Sermon

Living Waters of Grace for April 30, 2026

Living Waters of Grace / Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland Sunday Services

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  1. This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark

  2. Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,

  3. County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he

  4. continues teaching through God's Word.

  5. Sometimes we read all these poor people, they refuse to repent of

  6. their sin, they won't acknowledge the Creator, they

  7. blasphemy of the Creator. And many times I look and I look

  8. at the image of the Church of Jesus Christ today and I say, do

  9. we look any different than those who will have to face that

  10. eternity of hell? Are we the kind of people that

  11. are refusing to repent of our sins?

  12. Are we walking around in self righteousness saying I have no

  13. sin? Isn't it better to take a look

  14. at ourselves before we point out the fault of others?

  15. Have you ever gone to point out to a friend the spinach in his

  16. teeth only to have it pointed out that you had some toilet

  17. paper on your shoe or something worse?

  18. It's pretty embarrassing, right? It is.

  19. Message. Today, Pastor Clark expresses to

  20. you the importance of examining your own life.

  21. Of course the world is going to act like, well, the world.

  22. But what is your life like? What do you see when you look

  23. into the mirror of God's Word? Now here's Pastor Clark,

  24. beginning in the book of Exodus chapter 10.

    Exodus 10 chapter mention

  25. He'll continue into Revelation 16 on this edition of Living

  26. Waters of Grace. It reminds us of what happened

  27. in Exodus chapter 1021 and 22. The darkness was so thick, it

  28. says that God extended that through the hands of Moses so

  29. that the darkness would be felt. Sometimes you've been in a

  30. situation where you've just felt darkness.

  31. Maybe you felt the darkness of the evil 1, the oppression, the

  32. attacks of the evil 1 I have. It is so thick, it is so dark.

  33. It is so real. You almost feel you can touch

  34. it. Or maybe you've been out in the

  35. woods some night and the stars are overcast.

  36. You can't see the the moon and and you're trying to find your

  37. way in a path and it is so dark that you know you better not go

  38. anywhere. You'll really get lost.

  39. So you just stay in the place that you are.

  40. It was such a thick darkness in Exodus.

  41. It lasted for three days and it says it was so dark that the

  42. people had not the ability to see one another, neither anyone

  43. rose from the place that they were in.

  44. It also says that they nod their tongues in verse 10 because of

  45. the pain of the sores and the heat from the sun.

  46. And it reminds us of what it says in Matthew 2530.

  47. And he casts the unprofitable servant into outer darkness.

  48. And there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

  49. This is a preview of hell. Hell is a literal place.

  50. It is a place designed by God for the devil and his angels.

  51. God never intended that man, his creation, would have to be in

  52. hell. But because of our own hardness,

  53. the own wickedness of our own hearts and our refusal to repent

  54. and submit to God, we we'll have to enter into that place.

  55. If we don't have Christ, it's not any our Savior, but our

  56. Lord. And so he says in verse 11 that

  57. they did not repent of their deed.

  58. I'd like to read something to you.

  59. This is something that's just been on my conscience the last

  60. couple weeks. It's from a devotional I've been

  61. looking at, and it says my brother and deem it all joy.

  62. Whenever you fall into diverse temptations or trials, knowing

  63. that the testing of your faith works out patience.

  64. God has a purpose for trials and adversity.

  65. It's to cause us to be humbled and to be broken and to repent

  66. and to turn toward him. With these words from his

  67. general epistle, James, the brother of the Lord, reminds us

  68. that the various afflictions we encounter in our daily lives can

  69. be of great benefit. And we know, as Paul reminds us,

  70. that those who love God, all things work together for good in

  71. Romans 828. Now listen to this and see if

  72. this applies to you. I know it does to me.

  73. The demands of today's secular, humanistic, ego worshipping

  74. society, where personal comfort and pleasure reign supreme, have

  75. often caused many, if not most of us to take our focus off of

  76. striving to live the Gospel of Christ.

  77. Does that affect any of you guys?

  78. However, unlike Peter, who, having taken his eyes off of his

  79. Lord and having begun to sink into the sea, immediately cried

  80. out to Jesus to save him, we seem to be either unaware of or

  81. indifferent to the fact that we are focusing upon and sinking

  82. within the toward sea of this temporal life.

  83. And thus we become bait for the many demonic passions lurking

  84. therein, seeking to devour our souls.

