Carter Conlon | A Call to the Nation

Thank you, everybody here in the house. You may be seated. And those that are joining us online, God be with you. Thank you for being with us in this prayer meeting. We are truly believing that God's going to do a miracle in your life, not just right now, but in the days ahead as well.

This message tonight is called Stand Still, Go Forward. It's an unusual title — Stand Still, Go Forward. I want to start in Psalm 11.

Father, I thank you, Lord Jesus Christ. We are truly at a crisis point in history when godlessness seems to be abounding on every street corner. Lord, in the halls of government and in other places, there are numerous voices being raised up that are against truth as we know it, against morality, against clear definitions of what is right and what is wrong. Lord Jesus Christ, you've always had a plan throughout history, and that plan has involved the poor, the marginalized, the nobodies, the nothings of this world. You give us your Holy Spirit. You raise us up, God, and you cause our lives to make a difference.

I pray tonight, Lord, that through the sharing of this word, you will bring people who are listening through the corridors of fear and into this place, God, where their lives will make a difference. Let faith abound where fear is trying to get access to people's hearts and minds. Lord, do a work that only you can do. Empower me to speak this. Illuminate your word. Let it find a lodging place in every mind and in every heart. And God, as you tell us, your word never comes back to you void. Thank you, Lord, that wherever your word finds a lodging place, miracles begin to happen. We thank you for it and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.

Psalm 11 — it's a psalm of David. Now keep in mind, David is a man who is slated to be a king in his generation. His life is going to be used by God to change the future. And there are people listening tonight — maybe you're here in the house, maybe you're listening online — and I'm going to tell you something boldly: your life is destined by God to make a difference in the future, in your family, in your community, in your neighborhood, and some even far beyond that.

We look at the people in Scripture and we have a tendency to almost deify them. We forget that the people God has used throughout history were ordinary people like you and me — with ordinary fears, ordinary struggles, questions, doubts, unbelief sometimes, fears about the future. This is David, who is destined to be a king, in Psalm 11.

He begins by saying, In the Lord I put my trust. How can you say to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain? For look, the wicked bend their bow. They make ready their arrow on the string, that they may shoot secretly at the upright in heart. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

David is living at least a portion of his life at a time when the leadership of the nation under Saul has really cast off the seeking of God, and all kinds of alternate thinking are beginning to prosper. David has a deeply embedded love for God at the center core of his being. But there are things beginning to happen in his life. The promises that God once gave him don't seem to be materializing at this particular point. And there's a thought inside of his heart: flee, find a refuge, find a safe place.

Anybody here ever gone through that? Have you ever thought that in your heart? Oh God, I wish I could just find an oasis somewhere where I could ride out the rest of this life. I'm sick of the conversation. I'm sick of the media. I'm tired of the cursing in this society. I'm tired of the confusion. I'm tired of evil being called good and good being called evil. There's something in me that just wants to find a place of refuge.

We're all like that. David was like that. He was not destined for this. He was destined to sit on a throne. He was destined to be a catalyst that was going to change not only the future of his nation, but our future too — because Christ, of course, was in his lineage.

If we're watching everything we hold dear — everything that has made us the people we are today — erode before our eyes, the question comes into my heart and yours: what can my life do? How can I make a difference? How could God possibly use my life? Wouldn't it be better just to find a refuge somewhere to flee into some place where I can just live my life in peace?

I think David is speaking directly to the fear that's wanting to rise and reign in his own heart. Just like the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 7:5 — he talks about being in Macedonia. He says, Our bodies had no rest. We were troubled on every side. Outside were conflicts and inside were fears.

David also says in Psalm 31:12-13, I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind. I am like a broken vessel. I hear the slander of many. Fear is on every side while they take counsel together against me and they scheme to take away my life.

In other words, they think that my life is of no consequence against their plans. They mock me and they scheme to take away my influence.

We're living in a generation like that today, folks, where darkness is mocking the church of Jesus Christ as if our voice doesn't matter, our religion doesn't matter, our pursuits don't matter, our love of truth doesn't matter — as if the church of Jesus Christ is not much of a threat to the agenda they're planning for this day.

As David says in Psalm 11:2, The wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow on the string, that they may shoot secretly at the upright in heart.

David is saying to God: Look, their plan is already in motion. And if our foundations are destroyed — or being destroyed — what difference can my life make? Those of us who love God, who still embrace truth, who still believe this is the word of God — the book that holds the key to not only eternal life but abundant and purposeful life here on the earth. If the foundations of all of this are being eroded from underneath us, what can we who love God still do?

