Living Waters of Grace March 13, 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.

For Christians, we're not of this world.

The Bible says we have a heavenly Father who's builder

and maker, who's God. So the believers are not under

the authority of the devil. But if you're here today and

you're lost and you don't know Jesus Christ, you're caught in

the snare of the devil. You're under the power of his

influence and you're in bondage to do His will, and the only way

you can get free from that is the gospel.

Do you want to be here to deal with this stuff if you're not a

Christian? Pastor Clark asks you a pointed

question today. So do you?

Do you really want to be around for the things that are

mentioned in the books of Second Thessalonians in Revelation?

As Pastor Clark continues on in his message, you come to realize

that the wrath of God is meant as a consequence for those in

the world who have willfully run the other way from salvation.

So let me urge you today, run toward Jesus, run toward

salvation. It will be the greatest choice

you will ever make. Now here's Pastor Clark in

Second Thessalonians chapter 2 with today's edition of Living

2 Thessalonians 2 · chapter mention

Waters of Grace. Only he, capital H, referring to

God Himself who now restrains, will do so until He's taken out

of the way. What's restraining all this

stuff from occurring right now to a great degree is still the

Church in this world. And when the lawless one will be

revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breadth of his

mouth, and destroy with the brightnesses of his coming.

Even though this Antichrist will be raised up one day and he'll

rule and reign for a period of time on earth, Christ will come

back at the second coming in and deal with Him in a very, very

dramatic way. The coming of the lawless 1 is,

according to the working of Satan, with all power signs and

lying wonders and with all unrighteousness deception among

those who perish because they did not receive the love of the

truth. That's what's heartbreaking, all

the people in the face of the earth being deceived to believe

and to follow this world ruler because they did not receive the

love of the truth, that they might be saved.

I pray today, if you're here, you would receive the love of

the truth that you can be saved. And for this reason God will

send them a strong delusion. God will send them strong

delusion, and they should believe a lie, that they all may

be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in

unrighteousness. Now, when John is speaking here

in chapter 4 and writing down the things that the Lord has

given him to reveal to the body of Christ, he's seeing all this

stuff and living color way ahead of the time it's supposed to

happen. And this book was written, It

was written a long time ago, thousands of years ago, and it

is so contemporary and current with the times that we are

currently living in now. And so he's seeing all that's

going to take place as a prelude to the tribulation, which will

actually start in chapter 6, verse one.

We'll get to that in the weeks ahead.

That's when Jesus, a lamb, will open up the first seal.

And the first seal is a picture of this Antichrist on the face

of the earth. He's going to pose as a savior

of the world. And in verse 1 of chapter 4, he

says again, the future is insight.

He says, I will show you the things which must, must take

place after this. He says he was caught up.

He was told to come up here and God would show him what was

going to be revealed. And I'd like you to look at

First Thessalonians chapter 4. This is really an important

1 Thessalonians 4 · chapter mention

section of Scripture for us here today who believe that the Lord

will come before this great tribulation.

It says in First Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 13, Paul, his

1 Thessalonians 4:13

passion for the church, He doesn't want people to be in

ignorance. He wants us to know what's going

to happen, what's going on. I love what he says here, but I

do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who

have fallen asleep, meaning those who've passed on and who

have died, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, Even so God

will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus.

Now when someone dies, a Christian dies and their bodies

in, you know, the casket that isn't that person anymore.

Their body is a shell. They're out of that body.

The Bible says they'd be absent in the body is to be present

with the Lord. So as soon as you die, if you're

a Christian, soon as I die, I'm not going into some ground and

the worms are going to get me and you aren't either.

We're going to be taken out by God's power and taken up to be

with Jesus is the apostle Paul says to be absent.

The body is present with the Lord, but the physical body will

still be in the grave. I did a funeral this week and I

reminded the people that this dear woman who died at 92, that

love Jesus wasn't at the grave site going into the ground.

She was already with the Lord, but her physical body, her old

body, was going into the ground. And it says For this we say to

you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain

until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those

who are asleep. For the Lord himself will

descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an

Archangel, and with the trump of God.

It's interesting that that trumpet shows up every time

we're talking about this truth of the rapture being caught

away. And it says, and the dead in

Christ will rise first, meaning the physical bodies of all those

Christians and believers in the Old Testament, New Testament

that died, that their bodies are in the grave.

When Christ comes back, those bodies are going to be

resurrected, where the Bible says this mortality will put on

immortality, this corruptible, the old dead body will put on

incorruption and we'll be receiving these resurrected

bodies. Those who are dead in Christ at

this time, keeping in mind that we're referring to the body,

their spirit will be reunited with the new body that they'll

have at the time of the resurrection.

