instant cameras.

Remember those old cameras? You take the picture, you put

the film in and then you peel it back and the picture comes

alive. And, you know, it was like, wow,

this is, I think it was one of the first things we got after we

got married. But, but anyway, we're asleep

and we're tired. And for some reason that night,

I, I, I don't remember putting the chain on the door.

It was weird. I just turned the lock on the

door. So we're sound asleep.

All this sudden in the room, I felt God woke me up.

The Holy Spirit woke me up and I felt this darkness in the room

and, and I and I opened my eyes and I sat up and I saw this guy

Crouch down the bottom of my bed.

It freaked me out. I mean, just having someone in

your room that you weren't expecting to be there, an

unannounced guest and someone is visiting, you know, and you

weren't inviting them. And our hearts are pounding.

And all I know is that I started getting up.

I yelled something. I just started getting up.

Guy could have had a knife and killed me and raped my wife or

whatever, and it could have been horrible.

But by the grace of God, that guy took off and I went outside

to see where which way he went and he was completely gone.

And I'll tell you, that night was so difficult to go back to

sleep because every time we fell back to sleep, we'd wake up,

we'd be stirred thinking he's here again, he's here again,

he's in the room, he's here. And that's sort of how we have

to think about the presence of God.

He's here, He's here again, He's in this room, He's with us, He's

watching us, He sees us. We have time, guys, to deal with

our hearts. We have time to have our lives

change. We have time to forsake sin.

He's going to come as a thief in the night.

Sudden, surprising, unexpected. And so this is endorsement by

God's word that you would keep your heart clean, that you would

keep your garments clean through holiness and repentance.

You would be living for God and not living for sin.

And when he comes back, we wouldn't be ashamed at what he

might find us living for, right? That he would come back and we

could smile and say, man, I'm glad you came today because the

day's a good day with you, Lord, I'm doing exactly what I'm

supposed to be doing. I'm in the place that I'm

supposed to be. I'm I had a good devotional day

and I had a, a day of maybe I shared my faith or I honored my

boss or I love my wife or I love my kids the way the Bible

teaches me, or I'm, I'm seeking the things which are above and

not the things which are below. And, and, and how awesome will

it be when the Lord comes for us in the rapture and for those he

comes forth the second coming that have gotten saved in that

tribulation period, that he, he finds us doing the things that

he told us to do versus finding us doing things that we

shouldn't be doing. I mean, if we're saved by God's

grace, we're still going to be saved.

But I want to be ready, don't you, that He, the Master, finds

me doing as a Scripture, say what He told me to do.

So just as the first coming of Christ involve many phases over

33 year period of Christ's life, from the Annunciation to the

ascension of Christ, the second coming of Christ encompasses

phases that take place before, during, and beyond the

seven-year tribulation. We covered phase one several

times in the Book of Revelation and Thessalonians where Christ

comes from the church at the rapture.

First Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 13 and 18.

1 Thessalonians 4:13

You can review that and look at that again later.

Phase two of this movement of God in these last days was when

when Christ comes to judge the rebellious nations remaining on

the earth during the Tribulation.

And He does that through the seal judgment, through the trump

trumpet judgments and the and the bold plagues from Revelation

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6 through Revelation chapter 18.

Revelation 18 · chapter mention

Phase 3 is when Christ comes to destroy the Antichrist and his

massive armies at Armageddon. And we'll get into that

Revelation chapter 1911 and phase 4.

The final phase is when Christ comes and establishes on earth

the prophecies millennial Kingdom of God and we read about

in Matthew 25 and Daniel chapter 2.

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

So we see in verse 15 for all of those who are awaiting this

event, whether those of us right now who are waiting for the

rapture of the church or those who are living in the time of

the tribulation to become Christians that will go through

this battle of Armageddon at the end of the tribulation.

Verse 16 through 18. And they gathered them together

to the place called in Hebrew Armageddon.

And the 7th Angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud

voice came out of the temple of heaven from the throne saying it

is done. And here we have described

what's spoken about in the book of Joel chapter 3.

Joel 3 · chapter mention

The armies of the antichrists are ascending down to Armageddon

and in the valley plain of Jordan and that this huge piece

of real estate approximately 10 by 40 miles from northwest to

southeast, the gateway to Jerusalem.

This is where this battle will occur.

And we know from Revelation chapter 14, verse 19, it talks

Revelation 14:19

about the great winepress of the wrath of God.

This is where this is going to happen.

This would be in the most cataclysmic battle in human

history on the face of the earth 17 to 21.

It speaks now about the 7th Angel pouring out this final

bowl into the air and a loud voice came out of the temple of

heaven from the throne room saying it is done.

So this is the last major horrendous judgement that's

coming out from the the throne of God prior to this great

battle of Armageddon. He says it is done just like

Jesus said. It is finished when he's on the

cross. No more wrath of God to be

poured out on those who come to Christ.

The wrath of God is only to be poured out on those who reject

Jesus Christ. And we see here the 7th bowl is

concluding with these cataclysmic events here.

It speaks about this in verse 18.

Noises and thunderings and lightnings, and great earth

earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not

occurred since men were on the face of the earth.

