Living Waters of Grace - Feb 16, 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.

As we look at this book, Revelation, it is completely

different pretty much than any other book in the Scriptures.

A matter of fact, there was a lot of controversy in the early

church as to whether it should be part of the Canon.

Now, the apostles, obviously they're the forerunners of the

church, and what they were given is what we have today in our

Scriptures. But there was a lot of confusion

back then because of the inability to even begin to

comprehend in the slightest way what this book was saying it

that. I love spring cleaning.

It provides opportunities for reorganization, for getting rid

of excess clutter that I've held on to.

And occasionally I'll rediscover some lost thing that I'd

forgotten about. But sometimes I'll come across

something that I'm not quite sure what to do with.

The church at one point felt similarly about the Book of

Revelation. Unsure if they should even keep

it in the Bible today, Pastor Clark helps to unpack some of

the true intent and purpose of this amazing book.

Now here's Pastor Clark in Revelation chapter one with

today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.

You just can't arbitrarily take what's in this book and try to

make everything literal, because not everything is revealed yet.

We're still waiting for some of these things to develop in the

future. And there's an old term in

seminaries in Bible college called hermeneutics.

And hermeneutics is a study of how to interpret Scripture.

And it says, when the plain sense of Scripture makes common

sense, seek no other sense. But take every word at its

literal meaning. Unless studied in the light of

related passages, something else is indicated wise.

And so when we look at this, we're going to look at it in

regard to the related passages. But as we think about some of

the things that John was going to be writing about, a lot of

these symbols that he's speaking about really relate to personal

and national entities at that time that they were living and

what would eventually develop in the future.

Many of these leaders are portrayed as animals.

We see the symbolism of the Lamb and it refers to our Savior,

Jesus Christ, the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of

the earth. The dragon is referred, Satan

himself and the beast, the demonic spirits and the mutant

locusts, all these things that we'll read in time.

He also discusses cities and they're depicted as harlots and

a bride. And we look at Babylon and Sodom

and Egypt and Jerusalem and in the context of those kind of

things also at that time, as he looks at the symbols that he's

been given, they represent political upheaval that will

eventually occur and also terms of cosmic disruptions.

We read in Matthew about the sun and moon, and also in Revelation

being darkened, the stars falling, every island, the

mountain disappeering. Also, the number 7 is used

throughout this book and #7 refers to completeness and

perfection in the Scriptures and throughout the Scripture,

Deuteronomy, Psalms and Proverbs.

This numbers used many, many times.

In the Book of Revelation. This number is used to refer to

the seven churches, the seven seals, the seven trumpets, the

seven bowls, the seven thunders, and the seven beatitudes.

There are beatitudes in the Book of Revelation and the first one

we read the day about. Those who read this book are

blessed, those who hear the words of the prophecy are

blessed, and those who keep those things which are written

in it. But the time is near.

That's the first beatitude of the seven in the Book of

Revelation. There's also fractions and

numbers given like 1/3 multiples of 12, like the 24 elders before

the throne and 144,000 witnesses during the time of the

tribulation, the thousand year reign. 10 days, one hour, a

little while he uses all these times.

As we look at this book, Revelation, it is completely

different pretty much than any other book in the Scriptures.

Matter of fact, there was a lot of controversy in the early

church as to whether it should be part of the Canon.

Now, the apostles, obviously they're the forerunners of the

church, and what they were given is what we have today in our

Scriptures. But there was a lot of confusion

back then because of the inability to even begin to

comprehend in the slightest way what this book was saying at

that time. But it is truly inspired by God

as a prophecy. It identifies very clearly to us

the name of its true author. It actually predicts the future,

and it's an epistle in the apocalyptic mode that predicts

events of the future under the inspiration of God, the Holy

Spirit. Now, the reign of this emperor,

the mission, he was a very, very terrible, mean ruler.

He wanted to persecute the whole region, and Nero just had the

ability to affect Rome at the time.

