Sermon
Living Waters of Grace April 15th, 2026
Publisher transcript
Transcript
-
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.
-
If we can eliminate the Holy Trinity and replace it with the
-
Unholy Trinity, then the powers that be on the earth at that
-
particular time will be able to bring astounding deceptions and
-
confusion to everyone who's on the face of the earth.
-
This particular beast speaks like a dragon, and basically
-
he's speaking the same messages of the first beast who
-
blasphemes. Got the whole idea and it won't
-
be in your face initially, it'll be more subtle.
-
My wife loves to watch dramas on TVI find it funny that something
-
like that is appealing but nonetheless what I find even
-
crazier is how 1 little lie can cause someone to believe
-
something that isn't true. These people go around spreading
-
gossip to try to win people over to believe their story.
-
In today's message, Pastor Clark warns you of the lies that the
-
enemy will spread. He wants to make sin not seem
-
that bad. So what he does is he'll slowly
-
drip it into everything that you consume.
-
Now here's Pastor Clark in the Book of Revelation chapter 13
Revelation 13 chapter mention
-
with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
-
Revelation chapter 13, verse 11. Then I saw another beast coming
-
up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and spoke
-
like a dragon. And he exercises all the
-
authority of the first beasts in his presence, and causes the
-
earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast.
-
Beast whose deadly wound was healed.
-
He performs great signs, so that he even makes the fire come down
-
from heaven on the earth and the sight of men.
-
And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs,
-
which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling
-
those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who
-
was wounded by the sword and lived.
-
He was granted power to give breath to the image of the
-
beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and
-
'cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast
-
to be killed. He causes all, both small and
-
great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on
-
their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may
-
buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the
-
beast, or the number of his name.
-
Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding
-
calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a
-
man. His number is 666.
-
Today we're going to examine the issues of what's going to happen
-
in this world in these days ahead, what's happening in our
-
culture today. There's a dumbing down of
-
America and it starts, unfortunately, in many of the
-
churches in our country where there's a movement away from the
-
teaching of the Bible and more of a movement into what's hip or
-
what's cool or what people seem to be interested in.
-
And what happens as people move away from the Scriptures in the
-
Bible, they move more into this philosophy of what we call
-
humanism. And humanism is you would say
-
today, hey, Clark, this is my opinion or this is what I think
-
about life and this is who I think God is, if there's even a
-
God that exists. And this is my truth.
-
And and then I would tell you, well, this is my truth.
-
And we would shake hands and say, well, that's cool.
-
You know, your truth is your truth.
-
My truth is my truth. So we can all get along with
-
each other, right? This agree to disagree and and
-
just move on. And that's unfortunately what's
-
happening in churches nowadays. There's a movement away from
-
historical perspective regarding the second coming of Christ, end
-
times, final judgment. I mean, there's churches today
-
that are teaching that there's other ways to heaven than Jesus
-
Christ. Churches that teach that there
-
is no literal hell, there is no punishment for those who die
-
without Christ. And so what's happening as you
-
see the culture changing, it's becoming more fashionable to not
-
be spiritual in regard to knowing Jesus Christ, being
-
spiritual in regard to like whatever you want to believe,
-
Buddha, Krishna, a new age, whatever, that's okay.
-
But in regard to bringing up the name of Jesus Christ, that
-
that's verbatim, that's almost getting to the point of being
-
culturally unacceptable, right? Or politically incorrect.
-
That's sort of where things are right now.
-
And so as a result of that, there's this dumbing down.
-
Now, if you as a student of the Scriptures aren't astute
-
yourself to study these things yourself, you're going to be
-
swept down the same path that the majority of people out there
-
today are on. Just do is your own survey with
-
people you work with or people you go to school with or your
-
neighbors, just that, you know, like curiosity.
-
Hey, what do you think about the Bible?
-
And they'll they'll give you some pretty bizarre thoughts.
-
Who do you think Jesus Christ is?
-
What do you think about the end of the world?
