Living Waters of Grace March 12, 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.

God has not appointed us to wrath.

Does that make you feel good? I don't like to get in trouble

for something I don't think I deserve.

I'm a Sinner just like you are, and the world is centered.

The difference between US and them is that we've received a

Savior, right? Christ has taken our guilt in

our judgement upon himself. That's the good news of the

gospel. You think?

Why wouldn't everybody in the world believe and realize they

need a savior and want Christ to save them?

It's like getting a detention in school.

You had a penalty coming your way, but then you were given a

free pass to get out of detention.

This is how it is with Jesus paying the penalty for your sin.

Today, Pastor Clark touches on the fact that when you make that

conscious choice to follow after Jesus, the events and judgments

talked about in Revelation are not meant for you.

They're meant for a world that has rejected Jesus as Savior and

has chosen to go another way. So if you haven't yet, get that

free pass out of detention now. Here's Pastor Clark in

Revelation Chapter 4 with today's edition of Living Waters

Revelation 4 · chapter mention

of Grace. Revelation Chapter 4 After these

Revelation 4 · chapter mention

things I looked, and behold a door standing open in heaven.

And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet

speaking with me, saying, Come up here, and I will show you

things which must take place. After this, immediately I was in

the spirit and behold a throne set in heaven and one sat on the

throne and he who sat there was like a Jasper and a Sardis stone

in appearance. And there was a rainbow around

the throne and appearance like an emerald.

Around the throne were 24 Thrones and on the Thrones I saw

24 elders sitting clothed in white robes and they had crowns

of gold on their heads. And from the throne proceeds

lightnings, thunderings and voices. 7 lamps of fire were

burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God.

We just covered the seven churches about 3 weeks ago.

Then the last days, the churches that are symbolic of what the

church will be like in the last days and also what the church

was like back in the days shortly after Christ had

resurrected from the dead. And so now we're going to begin

to make a transition after these things that we've just studied

in the last few weeks. We're going to begin to now be

prepared for what is it going to be like on the earth prior to

the return of the Lord. Now the apostle John is being

taken up into heaven. The word caught up is what we

get that word from Latin, which means reptazo, and it's the

catching away. We use the word rapture, but if

you take the original Greek meaning of that word, it means

to be caught up or caught away. And it's important to realize

that in these last days, there's going to be a lot of cataclysmic

events that are going to be on the horizon.

All the loss of life. It seems every day there's some

kind of cataclysmic event that is occurring around the world.

The frequency of these things will grow in increasing

dimension as we move closer to the return of the Lord.

So as we see these things occurring, Jesus said, look up

your redemption draws nigh, meaning that the return of

Christ is clearer and nearer than we've ever imagined before.

But some things to consider. And there's different positions

on this, how this is all going to to play out in the end.

These are futuristic events. We have some capability of

looking into the future regarding prophecy, prophecy

that's been fulfilled and also prophecy that is yet to be

fulfilled. The way we gather the

information and make some degree of determination on what

possibly might transpire is based upon historical fact

throughout the Old Testament and into the New Testament.

But one of the things that Calvary Chapel ascribes to, and

we're not alone, some of the leading Bible noble teachers on

the radio that you might respect the day like John MacArthur,

Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel or David Jeremiah, Charles Stanley,

Chuck Swindoll, these men are all pre Trib, pre millennial men

of God. We believe that Christ will come

and take the church out before the great tribulation.

We don't believe we're going to be here to have to endure that.

And I'm going to give you some proof texts this morning, some

verses that might help you come to that same conclusion and not

be confused, I trust. But Romans chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

I, I was thinking about that earlier this morning as I was

finishing up this minute message.

And it says that God commendeth his love toward us, and that

while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us much more

than in verse 9 of chapter 5 of Romans.

Then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from

wrath through him. God has not appointed his bride,

his kids, to wrath. God doesn't marry us in the

sense of bringing us into the Kingdom and calling us his bride

to abuse us. There's no knowledge of that in

the Scriptures anywhere. God loves us.

The wrath of God is going to be poured out upon a rebellious,

unbelieving, ungodly world that we're still living in, right?

We're frustrated at times because of why things go the way

they they go. The horror on the face of the

earth, the unfairness, the unjustice.

Sometimes those who represent us in government frustrate us and

we wonder why people can make the decisions on behalf of us

that they make. And it's difficult at times to

accept it, isn't it? But one day God's justice will

be vindicated and one day his wrath will be poured out upon

the whole earth. I think of David when he prayed

he said Lord, why to the wicked rage and imagine vain thing.

Why do people seem to get away with what they get away with?

But one day God will definitely deal with those on the face of

the earth that have shaken their fists at him, who have cursed

him, who have forsaken him, who have hated him and have ignored

them him throughout their life. First Thessalonians chapter 5

1 Thessalonians 5:9

verse 9 says For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to

obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Again a great proof tech text. God has not appointed us to

wrath. Does that make you feel good?

