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Living Waters of Grace for April 1st, 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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Waffer, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland, County
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of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
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continues teaching through God's Word.
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Now some people, they, they have a glib view of life.
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Hey, I'm not dead yet. I have this will to survive and
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conquer and achieve. And I don't like to think about
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death a matter of fact. I like to ignore it.
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I find it ironic, especially as people age.
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You talk to people in their 70s and 80s and it should be obvious
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that they're going to be checking out sometime in the not
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too distant future. It becomes more inevitable the
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older we get. And you bring up the subject and
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they want to change it immediately.
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Unbelievers want to change it immediately.
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ChatGPT told me just now that $5.3 trillion is spent every
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year here in the United States on the health, beauty, and
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fitness industries combined. Why is that?
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The bottom line is that people simply don't want to die.
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They don't want to accept death, and so they do everything they
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possibly can to extend their life.
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And while living a healthy life is crucial for the follower of
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Jesus, we know that one day we will die and we will be with
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Jesus. That is our hope, not this world
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for how many years we get to spend on it now?
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Here's Pastor Clark in Revelation Chapter 11 with
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today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
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If you go with me to Revelation 11, we started in chapter 12
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last week, but I just wanted to review a couple things in 11.
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On verse 15 about the 7th Angel sounding, there were loud voices
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in heaven saying, the Kingdom of this world have become the
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kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign
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forever and ever. And the 24 elders who sat before
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God on the Thrones fell on their faces and worshipped God,
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saying, We give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the one who
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is and who was and who is to come, because you've taken your
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great power and reign. The nations were angry and your
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wrath has come. And the time of the dead, that
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they should be judged, and that you should reward your servants,
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the prophets and the Saints, and those who fear your name shall
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small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the
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earth. Then the temple of God was
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opened in heaven, and the ark of the covenant was seen in this
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temple. And there were lightnings,
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noises, thunderings and earthquakes and great hail.
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Sometimes I like walking through cemeteries.
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You might think that's morbid, but I find great solace in the
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fact that there will be one day a great and final resurrection.
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That everybody in that tomb, no matter how decomposed or how
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torn apart it is by the insects and the worms, is going to be
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totally transformed and the twinkling of an eye, The Bible
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said. And that means every human being
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that has ever died since the beginning of time until the
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until the return of the Lord. And so as I was contemplating
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what's on the horizon for us as a family, as a church body and
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individually for all of us, I'd like to sort of review the
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importance of understanding what is in store for every one of us
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in the days ahead. If you would turn to 1st
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Corinthians verse 15, the picture in Revelation is prior
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to the return of the Lord, prior to the final resurrection that I
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just read about. When he will meet out his
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rewards to his Saints and also deal with those who are without
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him and his anger and his wrath. Because they didn't believe in
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Jesus, they their whole life they just ignored the Lord.
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They didn't have time for Him. They didn't contemplate their
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need. They thought they were OK and
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they refused to accept him as their savior.
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But the first Corinthians 15, verse 50, this is the final
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victory that I read about in the sermon of Chrysostom.
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Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit
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the Kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption.
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Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we
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shall all be changed in a moment, and the twinkling of an
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eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and
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the dead will be raised incorruptible.
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And we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on
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incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
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So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal
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has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass a
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saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
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O death, where is your sting? O hades, where is your victory?
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The sting of death is sin, and the strength is sin in the law.
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But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord
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Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren,
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be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the
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Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
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Famous writer. I used to like reading back in
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the days of college. Feed or dust.
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Ask anybody ever read any of his stuff?
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Russian author. He was a fascinating individual
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and he said, ah, how afraid I am of death and how sinful that is.
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That was from his book called the Adolescence.
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And today some of you might be sitting here thinking, oh man,
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I'm I'm afraid of death. Well, the Bible says we're not
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to be afraid of it. We're actually to anticipate it
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with joy. It's a homecoming.
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It's a glorious, as we've seen here in the writings of Paul, a
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glorious victory, a reward for those of us who have trusted in
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walk with Christ in our life, believe in him as our Savior and
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Lord, our sin bearer. And every day of our life, we're
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living in two different dimensions.
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We're either living like, hey, this is all there is.
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Grab as much gusto as you can. You only go around once, man.
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Make sure you have the greatest house, the greatest car, the
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greatest clothing, whatever it is, you know, grab on to
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whatever you need. And like the rich guy that had
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the barns, Jesus calls him a full he's the guy's like so
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prosperous in life. He's thinking, man, I got to
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build bigger barns to put all my material wealth in.
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And the Lord says you full your soul's required of you this
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night. And none of us know when will be
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called to to meet the Lord to be before him.
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And so a quote by another famous individual who lived many years
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ago. He said, As we rise daily, let
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us suppose that we shall not survive till evening.
