Carter Conlon | A Call to the Nation

The Question That Changes Everything 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 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. The Joy of First Salvation — Psalm 126:1–3 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. A Season of Sorrow — Bring Back Our Captivity 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. The Decree of Cyrus — A Picture of the Cross 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...

Opening Prayer "The sick man answered and said, I have no man to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I'm coming, another steps down before me. Jesus said to him, rise, take up your bed and walk." I am going to be sharing the word of God with you, and I do believe that you are going to experience a miracle. People are going to get set free, you're going to get delivered, you're going to see and begin to experience the miracle power of God that is available for you because of Jesus Christ, who died on a cross 2,000 years ago and paid the price for your sin. And because of his sacrifice, you can be reconnected to God. And being reconnected to God, there is a newness of life that is given to you. Jesus Christ himself said, "I came to give you life eternally, but I came also to give you life abundantly. I came to give you a reason to live. I came to give you a story of what I'm going to do in your life that only God can accomplish." And once the word of God is spoken and you've had an opportunity to respond, then you can celebrate that with us. Father God Almighty, I thank you for the anointing of your Holy Spirit. Lord, you told us years ago, cast the internet on the right side of the boat and I will bring in a harvest. And we obeyed you. And this prayer meeting is now in over 200 countries and dependencies around the world, and Lord, you're going to bring in a harvest. God, I thank you for the numbers of people who are going to come out of darkness and into light, out of captivity and into freedom, out of weakness and into strength, out of confusion into clarity of thought. God, you're going to send healing into homes, families, marriages, minds. God, you're going to deliver. Lord, we boast about you, we talk about you, but the work is all yours, and we acknowledge that. You have the power, and you proved your heart when you went to a cross. It wasn't just a vain display of your affection. Lord, there was power released when you were raised from the dead, and because of that, God, we have hope in this generation. Lord Jesus Christ, we ask you that the work that you came to do, you would do today. God, you would set free the oppressed, give sight to the blind. Let the poor have the treasure of heaven open to them, the strength of God revealed to them. Heal those that have been wounded so deeply they think they'll never recover. Bring healing into their lives. Lift up the weak. Set free, God, those that are captivated. And Lord, we ask you to do this for the glory of your name. Lord, it's time for you to work. God, the world is dark, the day is late, you're coming soon. We ask you, God, to move in miraculous power again in this generation. As you have done — we sing about it — do what you are famous for. Do what you have done, what you have displayed, what you've shown us, God. Clearly in the scriptures, we see your heart. You healed all who came to you. You never turned somebody away and said, come back some other time. You healed every person. We are here to declare your victory, your power, your heart, your cross, your work. And we do it in Jesus' name. Amen. The Pool of Bethesda — John 5 My message is called "Will You Be Made Whole?" John 5, beginning at verse 2: "Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water." I think of the numbers of people who are exactly like this — sick, blind. You don't see a way forward. You don't have the strength to get up and move into what God has. You're paralyzed by fear, perhaps, and you're waiting for your divine moment. The moving of the water symbolizes a divine moment. It was the stirring of God, and whoever got up and got into the stirring of this water first was healed of whatever disease or circumstance they had. "For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water, that whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years." I want you to picture that. Can you imagine what this man felt like? Thirty-eight years lying there, unable to move, can't see a way forward. The only way forward is if he can make it into a divine moment in his life. He somehow knows that only God can make a difference. Thirty-eight years of hopelessness. "When Jesus saw him lying there, he knew that he had already been there in that condition a long time. And he said to him, 'Do you want to be made whole?'" "The sick man answered him, 'Sir, I have no man to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. But while I'm coming, another steps down before me.'" In other words, maybe there were people there at one point saying, "Hey, we're going to do this together. We're going to get you through this. We're going to fight through this together." But after thirty-eight years, everybody gave up. There's nobody left. Nobody there to help him. All of the words of encouragement that would be spoken into this man's life are gone. There's just nobody there. It's only him. Don't you love it that when everybody's gone, Jesus Christ is still there? He is the one who sticks closer than a brother. He does not walk away from us in our struggle, in our time of difficulty. "Jesus said to him, 'Rise, take up your bed and walk.' And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed and walked. And that day was the Sabbath." Gary's Story — A Modern Miracle