Living Waters of Grace for March 31, 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.

Come across someone I'm working with, a neighbor, a relative, a

friend, a hairdresser, a gas station, wherever we go, every

day that we're so busy, we run in and we run out and maybe we

say a quick prayer, maybe we give them a word of testimony,

but life is crazy. But if we can just slow down for

a couple minutes and think about the people that are still stuck

in these patterns, and that's the majority of human race,

think about what it might do if they believe in what's going to

happen in their lives to be protected from this kind of

thing that we studied about in Revelation today.

Many of us don't think that way. We think mostly of ourselves and

how our day is going to go. Pastor Clark's challenge a

moment ago is a good one for us. As you go about your day today,

begin to ask God for an opportunity to share the love of

Jesus with the people you encounter.

This is the heart of God and so you can be assured that he will

answer that prayer. He will provide opportunities

for you to share his love with the people you bump into in your

day-to-day life. Now here's Pastor Clark in the

Book of Revelation Chapter 9 with today's edition of Living

Revelation 9 · chapter mention

Waters of Grace. When we skip into Revelation

now, we start reading about what's happening in Chapter 9.

Sometimes you might be here or you might be in a church, and

you're saying, man, this God sounds so terrible and so angry

and so impatient, so unloving. Why would anybody want to know

him? Let's catch up in time.

This is around the corner, I believe, but there's been 2000

years of God's patience before these things begin to be poured

out in the human race. That's a God of incredible love

and patience. We wouldn't have that kind of

patience with people. Soon as someone cuts us off in

traffic, we're shaking at them, you know, and shaking our fists

and using sign language sometimes that we shouldn't be

using. And you know, and we're, we're

unmerciful. We're not patient, we're not

gracious, right? Someone does something to us to,

to embetter us right away. We cop an attitude and have a

wall up and don't want to have anything to do with certain

people the rest of our life because of some miniscule thing

they've done to us. And here we are like these

people in Romans, all the things that Paul declared that the

human heart was like, I know exists in me and exists in you

because we're human beings. And so now we we catch up with

these judgments in Revelation Chapter 9, and I'm just going to

Revelation 9 · chapter mention

read this chapter and then we'll catch up in 13 where we left off

last week. First one, then the 5th Angel

sounded. And this is the trumpet

judgments coming now. The seven seal judgments have

already transpired. We're into the trumpet judgments

now. The next judgments will be the

bowls of wrath. The judgments are getting

increasingly more intense and more violent in the sense of

trying to get the human race to still repent.

There's still time even in the midst of the tribulation, the

people who are left here on earth during the tribulation,

God is still working these things out in order for them to

finally look up and say, I give up.

I know I need you, Lord. And he says, I saw a star fall

from heaven, and the earth to him was given the key to the

bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit

and smoke rose out of the pit like the smoke of a great

furnace. So in the core of the earth,

somewhere all the demons that fell, all the angels that fell

from the throne and the Kingdom prior to creation are in a

holding pattern. They're locked up until this day

of judgment. They can't wait to get out and

and raise literal hell in the face of the earth havoc.

And so this person who is given the key to open this pit and

keep in mind that God has the whole universe under control.

It isn't that the devil's winning today and God might win

tomorrow. And there's this tension back

and forth. God is sovereign.

He's already accomplished his purpose.

When Christ said it is finished, it is finished.

The Bible says in Colossians that the power of Satan was

deactivated in the sense of what Christ did at the cross, but the

enemy still has capabilities. That's why it tells us in

Ephesians we're not wrestling against flesh and blood, but

against principalities and powers, the rulers of darkness,

the angelic demonic beings who aren't in the abyss, who are out

flying around trying to create havoc in the world.

The demonic activity that is going on, principalities and

powers, the rulers of darkness and that dimension that we can't

see, but it's real. But then he's going to let these

other ones out of this pit. Some people wonder what, who is

this? A fallen Angel is a Satan

certainly isn't the emissary of the the most high God.