Now the great city was divided into 3 parts, and the cities of

the nation fell, and great Babylon was remembered before

God to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His

wrath. Again speaking about this this

judgement of God's wine press. Every island fled away, and the

mountains were not found, and great hail from heaven fell upon

men. Each hailstone about the weight

of a talent approximately 90 pounds.

Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since

the plague was exceeding great. And so we see this gigantic

hail, worldwide earthquakes, destruction of the Antichrist,

his reign and his role. These lightnings and thunders

that are spoken about in verse 18 remind us of what we read

about in Exodus chapter 19 as Moses began to come down off the

Exodus 19 · chapter mention

mountain and it says the people trembled because of the sound of

the Thunder and the brightness of the lightning.

People were aware this was not a normal weather pattern.

This was the holiness of God shaking the foundations of the

earth and this great earthquakes.

All these great scientists in the face of the earth, they're

bright, they're brilliant, they study, they know certain things.

Unfortunately, many of them aren't understanding the signs

of the times of the seasons that they don't believe that the

Bible is real and they don't believe that Jesus Christ is

God. And, and they got a lot of a lot

of problems, but nonetheless, this is one thing that many of

them agree on. There's this geologic fault line

and it's amazing how far this thing extends.

It extends through Palestine, Jordan Valley, down into Africa

and through the California coast.

I I pity people who are moving to California.

I'm glad for people who are moving away from California.

I'm just kidding. Randy's here going to

California. Gary and Cather are moving from

California. You need to talk to us brother

about the prophecies that are coming up.

But Calvary Chapel is all through Southern California and

will be will be take will be taken out before these things

are occurring. Praise God.

But the move of God that will give way of what sinners have

believed supported them all the all the people on their face of

the earth right now. They they ignore God for the

most part. They walk around the world like

it's their own. They don't understand or

acknowledge a creator. They could care less even if

there was 1. They're not going to pay

attention to them or listen to them.

And they're standing on this ground saying this is stable.

This I got control. I have, I have energy, I have

wealth, I have materialism, I have great gain.

I'm the master of my domain. I'm the king of my household and

nothing's going to change that. I'm in charge when this

earthquake begins to occur, the massive earthquake like the

world has never known. And I haven't ever been through

an earthquake. But people that have been, they

tell you it's like a horror, that you don't want to go

through it. It's extremely frightening.

Your whole world begins to fall out from under you.

Literally. Those who ignore this at this

time will be the ones that will realize that they laughed at us

because we have a crutch. They call our faith in Jesus

Christ. You guys need it because you're

weak. You need a crutch.

They're going to wish they could find a crutch during that time

of the earthquake because they'll be nothing that will be

able to hold them up but the mercy of God.

And it seems that the majority of people will still, as we read

last week at the end of verse 11, they did not repent of their

deeds. So this great city is divided,

it says, into three parts, Babylon.

Some people think Babylon's an ancient Rome, the revived Roman

Empire. Some people think it's Baghdad.

You know, it doesn't really matter where it is or what it

is. It is a literal place.

And it'll be revealed in the in the last days.

But it's also symbolic of the corrupt world system led by the

Antichrist. And this earthquake is going to

split this city in three parts. And we'll get into that in more

detail next week in chapter 17 and 18.

In verse 20, it talks about these islands and mountains that

are affected by this earthquake. Some people think that this will

occur when Jesus comes back and lands literally on earth and his

feet touch the Mount of Olives. And this the holiness of God

touching this wicked world, that's when everything will

begin to just break apart and his Messiah's triumphant

millennial reign that will eventually be set up as we read

in Psalm chapter 2, the weight of this stone, these hailstones

Psalms 2 · chapter mention

coming out of heaven that says uses this word talent, which is

parallel to the the weight measure 95 lbs.

So you can imagine something 95 lbs coming down out of the

heavens. The damage and the death it'll

cause will be incalculable. I don't want to be there and I

won't be there. And I pray if you're here today

and you're still on the fence about your need of a Savior and

salvation, you don't stick around for this.

I really believe that these things are sooner than later

just because of what's going on in the world.

I mean, there's never it's, you know, people talk about the

stars being lined up when when Christ comes back, it seems like

everything is just falling into place.

And the prophecies, it says in the last days people will be

lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God.

That's apparent everywhere. People will go to churches to

have their ears tickled. You know, they want to have

things that will tell them how the wonderful they are, make

them feel good and know what they would perceive as

negativity or, and no down or message.

You know this make tell me how great I am and, and make me feel

good and comfortable in my sin and what I want to do and, and

don't bother me. Don't don't say anything that

would cause me to be convicted or something.

But God, God, you know, he is so patient and so merciful.

It's a wonder he hasn't done this already to everybody.

But in his mercy he has a body, a bride, a group of people, the

elect that he loves and he cherishes.

And and he's come to this world that has not received him and

rejected him. And he came to his own and his

own received him not. And yet he comes with love to

save the world from their sin. And very few people and the

populace from the beginning of time to the end of time come to

him. It's it's a mystery.

And so these people, when all this is happening, Can you

imagine this weight of these hailstones coming down?

There's no place to go, no place to run, no place to hide.

And they're still cursing God. They're blaspheming him.

Thanks for being with us today here on Living Waters of Grace.

We're 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

judgments 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 in to Grace

FM 91.7 FM and they can stream worldwide at Grace Radio dot FM.

This has been living waters of grace.