I don't like to get in trouble for something I don't think I

deserve. I'm a Sinner just like you are

and the world is centered. The difference between US and

them is that we've received a Savior right?

Christ has taken our guilt in our judgment upon himself.

That's the good news of the gospel.

You think? Why wouldn't everybody in the

world believe and realize they need a Savior and want Christ to

save them? What is it in our hearts that

causes us to push the love of God away?

What's our pride and our sin? Jesus says men love darkness

rather than light because their deeds are evil.

There was a time in my life that I like doing evil things.

I enjoyed it and I knew that there was a God.

I was a fully aware there was a God, but I thought he doesn't

see or he doesn't pay attention or it's no big deal.

But the wages of sin is death. The more my life became consumed

with sinful pattern and sinful activity, the emptier I became

in my heart, The more mixed up I was, the more anxious I was, the

more lost I became. And I one day with this, go out

and look at the stars at night and say, there's got to be more

to this life than what I'm living.

There's got to be something behind us that would make sense

because the way life appeared to me before I knew Christ, it

didn't make sense. I mean, even your best friends

that you had, they'd stab you in the back.

I mean, at this everything seemed to be upside down, right?

I couldn't find any example of love or real love until Christ

came into my life. And so God has not appointed his

bride to wrath his church. The pre tribulation rapture is

that the church will be caught up before the seven-year

tribulation and the entire seven-year tribulation period is

a time of pouring out of God's wrath.

It's God's time where he says enough's enough, right?

And he basically allows the whole universe to explode in the

sense of his indignation against sin and against man's rebellion.

You know, God didn't create us to be this way.

We made that decision ourselves in the garden when we said we

want to go our own way and God let us go our own way.

He's a loving, merciful God. You want to do your own thing,

make your own choices, fine, go ahead.

But there's consequences to do that.

In Revelation chapter 617, it says the great day of His wrath

is come and who shall be able to stand?

We'll get to that in a few weeks.

Chapter 6. But this day of wrath is going

to be so tough guys, that the human beings that are on the

earth at that time are going to be turned upside down.

They're not going to know which way to turn.

Every day there's some new horrendous thing that's

occurring and they're going to fear for their lives.

And this is the issue of what's going on at this time.

Rebellious man desires to live without God.

Has anybody ever in here desired at one time in your life to live

without God? Raise your hand.

Most of us. We didn't need His love, We

didn't need His mercy. But yet in His great love, as He

looks down upon us today, all of us here, His intention for us is

to pull us out of this world. Before this event occurs, He

will withdraw us, being His restraint upon sin right now on

the face of the earth. Guys, whether we realize it or

not, as weak as our testimony is at times, as Christians, God

uses us because the Holy Spirit lives in US.

Every time you're around someone that doesn't know Christ, they

know there's something different about your life.

They can't put their finger on it, but they know you're wired

differently and you're called Jesus said in the Gospel, salt

and light. When the salt and light, that's

us. We're taken out of this world at

the rapture. That's why so much evil is going

to come down upon the earth because there's going to be no

balance anymore. There's going to be no

constraining force right now in the midst of our society, as bad

as things are and as ungodly as the human race is, we still have

influence, don't we? There's people that are becoming

Christians every day because of people like us and others that

love the Lord and follow him. But the constraint will be drawn

out whenever the rapture happens.

It doesn't mean the Holy Spirit still won't be present, working

on the face of the earth to bring people to himself, but the

influence of the church will be gone.

And then what will happen is this wrath of God will be poured

out upon the heads of all those people that have been worn

throughout their lives, that one day this would come upon the

face of the earth, the tribulation period, seven years

of lies and wars and famine and death.

I don't want any of my loved ones to be there to you.

I don't want anybody I know to be there.

But I can't make people believe any more than you can.

All I can do is give them my testimony.

Then tell them, this is what Christ has done for me and this

is what He would like to do for you too, if you would ask Him to

be your Savior and to come into your life, turn from your sin.

Now, a picture of this illustration actually happened

back in Genesis chapter 19. And this was a time whenever God

Genesis 19 · chapter mention

was warning Lot and His family to get out of Sodom.

Sodom was a picture of this ungodly world that we live in

today. And God's telling Lot and His

family that you got to get out of this town because I'm going

to destroy it. He's warning them ahead of time,

just like the Scriptures today are warning you if you're here

today without Christ, to come to Christ so that you're not left

here during this time of wrath. And the Lord literally had to

drag them out by the power of the angels to get them out of

that town. And this is a picture of God

sparing His elect from wrath as God looks down upon the face of

the earth. There's a large group of people

that live here right now that are his kids, and he's focused

on his kids every day, just like I'm focused on my kids or my

grandkids every day. I don't want anything to hurt

them. I don't want anything to come

into their life to influence them that would destroy their

lives. And I'll do everything I can as

a follower of Jesus Christ to persuade those I love the most

to be prepared and to be living for Jesus Christ in these last

days, to see people spared from this eventual wrath.