God, you know, allows the evil ones to do their work.

He doesn't sanction it, but he allows it.

He doesn't create it. He doesn't start it.

But you know, the mystery of life is that we have a free

will. Some people say, well, why

didn't God just create us perfect?

Well, in a way he did before the fall.

He created this immortal with a a nature that was pure and we

were creating the likeness and image of God.

But God didn't create robots. He wanted to create people who

would truly love him and want to follow him for who he is.

That's the mystery. And so Adam and Eve decide to

make the wrong choice. And because of that, the whole

human race has fallen into the condition that it is today.

And yet God in his mercy had planned even before the earth

was created, knowing that we were going to do that, that he

would send Jesus to die for us, to restore us back to the place

that we were before the fall. And you might say, well, why did

he create Satan? Or why is there a choice?

I don't know about you, but I'm glad that God has given me a

will and a choice because every day I make decisions.

I'm glad that I chose Cindy Alexander 39 years ago to be my

wife. I'm glad that I had a free will

to find the woman that God had for me in this life and special

no one other, no other woman but her for me and me for her.

Choosing where I want to live, where I want to worship,

choosing what I want to do with my resources, choosing what type

of work I want to have, a choosing how I want to spend my

days with my kids and my grandkids.

I mean, when you think about the think if you had none of that

and every day you just got up and you heard this voice, you're

going to do this whether you like it or not.

I mean, what kind of life would that be?

That would be a bondage. That would be a horrible

existence. But to have the freedom that God

has given us to choose. And yet in this situation here,

these demons are going to come out and it's going to be so

horrendous. If you remember in the Old

Testament, the judgments during the time of Moses delivering the

children of Israel out of bondage to Pharaoh, the locusts

were so numerous that people couldn't actually see where they

were going and they completely ate all the vegetation.

And this situation is going to be different to them as given

the power as a scorpions of the earth have power.

They were commanded not to harm the grass or the earth or any

green thing or any tree, but only those men who do not have

the seal of God on their foreheads.

Now we studied several weeks ago about the 144,000, the special

chosen people of God during that tribulation, born again Jews who

are on fire for the Lord, like 144,000 Billy Grahams going all

over the earth to witness and to tell people you still can

repent, God's mercy is still available, you can still be

forgiven of your sin and God will be gracious to you.

And that's their job. Well, they're not going to be

touched by these scorpion like locust creatures.

They were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them

for five months. So anyone who doesn't have this

seal on their forehead is fair game to these demonic beings.

So that means all the unbelievers on the face of the

earth at this time. And this isn't God doing this to

the people. This is Satan and his demonic

crew going out to create torment and havoc on the face of the

earth to all those who don't know Christ.

Some people say whenever I die, I'm going to be down in hell

with my buddies and and Satan and everybody.

We're just going to have a good time and party forever.

It's not going to be that way. Satan hates our guts, the Bible

says. He's come to rob, to steal, to

kill and to destroy. It says their torment was like

the torment of a scorpion. And when it strikes a man and

those days, men will seek death and will not find it.

They will desire to die and death will flee from them.

It sounds like in this case, it's even going to be impossible

to take your life. It's going to be so horrible at

this time when you're on the earth, if you're an unbeliever,

you can't get away from these scorpions.

You can you think, well, I'm going to stay inside all day and

and I'll wait this out for the five months they won't get me.

Somehow they're going to be able to get in the windows, under the

under the doorway, whatever. So no matter where you are,

you're going to get stung and tortured by these things, just

not once. You get stung once, and that's

OK. It's going to be a continual

horrible torment to drive you to your knees.

But the enemy wants to destroy you, but he can't.

And you can't even find death at this time.

It says the shape of the locust was like horses prepared for

battle. On their heads were crowned

something like gold. And their faces were like the

faces of men. They had hair like women's hair,

and their teeth were like a lion's teeth.

And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the

sound of their wings was like the sound of Chariots, with many

horses running into battle. They had tails like scorpions,

and there were stings in their tails.