But as the church grew, this man who was in charge, the emperor

at the time, had the ability to deal with the whole area and try

to destroy everybody that lived at that time.

We study in history that Nicodemus was one of those who

were martyred during this time of this reign of this evil

emperor. Also Timothy.

Timothy was out in the streets speaking against the ungodly

role this leader and the things that were happening and the

people came upon him and clubbed him and physically beat him in a

couple days after his beating he he died.

It's taught that John the Apostle was boiled in oil before

he was sent an eggs out to this Isle of Patmos.

And so he, as he said in verse 9, I'm your brother and

companion in the Tribulation. He was experiencing the horror.

And so as we look at these churches, they were all at

different levels in their spiritual foundation as to how

they were following Jesus Christ.

As we study the book, you'll see there's a lot of allusion to

other parts of the Bible, but there's not one quote from

another book clearly defined in the Book of Revelation.

There's imagery from hundreds of Old Testament passages, though

it gives a symbol of 2 olive trees referring to the two

witnesses in Chapter 11. It echoes Zechariah 43, 11

through 14, referring to Zerubbabel and Joshua.

There's hundreds of allusions to familiar images in the Old

Testament from the book of Isaiah alone. 79 times alluded

references Daniel 53 times Ezekiel 48 Psalms 43 times

Exodus 27 times Jeremiah 22 Zechariah 15, Amos 9, Joel 8.

The Old Testament was the foundation of what the apostles

taught from. They didn't have everything like

you and I have now, so everything they drew upon was

the Old Testament scriptures. It also gives us the insights of

the matrix that are set up in the book.

Like for example it gives the illustration of the Babylonian

exile and Exodus and also comparing it to the life of

Jesus. We see an evil power in the book

of Exodus persecuting God's people, Pharaoh in Egypt, but we

see an evil power persecuting God's people in the Book of

Revelation, the Antichrist. We see plagues of darkness and

hail and locusts and boils and frogs and water and turn into

blood in the book of Exodus. We also see this revealed in the

Book of Revelation. It talks about being delivered

by the blood of the lamb in the Old Testament.

In the book of Exodus when the blood was put on the doorpost

and the Angel of God spoke to the children of Israel, saying

when God sees the blood, he will pass over that house that the

blood is applied to and they will not lose the life of the

first born. But we also see in Revelation

and that we are delivered by the blood of Jesus Christ talks

about the dragon, referring to the dragon in the Angel, the

demonic forces of the devil in the Book of Revelation.

Also in Ezekiel 29, three talks about the crossing of the Red

Sea where they sang the song of Moses and they're redeemed will

sing in the Book of Revelation the song of Moses and the Lamb.

In Revelation 15, it also discusses the Tabernacle and all

its furnishings in the book of Hebrews, it discusses that the

earthly Tabernacle is a model of the heavenly counterpart.

A matter of fact, when you want to learn about worship, and I

think we all have a lot more to learn about worship.

Even though we worship the Lord here in spirit and truth and we

lift our hearts up to God. We're only we got a glimpse, a

minor glimpse of what it's going to be like to worship in the

Kingdom of heaven. But if you really want to see

pure, divine, holy God centered in God ordained worship, you

read the worship in the Book of Revelation.

John describes the atmosphere, golden lampstands that are

present in chapter 1 verse 12. Hidden man associated with the

Ark of the Covenant in chapter 2 verse 17, the altar of incense

chapter 8 verse 3 through 5, the Holy of Holies in Chapter 11

verse one and 15 verse 8, and the Ark of the Covenant in

Chapter 11 verse 19. We think about the birth of

Christ and the death and the burial and the resurrection and

his victory over Satan. A reference frequently in this

book because it's all about Christ.

His birth and ascension is depicted in chapter 12, verse 5.

What's fascinating is when they talk about the two witnesses

that will be on the earth during the time of the Tribulation,

proclaiming the Kingdom of God and the coming of Christ.

They mirror Christ's earthly ministry almost identically.

Their ministry lasted 3 1/2 years.