  85. This is why God and His limitless love for us will

  86. permit us to experience various tribulations so that we will

  87. wake up and cry out to him for help, so that we can again fix

  88. the eyes of our souls upon Him. I believe we have to wake up in

  89. these days. The church is dead everywhere,

  90. the Church of Jesus Christ in these last days.

  91. The Bible says there's a great falling away.

  92. Men will be lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God.

  93. And we're living in those days and we're fighting against those

  94. days, all of us, for our families, for our marriages, for

  95. our children. And as I said earlier when we

  96. prepared for the Supper, the apostle John who wrote the Book

  97. of Revelation also says that if we say we have no sin, we

  98. deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

  99. So we're studying about all these poor people in the Book of

  100. Revelation today. Sometimes we read all these poor

  101. people. They refuse to repent of their

  102. sin. They won't acknowledge the

  103. Creator. They blasphemy the Creator.

  104. And many times I look and I look at the image of the Church of

  105. Jesus Christ today and I say, do we look any different than those

  106. who will have to face that eternity of hell?

  107. Are we the kind of people that are refusing to repent of our

  108. sins? Are we walking around in self

  109. righteousness saying I have no sin, I'm judging other people's

  110. sins, but I'm not judging my own sins.

  111. It says if we hate, say that we have not sinned, we make him a

  112. liar and His word is not in US. The purpose, one of the roles of

  113. the Holy Spirit, God, the Holy Spirit, is to convict you and me

  114. of sin. He does that perfectly well.

  115. He makes it very clear to my conscience and yours whenever

  116. we're behaving in an inappropriate way, when we're

  117. thinking things we shouldn't, when we're doing things we know

  118. we shouldn't. He makes it very clear about

  119. where we're at in our lives in regard to sin.

  120. First, Peter chapter 4 says for the time has come for judgment

  121. to begin. Where?

  122. At the House of God. Now we're studying about the

  123. judgment and revelation, right? Well, revelation hasn't

  124. fulfilled yet in the sense of the prophetical vision of John

  125. in the days ahead. It's going to come to pass, but

  126. I have to live right now. And so I'm thinking about

  127. judgment and revelation, but I first of all have to realize

  128. that judgment has to 1st begin with me and with this House of

  129. God. And if it begins with us first,

  130. what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of

  131. God? And that's what we read about in

  132. Revelation. What will be the end of those in

  133. that book who will not obey the gospel of God?

  134. It says there will be 9 of teeth.

  135. Now if the righteous 1 is scarcely saved, where will the

  136. ungodly in the Sinner appear? Peter asked that question.

  137. James tells us that we're to draw near to God and he will

  138. draw near to you. That's repentance.

  139. Repentance is turning away from walking away from God in my own

  140. path of destruction and selfish and foolishness and delusion and

  141. turning to the Lord, drawing near to Him.

  142. And if I turn from my sin and repent and draw near to God, God

  143. doesn't run the other way. I'm the one that's running the

  144. other way. Am I rebellious sin?

  145. Right? I'm the one that's running away

  146. from God. And I've been there and you've

  147. been there. And we got loved ones that are

  148. running from God. But whenever we come to our

  149. senses like the prodigal, and we turn and we know we want to go

  150. to the House of the Father, we turn towards God and he runs

  151. toward us. He comes to us and embraces US.

  152. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

  153. And as we're drawing near to God, the responsibility that we

  154. have, James says we're to cleanse our hands.

  155. He says cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts.

  156. You double minded. The double minded person is

  157. going this way and going this way and going this way and going

  158. this way and going this way and going this way and we don't know

  159. which way we're going. We get nowhere.

  160. God's calling us. We know our conscience is

  161. affected, but the sin in us, we love that sometimes more.

  162. And we're going this way and, and, and we're like spiritual

  163. schizophrenics where we have no rest, we have no peace because

  164. we have this constant tension of holiness in our own desire for

  165. what we think we want and what's best for us.

  166. James also tells us that we're confess our trespasses, our sins

  167. to one another, and to pray for one another that you may be

  168. healed. The sin causes siritual

  169. sickness. It causes death.

  170. You know, sometimes we know what it's like to be obviously

  171. physically I'll. We get flu shots to protect

  172. ourselves from the flu. We get different inoculations.

  173. We take vitamins to protect ourselves from disease and

  174. illness. We try to eat properly so we

  175. have the proper nutrition so that we stay healthy.

  176. Not realizing, though, that that's all in vain if we're

  177. living a life of habitual sin. Because no matter how many

  178. inoculations you get and how many vaccinations you get, how

  179. many flu shots you get, how many vitamins you get intake and how

  180. so you try to eat and work out, the wages of sin is death.

