Living Waters of Grace 11.24.25

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.

They were convicted about the things they were reading, the

things they were studying, and they brought their books

together and they burned them as sight of all.

So all the people in Ephesus, there's a big deal going on

here. People are magnifying the Lord.

People are confessing their sins.

They're bringing all their garbage and they're pouring and

whatever it might be and they're going to burn it.

And it says they counted up the value of them and a total of

50,000 pieces of silver in today's money.

That could be between 1:00 and $5 million.

Imagine a community coming out in the open about all their

deepest secrets and hidden pleasures.

What if people were exposing all the porn they'd been looking at,

or all the books of a sexual nature that some had been

indulging in behind closed doors?

Well, this is what was happening in the city of Ephesus as Pastor

Clark is going to fill you in today.

There was true conviction happening in the hearts of these

people. Guess what, By taking an action

and moving away from sin, God was glorified.

Now here's Pastor Clark in the book of Acts Chapter 19 with

Acts 19 · chapter mention

today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.

Paul's in this city that is predominantly Pagan.

There's very few Christians. There's not even a church at

this time. So visualize yourself.

Your friend of Paul, he wants to have some Bible studies.

He rented a facility from a guy that had some real estate that

wasn't using it at certain hours of the day, between 11:00 and

4:00 in the afternoon. And he invited people like us at

the time that were in the community to come and study the

Bible, study the word. Of course, it would have been

primarily the Old Testament Scriptures, but he was writing

letters. So he was using things that the

Holy Spirit had been giving him that were eventually codified in

what we call the day our Bible, 66 Books of the Bible.

So as he's teaching these people that the things of the Spirit,

people like you and me, we're sitting there and we're getting

changed. We're hearing the word.

So all these things are happening and they're learning.

And so they're going out from this Bible study every day.

Can you imagine being in a Bible?

It's one thing to be in a Bible study with me.

I ain't anywhere near Paul. OK, I'm lip syncing what Paul

wrote. This is all what he, you know,

Luke translated this and put it into this book, the book of the

Acts. But these these are the this is

the life of Paul, his ministry. But to be able to sit with an

apostle for six hours a day, five days a week for over almost

three years, he would be really grounded.

You'd really know what the Bible was all about, but not any of

that. They were going out and in the

power of the Holy Spirit. They were impacting the

community and the provinces around the area that Paul was

ministering in at the time and Acts.

So the purpose of the church and in our church to hear is to

explode on the outside so that people that don't know Jesus

begin to hear about him and want to know about him and they end

up maybe coming here to hear more about him.

OK, or or another Bible church, whatever.

And so this is impacting the whole known world at the time

the gospel was going out and the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so Paul, not any was preaching because the gospel in

and of itself is the power of God and the salvation to

everyone that believes, to the Jew 1st and also to the Greek.

So I don't need to have a miracle in front of me before

I'm a Christian to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of

the living God. The Holy Spirit does the miracle

in my heart to cause me to believe the message of the

gospel. And then when I believe that

message, then my life is dramatically transformed.

I'm saved, I become born again. I have new eyesight, I have new

vision, new passion, new desires and my my life is is brand new

and yours is too. When you come to faith in Christ

and that is the miracle of miracles.

You know of someone becoming born again, passing from death

to light, from darkness to light.

And now our followers of God as as opposed to followers of the

devil in his lies. And so not any though the

preaching at the time, but Jews require a sign, it said.

So signs are real important to the Jewish people.

The Greeks seeked after wisdom. Jews seek a sign.

So in order to authenticate the message that Paul is proclaiming

that Jesus is the Messiah to a predominantly Jewish population

at the time these miracles occurred.

And so these handkerchiefs and these weren't like things he was

blowing his nose on. These were sweat bands he put

around his head when he was doing his tent making.

The apron were the made out of leather.

And he used this to put his tools in whenever he was making

his living as he was preaching the gospel and and making tents.

And So what happened was I don't know who came up with the idea.

I know it wouldn't have been Paul.

He wouldn't have said we'll take this and put it on someone sick

and, and they'll be okay and they'll be healed.

No, that wasn't the way it worked.

Somehow the Spirit of God, this ended up getting some of this

stuff out into these different places.

And when it touched the bodies of some of these people, it says

that they were delivered from their sickness.

Diseases left them and, and, and not any of that evil spirits

went out from them automatically just by the touching of this

point of contact of a man who is highly anointed of God.

It wasn't anything in and of Paul.

It was Christ in Paul that enabled this to actually occur.

Now, you don't really read about this in any other part of the

Bible. You have to realize that the

miracles in the Bible started with Moses primarily, and then

they were Elijah and Elijah and then they were Jesus and the

apostles. Those were the three stages of

the ages of miracles in in church history and in the Bible.