And then it says in verse 17, then we who are alive, that

means people like us that are still walking around on the

earth shall be caught up. And that's where we get the word

from, the Latin word rapture. We will be caught up together

with them in the clouds to meet, keep the Lord in the air and

thus we shall always be with the Lord.

Isn't that awesome? It says, therefore comfort one

another with these words. We need to remind each other and

encourage each other no matter how tough life gets and what

comes down on us at times that the best is yet to come for the

Christian. So you know, you're driving down

the road, you're in an airplane, you're getting ready to get your

tooth pulled and you think, man, I'd love to miss this

opportunity of getting this pain with this dentist right now.

All of a sudden, the Trump sounds and you're out of there.

You're just getting right ready to write your check to the IRS.

You got to pay them taxes again, right?

And you're taking out right at the right time.

You know, I mean, there's so many awesome things that are

going to occur and we're going to be literally vanishing from

the earth. So the people in the world that

are still here, what happened? Where did these people go?

And there'll be some kind of government conspiracy thing.

All what? These people were the real

troublemakers and they were the wackos and the fanatics, you

know, and they finally, like, all hid and took off somewhere

and we don't know where. I mean, they'll make up all kind

of stories to try to keep the human race stable in such a

period of catastrophic like, why, how, how could this happen?

And so the importance of understanding the rapture of the

church, we ascribe to the rapture of the Church of Jesus

Christ prior to the great tribulation.

Don't confuse the rapture with the second coming of Jesus

Christ, OK? Because that's a completely

different event that occurs after the tribulation.

And verse two or three of chapter 4 of Revelation, it says

that God is on the throne here. Immediately I was in the Spirit

and behold, a throne was set in heaven and one capital, O&E,

that's referring to God. He's sitting on the throne, and

this throne is a throne of judgment.

This is a throne where God's going to begin to cast down all

the things upon the earth that need to occur in order for the

discipline and the justice of God's anger over a world that

like completely ignores his love and doesn't want to have

anything to do with them. And so in his fury, he's pouring

out this wrath on this rebellious world.

Now keep in mind as we're studying this guys, that God is

a God of love. God, it breaks his heart.

But he's just, he has to deal with the crimes of the human

race. He just can't ignore them and

act like they're not a big deal because look what they do to

people. They destroy lives everyday.

Babies are being aborted, right? I mean, there's more babies

being aborted in this world since the beginning of time than

any kind of Holocaust or any kind of world.

How long will God be able to put up with this?

There's a time when he says enough's enough.

The the sex slave trade of little children in India and and

Pakistan and other places in the world where they're taking young

kids 5-6 years old and selling them into sex slavery.

I mean, it's horrible. I mean, we're we're sort of

isolated at times on to the horror of the world that happens

behind the scenes every day. If we could see it the way those

people have to experience it and hear their tears on their

pillows at night crying out to a God they don't even know exists.

Many of them, we would say, like they say at the end of the Book

of Revelation, Maranatha, come quickly Lord Jesus, come

quickly, Lord Jesus. And that was the heart of the

early church. And so there's this beautiful

rainbow though around the throne at the same time.

And this is a beautiful truth here.

The rainbow around the throne is representing God's mercy in the

midst of judgment. In the midst of God's judgment

when He destroyed the earth the first time with the flood,

right, He promises after that event that He would put a

rainbow in the sky. And every time we would see that

rainbow, we would be reminded that He would never destroy the

earth by a flood again. God's mercy in the midst of

judgment and His promise in Genesis 9 regarding that the

earth will not be destroyed by a flood again even in this time of

judgment. And the wrath of God is about to

be poured out upon the earth, His mercy still going to be

present on the earth at the time.

Do you know that there's going to be many people who will come,

believers during that tribulation period?

They'll be your friends, your relatives, your neighbors, your

coworkers that you tried to tell about the gospel.

You tried to remind them about the love of God.

And they need to get saved. I'll do that later.

It's no big deal. I'm not interested.

Whatever. And so, you know, you only can

tell them, right? You only can warn them, tell

them the house is on fire. They don't want to get out, that

you, you know, you try to drag them out.

But people, they don't want to think that the house is on fire.

They think everything's OK. What's going to happen, though?

You're gone. And all of a sudden the first

thing you're going to think is I remember what he told me or she

told me. This is that event that they

were always excited about and anticipating coming and

happening. What they said is true.

And now I realize that I need Jesus too.

And so many will become believers at that time.

There'll be no bow or beautiful rainbow around the last judgment

as we get in chapter 20. When we get near the end of the

book, that's a great white throne judgment, and that's when

there's no more chance. That's the final judgment when

God will separate the sheep from the goat, the believer from the

unbeliever, and those who are not found written in that book

of life. Because because God puts down

everybody who believes in a book.