Christ's earthly ministry after the baptism was 3 1/2 years.

Revelation 11/3 speaks of these two witnesses.

We believe they are Elijah and Enoch.

Some people believe Elijah and Moses, but Elijah and Enoch,

those two were the ones that never tasted physical death.

They were slain where Christ died, in Jerusalem, in the

streets there in Revelation 11/8.

After three days they resurrect from the dead in the sin in

Chapter 11 verse 11 through 12. So a literal return of Christ at

the end of the age is what we're looking at here and what we're

preparing for as we study this, all four approaches and when we

think about their views and how they look at things, in essence

anticipate this except for the full preterist view.

Now, one of the controversies in this book is the millennial

Kingdom. People usually don't argue about

what 666 means or who these two witnesses are with timing of the

rapture. That's usually not the issue

that divides the body of Christ. It's always surrounding this

issue of a millennial Kingdom. Is it a figurative Kingdom?

Is it a symbolic Kingdom? Or is it a literal 1000

millennial reign? We believe it is a literal 1000

millennial Kingdom. But even in the 2nd century, as

I said earlier when they were debating some of these things

and these centuries were closest to the days of the apostles,

what's the meaning of this thousand year reign?

Revelation 20 is probably the most debated and argued chapter

in the Bible and this chapter mentions 1000 year reign of the

Saints with Christ. Now there's 3 views of the

Millennium. The first view is

premillennialism. That's what we are.

We are a premillennial pre Trib Bible believing church.

We believe in a literal 1000 year reign of Christ on earth

after his second coming. We believe that Christ will come

to take his church one of this earth prior to the days of the

wrath of God being poured out upon the earth.

So we are pre Trib. We believe we will not be in

this tribulation that will eventually come upon the earth

and there's verses to support that.

Like God has not appointed his bride to wrath.

We'll get into that stuff from Thessalonians down the road, but

the millennial Kingdom will be a time of international peace and

justice. Christ will roll with an iron

hand. The greatest ruler of all time

will come and establish his reign on the earth at the end of

that 1000 year period. There will be one last battle

when Satan is released before the final judgment is poured

out. Now there's 2 views of this pre

millennial situation. You have the historic pre

millennial view and the dispensational pre millennial

view. We study the church fathers and

it goes way back in time where the majority of the church

fathers, those who were second to the apostles and some of them

were ordained by the apostles. They believed in a historic pre

millennial view. The dispensational pre

millennial view view is an interesting perspective.

And some of these things have become more alive actually in

the 18th century, but they sort of brought together a lot of

things that weren't really clear in earlier years.

And I believe that as time goes on, as we have more Bible tools

to study the scriptures, as we have more voices down through

the history of time, a lot of the homework has been done for

us already, which is a blessing. You get good commentaries and

you get good scholars and you lay the stuff out and you you're

able to then look at this whole thing and a very objective

manner. Dispensational premillennial

view. It differs from historic

premillennial view and that it has an emphasis on the

continuing centrality of the nation of Israel in God's end

time plan and anticipates a rapture of Christians to heaven

before the beginning of the tribulation.

We would be in that camp. We believe that Israel is very,

very important to the final combination of God's plan on the

earth. People who would not have a

historical pre mill view, people who would be all millennial

would look at the church today as being the fulfillment of

Israel and that the church in the New Testament is the

revelation of what God had always intended because Israel

had rejected Christ. But we know and Revelation 910

and 11, Paul says, has God finished with Israel?

No, he still has a plan for them.

And we know that whenever Christ comes, it says every eye will

see him. Well, how is that possible?

Now we have satellites and we have GPSI mean everything is

happening on the earth can be seen simultaneously by the whole

world. And the Bible says that they

will look up and see him whom they appears.

And many people will we get saved and be born again at the

second coming of Christ, referring to the many of those,

the Jewish descent that will come and believe in him.

So we believe these things. And as we go through the

Scripture, I want to sort of give you the view that we have,

but at the same time help you to understand why people have some

other views so that you might have some friends.