There's less than 100 miracles codified or quantified in detail

where we can read and study them tells us and John Jesus did many

other miracles that there wouldn't have been enough books

in the world to contain everything he did.

But God felt that it was necessary to give us enough

indication that he does work within the miraculous realm.

Now today I could RIP part of my sweater off here If you had a

headache and and tell you to put it on your forehead, nothing's

going to happen. These charlatans on TV that sell

these things and tell you to send money in and they prayed

for them and and they soak their sweat in them.

If you send 50 bucks and they'll send you this cloth.

I mean, it's just nothing but con artists and RIP off.

This happened one time and you know, and other times, if you

read church history documents from way back in the early days,

there has been miracles that occurred that there was no

explanation for. People have laid hands on me and

prayed for me. And when I've been sick or

having a problem and I've done the same thing for other people,

and sometimes God shows up and brings healing and other times,

OK, you take the medicine, right?

That's just the way it is. I prefer to get the healing and

not take the medicine. But you know, if I got to take

the medicine, I take the medicine.

And you do too. But there's nothing wrong with

seeking God for a touch supernaturally.

There was a true story and I saw the movie and I read the history

and it was authenticated that this guy, Nectarius was his name

and he was a very godly, monastic kind of guy, praying

all the time, a very holy man, very saintly man.

And Mickey Rourke, the guy played in that movie, that

boxing movie, he played the part of this drunk coal miner that

was living at the time that Nectarius was living on this

particular island. And he somehow, I think he had a

drinking problem and he fell off a Cliff and paralyzed himself.

So he's in bed and he can't move.

And Victarius is in bed with prostate cancer.

And this is what always fascinated me.

Here's Paul. Able to do miracles, right?

People getting healed, delivered.

Paul had a physical affliction, the thorn in the flesh.

He asked God three times to take it from him.

He didn't like RIP off his shirt and put it on his wherever it

was hurting and to say, OK, make it happen.

He had to suffer it. And then the Lord said, hey, I'm

not going to answer the prayer. My strength is made perfect in

your weakness at the power of Christ would rest upon you.

So Paul had to deal with the illness and the affliction that

he had. Everybody's going to die of

something. Even after Lazarus was raised

from a dead miraculously, guess what?

He eventually died physically. We all have to die physically.

But so anyway, this, this nectarious guy, he's laying in

bed and and Mickey Rourke, the actor, he's laying there.

Why would God allow me to have this problem?

I can't move. What good am I going to be to my

wife and my kids? I can't make a living.

He's depressed, he's complaining and nectarious just sort of

laying there in agony and pain. He just smiles as well.

Maybe God will surprise you. That's all he said.

Well, this is wild. So Nectarious dies, they come

in, the nurses are taking the shirt and everything off.

They throw the shirt on the bed to the guy, Mickey Rourke, the

actor laying there in the bed. And within several minutes he's

completely healed and he's able to walk.

His body's restored. Now.

You can't re enact the stuff you you can't figure it out.

I mean, even when Jesus did healing, they were always

different. Sometimes he'd spit on the, the

dirt and get the mud and rub it in someone's eyes or some other

time a woman would touch the hem of his garment.

I, I all I know is that God is able to do the miraculous and we

can pray and ask him to do that. And sometimes we experience

that, but there's no guarantee. There's no man.

You can go to some woman that it's a holy person to ask him to

pray. And just because it's them,

they're going to be able to do something for you.

It's only the Lord, and He does everything after the counsel of

his own will, even the gifts of the Spirit.

He gives them out severally as He wills.

The idea of faith healers is not biblical, but the the idea of

the gift of healing is biblical. But even the people that have

been used by God to pray for people and their health, and

there's been evidence of maybe a higher percentage of people

being healed doesn't mean that everybody's going to get healed.

But anyway, this this instance of this occurring in here was to

get the attention of these Jewish people.

And it did in verse 13, and some of the itinerant Jewish exorcist

took it upon themselves to call in the name of the Lord Jesus

over those who had evil spirits, saying we exercise you by the

Jesus whom Paul preaches. Also there were seven sons of

Skiva, a Jewish chief priest who did so.

So these Jewish people at the time, unbelievers, had some kind

of capacity because they did believe in the God of Abraham,

Isaac and Jacob. So there was some anointing

authority in their lives and I guess they had experiences at

times where they were used and God worked through them to

deliver people from demonic possession or oppression.

But their minds are thinking and they're not even believers yet.

Well, like Paul prays in Jesus name and there's, there's

miracles that occur. So let's try this.

Let's see if it works for us. Well, well, first of all, it's,

it's humorous here. What's going to happen because

these, these sons of the, the Jewish chief priests thought

that maybe they could make some new kind of ministry going on

here. And, and it says in verse 15,

the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus, I know and Paul, I

know, but who are you? Boy, that's scary, huh?

They're in the house with this demonic person, the spirit.