  181. You're going to die. You can't stop that.

  182. You can't prevent it. You can't help yourself and you

  183. can't help anybody else from the process of physical death.

  184. The wages of sin is death. And so he calls the church, he

  185. calls Christians together and James that we get together and

  186. we pray for one another and confess our sins to one another

  187. that we might get the help that we need.

  188. There's nothing more tragic than a church that listens to a

  189. message and goes home and there's no confession, there's

  190. no repentance, there's no praying for one another.

  191. It's, it's, it's not even a church.

  192. It's an institution, it's a business.

  193. It's just, I don't know what you would call it.

  194. It's, it's nothing. It's dead.

  195. And if we go out without repentance, if we go out without

  196. confession, if we go out without praying for one another, we are

  197. walking out sick and we are walking out dead.

  198. James says sin causes spiritual sickness and death.

  199. This past Wednesday we had a wonderful Bible study and I

  200. encourage you if you can come on Wednesday's, occasionally come.

  201. It's different than Sunday's we, we gather together and there's

  202. different men that teach the word here that are gifted to

  203. teach the word. And at the end, we, we, we this

  204. last Wednesday, everybody came up and we we gathered together

  205. and we asked if anybody was afflicted because Steve was

  206. teaching us on the purpose of afflictions from Psalm 119 and

  207. Job, we shared with our struggles and different people

  208. stood up and crying out to God about what would they were they

  209. were struggling with, whether it was fears or broken heartedness

  210. or whatever. And, and, and as they asked for

  211. help, different people prayed for one another.

  212. And what was wonderful was is the people prayed for one

  213. another. The people were forgiven, the

  214. burdens were lifted and they were healed.

  215. One person told me today I said, how you doing?

  216. Because I knew Wendy was a rough night.

  217. She said to me today, I'm doing great.

  218. The Lord works through repentance and through humility

  219. and through prayer, and we got to get over our egos and our

  220. pride, acting like we have it all together and we don't need

  221. prayer. We all need prayer.

  222. And I need prayer more than anybody because I'm the pastor

  223. and I, God help me if I don't ask for prayer, if I don't get

  224. prayer, I have nothing to give to you.

  225. If I don't humble myself before the Lord and realize my own

  226. spiritual sickness and how I need God's grace to continually

  227. bring healing to my soul. So the purpose of the supper is

  228. a healing move of God's Spirit. We just don't take it as a

  229. ritual, the cup and the bread, and OK, we move on to the next

  230. thing. If we take an understanding what

  231. it is, Jesus said this is my body which is broken for you.

  232. The apostle Paul said this is the blood that was shed for you.

  233. If we take it examining ourselves and not taking in an

  234. unworthy manner, then we're not going to be weak spiritually.

  235. We're not going to be sick spiritually.

  236. We're going to have the strength of God in US.

  237. Repentance transforms us from living in sin to living in

  238. purity and holiness. John Morris taught us an immense

  239. study this morning the importance of living in a holy

  240. way, being holy as he is holy. Repentance changes us from

  241. having a propensity to be unholy, to be pure and to be

  242. holy. The Bible says without holiness,

  243. no man shall see the Lord. And so I'm going to say why pray

  244. to prayer? I asked Jesus that came into my

  245. heart and be my savior. Well, it it doesn't work that

  246. way. If we aren't following Christ,

  247. not only his Savior, but his Lord will be terribly

  248. disappointed at the judgment when he says to me, depart from

  249. you cursed and I never knew you and we'll say, well, why?

  250. I prayed a prayer. I asked you to come into my

  251. heart and save me. But Jesus said, why do you call

  252. me Lord Lord and do not do the things that I say?

  253. He says, if you love me, you will keep my word.

  254. Repentance is unending until we die.

  255. Some people think, well, I just repent when I get saved.

  256. Well, that's the beginning of repentance.

  257. I mean, once you come to know Christ and he's in your life,

  258. you become very aware of your inadequacy spiritually.

  259. You become very clearly aware of your weaknesses and you realize

  260. your need of God's strength and His help.

  261. And so you are sensitive if you've offended someone, if you

  262. judge someone, or if you've been critical, if you've been

  263. lustful, you've been bitter, you've been angry, you've been

  264. greedy. You can't disallow that, that

  265. cesspool sin to circulate in your heart without being very,

  266. very disturbed and bothered. And you don't have rest and you

  267. don't have peace until you repent and say, Lord, that was

  268. wrong. Forgive me and cleanse me.

