Living Waters of Grace, March 24, 2026

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

Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,

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

continues teaching through God's Word.

You realize, like I've answered like the majority of those

things, but you're still asking me and I've already done it.

I mean, do you have any capacity to pray outside your comfort

zone, to pray for people that you don't know or situations

that you're normally not interested in?

You have the heart to let me put my heart in there to expand your

awareness of what it is I specifically want you to pray

about right now, at this time and this day and this age.

What does your prayer life look like?

If you're like most people, you might try to find a quiet time,

and then you begin to share your laundry list of wants with God

as if He were some sort of genie in a bottle that grants wishes.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with asking God

for things, but that can't be the majority of our conversation

with Him. Notice I used the word

conversation. That's what prayer should be,

conversation between you and Jesus.

Pastor Clark challenges us today to expand our prayer life to be

more than just talking and asking.

Now. Here's Pastor Clark in

Revelation Chapter 8 with today's edition of Living Waters

Revelation 8 · chapter mention

of Grace. Verse 1 of chapter 8, when he

opened the 7th seal, there was silence in heaven for about 1/2

an hour, and I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and

to them who were given 7 trumpets.

Then another Angel having a golden censer, came and stood at

the altar. He was given much incense that

he should offer it with the prayers of all the Saints upon

the golden altar which was before the throne, and the smoke

of the incense with the prayers of the Saints ascended before

God from the angel's hand. Then the Angel took the censer,

filled it with fire from the altar and threw it to the earth.

And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings and

earthquakes. And so the seven angels who had

the seven trumpets prepared themselves the sound.

It's interesting, you know, in heaven there is no concept of

time. Time is eternal.

And yet John was able to distinguish in some sense, the

difference between the two dimensions of time, of Kairos

and Chiron. And we have, of course, in the

languages that we communicate in two different understandings of

time. We have human time, which is

right now. And, and that's the way we

think. We segment everything right by

seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months

and years. You know, that's just how we're

wired. But in heaven, there is no sense

of time. The way we see it, it's time is

eternal. The Word tells us that Christ is

the Alpha and Omega, the 1st and the last, the beginning and the

end. And so in eternal thinking,

there is no sequence of of days and nights.

It's just forever and ever and ever.

And how do you measure Infinity and eternity that lasts forever?

It's just beyond our ability to even conceptualize.

But John was able to, being human still and not ascended in

the sense of leaving this life, still, being earthbound, and yet

having a heavenly, heavenly vision.

He was able to understand the time that was transpiring during

this vision that God had given him.

And it says that the silence was unlike anything that I think

heaven has ever experienced because we know before the

throne of God, the four and 20 elders are continually throwing

their Thrones before their crowns before the throne, saying

holy, holy, holy art thou, O God, who was and is and is to

come the the voices of the angelic beings worshipping God.

I mean, it's, it's a lot. It says it's like the the voice

of many waters. You, you, you just hear the

crowd. And it's like a sound that is

unknown even to us on this earth, as many people that might

gather at any given time to worship Heaven's worship is, is

completely unlike anything that any of us have ever touched or

experienced, believe me. And so it says that there's

silence in the midst of this period that John is about to

encounter. The sound is deafening.

The silence is deafening because what's about to transpire on the

face of the earth is horrendous, but also majestic in the sense

that as Christ has opened those seals for the first time in the

history of the universe, he has conveyed his full plan to all

the angelic hosts. And they're speechless.

They're astounded at what he has in store, not only in the sense

of his anger and his wrath toward an unbelieving and

ungodly world, but his plan for the future of his church, the

bride of Jesus Christ. So we see in verse one the

mention of silence. We see in verse 2 the mention of

musical instruments, trumpets. We see in verse 3 and 4 the

offering of incense. And what's interesting is I

don't know about you, but I've been in a lot of different kind

of worship situations. I've been in like really crazy

stuff where people are jumping around and running around and

just like doing all kind of wild stuff.

And I've been in real conservative type of worship

experiences. I've experienced liturgical

worship experiences, experience, obviously Calvary Chapel kind of

worship experiences, But as good as we might think our worship

is, and it is good, we have a godly worship leader and team.

These guys love the Lord and give their hearts to serve

Christ fully and worship every week.

But we fall short, don't we? We all fall short of

understanding what true worship is.