I want to talk about three things that we can do.

First, if I am indeed righteous as God declares me to be in Christ, then what I can do is what the church did in Acts 2 — I can bring Jesus Christ into the marketplace, in my speech, in my conduct, in the way I live my life, in the things I talk about, with the empowerment of God's Holy Spirit within my life.

There was a whole plethora of ideas going past that upper room, of course, but when the early church stepped out into that marketplace, the presence of Christ went with them. And as they began to speak — empowered by the Holy Spirit — it stopped people in their tracks.

There is all kinds of evil speech going on today. People can't even talk without cursing anymore. I find it so disheartening to hear political leaders using profanity as they speak, as if that's some kind of example to our children and young people who are being raised up in this generation.

Oh, God, help us again. God, help us as your people to go into the marketplace speaking right, speaking truth, speaking with power, speaking about what God has done, what God is doing, and what God is able to do — speaking as empowered by the Holy Spirit of God. That's what the righteous can do.

Not to draw back and hide on some mountaintop. Not to stay cloistered in some secretive, safe upper room. But to go out into the marketplace and let our speech be a contrast to the evil speech of this generation, believing that where it needs to go, God will take it.

I remi...

In 1 Corinthians 4:18, Paul says, "Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you. But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power."

I think in America today, there's just too much talk in the house of God and too little power. And I don't know about you, but I'm very, very weary of it all.

Jesus Christ told us in the book of Luke — He stood in the pulpit of His day and He said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor." In other words, there's a message, there's an authority with the message that tells every man, every woman, every young person who feels like they don't have the resource to become anything in life — no, there's something of God. There's an anointing of God that just unravels that lie around the human heart and lets men and women and children know that God has a divine purpose — not just to save you, but to indwell you and to empower you and to enable you and to make you into what you could never be in yourself, and give you what you could never possess, and take you where you could never go.

I know this because I have lived this. By the grace of God, I love the fact that most everywhere I go, I'm not qualified to be — which is an awesome way to live your Christian life. I've stood and preached, spoken to governments. I've been in places of civil war and seen God bring peace to areas of war. I've been invited by a president of another nation to see if, through national television and radio, we could avert another genocide in that nation. I've just seen God do what only God can do. I love the fact that it's not by might, it's not by power, it's by the Spirit of God.

It's when you and I learn to cooperate with God — not trying to produce something in our own strength, but simply saying, "Lord, here I am. I'm available for You to use me to make a difference in somebody's life." And when that starts to happen in the body of Christ, then suddenly words of knowledge begin to come, words of wisdom. You begin speaking to somebody in a restaurant or in a store, and when you leave, you say, "That wasn't me speaking — that was God speaking through me. I didn't have those thoughts. I couldn't tie those thoughts together the way the Lord just did. How could I know what was going on in that person's heart?" God knew. God heard the cry. God knows what that person's been sighing about in the streets. And suddenly He gives a word of knowledge. He gives a gifting of the Holy Spirit. He gives us ability.

I'm talking about spiritual authority. I'm not talking about just blabbing some scripture to somebody that might be true but isn't relevant to their situation. No, God gives us a word.

I remember one time I was leaving Starbucks, and I was crossing the street to Times Square Church, and there's a young guy about 18 years of age standing there with a cup, begging on the street. And I walked right up to him — he was a big kid too — and I looked him right in the eye. I said, "What are you doing out here?" And then I said, "You have a praying mother. You have a praying grandmother. And here you are, a beggar on the street. Around the corner tonight, 7 o'clock, you go to church — because there, you're the son of the King. Out here, the devil's made you a beggar. In there, you're the son of a King." And as I began to speak to him, the tears started coming down his face. He said, "Yes, sir, I'll be there." He confirmed he had a praying mother and grandmother. That's spiritual authority. That's just the willingness to step out of the box.

God puts a thought in your heart — you go with the thought. Will you always be right? No. If you're a baseball player, sometimes you strike out, but it doesn't mean you don't get back up to bat again. You won't always get it right, but if you don't try, you'll never get anything right. There was a famous hockey player who once said, "You miss 100% of the shots that you don't take."