  269. And if you have to, you go make the amends with the people that

  270. you've hurt and offended. Each time we see our thoughts

  271. and our hearts, they convict us many times of some sin.

  272. And it's not to condemn us that the Lord does that.

  273. It's that we might take the medicine to repentance seriously

  274. and be restored to communion and fellowship with God.

  275. First, John 19 tells us that we might be cleansed from all

  276. unrighteousness if we confess our sins.

  277. James 48 says cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify

  278. your hearts. That's the purpose of

  279. repentance. I'm so grateful for repentance.

  280. I don't know what I would do without repentance.

  281. I remember there was a time in my life I didn't think I needed

  282. to repent. I don't know.

  283. I was under some bad teaching and I thought, well, I got saved

  284. and, and you know, I'm on my way to heaven and this is good as it

  285. gets in. And I never thought about my

  286. offenses toward God. And I would live day in and day

  287. out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and

  288. year out in delusion, living in perpetual sin, thinking I was OK

  289. and meanwhile having an unrest in my heart, having a sense of

  290. impurity, knowing something was wrong.

  291. But I'm with my brothers and sisters and all of us are in the

  292. same boat, trying to make each other feel good in our sin,

  293. trying to make each other feel OK.

  294. That it's a weakness in man's nature to be drawn to

  295. pornography. It's a weakness in everyone's

  296. heart. Sin is a sickness and it isn't

  297. OK for men to be in pornography. And just because two other

  298. brothers tell you they struggle with it doesn't mean that that's

  299. OK. Someone there has to be a

  300. brother saying I used to struggle with pornography, but

  301. by the grace of God I don't anymore.

  302. And this is what the Lord did for me.

  303. This is how he changed my heart and this is how he set me free.

  304. Purity of heart. And we look at Psalm 122 two, it

  305. says my help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

  306. The Lord is our helper. But we all are affected by this

  307. law of sin. It exists within all of us.

  308. If you're a Christian here today, you are not sinless.

  309. You still battle with sin in your life.

  310. And it's a law, it's a principle, and it affects every

  311. one of us. And apart from the blood of

  312. Jesus Christ, every one of us are doomed.

  313. Amen. If it wasn't for the blood of

  314. Christ, there would be no remission of sins.

  315. And the word of God is what our weapon is against the sin.

  316. It's still within our hearts. That's why the psalmist said thy

  317. word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee?

  318. We don't memorize scripture to impress people of our great

  319. knowledge of the Scripture. If you memorize Scripture for

  320. no, no other reason, I pray This is why you memorize it, so that

  321. you are protected from sin. And that's a good enough reason

  322. to memorize it. Without the word of God, the

  323. enemy will Vanquish and capture you as a spiritual struggler.

  324. And some of you today, I'm sure, are being vanquished by the

  325. enemy. You're being beat down.

  326. You're struggling in your sin. You don't have the ability to

  327. overcome it because you don't. It's been so long since you've

  328. drawn near to God. You've been running from God.

  329. And it's been so long since you've drawn near to God, you've

  330. forgotten that if you draw near to him, he'll draw near to you.

  331. And without the word of God, the enemy will mess you up.

  332. He'll strip you of the divine weapons that God's given you.

  333. He'll drag your life into a horrible pit of sin, of sorrow,

  334. of heartache, of bondage and destruction.

  335. And as a pastor, that's what breaks my heart because I see

  336. people that come and go here that refuse to repent and they

  337. want to have life their own way and they don't realize that.

  338. They think they can get away with it, but eventually their

  339. life will tragically be destroyed by sorrow and

  340. heartache. The heartache that they'll

  341. receive themselves and the heartache that they're going to

  342. cause other people because of their bondage to sin and the

  343. destruction it has occurred in their life.

  344. I think sometimes Cindy and I, we pray for loved ones and

  345. people we care about, brothers and sisters and, and I and I'm

  346. learning to be patient and gone upon God.

  347. It might not be today that someone gets busted.

  348. It might not be next week, next month, next year, but they'll

  349. come a time when someone's going to call you up and say I need

  350. help. I got a bad medical report.

  351. My wife left me, my kids on drugs, I lost my job.

  352. I'm in the pits of despair and despondency.

  353. I don't know which way to turn. There'll come a time of crushing

  354. and breaking by the mercy of God that that person will then begin

  355. to say I'm waking up. There's got to be more to life.