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And again, as we prepare for sleep, let us consider that we
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shall not awaken. That may be the way it is for
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some of us. By its very nature our life is
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uncertain, and it is given out daily by Providence.
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If we think this way and then this way, live daily, we will
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not desire to sin. So if I recognize today and you
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as well, that this could be my last day, that we would be
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prepared to realize that one day we're all going to be with the
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Lord. It tells us in Hebrews 927 it's
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appointed for men to die once. But after this judgment, some of
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us have appointments this week. We have to see the doctor, we
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have to see an attorney, or we have an appointment with a
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friend for lunch or breakfast or all kind of different things
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that we set appointments for in our daily schedule.
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You can break the appointment with the dentist and say, hey, I
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just don't feel like coming tomorrow.
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I'm afraid of the dentist. I'll push that off as far as I
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can into the future. And they'll say, well, do you
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want to reschedule? I'll call you, you know, But
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when God sets his appointment schedule, there is no
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negotiation. It's time.
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And he says now is a day of judgement.
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If you go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, this one chapter over
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from First Corinthians to the right, Second Corinthians 5,
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this is what we have to be prepared for.
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Verse 9. Therefore, we make it our aim,
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whether present or absent, to be pleasing to him.
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Is that your aim every day of your life?
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Are you aiming to be pleasing to your God, your Maker, your
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Creator? For me, we must all appear
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before the judgment seat of Christ, and that each one may
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receive the things done in the body according to what he has
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done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror
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of the Lord, we persuade men that we are well known to God,
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and I trust, are well known in your consciences.
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So the purpose of a pastor, a teacher, an evangelist is to
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warn the sheep, warn the people that there is a day of judgment
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coming, that we all must stand before our maker and give an
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account of our lives. Standing before the judgement
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seat of Christ. How are how are we living?
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What are we thinking about? What are our priorities?
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Is Jesus the number one person in our lives today?
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Do we love him more than life itself?
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That's the last song they sang. Was this glorious, wasn't it?
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It's all about you, Jesus. I could just sense God that's
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reaching into our hearts today and saying to you and to me.
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It's about from his perspective you.
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He loves you so much that God so loved this world that He gave
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His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
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should not perish that have everlasting life.
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Now some people, they, they have a glib view of life.
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Hey, I'm not dead yet. I have this will to survive and
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conquer and achieve. And I don't like to think about
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death a matter of fact, I like to ignore it.
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I find it ironic, especially as people age.
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You talk to people in their 70s and 80s and it should be obvious
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that they're going to be checking out sometime in the not
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too distant future. It becomes more inevitable the
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older we get. And you bring up the subject and
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they want to change it immediately.
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Unbelievers want to change it immediately because death is an
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enemy. It's something that we're prone
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to fear even at times as Christians, even though as doth
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to ask a said it a sinful thing that I would be afraid of death
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after what crisis accomplished for me and Psalm chapter 90.
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If you flip over there for a minute.
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Psalm chapter 90 A great Psalm to bring comfort to one another
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in the times of nearing the end. Lord, You have been our dwelling
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place in all generations before the mountains were brought
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forth, or ever you formed the earth in the world.
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Even from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
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You turn man to destruction and say, return, O children of men,
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for 1000 years in your sight, or like a yesterday when it is
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past, and like a watch in the night.
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You carry them away like a flood.
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They're like a sleep in the morning.
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They are like grass which grows up in the morning.
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It flourishes and grows up in the evening.
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It is cut down and Withers. For we have been consumed by
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your anger and by your wrath. We are terrified.
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You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in
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the light of your countenance, for all our days have passed
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away in your wrath. We finish our years like a sigh.
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The days of our lives are 70 years, and if by reason of
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strength they are 80 years, yet there boast is only labor and
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sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away.
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Who knows the power of your anger?
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For as the fear of you, so is your wrath.
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And I love this. So teach us to number our days
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that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
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Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to
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wisdom. What is it that we're living
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for? What is it that we're thinking
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about moment by moment in our lives?
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I mean, this is such a short journey, guys.
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You might think it seems like a long time, that this seems like
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a blink of an eye that I was sitting around 20 years old,
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have my whole life ahead of me. I'm not kidding you.
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A blink of an eye. I look at my granddaughter and I
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say, oh, they're grandkids and they're just starting their
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life, you know, But it'll be that way for them one day.
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My daughters look and say it to seem like yesterday our kids
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were just little running around and now they're teenagers, want
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their own way, you know, do their own thing.
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And so would God give us wisdom that today we could be able to
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see in a spiritual way, God's plan and intentions for each of
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our lives not to waste our lives.
