Living Waters of Grace for April 1st, 2026

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

Waffer, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland, County

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

continues teaching through God's Word.

Now some people, they, they have a glib view of life.

Hey, I'm not dead yet. I have this will to survive and

conquer and achieve. And I don't like to think about

death a matter of fact. I like to ignore it.

I find it ironic, especially as people age.

You talk to people in their 70s and 80s and it should be obvious

that they're going to be checking out sometime in the not

too distant future. It becomes more inevitable the

older we get. And you bring up the subject and

they want to change it immediately.

Unbelievers want to change it immediately.

ChatGPT told me just now that $5.3 trillion is spent every

year here in the United States on the health, beauty, and

fitness industries combined. Why is that?

The bottom line is that people simply don't want to die.

They don't want to accept death, and so they do everything they

possibly can to extend their life.

And while living a healthy life is crucial for the follower of

Jesus, we know that one day we will die and we will be with

Jesus. That is our hope, not this world

for how many years we get to spend on it now?

Here's Pastor Clark in Revelation Chapter 11 with

Revelation 11 · chapter mention

today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.

If you go with me to Revelation 11, we started in chapter 12

last week, but I just wanted to review a couple things in 11.

On verse 15 about the 7th Angel sounding, there were loud voices

in heaven saying, the Kingdom of this world have become the

kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign

forever and ever. And the 24 elders who sat before

God on the Thrones fell on their faces and worshipped God,

saying, We give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the one who

is and who was and who is to come, because you've taken your

great power and reign. The nations were angry and your

wrath has come. And the time of the dead, that

they should be judged, and that you should reward your servants,

the prophets and the Saints, and those who fear your name shall

small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the

earth. Then the temple of God was

opened in heaven, and the ark of the covenant was seen in this

temple. And there were lightnings,

noises, thunderings and earthquakes and great hail.

Sometimes I like walking through cemeteries.

You might think that's morbid, but I find great solace in the

fact that there will be one day a great and final resurrection.

That everybody in that tomb, no matter how decomposed or how

torn apart it is by the insects and the worms, is going to be

totally transformed and the twinkling of an eye, The Bible

said. And that means every human being

that has ever died since the beginning of time until the

until the return of the Lord. And so as I was contemplating

what's on the horizon for us as a family, as a church body and

individually for all of us, I'd like to sort of review the

importance of understanding what is in store for every one of us

in the days ahead. If you would turn to 1st

Corinthians verse 15, the picture in Revelation is prior

to the return of the Lord, prior to the final resurrection that I

just read about. When he will meet out his

rewards to his Saints and also deal with those who are without

him and his anger and his wrath. Because they didn't believe in

Jesus, they their whole life they just ignored the Lord.

They didn't have time for Him. They didn't contemplate their

need. They thought they were OK and

they refused to accept him as their savior.

But the first Corinthians 15, verse 50, this is the final

1 Corinthians 15:50

victory that I read about in the sermon of Chrysostom.

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit

the Kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption.

Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we

shall all be changed in a moment, and the twinkling of an

eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and

the dead will be raised incorruptible.

And we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on

incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal

has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass a

saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is your sting? O hades, where is your victory?

The sting of death is sin, and the strength is sin in the law.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord

Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren,

be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the

Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

Famous writer. I used to like reading back in

the days of college. Feed or dust.

Ask anybody ever read any of his stuff?

Russian author. He was a fascinating individual

and he said, ah, how afraid I am of death and how sinful that is.

That was from his book called the Adolescence.

And today some of you might be sitting here thinking, oh man,

I'm I'm afraid of death. Well, the Bible says we're not

to be afraid of it. We're actually to anticipate it

with joy. It's a homecoming.

It's a glorious, as we've seen here in the writings of Paul, a

glorious victory, a reward for those of us who have trusted in

walk with Christ in our life, believe in him as our Savior and

Lord, our sin bearer. And every day of our life, we're

living in two different dimensions.

We're either living like, hey, this is all there is.

Grab as much gusto as you can. You only go around once, man.