Several years ago, this prayer meeting used to be on a Tuesday night in New York City at Times Square Church. And requests were coming in from all over the world, but some were repetitive. There was this one that kept coming in from a place called Newfoundland in Canada, from a lady called Heather. She kept saying, "Pray for my husband Gary. My husband Gary is a drug addict. Everyone has given up on my husband Gary." As a matter of fact, in line with this passage, Gary had been a drug addict for 38 years. Gary had gone to every conceivable program known to humanity and nobody had been able to help him. He would always get out, maybe experience momentary victory, and then go back again into his old habits. He had a chair in the house and used to sit in that chair and do drugs — whatever kind, some of them were pretty hard drugs. Heather was watching this prayer meeting, this worldwide prayer meeting. And one night the Spirit of God came upon her and she went downstairs, got an axe, and chopped his chair to pieces in the living room. I told her she should write a pamphlet and call it the Book of Acts, according to Heather. She chopped Gary's chair to pieces in the living room and she said, "Satan, no more in this house. No more drugs in this house. No more debauchery in this house. No more captivity in this house — because I'm hearing something online. I'm hearing a message that I can be free. My marriage can be restored. My husband can be delivered." She kept giving those prayer requests week after week. Pray for my husband Gary and my son Liam, if I remember correctly. So one Tuesday night I got up and I saw that Heather had submitted another prayer request: pray for my husband Gary. And at that moment, the Holy Spirit came upon me. Now you and I need to learn this — especially the students here in this Bible school. We need to learn to cooperate with the Holy Spirit because we live a supernatural life. The Spirit of God is within us. And if we learn to cooperate with God, when God is moving and God is speaking, miracles start happening. I looked into the screen that night and I pointed my finger at the screen. I said, "Gary, listen to me. You are not a drug addict. God has called you to be an evangelist. You are an evangelist. You're not a drug addict." He'd been 38 years on drugs...

Psalm 91: A Truth Satan Fears Psalm 91: He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God. In Him I will trust. Surely He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler — that means the secret traps that you don't see coming your way — and from the perilous pestilence. In the original translation, the way that reads is: from the perversion that comes into a society when the restraining hand of God is lifted off of it. He will deliver you from secret traps and from the perversions that are going to be prevalent in this and other societies in the last days. He will cover you with His feathers and under His wings you shall take refuge. His truth will be your shield and your buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day. Whether there are acts of terrorism in various countries throughout the world, or threats even of nuclear war, the Bible says you will not be afraid. There will be a confidence that God puts in your heart that is born of the Spirit of God. It is born of a trust in the keeping power of God. No matter what happens, no matter what difficulty comes our way, you will not be afraid. Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look and see the reward of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling. For He shall give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot. Because He has set His love upon me, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high, because he has known my name. He shall call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation. This psalm — Psalm 91 — contains a truth about God that Satan himself fears. He fears that if it's believed, it would instill a barrier of promise in the hearts of those who believe in it that no power of hell can get through and breach. That's why he is afraid of Psalm 91. How Satan Used Psalm 91 to Tempt Jesus It was this psalm that Satan quoted when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness in Matthew 4. Actually, in the temptation of Christ — after he was baptized in the Jordan and went into the wilderness, led of the Spirit to be tempted by Satan — this was the only scripture that Satan did not fully quote. He quoted a part of it, but not the whole scripture. He came to the Son of God. Now, he knew who he was fighting with. He was contesting with the Son of God. I don't know how he knew it, but Satan knew who Jesus Christ was, and he had a sense of what his mission was on the earth. The first temptation he brought to him was essentially this: If you are the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread. In other words, if you are the Son of God, why are you not being fed? Why are you hungry? If you are the Son of God, there must be a resident power within you — use it for yourself, use it for your own benefit. Turn these stones to bread. Of course, that's what the devil did — that's why he fell from heaven. He was not content with the ways, the will, and the word of God. He wanted something higher than he was assigned by God. He was tempting Christ to change his situation by his own power and his own influence. Then he took him to the holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said again: If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written, He will give His angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Here's the more insidious temptation as I see this. In effect, what I think the devil was saying — and this is my