Our names are there today, guys. It can't be taken out.

And the good news is, is that when we stand before the Lord in

that last day, all of us in that final judgment, He'll see your

name in there. If you're born again, you're

going to be sent into the Kingdom.

But those whoever's name was not found written in the Lamb's book

of life, all unbelievers, all those who rejected Christ will

be cast into the lake of fire and be in hell forever and ever.

And there's no more second chance.

No more second chance. Now the elders it refers to in

Revelation 4, chapter 4 and five, there's these 24 elders

sitting on these 24 Thrones. And we believe this symbolizes

the leaders of the congregation in the Old Testament, in the New

Testament, that in the Old Testament there was 12 tribes

that ruled in Israel. And the representatives, the

leaders of those 12 tribes will be sitting on 12 of those

Thrones. And the other 12 will be in the

New Testament. There are 12 apostles

representing us before the Kingdom of God.

And they're sitting, physically sitting, which is a beautiful

picture that they're wrestling from their earthly laborers.

There's no more work to do. Everything's been accomplished.

They've finished their task on earth.

They've been faithful to do what the Lord's told them to do.

And they're just sitting there waiting and they're clothed in

white raiment, white clothing. And this is a picture that God

has justified them from their sins, the garment of Christ's

righteousness. You know, the beauty of

salvation and what Christ has done.

I, I still sin and you'd still sin, right?

We, we know that the Bible says if we say we have no sin, we

deceive ourselves. We're, we're, we're deluded If

we think we're perfect, none of us are perfect here.

The difference between the believer and the unbeliever is

that whenever you come to Christ as a Sinner, Christ wraps you in

his righteousness. His blood cleanses you from all

your sins. And so as a father sees us now,

he doesn't see us as rebellious, hateful, ungodly people anymore.

He sees us as his kids, and he sees us wrapped in the

righteousness and the robe of Jesus Christ, the unbeliever.

When he stands before the Father, a Sinner has no covering

to protect him from a holy God. Because the only way you and I

can stand before a holy God is by having Christ in between us,

right? Because if we don't have Christ,

we have no foundation, no leg to stand upon.

And so they're also wearing these beautiful crowns.

It says they are, they have crowns of gold on their heads.

And these crowns represent victor crowns.

These people were faithful in their life to follow the Lord.

And they're being rewarded because they overcame through

Christ's blood upon their struggle on this earth.

And the wonderful thing is that you and I are all, we're all

going to be given crowns if we're true followers of Jesus

Christ. And these crowns are beautiful

because they represent a life. And, and I know you guys and,

and myself, we all have trials and struggles.

We have tragedies that come into our life.

We have difficulties that sometimes we don't know how

we're going to get through the next day.

But what causes us to persevere and to keep pressing on is the

Lord, isn't it? He empowers us, He strengthens

us. Some people might say to you,

how did you get through that? How did you make it through that

that difficult time in your life?

And you know there's only one answer.

It's the Lord. And you'll be given a crown one

day for overcoming. And it wasn't your own strength

that caused you to overcome. It was Christ in you that gave

you the power to overcome. It isn't amazing.

He gives us a crown. What do you give me this for?

Lord, I didn't deserve it. I know you didn't, but I did it

for you and I love you. Wear it, enjoy it.

And the beauty of that crowd is one day we'll be able to take

them off. And when the Lord is on the

throne at the end of time, we'll be able to go up and offer

something to Him, something He gave to us to give back to Him.

And it'll be so wonderful to cast our crowns at His feet.

Revelation chapter 2, verse 10 talks about Smyrna, the

Revelation 2:10

persecuted church. They were tested and they were

tried and they had different difficult trials.

I bet they were given a crown of life because they overcame

through Christ. Jesus says in the world you will

have tribulation. Anybody have difficulty in here

today? Raise your hand.

Anybody have trials? And sometimes you don't know how

you're going to get through the next day.

We all are there. But he says this is Jesus in the

world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer have

overcome the world and so we overcome through Christ and

these that represents the leaders and those who are

wearing a crown of life. They're the faithful ones that

were faithful to death. They didn't ever give up.

They never denied Christ. They never renounced him once

they received him. They believed until the end.

These 24 we believe in this chapter 4 have already been

caught up into the heavens as we just studied in First

1 Thessalonians 4 · chapter mention

Thessalonians chapter 4. Now they're witnessing and

they're awaiting the beginning of God's righteous judgment upon

an ungodly world. So we're all going to be up

there at this time in in the future, and we're going to be

aware of what's going to begin to transpire upon the face of

the earth. And I believe as Jesus is ever

living to make intercession for us.

