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Living Waters of Grace, March 23rd, 2026 · Living Waters of Grace / Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland Sunday Services

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This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
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Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
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County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
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continues teaching through God's Word.
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We all have a ritual, I hope in the morning, something that we
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do personally be before us and our God before we leave our
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homes, before we leave our families.
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It's there's some place in the house that we get alone with God
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where only he can see us and we get on our faces before him.
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And we worship Him this way, pouring out our hearts to Him,
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asking Him to examine our hearts, to search us, to know
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us, to see if there's anything in us that needs to be removed
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and to be taken out. Do you have that practice?
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Do you have a time that's dedicated to God, where you talk
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to Him and listen for His voice? As Christians, we call this a
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quiet time or a devotional. Ultimately, it's just time with
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Jesus, however that may look, Pastor Clark will challenge you
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today to set aside a time to be with Jesus so that he could do
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the work in your heart that only he can do.
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He can cleanse you of sin and empower you to live a holy life
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for him. Now.
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Here's Pastor Clark in the Book of Ephesians, chapter one with
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today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
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Ephesians chapter one verse 13 and 14, It says in him you also
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trusted. This is regarding him, Jesus
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Christ and him you also trusted after you heard the word of
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truth, the gospel, your salvation, whom also having
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believed says you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
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who is a guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption
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of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory.
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So the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us.
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We're sealed by the power of God through the person of the Holy
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Spirit, and it's the evidence that we belong to God without
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the Holy Spirit. You aren't a Christian.
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And you should know if you have the Holy Spirit because whenever
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you have the Holy Spirit, your life has changed, your desires
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have changed, your interests, your motivation.
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You have conviction now about sin in a way that you didn't
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have it whenever you didn't have the Holy Spirit.
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And it says in First Corinthians 12/13 for by 1 Spirit are we all
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baptized into the body of Christ, the baptism of the Holy
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Spirit placing us from one place outside of the Kingdom of God,
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and then doing a work by his Spirit and placing us into a new
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family by his Spirit and Spirit baptism.
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And if you study the ancient foundational documents like the
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Nicean Creed or some of these things that fought out the
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truths of historic Christianity in the beginning, because of all
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the heresies, says there's one Lord.
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And Ephesians says there's one Lord, 1 faith, one baptism, one
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God and Father of all, who's above all and in all and through
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us all. And so we're sealed by the Holy
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Spirit of promise. And it tells us in chapter 4,
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verse 30 of Ephesians, it says, and do not grieve the Holy
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Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of
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redemption. How do you grieve the Holy
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Spirit? It says, let all bitterness and
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wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from
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you with all malice and be kind to one one another, tender
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hearted, forgiving one another, even as God and grace forgave
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you. If we hold bitterness and anger
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and any kind of attitude in our heart toward anybody, toward
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God, toward any kind of situation, it says we grieve the
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Holy Spirit, we hurt the Holy Spirit, we wound the Holy
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Spirit. And the Holy Spirit can't just
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say I'm out of here. I don't like dealing with Clark
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right now. He's just like making me
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miserable, you know, He just makes me feel like I don't want
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to be in him anymore. With the beauty of the Holy
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Spirit is he doesn't depart in the new covenant.
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He dwells in US forever. We're in the Old Testament.
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Remember David prayed in Psalm 51.
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Take not your Holy Spirit from me.
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That was his biggest fear because the indwelling, the
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permanent of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit didn't occur
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until Pentecost. And so these things are
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important. But in Revelation 7, this is
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what he's going to do for these 144,000.
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He's going to mark them with the seal, the Holy Spirit.
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And the ceiling is something, it's done and seen by God.
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I don't see a physical mark on you or you don't see one on me.
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But it's evident by how we live and how we treat each other if
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we are in Christ. But Jesus says by this shall
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people know you're my disciples by the love you have for one
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another. And so in this sense of what God
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is doing in verse 2, he is making this mark visible though
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to the spirit world and all the demons of hell and the person,
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the Antichrist. They're going to know for sure
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that these people have been set apart by God and there will be a
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certain protection given to them in the midst of all these
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cataclysmic events during this time in order for them to do
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what it is God's called them to do during this tribulation.