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You know, when you think about life every day, everything we
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do, even our simple communion of, of eating, it's no accident
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that we eat what's already for the most part, dead in order to
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stay alive. A life comes out of death.
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Even, you know, our sustenance, our physical sustenance, it
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comes out of what is in the process of decaying.
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And Jesus said unless a corn of wheat fall into the ground and
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it abides alone, that the seed has to first die in order to
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become alive. It's a paradox.
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And you look at the goal of modern healthcare today, it's
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it's fascinating. They want to deny the reality of
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death. I mean, the last thing that they
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want to tell you in the hospital is like, there's no more hope.
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I mean, an honest doctor will say that they'll be upfront with
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you, but most of them say, hey, we can do this, we can do that.
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They've got all these ideas of magic tricks they can pull out
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of their hat to maybe give you another couple years.
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They don't tell you like how miserable you might be or you
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might, you know, have to be forced to be on artificial life
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support and that kind of stuff because it's a point on the man
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wants to die and after this a judgement.
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So my question is at times, when does medical science become a
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blessing and when is it becoming a curse?
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Because if it gets in the way of God's preordained plan, right,
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and begins to try to make life its own sustainer as opposed to
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God himself, then these poor people are are on these tubes
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unconscious and staying alive for a sometimes a very long time
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when they're already pretty much gone.
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It's an interesting discussion and I'm sure all of us might
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have some different points of view on that, but it's the
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medical and the new age gurus today that have this philosophy
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that it's just a matter of time before we conquer aging.
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Isn't that good news, guys that make you feel better, Danny?
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This is a matter of time, brother, before we conquer
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aging. You're going to live to be 500.
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No, boy, I have a friend. He's a doctor in Charleston and
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fascinating guy who developed a good friendship, good brother
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and the Lord. And once in a while I go down
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there. He invites me to stay at his
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house and I do business down there.
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And one morning I'm getting up, having coffee there and I'm
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talking to his son and I see this guy, this picture of this
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guy on the wall, physique guys like in his early 70s.
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This guy's cut man. I mean, he looks like he's like
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a Charles Atlas of like 73 or whatever.
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And he, his claim to fame, doctor life is that you can have
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perpetual youthful longevity. If you deal with these youth
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hormones, you know, you get shot up.
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He's the guru doctor of all the Hollywood stars, all the glamour
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people, right? And so I'm like, looking at this
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picture, I'm thinking now, what's the connection here with
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my Christian friend? Why would you have the picture
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of this guy on the wall? Is he like, is he into this?
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Is this what? And so I asked his grant, I
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guess his son, who is that guy? This is my grandfather.
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So David wakes up. I said, man, I read about that
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guy. I mean, what's he into?
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He says, Clark, my dad's. He's a great guy, but he's like,
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totally out of it because he thinks that he can conquer
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death. And in other words, instead of
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the body dying, it can be restored through all these
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metabolic changes. You know?
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And I said to him, I said, what's interesting, maybe, you
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know, for a few years, but does he realize that eventually this
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isn't going to work? I mean, eventually he's going to
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die. I mean, it's appointed unto man
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wants to die. And after this is judgment.
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And so the society is always trying to like push away the
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inevitable. The church should be the most
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clear, peaceful place for us to learn about our destiny, right?
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What's in store for all of us now?
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The idea of Christianity being reconciled with death.
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You know, God hates death. It wasn't His intention to have
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death when He created us in the garden.
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He created us to live forever. We're the ones that changed the
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setup, didn't we? We took it upon ourselves to
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take life in our own hands, and sin and the wages of sin is
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death. Christ is our life and death,
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Christianity proclaiming it to be namely an enemy to be
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destroyed and not a mystery to be explained.
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The scriptures teach about death as being abnormal.
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It's not God's plan, is it? If it was his plan, there would
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be no resurrection. God wouldn't have come in the
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flesh to die and to go through what He went through for you and
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I if death was his plan. He's done everything he could
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for you and me to sustain us in eternity.
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Turn to John Chapter 11. This is Jesus own experience of
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death with Lazarus. See how he feels about it.
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He's God in the flesh, fully God, fully man.
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John Chapter 11, verse 28. And when she had said these
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things, she went her way and secretly called Mary her sister,
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saying, The teachers come and is calling to you.
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As soon as she heard, she quickly arose and came to him.
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Now Jesus had not yet come into the town, but was in place where
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Martha met him. And then the Jews who were with
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her in the house and comforting her, when they saw that Mary
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Rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, She's
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going to the tomb to weep there. And then when Mary came where
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Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him,
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Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
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Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came
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with her weeping, he groaned in the Spirit and he was troubled.
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And he said, Where have you laid him?
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And they said to him, Lord, come and see.
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Verse 35, Jesus wept. Jesus didn't say don't worry,
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he's in a better place, everything's OK.