Make sure you have the greatest house, the greatest car, the

greatest clothing, whatever it is, you know, grab on to

whatever you need. And like the rich guy that had

the barns, Jesus calls him a full he's the guy's like so

prosperous in life. He's thinking, man, I got to

build bigger barns to put all my material wealth in.

And the Lord says you full your soul's required of you this

night. And none of us know when will be

called to to meet the Lord to be before him.

And so a quote by another famous individual who lived many years

ago. He said, As we rise daily, let

us suppose that we shall not survive till evening.

And again, as we prepare for sleep, let us consider that we

shall not awaken. That may be the way it is for

some of us. By its very nature our life is

uncertain, and it is given out daily by Providence.

If we think this way and then this way, live daily, we will

not desire to sin. So if I recognize today and you

as well, that this could be my last day, that we would be

prepared to realize that one day we're all going to be with the

Lord. It tells us in Hebrews 927 it's

appointed for men to die once. But after this judgment, some of

us have appointments this week. We have to see the doctor, we

have to see an attorney, or we have an appointment with a

friend for lunch or breakfast or all kind of different things

that we set appointments for in our daily schedule.

You can break the appointment with the dentist and say, hey, I

just don't feel like coming tomorrow.

I'm afraid of the dentist. I'll push that off as far as I

can into the future. And they'll say, well, do you

want to reschedule? I'll call you, you know, But

when God sets his appointment schedule, there is no

negotiation. It's time.

And he says now is a day of judgement.

If you go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, this one chapter over

from First Corinthians to the right, Second Corinthians 5,

this is what we have to be prepared for.

Verse 9. Therefore, we make it our aim,

whether present or absent, to be pleasing to him.

Is that your aim every day of your life?

Are you aiming to be pleasing to your God, your Maker, your

Creator? For me, we must all appear

before the judgment seat of Christ, and that each one may

receive the things done in the body according to what he has

done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror

of the Lord, we persuade men that we are well known to God,

and I trust, are well known in your consciences.

So the purpose of a pastor, a teacher, an evangelist is to

warn the sheep, warn the people that there is a day of judgment

coming, that we all must stand before our maker and give an

account of our lives. Standing before the judgement

seat of Christ. How are how are we living?

What are we thinking about? What are our priorities?

Is Jesus the number one person in our lives today?

Do we love him more than life itself?

That's the last song they sang. Was this glorious, wasn't it?

It's all about you, Jesus. I could just sense God that's

reaching into our hearts today and saying to you and to me.

It's about from his perspective you.

He loves you so much that God so loved this world that He gave

His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him

should not perish that have everlasting life.

Now some people, they, they have a glib view of life.

Hey, I'm not dead yet. I have this will to survive and

conquer and achieve. And I don't like to think about

death a matter of fact, I like to ignore it.

I find it ironic, especially as people age.

You talk to people in their 70s and 80s and it should be obvious

that they're going to be checking out sometime in the not

too distant future. It becomes more inevitable the

older we get. And you bring up the subject and

they want to change it immediately.

Unbelievers want to change it immediately because death is an

enemy. It's something that we're prone

to fear even at times as Christians, even though as doth

to ask a said it a sinful thing that I would be afraid of death

after what crisis accomplished for me and Psalm chapter 90.

Psalms 90 · chapter mention

If you flip over there for a minute.

Psalm chapter 90 A great Psalm to bring comfort to one another

Psalms 90 · chapter mention

in the times of nearing the end. Lord, You have been our dwelling

place in all generations before the mountains were brought

forth, or ever you formed the earth in the world.

Even from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You turn man to destruction and say, return, O children of men,

for 1000 years in your sight, or like a yesterday when it is

past, and like a watch in the night.

You carry them away like a flood.

They're like a sleep in the morning.

They are like grass which grows up in the morning.

It flourishes and grows up in the evening.

It is cut down and Withers. For we have been consumed by

your anger and by your wrath. We are terrified.

You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in

the light of your countenance, for all our days have passed

away in your wrath. We finish our years like a sigh.

The days of our lives are 70 years, and if by reason of

strength they are 80 years, yet there boast is only labor and

sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away.

Who knows the power of your anger?

For as the fear of you, so is your wrath.

And I love this. So teach us to number our days

that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to

wisdom. What is it that we're living

for? What is it that we're thinking

about moment by moment in our lives?