It's not an emotion or a high, although we can get kind of like

joy, obviously, when we think about the greatness of God and

worship him. But it's much deeper than that.

And so we're getting a glimpse into heaven now as Protestants

and as New Testament Christians, we have an interesting

perspective on how we look at the development of historical

worship from the age of the Tabernacle, right, in the temple

in the Old Testament, right? And we, we don't see any visible

temple or Tabernacle right now in our day and age, right?

But it's going to be rebuilt. The sacrifices will begin to

continue during that time of the Tribulation.

The Antichrist will set himself up in the temple as God, the

abomination, the desolation, and a lot of very, very interesting

things are going to occur. Even now in Israel.

There is plans for the structure to build the the robes are being

developed. The Sacramento aspect of how the

Jewish nation connected and worshiped with God will be

reinstituted. And but what I find fascinating

is, is that from God's perspective, that never ended,

right? It's still going on, even though

there is no physical temple or Tabernacle on the earth right

now in the sense of the way it was in Israel with the ark of

the covenant and that kind of stuff.

In heaven right now, there is this element of worship that

most of us have never, ever encountered, But one day we

will. And some people might say, I

don't like the smell of incense. Some people get sick, get

headaches when there's incense. But in heaven, the good news is

when we're there, we won't have the the same kind of physical

maladies. And incense will be awesome

because it's like the most fragrant of perfumes and it it

pleases God. He has it in his throne room

24/7 throughout all eternity. And the incense represents the

prayers of the Saints. We'll get into that in a minute.

But in the Tabernacle or in the temple, there was a golden

altar, different types of altars in the midst of the temple, the

Tabernacle. But this specific altar was

right before the veil entering into the Holy of Holies.

And the responsibility of the temple priest was to burn

incense because it represented the prayers of the nation of

Israel and in heaven. Now, as we read, as John is

teaching us, that this incense is representative of the prayers

of Saints, believers throughout the course of human history.

And so we see in verse one this silence.

Again, just going back to this half hour of silence, it's

dramatically indicating the profound awe at the opening of

the 7th seal. It's no wonder that the Sarah

from and Sheriff from can't help but to continually proclaim

holy, holy art thou, O God, If we were there, that's going to

be our description. What else can we say?

Holy, holy, holy art you, O God. And Habakkuk chapter 2, verse

Habakkuk 2:20

20, it says, but the Lord is in his holy temple.

Let all the earth keep silence before him.

God enjoys silence. We don't.

We have to have noise all the time.

We always have to have some kind of media on iPod, TV,

headphones, music. I mean, the more noise, the more

happy we seem to be at times. But you take a time of silence

and that makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

That's why prayer is so difficult at times, because it

is a time of silence and we're before God and it's just our

thoughts and our heart laid bare before Him.

And sometimes that makes us a little awkward because we're not

used to having silence. But God says that he's in His

holy temple and it's pleasing to him that the earth would be

silent before him. In Zephaniah chapter one, verse

7, it says be silent in presence of the Lord God for the day of

the Lord is at hand, for the Lord has prepared a sacrifice

and he's invited his guests. Be silent in the presence of the

Lord. And again, it's something that

sometimes we're not accustomed to.

Or you get with some people and you're going to pray and this

person prays and that person's that person prays.

And then all of a sudden there's a period of silence and, and

sometimes people like restless, well, like who's going to pray

next? Or how long will the silence

last? Does that mean we're done or is

it over? But I think from God's heart,

the silence represents just the beginning of our being open to

what it is that He wants to say to us, more so than what we

think we need to say to God. In Zechariah chapter 2, verse

Zechariah 2:13

13, it says be silent all flesh before the Lord, for he is

aroused from his holy habitation.

Be silent, all flesh before the Lord, the one that you're all

familiar with. Psalm 4610 Be still and know

that I am God. I will be exalted among the

nations. I will be exalted in the earth.

And I think it's, it's healthy at times when we come together

as as Christians and, and pray even on Thursdays, it isn't so

much what we're saying, it's what we're hearing, right?

Because so often our prayers are circular.

Lord bless me, mine, you know, me, myself and I or bless my

people or my family or my job or my finance.

I mean, sometimes our prayers are like really, really boring.