"He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind" — people who can't see a way forward, who can't see a way out of their dilemma, who can't see a way into a future, who have no idea what God wants to do in their lives — "and to set free those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

Now, Paul was telling the Corinthian church that some people talk a good game, but you don't know if they can play or not until you see them on the field. There are a lot of people who talk a real good game in the church of Jesus Christ, but on the field, they're not much. There's a pathway to excellence in everything we do, and there's a pathway to excellence in God's kingdom — in His power being revealed through Jesus Christ in His church.

Many, sadly, want preeminence but not the pathway that leads to power. They want to stay light. They want to be like a little flat stone skipping on the ocean. They never want to go through what we have to go through to get to the place where God is going to use our lives for His glory.

In the book of Acts, when the apostle Paul was called in Acts 9:15-16, the Lord said, "Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before the Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake."

Paul had spiritual authority — that's why we read his words today, 2,000-plus years later, and they still move our hearts. That's why Paul could say, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" — because he had to learn to do all things through Christ who strengthened him. Paul had a perspective that was eternal. Paul had a weight in his speech that nobody could ignore, because he had chosen to take the pathway that leads to spiritual authority — no matter what he had to go through, no matter where he had to be, no matter what it cost him.

Listen to the testimony of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:23 and following: "Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool — I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I have been in the deep. In journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness — and besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches."

He doesn't even mention the snakebite. This was his testimony. It was a tough road, but it was the pathway through which the power of God began to flow through his life — and is still flowing today as we read his words.

Romans tells us that we should present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service. God help us to get out of self-focus. God help us to stop always coming to the house of God asking, "What's in it for me today? What new thing can I add to my résumé? What new thing can I give to myself to have a more enhanced personality?" No — we ought to be coming to the house of God, in that transition into maturity, and saying, "God, give me something today for somebody else. Give me courage to go into that place and speak to those people. Give me victory in my own life that I can ta...

The Lord is now leading us into a specific place. That's what this message is all about. It has an unusual title: "Be Sure. Be Very, Very Sure." I believe that God is doing the same thing now that He was doing at the time when the nation of Israel first went into the promised land.

Keep in mind, when they went into the promised land, it was after 40 years in the wilderness — 400 years of captivity followed by 40 years in the wilderness because of an evil report brought to them by 10 spies sent in by Moses, who said, "No, we can't do it. There are giants there. There are walled cities. We don't have the weaponry. We just can't do it." Because of that report, an entire generation — literally, except for the children — died in the wilderness.

The part of the story I'm going to start in today is at the end of that 40-year period, where they are about to go into the promised land. We are about three to four months from Moses' death and Joshua taking the people of Israel into the promised land.

Father, I thank you, Lord, that you're going to give me the ability to convey the thought you put in my heart. We are indeed living in the last days. I ask you, God, that as the last-days church, we would truly bring honor and glory to your name by simply obeying you and doing what you've asked us to do — by being the people you've called us to be. Deliver us, Lord, from self-will. Deliver us, God, from trying to do things our own way. Deliver us, God, from marginalizing our callings, from minimizing your word. Give us an obedient heart, Lord, each one of us today. Give us an obedient heart, for it's in your heart to bless us as your people. It's in your heart to lead us into places where your name is brought to glory because of what you do through our lives.

And it's always involving human need. Always, always, always, without fail, it involves your people reaching out to somebody else who has no helper if we don't go. So give us the grace not to succumb to just the desire for comfort. Give us the grace, my God. Give me the ability to speak this.

Lord, I'm asking again that you would stretch out your hand in this sanctuary and through the internet and do miracles. Let absolute, undebatable miracles happen — prison doors opening, blind eyes seeing, deaf ears hearing. God Almighty, the prisoners being set free. Lord, the poor having the treasure of heaven open to them. Everything you said you came to do, we simply ask you to do that. We don't have to beg you to do what you came to do. We agree with you. We ask for the glory of your name that you would do something so far beyond us that all we can do is stand back and lift our hands and say, "God, only you could have done this." And we thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen and amen.

Be sure. Be very, very sure.

Numbers 32, beginning at verse 20. Then Moses said to them — now, this is two tribes we're talking about. Two tribes that basically said, "We've been 40 years in the wilderness, Moses." They're in a desert the whole time. And they finally conquered what I call the east side of the Jordan. They're not over the Jordan yet into what was designated to be the promised land. But two of the tribes finally landed in a place where there was grass. Can you imagine? It's like living in New York and finally going to Pennsylvania one day — and there's just suddenly grass. They've got cattle, they want to plant things, grow things, raise their families. It's been 40 years in the desert, 40 years of attending funerals literally every day until a whole generation had died off. And suddenly they just don't want to fight anymore.