I mean, this is such a short journey, guys.

You might think it seems like a long time, that this seems like

a blink of an eye that I was sitting around 20 years old,

have my whole life ahead of me. I'm not kidding you.

A blink of an eye. I look at my granddaughter and I

say, oh, they're grandkids and they're just starting their

life, you know, But it'll be that way for them one day.

My daughters look and say it to seem like yesterday our kids

were just little running around and now they're teenagers, want

their own way, you know, do their own thing.

And so would God give us wisdom that today we could be able to

see in a spiritual way, God's plan and intentions for each of

our lives not to waste our lives.

You know, when you think about life every day, everything we

do, even our simple communion of, of eating, it's no accident

that we eat what's already for the most part, dead in order to

stay alive. A life comes out of death.

Even, you know, our sustenance, our physical sustenance, it

comes out of what is in the process of decaying.

And Jesus said unless a corn of wheat fall into the ground and

it abides alone, that the seed has to first die in order to

become alive. It's a paradox.

And you look at the goal of modern healthcare today, it's

it's fascinating. They want to deny the reality of

death. I mean, the last thing that they

want to tell you in the hospital is like, there's no more hope.

I mean, an honest doctor will say that they'll be upfront with

you, but most of them say, hey, we can do this, we can do that.

They've got all these ideas of magic tricks they can pull out

of their hat to maybe give you another couple years.

They don't tell you like how miserable you might be or you

might, you know, have to be forced to be on artificial life

support and that kind of stuff because it's a point on the man

wants to die and after this a judgement.

So my question is at times, when does medical science become a

blessing and when is it becoming a curse?

Because if it gets in the way of God's preordained plan, right,

and begins to try to make life its own sustainer as opposed to

God himself, then these poor people are are on these tubes

unconscious and staying alive for a sometimes a very long time

when they're already pretty much gone.

It's an interesting discussion and I'm sure all of us might

have some different points of view on that, but it's the

medical and the new age gurus today that have this philosophy

that it's just a matter of time before we conquer aging.

Isn't that good news, guys that make you feel better, Danny?

This is a matter of time, brother, before we conquer

aging. You're going to live to be 500.

No, boy, I have a friend. He's a doctor in Charleston and

fascinating guy who developed a good friendship, good brother

and the Lord. And once in a while I go down

there. He invites me to stay at his

house and I do business down there.

And one morning I'm getting up, having coffee there and I'm

talking to his son and I see this guy, this picture of this

guy on the wall, physique guys like in his early 70s.

This guy's cut man. I mean, he looks like he's like

a Charles Atlas of like 73 or whatever.

And he, his claim to fame, doctor life is that you can have

perpetual youthful longevity. If you deal with these youth

hormones, you know, you get shot up.

He's the guru doctor of all the Hollywood stars, all the glamour

people, right? And so I'm like, looking at this

picture, I'm thinking now, what's the connection here with

my Christian friend? Why would you have the picture

of this guy on the wall? Is he like, is he into this?

Is this what? And so I asked his grant, I

guess his son, who is that guy? This is my grandfather.

So David wakes up. I said, man, I read about that

guy. I mean, what's he into?

He says, Clark, my dad's. He's a great guy, but he's like,

totally out of it because he thinks that he can conquer

death. And in other words, instead of

the body dying, it can be restored through all these

metabolic changes. You know?

And I said to him, I said, what's interesting, maybe, you

know, for a few years, but does he realize that eventually this

isn't going to work? I mean, eventually he's going to

die. I mean, it's appointed unto man

wants to die. And after this is judgment.

And so the society is always trying to like push away the

inevitable. The church should be the most

clear, peaceful place for us to learn about our destiny, right?

What's in store for all of us now?

The idea of Christianity being reconciled with death.

You know, God hates death. It wasn't His intention to have

death when He created us in the garden.

He created us to live forever. We're the ones that changed the

setup, didn't we? We took it upon ourselves to

take life in our own hands, and sin and the wages of sin is

death. Christ is our life and death,

Christianity proclaiming it to be namely an enemy to be

destroyed and not a mystery to be explained.

The scriptures teach about death as being abnormal.