  356. I want to get my house in order because the consequences of my

  357. life to this point, if I die today, I'm not real sure I would

  358. be with the Lord because of the way I've lived my life.

  359. All the distressing events and consequences that are occurring

  360. in this world today, in this human life, are the result of

  361. one purpose, one reason, and that's sin.

  362. When tragedy happens and adversity happens in people's

  363. lives, what's the first thing they do?

  364. They complain. God, why?

  365. They blasphemed, just like the people in Revelation.

  366. The sun's too hot, the sores are too painful.

  367. Why are you doing this? I hate you.

  368. Why don't you just get out of my life?

  369. Why don't you leave me alone? Why don't you leave all of us

  370. alone? Not understanding that the God

  371. of creation created us to be in communion, to have a life of

  372. peace and love and grace and joy with the Lord.

  373. Yet in the midst of these adversities of life, God will

  374. work everything out for good for those who love God and are

  375. called according to His purpose. I don't care what adversity you

  376. have today, what trial, what tribulation, what you're facing.

  377. God promises everything will work for good to those who love

  378. Him and are called according to His purpose in Romans 828.

  379. I think today as I look at this message and I say to myself,

  380. does God find repentance in US today as He looks over this

  381. congregation? Does he find repentance here

  382. today? Have you said or do you say or

  383. even as you're listening to this message, are you saying I have

  384. sinned against heaven and against you, Lord?

  385. Do you hate the sin that's working to destroy your own

  386. life? Are you getting to the point

  387. that you hate sin? Because when you start hating

  388. sin, you'll start to flee sin. When you start to hate sin as

  389. God hates it, you'll begin to draw near to Him and draw away

  390. from the sin. Are you willing to turn deeper

  391. into the ways of God, forsaking the path that you might be on

  392. now? There has to come a time in all

  393. of our lives that we say enough's enough.

  394. I've wasted too many days, too many hours, too much money, too

  395. much heartache because I wanted it my way.

  396. And now I want to turn to the Lord and forsake the foolish

  397. path I'm on and go deeper in His ways.

  398. I've been a pastor now for 14 years, and it's been 14 years

  399. that I've decided by the grace of God, to walk in a path that

  400. is deeper. But there was a time of my life

  401. that I was asleep. I was not awake.

  402. I thought I was OK. The nominal Christian life is

  403. hey, show up for church once in a while, put a few bucks on your

  404. offering plate, say a few prayers, and then live your life

  405. the way you want. That's not what Christ came to

  406. give us. He came to give us a vital,

  407. intimate, deep relationship with the living God, so that once you

  408. get a taste of that relationship, everything else is

  409. secondary, that you begin to lay your head down the pillow at

  410. night and you say, Lord, I want life, your life more than my

  411. life. I want you, Lord, more than life

  412. itself. That's what his desire is for

  413. all of us. In the Book of Revelation,

  414. Pastor Clark is taking us through all kinds of events and

  415. happenings that are predicted for the future, but for those

  416. who believe and follow Jesus, there's much to look forward to

  417. in heaven with Jesus. However, for those who are here

  418. on earth during the Tribulation, there's all kinds of chaos that

  419. will unfold. The Bible talks about an

  420. Antichrist, a false prophet, and of course that evil enemy Satan.

  421. Do you see how there are such clever attempts for the enemy to

  422. disguise himself as God and even the Trinity?

  423. The true Savior of the world is God and how He comes to rescue

  424. through his triune nature God the Father, Jesus the Son, and

  425. God the Holy Spirit. Just like Satan tried to take

  426. over for God in heaven and was cast out, Satan will try to

  427. convince people on earth that he is the triune God to be

  428. worshipped instead of the legitimate God in heaven.

  429. It's an attempt, and although he will capture plenty in his

  430. schemes, he will not win. The true God wins, and

  431. Revelation unpacks how that will all happen in detail.

  432. Be encouraged because there's a way out for all of this madness

  433. that will ensue on this earth. But you don't want to wait

  434. indefinitely to make that decision about Jesus.

  435. We don't know when the church will be raptured, and you want

  436. to be ready to be with Jesus. To learn more about this, head

  437. over to calvarychapelonline.com. We're so glad you've been with

  438. us today. And if you'd like to connect

  439. further with this ministry, find us on Facebook or YouTube.

  440. You can also download our mobile app at calvarychapelonline.com.

  441. Be sure to join us for weekly services at 400 E Pittsburgh St.

  442. Ste. 6B in Greensburg, PA 15601. This has been living waters of

  443. grace.