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All those from the ends of the earth, the other nations, the
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other people groups will be directly impacted by the
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evangelistic methodology of these 144,000 during this time
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of tribulation. And so in in verse 3, it says do
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not harm the earth and the sea or the trees till we have sealed
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the servants of our God and our forehead.
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So this command is given to the angels and these angels are the
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very ones that will sound the trumpet judgments as we get into
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chapter 8 next week. This won't start again until
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these servants of God are sealed and protected by the Lord God.
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So how are people going to get saved during this time?
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When you think about it, I mean, with the Antichrist ruling and
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hassling people and persecuting Christians, how are people going
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to be saved? Well, we'll study later on about
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the two witnesses that were eventually martyred that God
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will raise up. But there's going to be such
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powerful testimony during this time of tribulation, in the
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midst of the chaos, in the midst of the trials and the
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tribulations that are going to come upon the world.
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It's going to cause people to do one of two things.
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They're going to move away farther and farther from God and
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curse him, or they're going to move closer to him and say,
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there's got to be an answer to this.
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I don't want to have to deal with this.
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I need mercy. I need grace.
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And many of those people will remember the things that you and
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I had told them while we were alive, prior to us being caught
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up in the air. I don't know about you, but as a
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unbeliever prior to coming to Christ, what drew me to Christ
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was trials and tribulation. It was the lifestyle I was
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living. It was the condemnation and the
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guilt and the darkness. It was all about me from my drug
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induced hippie stage. And I, I just, I cried out to
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God I didn't know existed and I asked for His help and I asked
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him if he was real, that he would reveal himself to me and
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show me who He was. And he did.
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And it put me on the beginning path of my salvation.
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I, I look at people in life and I know that God uses trials for
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both groups. He uses trials and believers
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lives to cause us to get on our face and say, Lord, I want to
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move towards you, not away from you.
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And for unbelievers, he causes trials to come on their lives to
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break them so that they would repent and turn to God for mercy
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and for grace. So God the Holy Spirit, as we
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talked about last week, last week, he is everywhere present
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and he fills all things. When the church is taken out at
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the rapture, the Holy Spirit as a a person is in us.
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He goes with us to the Kingdom. But at the same time, the Holy
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Spirit is a spirit. He's God, he's omnipresent, he's
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everywhere present. So doesn't mean because he goes
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up with us, he's nowhere else. He's everywhere.
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And the only way this work of God can be occurring on the face
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of the earth this time with these 100 and 44,000, is through
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the power of the Holy Spirit. John 16-8 And this is prior to
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the Holy Spirit being poured out in Pentecost.
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This is what the Lord says about the person, the Holy Spirit.
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It says He will convict the world of sin.
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He'll still be doing that during the tribulation and of
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righteousness and of judgment of sin because they do not believe
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in me of righteousness because I go to my father and you see me
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no more. And of judgment because the
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ruler of this world is judged. Of course, that's the the
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Antichrist. So we we began to pick it up
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here in verse 4 and it says and I heard the number of those who
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were sealed. 144,000 of all the tribes of the children of
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Israel, verse 5, the tribe of Judah, 12,000 were sealed.
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Of the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 were sealed.
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Of the tribe of Gad, 12,000 were sealed.
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Of the tribe of Asher, 12,000 were sealed.
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Of the tribe of Neptali, 12,000 were sealed.
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Of the tribe of Manasseh, 12,000 were sealed.
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Of the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 were sealed.
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Of the tribe of Levi, 12,000 were sealed.
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The tribe of Issachar 12,000 were sealed.
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The tribe of Zebulun 12,000 were sealed.
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The tribe of Joseph 12,000 were sealed.
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The tribe of Benjamin 12,000 were sealed.
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So we see this tremendous move of God's spirit.
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And what's what's amazing is if you ask a Jewish person today,
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what tribe are you descending of?
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They don't have a clue. They've lost all record of their
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historical setup in the in that place of the world.
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But God knows, he knows our lineage.
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Of course, we're all descendants of Adam and Eve.