It's not God's plan, is it? If it was his plan, there would

be no resurrection. God wouldn't have come in the

flesh to die and to go through what He went through for you and

I if death was his plan. He's done everything he could

for you and me to sustain us in eternity.

Turn to John Chapter 11. This is Jesus own experience of

John 11 · chapter mention

death with Lazarus. See how he feels about it.

He's God in the flesh, fully God, fully man.

John Chapter 11, verse 28. And when she had said these

John 11:28

things, she went her way and secretly called Mary her sister,

saying, The teachers come and is calling to you.

As soon as she heard, she quickly arose and came to him.

Now Jesus had not yet come into the town, but was in place where

Martha met him. And then the Jews who were with

her in the house and comforting her, when they saw that Mary

Rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, She's

going to the tomb to weep there. And then when Mary came where

Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him,

Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came

with her weeping, he groaned in the Spirit and he was troubled.

And he said, Where have you laid him?

And they said to him, Lord, come and see.

Verse 35, Jesus wept. Jesus didn't say don't worry,

he's in a better place, everything's OK.

Death is the final enemy, isn't it?

God hates death, what it does to people, what it does to

families, what it does to human existence.

And the Jews said, see how he loved him.

And some of them said, could not this man who opened the eyes of

the blind also have kept this man from dying?

Then Jesus again, groaning in himself, came to the tomb.

You know the darkness of death, the horror of separation of

family and loved ones, the waiting of the Conqueror who had

not yet gone into Hades to set the captives free.

This is pre death, burial and resurrection that is occurring

here. And Jesus senses obviously the

extreme intenseness of the demonic spirits and the hatred

of the devil and all his demons and dark powers.

And Jesus groans in himself, and he comes to the tomb.

It was a cave, a stone lay against it.

And Jesus said, take away the stone.

Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, Lord, by

this time there is a stench, for he has been dead for days.

Jesus said to her, Did I not say to you that if you would

believe, you would see the glory of God?

And then they took away the stone from the place where the

dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and

said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me, and I know

that you always hear me. But because of the people who

are standing by, I said this now that they may believe you sent

me. Now when he said these things,

he cried with a loud voice. Lazarus come forth and he who

had died came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his

face was wrapped in a cloth. And Jesus said to them, lose him

and let him go. Jesus wept.

He doesn't again say, hey, everything's OK, he's in heaven,

everything's well. He's gone from this difficult

life. He's in a better place.

If you ever find yourself saying that kind of stuff.

We have to see death as God sees it.

Now Paul tells us to be absent the bodies, to be present with

the Lord. But keep in mind the final

resurrection has not occurred yet.

You know, we understand today the Lord in some small degree,

don't we? All of us?

We have some insight of His love, His grace, and His mercy.

Do we know it all? I mean, my understanding of

God's love and His grace is so small compared to the way it

really is because I can't grasp it in my fallen human condition.

I know God's good. He loves, He's merciful, He's

forgiving, but I don't know him today like I will know him one

day. When Jesus said through Paul, I

hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of

man the things that God has prepared for those who love him.

None of us can comprehend that yet, can we?

We get it. We're looking through a glass

darkly, Paul said in First Corinthians 13.

We're seeing a little bit right now, but one day the Bible said

we will see him face to face, for we shall see him as he is,

and we will become like him. Now when we think of Christ, it

tells us in the Word that he was crucified and he was buried.

He suffered. He's a man of sorrows,

acquainted with grief. Christ lived a life of constant

suffering for your sake and mine.

He had joy, He had pleasure, he loved the children, he obviously

loved communing with the Father, because every chance he got, he

was alone with his Heavenly Father, praying and glorifying,

worshiping him. But he was a man of extreme

sorrow and grief. It says he looks out over the

city of Jerusalem. He looks out today in the city

of southwest Greensburg. He looks into your homes, your

neighborhoods, your families, this country, this world.

And he still is broken. His heart is grieving because he

sees the majority of people on the earth as sheep without a

shepherd. He sees people trying to live

life without him. And so this suffering and death

is interwoven in the human experience.

And the presence of 1 implies the presence of the other.

Suffering and death are entwined together.

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

We are 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. 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 in 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.