Victory Comes When Victory Can No Longer Come — Carter Conlon

The Altar, the Fire, and Victory from God

I have a message from 1 Kings 18 in the Old Testament this morning called, Victory comes when victory can no longer come. You'll have to take a moment to think about that. Victory comes when victory can no longer come.

1 Kings 18. Now while you're turning there, I'll take a moment to pray. Now, Father, I thank you, God, with all my heart this morning for your people that you have gathered here in this sanctuary in North Jersey, in the education annex, and so many that join us from around the world online.

God Almighty, this is an incredible moment in history. I pray through your word that you would give us understanding of our times, of your strength, the greatness of your willingness to bless us as your people.

Father God, I pray for an anointing to come upon my physical body and override the frailties of this body and give me the ability to deliver your heart this morning. Give us the courage to hear it. I pray, my God, that you would answer questions to those who have come in to the sanctuary this morning with just questions about the reality of who you are and what you're able to do in the of those who choose to trust you.

I pray, God, that hearts begin to burn for truth this day. I ask you, Lord Jesus Christ, to unlock prison doors and set people free who need freedom. I ask you, God Almighty, to give hope to those that might be here today that are on the verge of losing heart and losing hope.

Jesus, do what only you can do. Bring a victory that can only come from God when all other sources of victory have failed. Father, I thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. First Kings chapter 18, beginning at verse 31.

Elijah was a prophet in the Old Testament. That means somebody that was a spokesman for God, a recognized spokesman for God through whom the power of God flowed through his life. Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, Israel shall be your name.

Then with the stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold two seals of seed. And he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood and said, fill four water pots with water and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.

Then he said, do it a second time. And they did it a second time. And he said, do it a third time. And they did it a third time. So the water ran all around the altar and he also filled the trench with water.

And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word.

Hear me, O Lord, hear me that this people may know that you are the Lord God and that you've turned their hearts back to you again. Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the dust.

And it licked up the water that was in the trench. Now, when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, the Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God. You know, it's, it's not even debatable any longer that we are living in a dark period of history.

Hopelessness, Calamity, and the Authority of Christ

The period that Jesus spoke about in Matthew chapter 24 of calamities and distresses on nations, men's hearts beginning to fail them for fear of the things that are coming on the earth. And that doesn't mean they're having heart attacks.

It means that they're losing hope. People are losing hope for the future. They're losing hope for their children. They're losing hope for even the, the shred of a civil society that we once knew. They're losing hope for unity, for any semblance of goodness and godliness in our midst.

And so the question is, when all seems to be on the verge of being lost, how does God respond? And the way that we learned how he responds is by looking at how he has responded through biblical history.

When victory looked as if it had eluded the grasp of even the best of God's people. In Mark chapter four, the Bible tells us a story of his own disciples that were caught in a storm. They were seasoned fishermen and they were given the instruction, go to the other side.

Let's go to the other side. And in the midst of that journey, there's a rose, a storm and the storm took away their confidence. And you know, you can be confident in your abilities up to a point until you are faced with something that is beyond your ability.

And none of these were novices to the sea, yet the storm that they encountered was something that was deeper than any of their experience or bravado or human effort could accomplish. And they began to realize we're going to go down.

If we don't have a divine intervention, we're going to go down. And it was at this moment that they called up to God, the son of God, and he rose up from where he was. And the scripture tells us he stood in that boat and he commanded the wind and the seas to be still.

And suddenly it says there was a great calm and Jesus showed them. And he shows us today that his word still has preeminence over all that tries to convince us that the way forward is hopeless. You might be here this morning and you feel hopeless.

You feel like your life is hopeless. Your family situation is hopeless. You might just be discouraged at the state of our society and our world today. And you might have that sense of hopelessness has come into your life.

But I want to tell you, Jesus still has the power over everything in this world. And if he told you, if he's instructed you to go to a certain place, there's nothing of earth or hell or anything else that can stop you from getting there.

David, Goliath, and Strength in Weakness

He has all power. He has all authority. And when you put your confidence in him, he will get you exactly where you need to go. And you can bank on that. You can trust in that. In first Samuel chapter 17, in the old Testament, the opposition became so fearsome in that day that most everybody lost the will to fight.

The Philistine army, which represents godlessness in that hour, trying to swallow up the testimony of God, had amassed themselves in battle array against the people of God, the testimony of God. And they had a champion called Goliath.

And he came out morning and evening and he stood on a mountainside and he literally challenged the armies of Israel to put forward somebody the best that they had to fight against him. And he said, if you succeed against me, we will be your servants.

And if not, you will serve us. And society finds itself in that battle repetitively throughout history, where godlessness, once again, mounts an offensive against the testimony of God in the earth and says, we've come, we've come in might, we've come in power.

We look stronger than you are. And if you cannot defeat us, if you cannot put somebody up against us, that's going to push us back, then you will become our servants. And there are many of us here today that are realizing that we are living at such a moment in history again, where godlessness has raised his voice and is now threatening the very doorway of the house of God.

When all people had lost the will to fight the strongest and bravest, who had stood there in their own strength with all of their polished armor, their King that stood head and shoulders above the rest of the people all trembled.

And the scripture says they became dismayed. Not only were they afraid, but they were dismayed. And dismay means that I have looked within myself and I do not find the resources to confront this threat that has come against me.

That's what dismay is. That's why God told Joshua after Moses, do not be afraid, do not be dismayed. Don't be afraid of what you're going to face. And don't be dismayed. Don't look within because your help is not coming from inside of your own ability.