God hears, I mean, he loves us, He's merciful.

But like you realize you're saying the same thing all the

time. You realize, like I've answered

like the majority of those things, but you're still asking

me and I've already done it. I mean, do you have any capacity

to pray outside your comfort zone, to pray for people that

you don't know or situations that you're normally not

interested in? You have the heart to let me put

my heart in there to expand your awareness of what it is I

specifically want you to pray about right now at this time and

this day and this age. And verse 2 of Revelation 8, we

see these 7 angels. I saw 7 angels who stand before

God, and to them were given the seven trumpets.

These bodily powers that Victoria so beautifully sung

about represent the Old Testament priests who also

sounded the trumpets during the temple worship.

You know, sometimes when we read the New Testament and the Book

of Revelation and disconnect it from the roots of what worship

has been about since the beginning of time, we, we

unfortunately distort really what the meaning is or we, we

pull things unfortunately sometimes out of context.

But in Joshua chapter 6, verse 13, it refers to these guys.

Joshua 6:13

It says the seven priests bearing 7 trumpets of Ram's

horns before the ark of the Lord went on and continually and blew

the trumpets. And you remember what happened

eventually as a result of blowing those trumpets, right?

The walls fell down, God moved miraculously.

First Chronicles chapter 16, verse 6.

1 Chronicles 16:6

Benanaya and Jehaziel, the priest regularly blew the

trumpets before the Ark of the Covenant of God.

Psalm 96, Six, honor and majesty are before him.

Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

So we see this view of heaven of of music, right?

Where's the guitars? Now there is stringed

instruments you'll read about in Revelation, but in this

instance, there's trumpets and verse 3.

This is when it gets interesting.

Then another Angel having a golden censor came and stood at

the altar. He was given much incense that

he should offer it with the prayers of all the Saints upon

the golden altar which was before the throne.

Much incense is present in heaven, much incense, and it's

offered along with the prayers of the Saints.

If you go back to chapter 5 of Revelation verse 8, it says now

when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and

the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp and

golden bulls full of incense, which are the prayers of the

Saints. Psalm 141 two says, let my

prayer be set before you as incense, the lifting up of my

hands as the evening sacrifice. I mean the beauty of how God

designed worship for Himself. It's not about us.

We're given the privilege to worship Him.

But whenever we can worship Him the way He has orchestrated and

desired, what does that do to His heart?

Let my prayer be set before you. Psalm 141.

Two as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening

sacrifice. So we see in Revelation that

incense is the visible sign of the prayers of all the people.

Symbolism is important. The dove represents the Holy

Spirit. The cross represents the

crucifixion, the death of burial and resurrection of Christ.

Baptism. Immersion is a sign of dying to

our sin and coming out as new people, a new life.

The Lord's Supper that we take every week.

The bread represents Christ's body.

The cup represents His blood. God is not making this stuff up

as He goes along. These are specific things He has

put in place that we might truly know how to worship Him.

You remember in the Old Testament when those priests

took strange license to attempt to worship God with strange fire

and strange incense? It wasn't pleasing to Him.

We have to think about our own worship before him.

Lord, does this really please you today so much worship today

and I don't tell you guys and and these guys work real hard to

pick the songs that are about God to God for God, not songs

that are you could sing to your girlfriend or your wife, you

know that are just like you were these words.

What do they mean but songs that are doctrinally correct and pure

and magnify the glory of of God in Malachi chapter one, verse

11, it's interesting. It says for from the rising of

the sun even to its going down. That's that's a picture of

eternity. My name shall be great among the

Gentiles and every place incense shall be offered to my name for

my name shall be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.

He says in every place, in every place.

Incense is a beautiful gift that was given to our Lord at his

birthright. Incense, frankincense and myrrh

were given to him at his birth. And we see as we reflect on the

Jewish temple, the worship, its continuation in heaven.

I love this section in Luke chapter one, verse 9 through 11.

According to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn

incense. This is Zacharias as he's doing

his responsibility before the altar of God and the Angel of

God is speaking to the family that Elizabeth is going to have

a child and it's an impossibility because she's been

barren. How in the world can this

happen? And he's burning the incense and

he he went into the temple of the Lord and the whole multitude

of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense

again the the the community when the prayers of the of the

incense was the representation that we now are lifting up the

fragrance. Our prayers are like fragrance

unto God. And an Angel of the Lord

appeared to him to Zacharias standing on the right side of

the altar of incense, A literal physical altar that is not any

on earth at the time, but will also be in heaven.