opinion, my conjecture — he was basically saying: I'm going to throw you down. And what makes you think that when your feet hit the stone that somehow there are going to be angels there to help you? What makes you think that God will preserve you? What makes you think that God will protect you? What makes you think that God will raise you up? What makes you think he will send angels to be part of the process of bringing you to the conclusion of what your life is supposed to be? If you do believe this, throw yourself down. But I want to remind you — that is not the whole scripture. He left a line out. Psalm 91 says: He will give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. It didn't say it's just for one specific event. God is going to assign angels to you to keep you in all of the journey of your life — the good times, the bad times, the easy times, the hard times, the times you understand, the times you don't, the times when it looks prosperous and the times when it looks hopeless. God is not going to fail you. God is going to keep you. And there will be a heavenly presence to assist you this whole time, lest you should be overthrown or overcome by the temptations or the testings that are all around you. And lastly, seeing he could not turn Jesus from the truth of the word of God, he said to him: All the kingdoms of the world and all their glory belong to me. If you will fall down and worship me, you don't have to go to the cross. Basically, that's what he was saying. Then you don't have to die. You can have it all if you'll just bow down and worship me. And Jesus said, Away with you, Satan. It is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Matthew 4:11 says: Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him. Praise be to God. That's exactly what the scripture says. He will give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. What Satan Fears We Will Discover Now, what was the devil so afraid of in Psalm 91 — that if you and I laid hold of it, his power over us would be broken? His power causes us to think that somehow God won't provide for us in the midst of our hunger or our hardship or whatever it is that you and I have to face in the days ahead. The promise of God is that we will have provision. Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you. First of all, he was afraid that we would find this hidden place of God where our confidence in his keeping power can no longer be broken. He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High — Psalm 91:1 — shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. And I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God. In him I will trust. I will trust on the good days. I will trust on the bad days. I will trust when I hit the notes in the song. I will trust when my voice cracks and I can't hit them. I will trust when there's money in the bank, and I will trust when I have to trust God to pay my bills. I will trust in God. This has to be our prayer in this generation: God, take me to this place. Take me to this place of trust in you. Oh, Jesus Christ, Son of God, don't let me trust in my own reasonings, my own resources, my own thinking, my own abilities, my own strength. God Almighty, give me the ability to trust in your word — that the things you say to me are true. They cannot be contravened. They cannot be thrown away. God Almighty, you cannot be tested. Satan said to Jesus, throw yourself...

Introduction: The Call Not to Faint I want to bring to you a message I've entitled "A Billion Reasons Not to Give Up." Galatians 6:9 — just one verse, where the Apostle Paul says, And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. The original King James says "if we don't faint." It carries the connotation of somebody running a race — perhaps they get halfway, two-thirds of the way through this long-distance race, and then they just quit. They just stop. Maybe it's pressing through the exhaustion or the pain. There are times that we feel pain and we're exhausted, and we have a tendency to want to draw back from the work that God has entrusted into our hands. But there's an incredible promise given to us. First of all, there's an admonition: don't grow weary in doing good. For in due season — in the proper time, in God's timing — we will reap if we don't lose heart. Why Do People Lose Heart? So the question arises: why do people lose heart? Why do they faint? Why do they quit? People who knew the redemption of Christ. People who have been given the Spirit of God. People who know the truth of God's Word. People who have at least a sense of what our commission is on the earth. We're not here to live for ourselves any longer. As we teach here in our Bible school, the purest expression of the Christian life is found in living for the benefit of others. That's what our Savior did for us, and we've been commissioned to do that for the sake of others. And while we are on that journey, Jesus Christ promises that he will give us all that we need. He'll give us comfort in times of sorrow. He'll give us his strength in times of weakness. He'll give us his encouragement in times of discouragement. He'll keep us going. He'll keep us running for a divine reason — reaching those that are lost, because that is the mission of Jesus Christ on the earth. Reason 1: No Vision for the Future People lose heart because they have no vision for life in the future. Proverbs 29:18 says, Where there is no vision, the people perish. The King James says they cast off restraint. They turn to self-focus, or they become disillusioned. Where there's no vision — what is my life? What is the purpose of my life? What is the purpose of God? Help me to understand why I'm here. When we lose the vision of God for the future of our own