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That's that's a fairly easy one for even us to understand,
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right? But the tribes are real specific
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and they'll be used to give God glory throughout the Book of
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Revelation. And so we see the specific names
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of these tribes. Now, some of you are Bible
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scholars in here and you might say, well, there, there's a
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couple mistakes in there. Clark, why isn't the why isn't
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some of these other guys mentioned in here, like Dan, the
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tribe of Dan, It was mentioned in the Old Testament.
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Well, some people, you know, there's sometimes some things in
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the scripture. What are you going to do make it
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up and just say, well, I think it, you know, sometimes it's
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better to say, I don't know. But God has a reason, though.
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He God doesn't make any mistakes in his word.
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There's a reason why there was a couple of adjustments and, and,
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and this tribe of Dan, Some people believe the reason it
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wasn't included. This is conjecture, but it's a
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possibility that the Antichrist will come up through the the
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tribe of Dan. I don't know, but one of the
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other interesting things here is that we see the the tribe of
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Levi's mentioned here and they weren't given a inheritance in
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the sense of an earthly Kingdom. Whenever they're their reign was
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going on, they were the priests unto God and the and the temple
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and their inheritance was a heavenly blessing.
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Their inheritance was the Lord. But here they show up again.
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And then you have Joseph who had, you know, two sons,
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Manasseh and Ephraim. Well, for whatever reason here
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we see Manasseh mentioned, but we don't see Ephraim mentioned,
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but we see Joseph mentioned so that the number still comes down
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to be the same. But all these guys, they're,
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they're descendants of Jacob and historical, why God's doing this
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that we'll get into a little bit later as we move on in
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Revelation 2112, after the Millennium and the new heaven
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and the new earth and the new Jerusalem, there's going to be
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12 gates in this new Jerusalem, and each one will bear the name
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of one of the tribes of Israel. It's going to be fascinating.
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And there will be that great door of Judah representing the
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line of the tribe of Judah, our Savior Jesus Christ.
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In verse 9 it says, after these things I looked and behold, a
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great multitude which no one could number of all the nations,
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tribes, peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and
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before the Lamb closed with white robes, with palm branches
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in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice saying,
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salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne into the
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Lamb. What a tremendous picture here
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of hope that in spite of the hell that's going to be poured
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out into the world during the Tribulation, you're going to
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have all these people from all over the world that are going to
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come to know Christ during this time.
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Part of this vision that John is having is that many Gentiles
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will be saved, a great multitude.
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There's so many people here, he can't even begin to describe the
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number. And that should give us hope
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because there will be some of our loved ones that won't make
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it out in the Rapture with us, but that doesn't mean it's over
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for them. And that might be a good
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conversation to have with some family, some friends.
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Hey, you might not buy into this.
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You don't want to believe it right now.
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That's between you and God. But when this does happen,
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remember that there's still hope that you can still believe.
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It'll be tougher to believe them because you will most likely
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face true death and martyrdom to make your stand for Jesus
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Christ. And it says they're going to
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have white robes on. And the significance of these
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robes is a beautiful situation here where it talks about these
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robes that are washed and they're made white in the blood
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of the Lamb. Only the blood of Jesus Christ,
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Amen, can make us clean, not by works of righteousness, which we
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have done, but according to His mercy.
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He saved us without the shedding of blood.
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There is no remission of sins. It's not my good life that I
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think I live or you live our good works, although our works
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are in evidence of our relationship with Christ.
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As the old hymn said, nothing in my hands I bring only to the
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cross I cling. And so the blood of Jesus Christ
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upon every one of us today. And we all know what we are,
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don't we? Down deep inside we know what we
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still are and what we need to become by the grace of God.
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But that God in his mercy looks at us and he sees this blood
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that's been shed and that we're his children, that we're covered
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by this blood, not having a righteousness of our own, Amen,
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but the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
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That should give you such hope today and such confidence and
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such comfort that as He sees you, He chooses to see you
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clothed in the righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ.