-
What do you think about you think Christ is going to come
-
back again and it'll stand you at where people's thoughts and
-
minds are regarding this subject.
-
And so you can see when Jesus speaks to the apostle Paul and
-
says he's going to send God will send a strong of delusion to
-
people that they'll believe a lie rather than the truth.
-
The culture is already being set up, right to understand this
-
concept of whatever you want to believe is OK.
-
Relativism is also called truth is relative.
-
Your truth is your truth. My truth is my truth.
-
But we can't go by people's opinions.
-
We have to go by this book. This is the truth.
-
Jesus is the truth. He said I am the way, I am the
-
truth. I am the light.
-
No man comes to the Father but through me.
-
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is
-
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and
-
instruction and righteousness that the people of God may be
-
thoroughly furnished. In other words, being equipped
-
and prepared to know the difference between a lie,
-
deception, and the truth. So we look at verse 11 here.
-
It's speaking about this beast coming up out of the earth.
-
There's two beasts, one in this section of Scripture today that
-
comes up out of the earth and one that comes up out of the
-
sea. This particular beast is
-
different than the first beast that came out of the sea.
-
This second beast is coming up out of the earth and he has a
-
lamb like appearance. Here it says he has horns like a
-
lamb and spoke like a dragon. The first beast was described as
-
looking like a leopard. This beast is described as being
-
some similar to the likeness of a lamb.
-
This particular beast is subordinate to the first beast.
-
If you look in verse 12, it says this beast exercises all the
-
authority of the first beast in his presence and causes the
-
earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose
-
deadly wound was healed. So the focus of this individual
-
is to pay homage to the Antichrist.
-
This particular beast we're reading about here is referred
-
to also as the false prophet, and he'll be the person that
-
does all the PR work for the the Antichrist.
-
Now we see in verse 11 it talks about this beast having two
-
horns and we believe that these horns represent power in two
-
different realms, political power and religious power.
-
The last days will represent A1 world church and a one world
-
government. It's amazing right now the
-
negotiations that are going on around the world with world
-
powers and G20 summits and that kind of stuff.
-
There's an issue right now, as I talked last week about the
-
problem with the euro and the dollar and the 1:00 and all
-
these different currencies. And until there's really one
-
currency, we're going to have chaos economically.
-
Now the most pragmatic thing to do from a financial perspective
-
logically would be to have a world currency so that the
-
markets can be balanced. But the intention of that isn't
-
to cause prosperity in the sense of long term Kingdom of Earth
-
type mentality, but it's to give someone the ability to
-
politically roll the financial markets from one location and
-
that we'll all be in submission to that new particular financial
-
setup. Also the one world church,
-
there's this movement today to integrate all spirituality
-
together. You know, it doesn't matter if
-
you're Hindu or Islam or Buddhist or, you know, a
-
Christian. There's this mindset now that if
-
we could just have one church and everybody would sort of get
-
along together and we decide like, what are the main things
-
we should all agree on? Well, we should love one another
-
and we shouldn't hate and we shouldn't steal and we shouldn't
-
kill. Those are pretty obvious in in
-
most world religions. But the idea of eliminating the
-
concept or the truth of a real God and a real Savior and a real
-
Holy Spirit, if we can eliminate the Holy Trinity and replace it
-
with the unholy Trinity, then the powers that be on the earth
-
at that particular time will be able to bring astounding
-
deceptions and confusion to everyone who's on the face of
-
the earth. This particular beast speaks
-
like a dragon, and basically he's speaking the same messages
-
of the first beast who blasphemes God.
-
The whole idea, and it won't be in your face initially, it'll be
-
more subtle. We have to give equal time to
-
other world religions. We have to allow the Dalai Lama
-
to have his ability to speak to the United Nations.
-
We have to have the Enman, the Islamic leader, have the ability
-
to communicate his vision for World Peace in these last days.