Their power was to hurt men. Five months.

And they had his king over them. The Angel of the bottomless pit,

whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek his name is

Apollyon. That name means the Destroyer,

literally the destroyer, the New Testament Greek word Apollyon,

is the one who is destroying. And again, that ties with what

Jesus said about the devil. He comes to steal and to kill

and to rob and to destroy. And I'll tell you, he's trying

to destroy our lives every day. He's trying to destroy the

Church of Jesus Christ. And I'm so thankful it's not my

job or your job to build the Church of Christ.

Jesus said I will build my church and the gates of hell.

Hades will not prevail against it.

In verse 12, one woe is past. So you we think that's bad.

This situation with these scorpion like creatures in the

description, John says the apostle that they are like this.

In other words, he's seeing something that he's never seen

before in his life. He's trying to use descriptive

words to give us some kind of insight what these creatures are

like because again, it's like nothing he's ever seen before.

Some people believe that these will be fallen demonic beings

that are inhabiting whether it's an animal like creature or a

human creature. Some people, commentators

describe it as as perhaps men in certain types of suits with gas

masks and the the stinging aspect of this scorpion like

creature is really a chemical warfare, you know, that's coming

upon people. I mean, none of us are going to

know these things until they occur.

But these are descriptive terms that will one day come to pass.

And so John's saying this one was past.

Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things.

This is where we'll pick up where we left off the last time

we were in this book. Then the six angels sounded and

I heard a voice from the four horns of the Golden All which is

before the throne of God, this altar and a wonderful picture

again of the throne room of heaven.

The 6th Angel sounds and I hear a voice from the four horns of

the golden golden altar, which is before God, saying to the 6th

Angel who had the trumpet, release the four angels who are

bound at the great river Euphrates.

So this altar is the altar of incense.

It stands before the throne of God.

And the incense, as I mentioned about a month ago, is the

representation of the prayers of the Saints.

Incense will be prevalent in the Kingdom of heaven.

The early church use incense all the time.

Someone asked me why we don't use incense.

I don't know. I don't know who said not use it

or who said, you know, some people use it, think it's magic,

and you know, other people use it as a understanding that

represents the prayers of the Saints.

But it really does. In God's Kingdom and in his

worship setting within the throne of God, there's incense.

And every time the incense is sensed before the throne of God,

it represents the prayers of the Saints being lifted up to the

throne of God. Matt Redmond had a neat song.

Let the prayers of the Saints be like sweet smelling incense to

your heart. Remember that song, beautiful

song. And so it represents that to

God. But the four horns represent the

the place where the blood was applied on the Day of Atonement

for the sake of the the nation of Israel.

And so a very clear picture again of the things that are

lost in our time that will be again prevalent in the in the

Kingdom when we get there. And so he's telling this Angel

to release these angels to release what is bound at the

great river Euphrates. So the four angels and 15 who

have been prepared for the hour and day and month, and these are

evil angels by the way, and year were released to kill 1/3 of

mankind. Now the number of the army, the

horseman, was 200 million. I heard the number of them, and

thus I saw the horses in the vision, those who sat on them in

breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur

yellow. And the heads of the horses were

like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke

and brimstone. By these 3 plagues, 1/3 of

mankind was killed by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone

which came out of their mouths. For their power is in their

mouth and in their tails. For their tails are like

serpents having heads and with them that do harm.

So we we see the intensity of of this battle and what's going to

come upon the face of the earth. 1/3 I I can't imagine that some

commentators, they, they look at China and the east and the river

Euphrates throughout biblical history was always recognized as

a central place of, of God's wrath and also of, of, of

miraculous occurrences. And Israel, you know, the, the

borders of the Holy Land, Euphrates flows near and you

have the original Babylonian Empire that was very significant

with the the river Euphrates. And we see in Revelation 1612

that this river will actually be dried up.