Praying for you and me right now, every one of us that will

have strength to persevere. We will be praying along with

him in the Kingdom for all those loved ones who are left on

earth, that God's mercy will reach them and they'll become

believers even in that horrible time.

As we conclude the last thing he talks about verse 5, we'll pick

up verse 6 next week. He talks about the throne

proceeding lightnings and thunderings and voices the

lightnings and thunderings and voices, a picture of ominous

judgement. They all symbolize God's

presence coming near for judgment.

We see this when God gave the law on Mount Sinai.

You guys watch the 10 commandments and the movie and

whenever Moses went up there and the lightning and the Thunder

and the noise and this the the cloud and this the glory of God,

it was, it was frightening. Everybody on the face of the

earth at the time below the mountains had their face to the

ground. They were wondering what in the

world is going on. And Moses had to go up and walk

in the midst of that, God's presence being near.

And this was seen at the time that God gave his law to Moses,

saying, this is my character, this is what I want for the

people I've created. This is my holiness, my

righteousness. It says it came to pass on the

third day in the morning that there was thunderings and

lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain, and the sound of

the trumpet was very loud. So to all the people who were in

the camp trembled. I don't know about you, but

sometimes I'm at home and there's a lightning storm or

Thunder and you hear it a distance, no big deal.

But when it comes and it sounds like it's coming upon your

house, it shakes you, doesn't it?

I mean, what is, man? That you are mindful of us,

Lord. 1 Little ZAP on a golf course could take you or me out

like that. And the Thunder and the

lightning of God's power and His glory being revealed, and the

and the wrath of God coming down upon the earth.

People are going to be fleeing for their lives, trying to hide

under the rocks and mountains. But you can't hide from God's

presence during the apocalypse. There will be great physical

violence and disaster about to be poured out upon the whole

earth. Revelation 11.

We'll talk more about that in verse 5.

It talks about the seven lamps. And this portrays the all

present Holy Spirit who's everywhere present and seeth all

things. And the Holy Spirit is a witness

here today with us guys. In John 16, it says the Holy

Spirit is here to convict the world of sin, of righteousness

and of judgment of sin because they do not believe in me.

The Lord God wants everyone to believe.

He's not willing that any should perish, but all should come to

repentance. The Holy Spirit's main ministry

is to convict us and show us I'm lost and I need a Savior.

That happened to me when I was 20 years old.

I didn't think I needed anybody. And then God got me in a place

in my life, as I'm sure He has many of you.

There was no more opportunity to negotiate.

I needed a Savior. I needed to be saved.

He convicts of righteousness because he goes to his Father

and you see me no more. In other words, the work is

finished. Christ proved He is who He said

He is. He's at the right hand of the

Father and of judgment. And that's the last conviction

because the ruler of this world is judged.

Second Corinthians 44 talks about Satan being the God of

this world. There is a counterfeit God and

there's a real God. The counterfeit God is Satan.

His major influence is over the mindset expressed by the ideals,

opinions, goals, hopes, and views of the majority of people.

The way the world Thinks guys is jaded because it's influenced by

the God of this world. It says his influences encompass

the world's philosophies, education and commerce.

The thoughts, ideas, speculations and false religions

of the world are under the control of the deceiver, the

liar, Satan, and they have sprung from his lies and his

deceptions. And it started right in the

garden. Remember Eve?

She's there and she's dealing with this temptation and the

devil's telling her, hey, if you eat this apple, you can become

like God. And she's like thinking, wow,

that sounds pretty, pretty interesting.

And she gets Adam over there and convinces him this is what they

should do. And Satan just took the word of

God, just twisted a little bit and said, hath not God said?

That's a little bit of doubt to not trust what God had told them

to stay away from this particular fruit.

But even though we have this enemy who's influencing this

world, he's referred to as a God of this world.

He's not the true God, and the true God is still in overall

control. Satan only can work within the

boundaries God has set. He only has dominion over lost

people. He doesn't have dominion over

you and me now, right? We're Christians.

We're not of this world. The Bible says we have a

heavenly Father who's builder and maker is God.

So the believers are not under the authority of the devil.

But if you're here today and you're lost and you don't know

Jesus Christ, you're caught in the snare of the devil, you're

under the power of his influence, and you're in bondage

to do his will. And the only way you can get

free from that is the gospel. Do you want to be here to deal

with this stuff if you're not a Christian?

I mean, why wouldn't you want to give your life to Christ today,

to be spared from the wrath that's to come?

And sometimes people think, well, what's that mean to become

a Christian? What do I have to do?

All you have to do is believe. You have to realize that Christ

is who he said He is, that he died for you, and that he rose

again and he's the only one that can save you.

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.