-
And so all these different entities will be rising up to
-
have a a vocal word and they'll basically by their character and
-
their demeanor and by their denial of who Jesus Christ is be
-
blaspheming the truth of who who God is in Christ.
-
The name of Christ will become more and more commonly used just
-
in swear words and not worship jokes movies.
-
I'm astounded if you go to a secular movie nowadays.
-
And I don't go to too many of them unless I really screen what
-
they're about and and what the verbiage is.
-
And most of them unfortunately aren't worth a whole lot, but
-
it's astounding. You can be going to a good movie
-
and say, well, this movie has some depth and some meaning and
-
it's interesting. And they have to use the Lord's
-
name in vain. It's so out of context at this.
-
Like it's like, you know, people, they take their
-
fingernails on a chalkboard. You know how that makes you feel
-
like weird? You know, it's like it does hit
-
you that way. If you love Christ, you can't
-
stand hearing his name used in vain.
-
It's just so inappropriate. And and you'll say, well, why
-
would they have to have that word in the midst of the movie?
-
Well, the media in the fallen world has an agenda and every in
-
the music and the movies and the literature is to defame the
-
person of Jesus Christ and to blasphemy him.
-
The second beast is also called the false prophet in Revelation
-
1613 chapter 19 verse 20 and chapter 20 verse 10.
-
He's distinct from the first beast, the Antichrist and the
-
dragon, who is Satan himself. Now with the dragon, we see the
-
beasts rising from the sea, who is referred to as the
-
Antichrist. And then we see as we're
-
studying here in this section of scripture, the false prophet.
-
This beast comes up out of the earth again, the unholy Trinity,
-
the dragon is the anti father Satan, the beast.
-
Coming up out of the sea is the Antichrist.
-
And the beast here we're reading about today coming up out of the
-
land is the anti spirit, the false prophet.
-
So we look in verse 12 through 15 now and we see the job
-
description of this second beast.
-
And this is what his responsibility is.
-
It says he exercises the authority of the first beast.
-
He's the spokesperson for this Antichrist.
-
He causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the
-
Antichrist, the first beast whose deadly wound was healed.
-
Now, we talked last week, there's some kind of issue that
-
occurs with this first beast that is world known, some kind
-
of perhaps attack on his life to kill him or to destroy him and
-
he somehow miraculously comes back to life.
-
It's so amazing that CNN and Fox and every major news network
-
will be talking about this all over the world.
-
You know, we'll all be talking, of course, we won't be here, but
-
people on the face of the earth at that time will be all talking
-
about the excitement of what has just happened.
-
It says this false prophet will perform great signs so that he
-
even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth and then the
-
sight of men. He will deceive those who dwell
-
on the earth by the signs which he was granted to do in the
-
sight of the beast. He'll tell those who dwell on
-
the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the
-
sword and lived. He was granted power to give
-
breath to the image of the beast, and the image of the
-
beast should both speak and cause as many as would not
-
worship the image of the beast to be killed.
-
This is his job description. He exercises all the authority
-
of the first beast, the Antichrist, and the second beast
-
is truly the false prophet. And his goal is to lead the
-
whole world to worship the Antichrist.
-
Satan, you might sit here and you you read this and and I have
-
the same concept of times. How in the world can anybody be
-
so stupid or so uninformed to worship something like this?
-
I mean, is that your first thought when you you hear this
-
stuff? Who in the world this is?
-
This is insane. Well, when Stalin and Hitler
-
were risen up to power, who would have ever Like when you
-
look back historically now, how could you be so blind to pay
-
homage to these world leaders? I remember as growing up as a
-
kid and they would show you pictures of China, right?
-
Mao Zedong, his poster was everywhere, right?
-
Thousands of people will be in the square paying homage and
-
worshipping him is like their God Hitler.
-
They they gave him worship by raising their hand and saluting
-
him, saying hi, Hitler. And and so we can look back in
-
history to see how people can be deceived.
-
And today we look at these different religions that are out
-
there, humanism, there's no God, but you are your God.