lives, it is inevitable that we are going to lose heart. Reason 2: Constant Complaining People lose heart when they fall into constant complaining about the present. Psalm 77:3 — the psalmist says, I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed. If you want to sink your own boat — if you want to drill a hole in the bottom of your own boat in the middle of the ocean — start complaining, and your boat's going to fill and you're going to go down. We have to learn not to complain. Listen, it might be tough, but you're not going to hell. I'm talking to the Christians. It might be tough. I used to say to the choir in New York City: if you're going through hell, just be thankful you're not staying there. You're going through. You're going to come out the other side, and heaven is your eternal home. There is no guarantee in the Word of God that everything is going to be easy. You're going to be opposed. You have an enemy in this world. There are going to be things said, things done. There's going to be exhaustion, all kinds of things coming your way. But don't fall into complaining. A complainer not only sinks his or her own boat, but they sink everybody else's boat around them. To me, complaint is the opposite of faith. Complaint is the absence of seeing God. I would rather be an optimist. I would rather live on the side of "it's going to work out," because that's what God says is going to happen. The Bible does say all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose. Not some things, or just the things that I like. All things work together for good — the things I like and the things I don't. The day I get up and I feel twenty years old, the day I get up and I feel two hundred years old — all things are still working together for good because I love God and I'm called according to his purpose. Reason 3: Pain People lose heart because of pain. Psalm 55:6 — the psalmist says, Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest. The pain of betrayal. The pain of constant enemies. The pain of just the difficulties of life in general. Something can come into the heart and say, "God, I want out. I don't want to do this anymore." And we end up on the sidelines. As Paul says to the Galatians, we lose heart. And because we lose heart, we don't reap. It's pretty hard to bring a Savior to somebody else that you don't necessarily want yourself. Reason 4: Regret People lose heart because they faint because of regret. Psalm 42:3 — the psalmist says, My tears have been my food day and night. They regret the life choices they made. They regret the things that were done to them or things that they did to others, or the way they lived or what they did. I just thank God for the testimony of this young lady. There's no regret there at all. It's just: I'm going on with God. My sins are washed away. My past is buried in the sea. And God put a sign on the shore that says "No Fishing." Nobody can come there. Nobody can dig it up. Nobody can drag me through it. It's gone. It's dead. It's buried. It's over. I walked out of that grave, and I'm living a new life now in Jesus Christ. Yes, we've all made mistakes. I've made mistakes. You've made mistakes. And if I choose to live there in my mind — if I choose to live with the regrets of the things I did say or didn't say, did do or didn't do — then I'm going to lose heart eventually. I'm not called to live there. I am a new creation in Christ Jesus. I have a new birthright. I have new life. I have a new future. I have the presence of God dwelling inside this earthly body. I refuse to live in regret for the past. I did for a season, as a young believer, before I understood that we don't have to live there anymore. I used to make daily crying a part of my prayer. You get to feeling it as holy after a while — going in and just hanging your head and talking about all the things you did or didn't do — until one day the Lord spoke to me. I was going through my regular crying, and the Lord told me, "Stand up." And I stood up, and He said, "Your tears are an accusation against my faithfulness." I knew it was the voice of God because it wasn't in my mind to think that way. He said, "I'm going to show you some things in the future. And if you get on your knees and weep one more time over this, I'm going to take that as an accusation against my faithfulness to you." You're not called to live in regret. You're not called to live in the past. You have a new future. You have a new hope. You have a new life. Five Reasons Not to Give Up So people would say, "What can you tell me that would give me a reason not to give up?" Well, I have a billion reasons. I'm not going to tell you the whole billion, but I'm going to give you five, and you can fill in the rest. Reason Not to Give Up #1: You Know the Truth Here's why you shouldn't give up: because you know the truth. John 8:32 — Jesus said, You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. You know the truth. The freedom might not come in one hour. It might not come in one week or even one year, but it's coming your way. You know the truth, and the truth will make you free. There's a man called Michael who sent in a prayer request this week. He said: "I need an encounter with Jesus. I need to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to be delivered from besetting sins." For the sake of Michael, and every other Michael in this world who needs to encounte...

Thirty years ago, I was a hardened cop who drew chalk lines around dead bodies and went to eat lunch without caring. But when I stepped into the light of God's love, everything changed. God's x-ray machine isn't condemnation—it's love. He wants to take what doesn't belong in your life and replace it with things you can't even dream of having.