We're seeing John talk about it. So the worship and revelation is

very different from ours, isn't it?

Completely different from ours? And verse 4, it talks about the

smoke of the incense with the prayers that are ascending

before the Lord, and the smoke of the incense with the prayers

that ascends. The Saints ascended before God

from the angel's hand. So the Angel has a sensor that's

coals fire to burn the incense, and he's sensing that altar

before God's throne. And God immediately sees that as

the prayers of his people growing up into heaven from all

the earth throughout all time, and that He has our prayers in

bowls. I can't imagine the size of

those bowls, but all the prayers of every person and every broken

heart throughout all time has never been dumped out.

And that one day all our prayers are going to be answered.

And some prayers we're waiting for.

And waiting for we think, well, God, did you miss that one or

wasn't it important to God? Every prayer of his children is

priceless, so priceless that he stores them all in these bowls.

And verse 5, we see the Angel, He takes the sensor, fills it

with fire from the altar and he throws it to the earth.

And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings and

earthquake. The casting of this sensor to

Earth. Shows the prayers of the Saints

in the sense of how long Lord, will it be till you bring

righteousness, not vengeance on our part.

Lord, I hope you get that person that really messed me up in my

life years ago. I hope you get even with that

dirtbag and that you know, whatever and we're just like,

you know, no, it's not about that.

It's God's righteousness that we're waiting to be completely

satisfied. If you look at Revelation

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6, we were there a few weeks ago, 9:00 and 11:00.

This is the heart of what is happening.

When He opens the 5th seal. I saw under the altar the souls

of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the

testimony which they held. And they crowd with a loud

voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge

and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth.

Then a white robe is given to each of them.

And it was said to them that they should rest a little while

longer, until both the number of the fellow servants and their

brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.

And so the the the prayer for us is OK.

Lord, how long will these things occur on earth where mankind

refuses to acknowledge your existence?

Where we feel as countries that we don't need God, that we want

to take down the crosses in public places.

We want to eliminate the prayers from our Senate and our House

and our government. We want to change the name of

our country to something that is completely independent of God,

who He is. You know, I don't make this

stuff up. I have no political agenda.

I hope you sense that when I preach, I'm not lifting up the

Republican or Democratic Party, but the theocratic government of

God. And God's justice is clearly

revealed in the Scripture for what he says is right and what

he says is wrong. And I don't care what ideology

we have politically, if our ideology does not line up with

God's intention, then we're to be judged.

And we're the ones that are responsible for communicating

what is true in our nation. The freedom of religion that we

have the precious right to have in our country that is slowly

being dismantled and we're not even clearly aware of it.

The casting of the center to earth.

Finally, the one who has the right to bring judgement, cast

that down and it represents the fire of God coming from heaven.

And the beginning of the second period of the tribulation, the

devastation upon the earth begins to be poured out.

The thunderings, the earthquakes signify the judgment of God.

And it is eminent at this point prior to, and we'll get into the

rest of the chapter next week. Next week we'll get into the

more radical aspects of the development of this difficult

time on the earth. But then I think about this

silence in heaven for half an hour.

And if you pick up nothing from the sermon up until this point,

think about this. This is a prophetic revelation

that he's been given a long time ago.

He's seen this. In the Book of Revelation,

Pastor Clark is taking us through all kinds of events and

happenings that are predicted for the future.

But for those who believe and follow Jesus, there's much to

look forward to in heaven with Jesus.

However, for those who are here on earth during the Tribulation,

there's all kinds of chaos that will unfold.

The Bible talks about an Antichrist, a false prophet, and

of course that evil enemy, Satan.

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

disguise himself as God and even the Trinity?

The true Savior of the world is God and how he comes to rescue

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

God the Holy Spirit. Just like Satan tried to take

over for God in heaven was cast out, Satan will try to convince

people on earth that he is the triune God to be worshipped

instead of the legitimate God in heaven.

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

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

Revelation unpacks how that will all happen in detail.

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

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

indefinitely to make that decision about Jesus.

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

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

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

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

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

grace.