-
You are your own God. That's what the humanists will
-
say. Complete denouncing of the
-
authority of a creator. The public schools have pushed
-
out right the concept of a creator God.
-
Our kids are being indoctrinated in the public school systems by
-
a system of religion called humanism, right?
-
It's so clear there is no prayer anymore in the public schools.
-
You know, even to the point that they don't want to pledge the
-
allegiance because you have to say 1 nation under God.
-
Well, you might offend someone because we think of that God in
-
this country is based upon a Christian God, the Lord Jesus
-
Christ. But now what about the Muslim
-
that's going to school or the Hindu or the atheist?
-
And now you have these cults and these occult movements and it's
-
a big deal. Spirituality without the Holy
-
Spirit. Go into Barnes and Noble or
-
borders and this look in the New Age philosophical section, it's
-
huge. It's growing month after month.
-
The titles are very alluring. Find the God in you.
-
Become a God yourself. Find total freedom, freedom
-
without the creator God. They don't tell you that, but
-
they want you to not even acknowledge him.
-
So it's a spirituality without this, the Holy Spirit, it's a
-
counterfeit spirituality. Now it's interesting to me if
-
you bring up Jesus Christ and any kind of discussion with
-
anybody that doesn't know him, do you get a good response?
-
Usually it's like a down or if you're to party and you're
-
talking to people or to work event, you know, and you're
-
asking how your life's going. Oh, I got to tell you this cool
-
thing that the Lord did for me. They're like, excuse me, let's
-
change the subject. I remember years ago, I'm
-
interested in world religion. So I've hung out with different
-
people. And one time I went to this
-
Buddhist sitting group and they knew I was a Christian.
-
And then at first they were thinking like, why is this guy
-
here? Is he going to like start like
-
evangelizing us or whatever, you know?
-
And so I watched what they were doing and then paid attention.
-
And then they're trying to get you to sit down and be this like
-
real still and empty your mind, which is not a biblical concept.
-
You empty your mind, you're going to allow it to be open up
-
to other spirits, right? But anyway, at the end of this
-
discussion, I was talking to the leader.
-
This is this so-called guru and he's acting real loving and real
-
calm and everybody's in unity and there's World Peace and man,
-
like, you know, this is just like awesome.
-
We're in Nirvana here. And so I'm sitting down with
-
him. I said, you know, whenever I sit
-
down and I want to be still, I like to think about Jesus.
-
Oh, you can't do that. Well, why not?
-
Well, you know, if you do that, then your mind's real closed and
-
you can't be free. And, and I said, well, Jesus
-
said that you know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
-
And he became this loving, peaceful, gentle when his big
-
robe and real calm. He became so like in my face, It
-
was like he turned into a demon and he's worshipping demons.
-
He doesn't even know about it. And so it's it's fascinating
-
that you bring up this name, Jesus Christ, and you'll see the
-
hostility in the world today. Now in verse 13, we see what
-
this person does. He performs great signs and
-
wonders. There's a big movement today,
-
these modern evangelists on TV, some of them, not all of them,
-
but some of them have one agenda, right?
-
Come to our meeting in Pittsburgh, Signs and wonders
-
and people like get their ears up.
-
Wow, that sounds cool signs and wonders.
-
I like miracles and I want to see signs and I want to see
-
proof. And so all this kind of stuff.
-
Well, this this false prophet is going to have the ability to do
-
signs and wonders that people on the earth at that time are going
-
to think that have to be from God.
-
And these signs and wonders will support his false teachings.
-
Now one of the signs that it says he does is that fire comes
-
down and he makes this event occur like Elijah did.
-
Now think about Elijah. He's dealing with the prophets
-
of Baal, the New Agers at that particular time that didn't
-
believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob fighting against
-
the ungodly influence of idolatry and immorality and and
-
this disgustful things that the nation was experiencing at that
-
time. And he's got a responsibility
-
called by God to do some amazing things.