I get it. You get it. We all understand that. Some of you have come to Christ and you say, "God, I know you have a call on my life — can we just put that on hold for a little while? I just want to enjoy life. I want to build something here. I want to smell the flowers." I get that. God gets that. But God is speaking to these people and saying, "No, there's more for you than this. I have a journey for you, and the journey I have for you involves other people. I came and I died for all of humanity, for whosoever will."

The scripture says in Romans, they can't hear without a preacher. And there will be no preacher that goes to them unless they are sent. The Holy Spirit is moving on us as His church in this last hour to go into places we've not gone before and to embrace a calling that we may not have fully embraced.

In other words: okay, you've asked for permission to stay on this side of the Jordan — the east side. The west side is supposed to be where the promised land is, but you've found what you want. But if you will go over and fight with your brothers and sisters until they have obtained their inheritance — if you will live beyond just living for yourself — if you will give yourself for them so that they can conquer what needs to be conquered and have their inheritance, then you can come back and enjoy this place.

Be sure.

Now, when we talk about that verse — "be sure your sin will find you out" — we generally have a connotation that somebody has a hidden sin. Whether you've stolen something from the workplace, you've been in an illicit relationship you shouldn't be in — and when that verse is quoted, we somehow think it means there's going to be an exposure one day. That very well might be the case for some, but that's not the context of this passage.

This sin wasn't hidden. If the people didn't go with their brothers and sisters across into the promised land to conquer the giants and the armies occupying it, it would be a known thing — not a hidden thing. So being a known thing, what does it mean that your sin will find you out?

Here's the way I see it. This kind of sin — the sin of selfishness, self-focus, the sin of knowing what to do and not doing it — it can be hidden by activity. It can be hidden by even coming to church on a regular basis. It can be hidden by a lot of things. But ultimately, it will find its way out in your character. As a man thinks in his heart, the scripture says, that's what he is. You can hide it for years, but eventually it's going to come out.

Galatians 6:7 says, don't be deceived — whatever a man sows, that's what he's going to reap. Whatever seed you put in the ground, if you plant corn, you're not going to grow watermelons. Whatever you sow, you're going to reap.

Matthew 7:2 — Jesus said, whatever measure you use, it will be measured back to you. In the measure you give out to others now, in the measure you are yielded for the sake of others, there's a day coming where you're going to need somebody to come to you. And trust me, it's going to happen. You're going to be — as the saying goes down in the South — lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut. You're going to be as low as you can go, and you can say, "God, send somebody to me." But the question is: where were you when somebody was calling that out? When somebody in New York City was saying, "God, send somebody to help me," and you didn't go. You stayed on the east side of Jordan and said, "I'm not interested in going over there. I've lived in a dry place, and I just want to enjoy life."

Now, God doesn't resent that. Don't misunderstand. The point is that the calling is farther th...

When a covenant was made in the Old Testament, a sacrifice was made. And generally the sacrifice was divided into two parts, and the two people making the covenant would walk through those parts.

This man in John 5 — when Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had been there in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?"

Don't stop when tears start, because tears, sorrow, disappointments, and difficulties are part of the Christian life and part of the Christian journey. A lot of people start into this journey thinking that the presence of God means the absence of trouble, and that isn't true. Jesus Christ himself said, In this world you will have tribulation. You'll have difficulty, there will be trouble, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome this world. In other words, I have overcome this world's power to overcome you.

When you opened your heart to Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit of God took up residence inside your physical body, and the Christ who won that victory on the cross — defeated the power of hell and darkness — lives inside of you now and will carry you to the finish line in this journey. You will be opposed, there will be difficulties along the way. For those who are in the middle of the journey, I remember those days so clearly in my life. I told my wife Teresa one time, I said, "I feel like if I wasn't sighing, I wouldn't be breathing." There was a season — a long season — where it was difficult. There are individual moments, but then there's a long season where long-suffering has got to come into your life, and God gives you the power.

Psalm 126, we're going to start there, verses 1 to 3: When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with singing. Then they said among the nations, "The Lord has done great things for them." The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad.