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Death is the final enemy, isn't it?
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God hates death, what it does to people, what it does to
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families, what it does to human existence.
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And the Jews said, see how he loved him.
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And some of them said, could not this man who opened the eyes of
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the blind also have kept this man from dying?
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Then Jesus again, groaning in himself, came to the tomb.
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You know the darkness of death, the horror of separation of
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family and loved ones, the waiting of the Conqueror who had
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not yet gone into Hades to set the captives free.
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This is pre death, burial and resurrection that is occurring
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here. And Jesus senses obviously the
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extreme intenseness of the demonic spirits and the hatred
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of the devil and all his demons and dark powers.
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And Jesus groans in himself, and he comes to the tomb.
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It was a cave, a stone lay against it.
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And Jesus said, take away the stone.
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Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, Lord, by
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this time there is a stench, for he has been dead for days.
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Jesus said to her, Did I not say to you that if you would
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believe, you would see the glory of God?
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And then they took away the stone from the place where the
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dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and
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said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me, and I know
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that you always hear me. But because of the people who
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are standing by, I said this now that they may believe you sent
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me. Now when he said these things,
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he cried with a loud voice. Lazarus come forth and he who
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had died came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his
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face was wrapped in a cloth. And Jesus said to them, lose him
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and let him go. Jesus wept.
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He doesn't again say, hey, everything's OK, he's in heaven,
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everything's well. He's gone from this difficult
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life. He's in a better place.
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If you ever find yourself saying that kind of stuff.
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We have to see death as God sees it.
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Now Paul tells us to be absent the bodies, to be present with
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the Lord. But keep in mind the final
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resurrection has not occurred yet.
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You know, we understand today the Lord in some small degree,
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don't we? All of us?
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We have some insight of His love, His grace, and His mercy.
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Do we know it all? I mean, my understanding of
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God's love and His grace is so small compared to the way it
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really is because I can't grasp it in my fallen human condition.
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I know God's good. He loves, He's merciful, He's
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forgiving, but I don't know him today like I will know him one
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day. When Jesus said through Paul, I
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hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of
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man the things that God has prepared for those who love him.
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None of us can comprehend that yet, can we?
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We get it. We're looking through a glass
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darkly, Paul said in First Corinthians 13.
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We're seeing a little bit right now, but one day the Bible said
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we will see him face to face, for we shall see him as he is,
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and we will become like him. Now when we think of Christ, it
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tells us in the Word that he was crucified and he was buried.
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He suffered. He's a man of sorrows,
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acquainted with grief. Christ lived a life of constant
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suffering for your sake and mine.
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He had joy, He had pleasure, he loved the children, he obviously
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loved communing with the Father, because every chance he got, he
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was alone with his Heavenly Father, praying and glorifying,
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worshiping him. But he was a man of extreme
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sorrow and grief. It says he looks out over the
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city of Jerusalem. He looks out today in the city
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of southwest Greensburg. He looks into your homes, your
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neighborhoods, your families, this country, this world.
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And he still is broken. His heart is grieving because he
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sees the majority of people on the earth as sheep without a
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shepherd. He sees people trying to live
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life without him. And so this suffering and death
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is interwoven in the human experience.
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And the presence of 1 implies the presence of the other.
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Suffering and death are entwined together.
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Thanks for being with us today here on Living Waters of Grace.
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We are in the Book of Revelation, and we find it
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fascinating how influential and involved the angels are in this
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book. They bring about whatever it is
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that God has instructed them to do, but it's through their
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actions that much of the judgments come on the earth.
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The angels are in submission to God as their authority, but He
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utilizes them in unique ways throughout this book.
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Like angels have a specific purpose from God, you have a
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unique purpose and plan too. God wants to use you in your
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life as a testimony to others and to bring others who are
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currently lost into the fold of God.
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God would love more than anything for all who are willing
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to come to Him for salvation. He wants it to be their choice,
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not a forced situation. This is the way God works, not
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forcing himself on anyone, but giving each person free will.
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If you're interested in learning about this choice that's free
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and that it's a gift, go to calvarychapelonline.com and
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click on the About Us tab and then find the link for what we
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believe. We'd love to be a help and a
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resource for you as you walk through what it means to be a
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follower of Jesus. If you find the contact tab on
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our website, you can get in touch with us or submit a prayer
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request. We'd love to hear from you.
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That's all for today's edition in Revelation, but there's much
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more that Pastor Clark plans to share with us from this
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culminating book of the Bible. Stay tuned for that and make
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sure to mention this radio program to others.
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Invite them to tune in to Grace FM 91.7 FM and they can stream
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worldwide at Grace Radio dot FM. This has been living Waters of
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Grace.