Why is it going to be dried up? The capacity to actually travel

by tank or by some kind of vehicle, horses or whatever, the

potential of 200 million. And there's no other nation that

could have the size of an army except that nation in the east

wiping out 1/3 of the human race.

The armies from Russia, Iran, China, India, if they were

marching to the Holy Land today, they can hardly avoid getting

there without crossing this river.

It's very, very significant. And so God's sovereign hand in

this situation of judgment, allowing this to occur for a

reason, is that many would end up coming to Him.

And you know, the Lord is all knowing.

He's omniscient. No one gets out of here without

a chance. No one can stand in the

judgement and say, well, I'm in hell because no one ever told

me, or I'm in hell because you weren't fair or didn't send a

missionary to me. It says in Romans, as I read,

that every human being knows by conscience that there is a

creator. And it's in that human being's

heart that God will give them the capacity to either turn and

believe or not to believe. That's the goodness of God.

And Paul said that hasn't the whole earth heard even in his

own day. He said truly, the gospel has

gone out and to the ends of the earth.

And so the third that is wiped out weren't part of what we

would see the Bible describing elect or those that God knows

before we're born whether we're going to come to him.

There's no mistakes. There's no confusion with God.

And when we stand before him, he's not going to look and say,

how in the world did you get here?

You weren't in the plan. I mean, we're all in his heart,

but he knows who's going to choose Him and who isn't going

to choose him. That's God's hand and His plan

and His wisdom. But it's interesting when we

look in this Book of Revelation where it gives us math formula

in verse 16, the number of the army, the horseman was 200

million. Some of your Bibles might say

200,000 * 1000 and that's 200 million.

A human army perhaps with weapons and gas masks.

My son-in-law has served in Iraq and say caught civil forces,

special forces and they had all kind of access to the most high

tech weaponry, so sophisticated what it can do.

And so you get those kind of things in the hands of the wrong

people. And the devastation that can

occur on the face of the earth is, is unbelievable.

We know right now that some of these rogue nations have access

to a chemical warfare and an atomic bombs.

It'll be very easy to to pull this kind of event off.

But we think about this situation and I don't know about

you, we study this stuff and it's just another Bible study on

a Sunday. I hope not.

I hope whenever you hear this stuff and read this it, it

compels your heart to start to be broken over people that don't

know Christ yet. People need the Lord, everybody

needs Christ and if they don't have him, what's going to happen

to them and could God perhaps use your life or mine to point

them in the direction of Jesus Christ As we conclude verse 20,

it says the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues

and this is this astounds me. They still didn't repent of the

work of their hands. They still didn't say there's a

real God and I'm in trouble and I need to deal with him.

A narcotics officer living a double life using drugs or

busting people and then using drugs.

He's at a house, he's talking to some people, asking some

questions, doing his job, just want to get done, go home,

forget about it. He's guilty all the time because

how he was living his life. He's getting ready to leave and

there's a drug dealer coming up and he knows what's going on.

The people he's talking to are getting nervous.

A drug dealer comes up, he senses the vibes there and he

starts walking away like nothings happening.

Well, this guy, in spite of his double life, he knew his job is

to deal with this drug dealer. So he went down to the car to

confront the guy. The officer had his heavy

sweatshirt on with his badge under his sweatshirt and his

gun, and he didn't have a chance to get to the gun as quick as

the drug dealer. The drug dealer pulled out his

gun, held it right up to his face, pulled the trigger, click.

Nothing went. Nothing happened.

Nothing went off. He jumped in the car, took off

and they found the car later. $13,000 in cash, ton of drugs

and the gun. Took the gun back to the crime

lab to test it. They held the gun up and shot

and six bullets went off. Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang.

He knew that God had spared his life.

He had grown up as a in a Christian home but always blew

the truth off. Didn't want to hear it.

At that point he knew God spared his life and that he needed to

turn his life over to Christ. He didn't understand, but he

knew he had to come clean. So he went.