When you talk about these things, you're not ignorant.

You understand why people have some various views and maybe

make you a little stronger in regard to your own personal

convictions about these things. Now the post millennial view,

this is considered eschatology of hope and what they view is

that Christ comes after the thousand year period.

That's when his second coming occurs.

The Kingdom is established by evangelism on earth.

So in other words, all of us have such a great influence,

impact on the world that the world begins to become Christian

and not Pagan. Most people will become

Christians prior to the thousand year reign of peace, before

Christ returns and His second coming.

And so they see the disasters of the past and also the things

that are written in Revelation. They're more preterists in their

view that all those things happened already.

Well, I don't know about you guys, but I've been living on

the face of the earth for 58 years.

I don't see things getting better.

I wish they would, but they're getting worse.

And the Bible declares throughout the Scriptures that

the things are going to get worse.

That doesn't keep us from sharing our faith, bringing hope

to people and seeing people's lives change because of the

Gospel, right? We just don't give up and say

there's nothing we can do. Things are going no, we have to

have faith and believe because it could be another year, could

be 1000 years before these things come to pass.

But I sense that they're much closer than they've ever been

before. Then this all millennial view,

and this is a view of your Catholics and your Orthodox,

your Anglican, some Presbyterians, some Lutheran's.

This view is that the thousand year reign is symbolic, it's

just a long period of time from Christ's initial coming to His

second coming. They believe that the binding of

Satan happened spiritually at the cross at the reign of the

Saints is in the present age, and the loosing of Satan is a

final period of deception coming on the world at the end of the

age. They believe the second coming

is what relates to revelation when it says fire from heaven

that devours the wicked is the second coming.

This is a view of Augustine and many of the reformers, but the

early church fathers. And I've studied a lot of this

stuff because I'm curious about it and why do people have the

views that they have? And you go back and you'll find

that many of those early church fathers were premillennial.

They believed in a literal 1000 year reign and as we study this

book, you'll, I believe, come to some of those same conclusions.

What influenced the amillennial view were the Greek and Roman

influences. They call it the Alexandrian

philosophy at the time. And so that's why a lot of

people began to receive or accept the amillennial view.

I hope some of that help. But let's look at chapter 1

again and verse 1, the introduction of 1st 8 verses.

We're just going to look at a few of the verses this morning.

9 through 20 talks about the vision of the risen, glorified

Christ, the Lord of the church. Verse 1, the revelation of Jesus

Christ which God gave Him to show His servants things which

must shortly take place. God's intention all the time for

His people is to be alert and aware of what is on the horizon.

He does not leave us ignorant. The reason people are ignorant

today is that they don't study the scriptures.

They don't listen to the scriptures.

That's why people have so many wild and crazy ideas.

But God's intention through the apostle John, given this

revelation by the angels of God and by Christ himself, was that

we might understand the things that will occur at the end of

time. Now he says that these things

will shortly take place. You might say, well, he wrote

this over 2000 years ago. It doesn't seem like it's too

short, you know, seems like it's a long time.

Well, Peter tells us, especially in regard to the end of time,

that one day with the Lord is like 1000 years and 1000 years

is only one day. So we got 2000 years that have

passed. And God's time, what we call

Kairos, is 2 days. Earth time is chronological

chronos, God's time is Kairos. And as a result, there has been

little time that has gone by. From the perspective of the one

that sits on the throne. The time is at hand and it's

imminent. The Cairo's focus of God's

timing is the expectation that Christ can return at any moment.

And that's how the apostles live, and that's how we're to

live. Jesus himself said, look up.

Even when he was on earth, he said, your redemption draws

nigh. And so John bears record of

these things. He saw and he heard, and Jesus

revealed these things to him. John saw it and he recorded

these things without air, that Christ would be revealed for our

benefit. And so he sent and signified by

his Angel to his servant John, who bore witness or bear record

to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ.

All the things he saw blessed. Is he who reads and those who

hear the words of this prophecy. I've talked to some people and

they say, oh, I don't like Revelation.