-
And this is in first Kings chapter 1836 and seven it says,
-
and it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening
-
sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord
-
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or Israel, let it be known this
-
day that you are God in Israel and I am your servant, and that
-
I have done all these things at your word.
-
Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that you
-
are the Lord God and that you have turned their hearts back to
-
you again. So what happened was it was an
-
amazing situation. The fire came down from heaven.
-
It consumed the evening sacrifice and the wood on the
-
altar and the stones and the dust, and it even licked up all
-
the water that was in the trench.
-
Not one drop of water was left. Now the deception of the
-
Antichrist, if you turn to 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2, you're
-
going to see that it's very interesting in what he's going
-
to do. Second Thessalonians chapter 2
-
verse 9, it says the coming of the lawless 1 is according to
-
the working of Satan all with all power signs and lying
-
wonders and with all unrighteousness deception among
-
those who perish because they didn't receive the love of the
-
truth that they might be saved. So all the people that are on
-
earth at the time are going to be set up to believe this lie
-
and this deception. If you don't have any background
-
in the Scriptures, you don't know the truth about God and his
-
Kingdom. If you're a human being at the
-
time, who wouldn't at that time say, wow, did you see what
-
happened? This has got to be like God and
-
this is wonderful and look at the miracles he's doing and it
-
says they will be deceived by these lying signs and wonders
-
because they're perishing, meaning they're on their way to
-
hell. Why?
-
Because they didn't receive the love of the truth that they
-
might be saved. Now, if you're here today and
-
you don't know who Jesus Christ is, I implore you to receive Him
-
as your Savior so you don't have to be left here to deal with
-
these things in the last days or they're going to be horrendous.
-
Come to Christ so you can be saved.
-
He's the only one who can save you.
-
And it says for this reason, God will send them a strong delusion
-
that they should believe a lie, that they all may be condemned
-
who did not believe the truth but had pleasure and
-
unrighteousness. So there's this movement of
-
supernaturalism today, the counter and copy the movements
-
of God in the Scriptures. The Lord warns us in Exodus
Exodus 7 chapter mention
-
Chapter 7 through 9. Aaron, remember when he was
-
working with Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt,
-
he performed miracles by God. It was very clear and up to a
-
point. These miracles were matched by
-
the magicians in Egypt, weren't they?
-
Didn't that amazed you that they were able to copy and do some of
-
the same miracles up to a point until they just became too
-
staggering and too miraculous that truly only God could do?
-
So we also see there's a warning from God regarding false
-
prophets. Turn to Deuteronomy.
-
And I think it's very important that we get on the same page
-
regarding what is a true prophet versus a counterfeit false
-
prophet. And these days that we live,
-
there's a lot of people that are claiming that they're prophets
-
and the Bible tells us the prophet has to be 100% accurate
-
and correct. If they're not correct and you
-
stone them. Some of us unfortunately, have
-
been involved in church movements who've had false
-
prophets come in and we've been told to accept everything they
-
say. And if they make a mistake,
-
well, they only got a couple things wrong.
-
They got a couple things right. The Bible is clear.
-
A false prophet is a false prophet.
-
A true prophet is a true prophet.
-
And this is what Deuteronomy, this is what it says in
-
Deuteronomy chapter 13 verse one.
Deuteronomy 13 chapter mention
-
If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams,
-
and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the
-
wonder comes to pass at which he spoke to you, saying, let us go
-
after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve
-
them. And that's the goal of the
-
Antichrist and the false prophet, to get the people to
-
move away from the true God. It says you shall not listen to
-
the words of that prophet or that dreamer or dreams of
-
dreams. For the Lord your God is testing
-
you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your
-
heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord
-
your God and fear him, and keep his commandments and obey His
-
voice. You shall serve him and hold
-
fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer
-
of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order
-
to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of
-
the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the House of bondage.
-
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
-
judgements 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 into Grace
-
FM 91.7 FM. They can stream worldwide at
-
Grace Radio dot FM. This has been Living Waters of
-
Grace.