They think they're going to have an overcoming experience here

and these demon demons going to be cast out.

And this is what happens in verse 16.

Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them,

overpowered them and prevailed against them so that they fled

out of that house naked and wounded.

Wouldn't that be something? One guy, the strength of this

person possessed by the devil was able to whoop 7 grown

healthy young men and not any beat them up and tear their

clothes off and and have them running out humiliated by what

it was they tried to do. The devil's always trying to

replicate or duplicate the miraculous.

We remember Moses with the rod and throw it down it turns into

a snake. Well, God allowed that to happen

when the magicians were able to replicate certain degrees of

those miracles, right? And so that's because there's a

miracle that occurs, doesn't mean it's the Lord.

The devil comes with lying signs and wonders, a matter of fact,

in the last days when the Antichrist comes on the scene

and the false prophet, they'll be all kind of miraculous.

That will be occurring like we've never, ever experienced.

And there'll be a lot of people thinking that he's the Christ

and he'll be the Antichrist. And so this became known in

verse 17 both to all the Jews and the Greeks dwelling in

Ephesus, and fear fell on all of them.

So we're in Greensburg here. It's in the newspaper.

Channel 4 News is down there interviewing.

We are all aware that something spectacular happened and scary.

And so we know there's problems in Greensburg.

There's demonic activity, there's demonic activity

everywhere. There's satanic powers, there's

a Oak Hall, there's astrology, there's false religion, there's

all these kind of things that are happening in the day and age

that we live. And these are the things that

bind people into immoral lifestyles.

Someone doesn't this one day wake up and say, well, I think

I'm going to, I'm a guy, so I think I want to have some sex

with a guy. I mean, that's that is demonic.

It's not real. It's not, I don't care what any

psychologist or what any kind of secular humanists or what

they're trying to tell us in government now and all these

things, these things are not normal.

Matter of fact, Roman Empire fell because of the this

promiscuity and this increased atmosphere of gay and lesbian

lifestyle and abortion that eventually that nation was

destroyed. And we are this close right now

with testing God with what it is we're doing as a culture and

people saying good is evil and evil is good.

And we as Christians need This is why like we need to get out

of the building, have conversations.

We don't need to condemn people. We don't hate people.

We need to love them enough to tell them, hey, what you're

doing is sin and your sin will cause you to eventually be in

hell. That's the bottom line.

Now, I hope I'm not hurting anybody's feelings here today.

But if you're living in a lifestyle that is not God's will

and, and in his word, you're going to suffer consequences.

You already are. The amount of people who are

taking their lives that have tried this transgenderism and

all this crazy stuff out there, sex changes and all this, it is

unbelievable. You got to do the research, the

statistics, and you know, and it isn't unloving.

It's loving to tell people the truth.

It's unloving to just say, well, it's OK, That's whatever you

want to do, go ahead and do it. And so Paul wasn't that kind of

guy. And nor are we these kind of

people that this ignore these issues of sin today, even in our

own time and our own culture. And So what happened was they're

they're afraid now that the beginning of wisdom is the fear

of the Lord and depart from evil.

That tells us in Proverbs, you're really catching on when

you begin to fear the consequences of your sin.

You don't play around with it anymore.

You don't justify, you don't say, well, that's OK, and

everybody's doing it. No big deal.

It's a big deal. It's a big, big deal.

And So what happened was these people are are are starting to

get frightened. And whenever you have an

encounter with God to such a degree over your sin, and you

know you have one or two choices to make, you either continue in

your sin and you perish, or you get right with God and you

repent and you leave your sin. And this began to cause such a a

move of God's spirit. And the city of Ephesus, it says

that fear fell on them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was

magnified. That's what we need to have

happen today. At the name of Jesus, every knee

will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord to the glory of God the Father.

There is no other name given among men under heaven by which

we can be saved or must be saved.

Jesus is the truth. He's the way, the truth the

life. No man comes to the Father but

through him. And so Jesus was magnified.

He said if he be lifted up, he will draw all men to himself.

Pray for Pastor Lewis and myself that when we preach the Word,

we're preaching the Word with the name Jesus involved in the

Word. Because the Bible without Jesus

is just a bunch of words, but the Bible with Jesus can turn

the world upside down. And this is what was happening

here. Now we'll read.

Many are intimidated now they're fearful.

And many who had believed came confessing and telling their

deeds. Can you imagine Calvary today?

Some of you guys are getting saved.

Hey, I'm not leaving today until I tell you what God's delivered

me from before I came here today, I was sleeping around

with every, every woman I could find or whatever.

I was chasing some guy down the street or some woman says, well,

I'm sleeping with all the different girls out there in the

community, you know, and the Lord convicted me and I couldn't

live that way anymore and I repented.

And I want to tell you guys what Jesus did for me, right?

If you ever have a testimony, let me know.