I'm confused or I think it's boring.

How can anybody think this is boring?

This is like the most exciting book they could read on the face

of the earth. But people don't like reading it

because it causes anxiety for some folks, which it should if

you aren't a follower of Jesus Christ.

But it's a blessing for us today.

Even just the fact that if I did nothing else today, guys, and I

just read this book to you and you listen to it and we live

these things out. The blessings are promised by

God. We're blessed whenever we read

the whole Bible. But there's a specific blessing

in regards to reading this book and to do this thing that it

says. Now in the early church, they

didn't have the Bible like this. So when the church gathered and

they didn't gather in buildings, they gathered in homes, the

teacher would read what was in the letters wasn't a bound book

like this. It was pages.

And the people didn't have this to look at.

We're so blessed. You guys can pull out of the Pew

or your own Bibles today and follow along.

But back then, the people listened to the person who was

reading it. One person would read this

epistle while the others listened.

And there was again, I said, promise blessings.

So as we study this book in the days ahead, the most exciting

thing for each of us. And I get discouraged sometimes

when I see the things that are going on in the world and the

government and the heartache and the horror and tribulation and

the insanity of the economic system.

Everything seems very unstable to me in these days, very

uncertain. But one thing I do know for sure

is that God's on the throne and that nothing is out of control

because He's sovereign. Everything is coming along

according to His plan. And the final triumph of God

over sin and of Satan and the final safety of the believer in

the Kingdom one day is 100% assured by the things that are

taught in this particular book. As we study this book, we focus

on one all the allegories assembles, the fascinating

events, the judgments, all the focus on futuristic events.

All well and good exciting, but this is what we focus on.

The him who loved us, Jesus, the one who washed us from our sins

in his own blood. That's the most important thing

and has made us kings and priests to his God and Father,

to him be glory and dominion forever and ever, all men.

So today I look at you as students of God's Word, but I

must also see you as kings and priests here today, as you would

see me that way. We have been given a royal

privilege to be called not only the sons and daughters of God,

but to be called priests and kings.

I don't have a big empire. You don't either.

But He has the empire that extends throughout all the

universe, and He's chosen you to be a priest and a king within

His Kingdom. So as we look at what's going on

today and the struggles and the difficulties, the best is yet to

come, isn't it? For those of us who know Christ

and are called according to His purposes.

So I encourage you to read ahead.

We're going to go slow through this book.

We'll be working through this first chapter in the weeks to

come. May the Lord open your heart.

May He excite you about what He has planned to teach you through

this, and may He cause the Person of Jesus Christ to become

more real. I'm more alive to you than He's

ever been before. That's my hope, my prayer for

all of us. Thanks for being with us today

here on Living Waters of Grace. We are in the Book of

Revelation, and we find it fascinating how influential and

involved the angels are in this book.

They bring about whatever it is that God has instructed them to

do, but it's through their actions that much of the

judgements come on the earth. The angels are in submission to

God as their authority, but He utilizes them in unique ways

throughout this book. Like angels have a specific

purpose from God, you have a unique purpose and plan to.

God wants to use you in your life as a testimony to others

and to bring others who are currently lost into the fold of

God. God would love more than

anything for all who are willing to come to Him for salvation.

He wants it to be their choice, not a forced situation.

This is the way God works, not forcing himself on anyone, but

giving each person free will. If you're interested in learning

about this choice that's free and that it's a gift, go to

calvarychapelonline.com and click on the About Us tab and

then find the link for what we believe.

We'd love to be a help and a resource for you as you walk

through what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

If you find the contact tab on our website, you can get in

touch with us or submit a prayer request.

We'd love to hear from you. That's all for today's edition

and Revelation, but there's much more that Pastor Clark plans to

share with us from this culminating book of the Bible.

Stay tuned for that and make sure to mention this radio

program to others. Invite them to tune in to Grace

FM 91.7 FM and they can stream worldwide at Grace Radio dot FM.

This has been living Waters of Grace.