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And we need to be reminded of that when we look at each other
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and we see the warts and the stains and the failings and the
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struggles. Try to ask the Lord to give you
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a vision of one another that you're wearing a robe that's
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white and it's pure and you're not looking at all the
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inconsistencies or the weaknesses of one another's
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lives, but you're looking at each other as God sees you
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holding him without blame before him in love.
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And they're waving these palms and these palms are symbols of
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rejoicing and gladness and, and they and they begin to sing and
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all this worship that's going on in the Kingdom of heaven, as
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Rick talked about it, says they're crying with a loud voice
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saying salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne into
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the lamb. Salvation belongs to our God, no
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one else. Only God has the authority and
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the ability to save us. All the angels stood around the
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throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and they
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fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God,
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saying Amen, blessings and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and
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honor and power, and might be to our God forever and ever.
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Amen. I know so little about this kind
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of worship, but I long to experience it more alone with
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God. We all have a ritual, I hope in
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the morning, something that we do personally be before us and
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our God before we leave our homes, before we leave our
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families. It's there's some place in the
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house that we get alone with God where only He can see us, and we
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get on our faces before Him. And we worship him this way,
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pouring out our hearts to Him, asking him to examine our
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hearts, to search us, to know us, to see if there's anything
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in us that needs to be removed and to be taken out.
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And this is true worship, guys. I mean, as good as this worship
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is here this morning, right? It can't come faintly close to
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what this worship is like in the throne room of heaven.
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I think the beautiful thing is when we enter into that place,
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we're not going to have to look around and say, what are they
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doing? How do you do this?
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We're all going to be in unison. We're all going to be on our
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face and it's just going to all come together because worthy is
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the Lamb that's slain before the foundation of the earth.
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We'll see him and we'll all fall on our face and worship Him.
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True worship. We see here adoration and
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Thanksgiving and prayer, praise. And I think just to throw this
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out to you, what is our worship like?
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Is it too casual? Is there ever a time in your
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life or mine that it's it's OK to fall on our face before him?
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I mean, if they do it here, I would think it would be OK to do
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it here too, right at home. You got all these pews in a way
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it's tough to get on your face when the pews are in a way, you
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know, the first church had no pews when they, when they do the
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historical study of the, the original church places of
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gathering, of course they worshipped in homes whenever
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they began to have places of assembly.
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There was no such thing as pews. There was no such thing as
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chairs. People stood like whenever Esau
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whenever help me guys, was it Esau that was proclaiming the
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word and everybody stood up Ezra, I'm sorry.
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Good. Your guys are listening here.
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You're paying attention. But you know, they all stood up
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to hear the word of God and they stood up for hours.
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They weren't like man, I'm tired.
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Can't I sit down? No, they they stood up to hear
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the word all day through Ezra the servant as Nehemiah was also
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involved in that. And so there was there was room
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to to fall on the face of of on our faces before God.
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Sometimes we give people an opportunity to end to the
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service, to come up and get before the Lord on their faces.
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Our culture is, is too, I don't know, smooth nowadays That that
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may be in most places isn't looked upon as being something
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that's reasonable. Because what, what would someone
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think if I did that? I'm messed up.
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And I yeah, I mean, I need to. Sometimes I just want to come up
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here and fall on my face because God is worthy to be on my face
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before. And maybe I'm reminded that I
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need to do that corporately with my brothers and sisters.
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I mean, no pressure on anybody, but that's something that we, we
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provide here for, for people to do.
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But I think about this, this worship and I, I long to be in
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this, this kind of worship one day in the throne room of
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heaven. And as we worship God on this
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earth in this way, God scans our hearts and he reveals our
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motives. I find it very, very important
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when I'm alone with God, he shows me my, my heart.
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He shows me what I need to see that I can't see.
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If I don't put myself in this position of a brokenness and
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humility before him, if I'm too busy discharging out and running
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and just doing what I think I'm going to do, I'm missing.
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What God wants to say to me, and that's still quiet moment.
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I'm too busy, I'm distracted. But I encourage you to to do
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something in the morning or at night, whatever is best for you,
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where you have that time to give God an opportunity to to speak
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to you, but also a time where you can begin to worship God in
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a new way and not so much, Lord, I got this problem.