He told his wife what had been happening in his life and then

he went to the Sheriff's Office and told them what happened.

Turned his badge in and went to Teen Challenge and got dried

out. And since 2004 he has been been

clean and his heart now is broken.

Just not for people who are addicted to drugs or alcohol,

but respectable sinners, people like us.

Maybe you've never used drugs, Maybe you don't abuse alcohol.

But you have other issues, don't you?

And I have them. We have unresolved anger, we

have bitterness, we have unforgiveness, we have lust, we

have greed. We have all kind of stuff.

It's the heart. The human heart's a cesspool,

right? And if you don't believe that,

just ask. God, search me.

O God, know your heart. Try me and know my thoughts and

see if there be any wicked way in me.

I guarantee you, pray that prayer.

There's never going to be a time that the Lord doesn't show you

some new things to let go of and repent of.

I mean, that's my daily life. But as we think about these

things, it isn't just a study on a Sunday, but it's like, what

can I do this week? What kind of divine appointment,

Lord, do you have for me to come across someone I'm working with,

a neighbor, a relative, a friend, a hairdresser, gas

station, wherever we go, every day that we're so busy, we run

in and we run out and maybe we say a quick prayer, maybe we

give them a word of testimony. But life is crazy.

But if we can just slow down for a couple minutes and think about

the people that are still stuck in these patterns, and that's

the majority of human race. Think about what it might do if

they believe in what's going to happen in their lives to be

protected from this kind of thing that we've studied about

in Revelation today. Ezekiel 1823, a beautiful verse,

the Lord speaking through Ezekiel the prophet.

Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, says

the Lord of God, and not that he should turn from his ways and

live. That's God's heart.

Do I have any pleasure at all as I look at this 9th chapter?

God would say at all that the wicked should die.

God loves God is a God of love. He has no hatred in his heart,

says the Lord God. And not that he should turn from

his ways and live. And that's what we need guys in

the, in the city, in this community, in this county, and

every place that we go, every place that we live, people need

the Lord. And you just don't know what the

Lord's going to do when you sow seed.

And the, and the problem with us, we don't realize it's not

our job to save people. We can't save anybody, but we

sure can throw seed around. You know, God can control

everything. Can he control the

circumstances? So our, our heart as a church,

you know, is about outreach and, and how do we get this message

into the hearts and lives of people who are on their way to a

crisis eternity, Don't waste time.

Let Jesus have your life, don't be apathetic, don't be sleeping

at the wheel. As Paul said, awake your

righteousness and sin not for some have not the knowledge of

God and he says I speak this to your shame and may we not be

ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Amen.

This has been Living Waters of Grace with Pastor Clark.

We're going through the challenging and also intriguing

Book of Revelation. Whether you're a fan of reading

ahead in books of fiction, there's such a benefit to

reading ahead in the Bible to read about how it all ends.

But in an interesting turn of events, the Book of Revelation

is not really the end, but rather the beginning.

It's the end of life as we know it here on earth, but there's so

much to look forward to. But what comes after all?

The judgement of the earth and those who reject God.

There's a lot to work through, and it can be heartbreaking to

read through the intense judgements and wrath that will

come on those who hate God with all their might.

The thing is, God has given chance upon chance to these

people. They don't want it.

So the outcome is that there are judgements and consequences for

those who've rejected the good news and the gift of salvation

that's offered through Jesus's death and resurrection.

Are you one who has heard about these things but doesn't really

want it because you want to live life on your terms?

Trust me, living for Jesus is so much better.

That doesn't mean it will be easy, but as you listen and read

through Revelation with us, you'll come to a stark

realization that you don't want to be on earth when the

apocalypse happens. So check out Calvary Chapel

online.com to learn how to come to a saving grace through faith

that will allow you to be with Jesus for eternity.

We'd also love to meet you in person at Calvary Chapel

Westmoreland. Come join us at 400 E Pittsburgh

St. Ste. 6B in Greensburg, PA 15601.

This has been living waters of grace.