Because the more we hear what the Lord's done, the more he's

glorified and the more people here they say, well, maybe he

could do that for me. People are trapped in sin.

People don't just decide one day that they want to be immoral.

They start becoming immoral and then they're trapped.

They don't know how to stop being immoral.

And they're they're in bondage and they're under the influence

of the devil and says. And so these people, they're

confessing and telling their deeds.

Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their

books together and burned them in the sight of all.

Now, I've been a student of all kind of religions my whole life,

and I was into Buddhism for a while and I was into, you know,

reading whatever was esoteric or ocaldic, and I didn't even know

what I was doing at the time. It just fascinated me.

What makes the world go round and why is this happened?

Why is that? And how far is the sky going?

And what's truth? You know, until I came to know

Christ, I had no idea what truth was.

So I have a bunch of books. And there are a lot of them are

in my garage now in a box. This, I don't know.

What am I going to do with them? Maybe we should have a bonfire

this summer somewhere. I'll bring my old books and you

bring yours too, you know. But anyway, this is what was

happening here, right? They were convicted about the

things they were reading, the things they were studying, and

they brought their books together and they burned them.

A sight of all. So all the people in Ephesus,

there's a big deal going on here.

People are magnifying the Lord. People are confessing their

sins. They're bringing all their

garbage and they're porn and whatever it might be, and

they're going to burn it. And it says they counted up the

value of them and a total of 50,000 pieces of silver in the

days money. That could be between 1:00 and

$5,000,000. I read back and that day that

silver was worth about $10,000, which is a lot of money.

It was enough for 150 people to make their livelihood for a

whole year. That's how much was destroyed in

this in this fire. And as a result of that, what

happened? It says the word of the Lord

grew mightily and prevailed. So we have a calm church here

today. Usually I'm a calm pastor

because a lot of you fall asleep when I teach.

Hey, so you have a very nice voice.

You know what a day my voice is a little bit more, you know,

whatever you know, I don't know, but you know, you're not falling

asleep today as much as you normally do.

It's not that the message is any better, but the the text is

better because we're reading about the Lord being magnified

and and so as a result of the word, the message in the gospel

is growing mightily. It's prevailing in the world.

It's prevailing in the community.

I find that as the Lord move in a small Pagan city, Ephesus at

the time, with 95% and 98% of the people being unbelievers,

all the sudden this one guy with some friends, the whole city is

being turned upside down. So you and I might say, well,

we're in a hopeless situation. We got a Pagan government, we

got legislators or you know, sanctioning immorality.

We, you know, they, they're doing this, they're doing, who

cares what they do? We need to be doing what we're

supposed to do. And if we do what we're supposed

to do, we're not like bad mouthing people and putting them

down or judging them. I mean, I'm no better than

anybody else, but I know someone who's better than all of us.

And his names Jesus. And he can save you from your

sin. You got to repent.

You got to turn. You got to turn to Jesus.

And So what happens is when a city begins to do that and a

community begins to do that, then all of a sudden we are salt

and light. You know, we begin to impact and

counter balance or counter attack all this movement toward

this godless world. Like I think the problem with

the church and Christians in general was we don't think we

can do anything anymore. So we don't vote, or we don't

witness, or we don't pray, or we don't intercede.

There's all these options in the Bible of things that we can do

as God's people that can begin to turn things the other way.

And throughout the ages of time, God's work with the remnant of

people who have been open to the Spirit of God that he could work

in to turn things in a different direction again.

And if we were ever at a point in our time and our history and

our nation and our own lives and in our own churches as

evangelicals, we need this movement of God.

We need this freshness of God's Spirit.

We need people to be raised up in the church with ministries

and giftings and callings and abilities to let it all out and

give it all for Jesus now. Amen.

I mean, what are we waiting for? Thanks for joining us on this

journey through Acts. On today's edition of Living

Waters of Grace, Pastor Clark shares that one of the most

remarkable things about the book of Acts is how it shows the

disciples transformation. The followers of Jesus we meet

here are very different from the often confused and fearful

disciples in the Gospels. After Jesus's death and

resurrection, and especially through the power of the Holy

Spirit, the apostles experienced a profound change in their

hearts and boldness. Their faith became unwavering,

and they moved forward with courage to spread the gospel

despite opposition and hardship. Acts reminds us that the same

Spirit who empowered them is at work in US today, shaping our

hearts and giving us strength to live boldly for Christ.

Living Waters of Grace is a ministry of Calvary Chapel

Westmoreland. If you're in the Greensburg, PA

area, we invite you to join us this Sunday at 10:30 AM at 400 E

Pittsburgh St. Unit 6B.

Visit calvarychapelonline.com For more information where you

can also join our e-mail list, submit prayer requests, give

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We're so grateful that you joined us today in Acts.

TuneIn again soon for another edition of Living Waters of

Grace.