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I need your help. And how about I do?
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But can we just say, Lord, you're worthy, worthy of you,
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and we just repeat these things. Amen.
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Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power
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and might be to our God forever and ever, Amen.
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That's a great thing to be praying, isn't it?
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Make that part of your prayer. Doesn't get any better than
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that. That's the word of God.
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And verse 13 and one of the elders answered saying to me,
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who are these arrayed in white robes and where do they come
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from? And I said to him, Sir, you know
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they came out of the great tribulation, this end time
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period which will eventually end prior to the second coming of
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Christ. Verse chapter 24 of Matthew,
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verse 31. It says, For then shall be great
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tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world
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to this time, nor shall ever be. Therefore they are before the
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throne of God in verse 15 and serve him day and night in his
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temple, and he who sits in the throne will dwell among them.
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That again, at this astounding picture of the throne room of
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God, the privilege that these folks have to be before his
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throne, serving Him day and night in his temple.
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We won't need sleep in heaven. We're going to have new bodies.
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We're going to have energy that we never could imagine.
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And here's this Lamb of God sitting on the throne who will
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be dwelling among us. They shall neither hunger
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anymore. We're now we're going to eat in
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heaven, guys, don't be discouraged about that.
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We're going to have that great marriage supper, the lamb.
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We're all going to be able to eat, you know, but you're not
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going to be up there starving. When are we going to eat?
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There's not going to be any more thirst.
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The sun shall not strike us down, nor any heat.
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For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them
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and lead them to living fountains of waters.
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And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes so that
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we're going to have this safety in heaven.
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And we're going to be continually immersed in the
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blood of Jesus Christ that never loses its power, the fountain of
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God that washes us and keeps us pure for all eternity.
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There'll be no more tears. What's that going to be like?
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I still cry, don't you? There's still things that affect
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me. There's still things I'm
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burdened over. There's still things I'm
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concerned about or I don't understand.
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And sometimes when you're alone and you're, you're crying out to
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God, there's only one person who can comfort you.
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Your friends can give you solace.
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Your loved ones can put their arm around you.
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But there's only one that can really touch your heart and tell
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you it's going to be OK. And he's faithful to do that.
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But one day when we get in his throne room, all the stuff that
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we've been through in this world and this life, all the
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injustices are the things we didn't understand why they
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happened the way they happened. It won't matter because he's
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going to wipe away the tears. And he says there'll be no more.
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Later on in Revelation, there'll be no more remembrance of the
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former things for the former things have all passed away.
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What a day that'll be. I have a lot of celebrating to
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do throughout all eternity. This has been Living Waters of
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Grace with Pastor Clark. We're going through the
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challenging and also intriguing Book of Revelation.
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Whether you're a fan of reading ahead in books of fiction,
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there's such a benefit to reading ahead in the Bible to
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read about how it all ends. But in an interesting turn of
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events, the Book of Revelation is not really the end, but
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rather the beginning. Life as we know it here on
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earth. But there's so much to look
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forward to. But what comes after all?
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The judgement of the earth and those who reject God?
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There's a lot to work through, and it can be heartbreaking to
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read through the intense judgements and wrath that will
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come on those who hate God with all their might.
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The thing is, God has given chance upon chance to these
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people. They don't want it.
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So the outcome is that there are judgments and consequences for
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those who've rejected the good news and the gift of salvation
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that's offered through Jesus's death and resurrection.
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Are you one who has heard about these things but doesn't really
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want it because you want to live life on your terms?
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Trust me, living for Jesus is so much better.
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That doesn't mean it will be easy, but as you listen and read
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through Revelation with us, you'll come to a stark
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realization that you don't want to be on earth when the
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apocalypse happens. So check out Calvary Chapel
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online.com to learn how to come to a saving grace through faith
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that will allow you to be with Jesus for eternity.
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We'd also love to meet you in person at Calvary Chapel
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Westmoreland. Come join us at 400 E Pittsburgh
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St. Ste. 6B in Greensburg, PA 15601.
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This has been living waters of Grace.