Now, Hebrews tells us that there's a group of people and

we, we are that people, that we're not of them who draw back.

Lot's wife, even though she was delivered from Sodom, that she

was warned not to look back and longing for that old wicked part

of life, Sodom, all the experiences she had there, she

was warned not to look back, as was Lot.

And she unfortunately looked back and she became a pillar of

salt and she was gone. God's judgement upon her.

The cataclysmic events on Sodom and Gomorrah were like one of

the worst nuclear Holocaust that mankind could ever experience.

And it was all done not by a bomb made by man, but by the

great power of our God. God is awesome, His power and

His power is designed to show forth His glory and His love.

His power was not initiated, intended for a destruction upon

the human race. But we have made our own

decisions and we have said we will roll in reign independent

of the God of creation, right? The majority of the people in

the face of the earth don't believe in God anymore.

They don't want to have anything to do with him.

They want to be their own final authority.

They want to make up their own mind, their own decision every

day, do their own thing and as a result suffer the consequences.

Now as we go back to chapter 4 and verse one, this is the

spirit speaking to John. It says come up here and I will

show you things which must take place after this.

There's a voice of a trumpet that's occurring here.

It says he hears this voice that is like a trumpet speaking,

saying come up here, I will show you things which must take place

after this. Now to me, I mean, I've studied

this. I'm excited about it.

You guys might think, well, who cares?

This is nice. One time's a sermon over today.

You know, I'm going to go watch the masters later, whatever.

But I'll tell you when you, when you study this stuff, this rocks

your world. It does.

And I trust it'll rock your world a little bit.

The day this hearing about some of this stuff because it's, it's

just fascinating. So he's, he's giving John the

privilege to be able to look into the future and see what

it's going to be like when these things come to pass.

We're recipients of this opportunity today.

Just sitting here hearing this and getting a heads up from what

God had shown the apostle John. Daniel Chapter 9 in the Old

Daniel 9 · chapter mention

Testament, verse 27 talks about this issue of the evil 1

confirming a covenant with many. And this will be over in the

Mideast between Israel and their enemies for one week, symbolic

of seven days, which means a tribulation period of seven

days. There'll be a false peace like

right now, President Obama, President Bush, President

Clinton, President Carter, as far as you can go back.

Remember growing up watching the news, there was always this

excitement about a potential Treaty of peace.

There'd be no more fighting in Israel and everybody be all

excited. And it would last for maybe a

day or a week or a couple months.

And then all of a sudden, the war would start again.

The tension, the fighting, there's no real peace that will

be in Jerusalem, in Israel, in this world until the Prince of

Peace comes back. Jesus Christ.

That's the only time they'll be peace.

But man and his energy and his desire to try to be known as a

maybe the next Nobel Prize recipient, I'll be the guy that

got the peace established there. Well, this Antichrist will be

the one midway through this great tribulation that will

reveal himself in the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem.

He has the arrogance and the audacity because he's a very

charismatic individual. He can persuade people.

There's World Peace developing in the 1st 3 1/2 years,

prosperity. Everything's getting better.

Everybody's like, wow, we finally have someone in this

world that's getting things straightened out.

The stock market's going up, values of houses are going up.

Everybody has money and everything's great.

And so people are deceived. The Bible says those days will

be so deceptive that even the elect could be deceived if it

were possible. And So what will happen is

people be be persuaded to follow this world leader, this

Antichrist. He could be alive now.

He could be getting ready to be raised up into leadership.

There's a lot of thoughts on people like who this person

might be. But nonetheless, through this

midway period, this guy will really show his true colors and

he will actually set himself up in the rebuilt, rebuilt temple.

It's called the abomination of desolation.

And he will sit on the throne and claim to be God and call

himself God. If you go to a Second

Thessalonians, just for a minute, let's flip over to the

left in your Bible, Second Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse

2 Thessalonians 2:5

5, he says, do you not remember that when I was still with you,

I told these things to you? This is Paul writing, and now

you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his

own time, referring to the Antichrist.

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.

Only he who now restrains will do so until he's taken out of

the way. Now this spirit of lawlessness,

any anybody that rejects Jesus Christ, it's against his Kingdom

and against his authority, is of the spirit of Antichrist.

We learned that in first and second John when we went through

it. But there will literally be one

who will truly be raised up one day, who will be the real

Antichrist that's being spoken about in the Book of Revelation.

But it's talking about this mystery that is already working

in the world, 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, 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. When 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 sleep, meaning those who have 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 the Bible says to 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 gravesite 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 there's. 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, 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 and 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 us today.

And if you'd like to connect further with this ministry, find

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app at calvarychapelonline.com. 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.