I remember those first days of salvation. I remember when I sat in church the first time and the person who led me to Christ shared the verse of Scripture that if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things are passed away, and behold, all things have become new. I remember sitting and wondering, is that reality, or is that just a pipe dream? Can it actually happen? God, can you come and give me a future that I could never find in my own strength? No matter how much I would try, it would always escape me because I wasn't capable of fulfilling it.

And then one day you begin to realize that you've been forgiven your sin, and the Holy Spirit has come and indwelt your human body. It's like a dream. Life begins to change line upon line, precept upon precept. From place to place, God begins to work a work that only the Holy Spirit can do, and you become aware of it.

I remember the first time I ever went to a Christian police officer's conference in Speculator, upstate New York. For the first time ever in my life, I saw grown men weep before God for joy — Texas Rangers, people from all over the country, tough guys too, a lot of them, tenderized by the presence of God. I cried for three days. I couldn't stop crying. I don't know how many boxes of tissue I went through. I actually felt foolish at one point because I simply couldn't stop crying — it was like a dream.

I know many of you remember those days, especially if you're in the middle of your journey now. Your mouth is filled with laughter. Your tongue is filled with singing. When I first started going to church, I'd open a hymn book — I wasn't raised on the hymns, so they were brand new to me. "It Is Well with My Soul." "Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine." I would stand there and the tears would come down my face. I remember one time my wife said to me, "You have to stop laughing when the preacher is preaching. He's going to think that you're mocking him." I said, "I'm not. I can't stop." I was just so filled with joy that I had this new life that God had promised. I had a hope. I had a future. I had now laid hold of the possibility of becoming the person that God intended my life to be. It would bubble out of me like a river.

And then people among the nations — as Psalm 126 says — began to say, "The Lord has done great things for them." People around you started to say, "Wow, you are changing."

Now, some things change quickly, don't they? Some things, the very day you come to Christ — maybe your vocabulary changes. You stop using the words you used to use, or if one slips, you're quick to apologize for it. And then there are certain things that change, and other things don't change quite as fast. I speak from experience. There were some things I was able to put away almost day one, and other things that took forever.

Have you ever watched one of those old Western movies on television? They get in a gunfight in a saloon, and one guy gets shot and falls over the table. Then he climbs the stairway, falls over the balcony, stumbles behind the bar, gets up, falls over the bar, stumbles out through the swinging doors, and falls over the hitching post — and you're watching the movie saying, "Is this guy ever going to die?" Well, I don't know about you, but some things in my life went that way. They were shot, in a sense, by the blood of Jesus Christ. They lost their power, but they took time. Don't get discouraged when things in your life take time. They are dead. They might be still standing like the fig tree when Jesus and the disciples went back into Jerusalem, but they've lost their power to dictate your future. Praise be to God.

Now the psalmist goes on and he says, Bring back our captivity, O Lord, as streams in the south. Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy, and he who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

So this psalm starts out with such victory, and then it has a transitional point where the psalmist is saying, "God, do it again for me. Do it again for us. Bring back that joy that I once knew of my captivity being released. God, I'm in a season of sorrow now. I'm in a season where tears are taking over for what used to be joy. Would you help us in this?"

To understand this, I want to go back to the actual journey that most agree this psalm speaks about. It began with the people of Israel being taken into captivity into a land called Babylon. They were taken there because they played fast and loose with the things of God. We go into captivity when we don't acknowledge the presence of God or the reason for which we were created — when we choose, as Adam and Eve once did, to follow our own reasoning and go our own way. Because of it, they lost the protection of God and were taken captive. For 70 years they were in captivity — more than a generation. Many, if not most, of these people were actually born in captivity. They knew the story of what God had done in the past, but they themselves had been the victims of captivity, and their lives were short of what they should have been.

Now, the interesting thing is that in the book of Ezra, it gives us the history. In Ezra 1:1 it says, In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia. This is where it really gets interesting, because about 150 years before Cyrus became king, it was prophesied that a king would be born whose name would be Cyrus. He is actually called "my servant" in the Word of God, and he would issue a decree letting the people go home to rebuild. It's phenomenal. God knows everything. There's nothing that happens that he doesn't know. Everything is in his control. He knows where you are today. He knows where you'll be tomorrow. As a matter of fact, he's already in your tomorrow before you even get there.

He foretold through Jeremiah that his own people would go into captivity for 70 years. But through Isaiah, he declared that a king called Cyrus would be born who would issue a decree and let the people go back home to rebuild again. That's the context, really, of Psalm 126.

Can you imagine being there? All you've ever kno...