Your help is not coming from your own strength. Your help is not coming from anything you can produce in human effort. And the scripture says, they looked at this giant and they were afraid and they were dismayed.

And the very next verse after that one says, then David, I love that it starts with them. David, then David, then God, one more time showed us that his strength is perfected in our weakness. Not when we are strong, but when we are weak, when we have nothing left, but a confidence in God, when we are willing to obey his instructions, as foolish as they may look to the natural man, all of the armor, all the, all that Israel had, all the Polish, they're nice looking, tall King, all the rest of it put aside.

And God takes a little shepherd boy, sends him down to a stream and tells him just take five smooth stones out of that stream. And you're slinging your hand and a great victory is going to be one again today.

Thank God that Paul said it. One of the apostles in the new Testament, when I am weak, then I am strong. I believe with all my heart, the church of Jesus Christ is going to recover and rediscover her strength again in this generation.

For too long, we have been too strong in ourselves for too long. We polished our own armor for too long. We've raised up our own Kings. Now we find ourselves confronted by powers of darkness that every man knows we are not strong enough in ourselves to defeat.

We don't have the resources. We don't have the plans. We don't have the courage. We don't have anything it takes to defeat the powers of darkness in this moment of time. Then David, then that which is foolish in the sight of the world, then that which looks weak and inconsequential to those things that are stand in their own strength.

God raises up one more time. Oh Jesus, son of God, bring us back to faith again in the house of God. Bring us back to an understanding. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

We don't need a new political party. We don't need a new champion. We don't need a new fancy preacher. We need prayer meetings again in the house of God. We need God's people to begin to pray. Let the devil laugh as the devil will laugh.

Let the devil say, this is of no consequence. Let them pray. But when God's people pray, God's word says, if my people are called by my name, we'll humble themselves and pray. In other words, realize that we can't fight this in our own strength.

We need the strength of God to fight this moment in history. Then he said, I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin and I will heal their land. Now my eyes shall be open and my ears will be listening to the prayers that are prayed in this place.

Deliverance Through the Cry of Faith

In Exodus chapter three, we see in the Bible a time when society had turned largely against the testimony of God and his people. The people of God had once been welcomed into Egypt with open arms. They'd been given of the best of the land, but now everything had turned.

Now there was a despising of the people of God in spite of the blessing that had once come to the nation of Egypt through a godly man called Joseph and his family. But suddenly now there's a vilification of the people of God and they've gone so far that they're taking their children and throwing them into the river, going after the next generation, going after the strength of the people of God.

It was at this moment that God heard the cry. Again, the people began to pray and their prayer. I don't know how faith filled it was, but it became a cry. And when God hears the cry that comes from your heart and mind, when God hears that cry, it's a cry he cannot resist.

And he came down and he said, I've heard the cry and I've seen their taskmasters and I've come down to deliver them. And he showed us through Moses and through this story that his purpose for us as his people cannot be held captive by any force of this world.

It doesn't matter what comes against you. Paul, the apostle said, there's no mountain. There's no valley. There's no wall. There's no principality. There's no angels. There's no powers of darkness that can separate you and I from the love of God, which is ours in Christ Jesus.

Elijah, Baal, and the Crisis of Compromised Worship

The opening text I read to you from first Kings chapter 18 happened at a time when God's people and his testimony through them seemed to be in an unwinnable situation. The nation was in famine. Now the nation had begun to worship its own prosperity, which is always a problem when God prospers a people.

How many times through biblical history did he bring his own people out and he promised them a land that is flowing with milk and honey and he says, there's cattle, there's produce, you're going to prosper there.

And he was true to his promise. And when he blessed them, then they began to worship the blessing and they forgot who gave it to them. And nation after nation throughout history has done that. God has blessed people and they've forgotten and they began to worship their blessing.

And so to get their attention, he shut off the rain. It's sort of like if the stock market collapsed on Monday in America, he would get our attention. As a matter of fact, he's going to get it. He's getting it now through the political situation.

And he's going to get it through the financial situation. God is after this nation. God is after his own house. He's after his people. And he sent a famine to the land. Self-focused worship was popular.

The people had turned from the living God and they were worshiping Baal, which is the God really of produce, the field and the cupboard. As long as they were prospering, they were happy. And there were a lot of prophets of Baal there.

People were just talking about all this blessing and it would never end. Evil secular leadership seemed to be gaining strength over them. Even though Elijah was a prophet of God, there was an ever increasing hatred in the leadership of the nation for the word of God and for the people of God.

The people were unsure of what they should be giving their hearts to. When Elijah brought the people on the top of Mount Carmel in verse 21, it says, Elijah said to the people, how long will you falter between two opinions?

If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, follow him. And the scripture says, the people answered him, not a word. They weren't sure any longer how far they wanted to go with God. How deep do we really want to go in this relationship?

Do we want to be marginalized? Do we want to be laughed at? Do we want to be alienated from the direction of this society? They just weren't sure. It's not that they didn't believe that Jehovah God in the Old Testament was God.

They just weren't sure how much they really wanted to follow him as opposed to following the prosperity of their former prosperity of their nation. The religion of the day was largely compromised and it was seeking power over purpose.

Verse 19, Elijah said, gathered to me all the on Mount Carmel, the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who sit at Jezebel's table, and Jezebel was the wife of the king. And so you can see this massive religion that is lusting for power over purpose.

God left us on the earth for a purpose, not to lust for power, not to try to find it through political means. The power that we ought to seek comes from heaven. It comes from God. It comes in a way that nothing in this world could ever produce.

There were still some who loved the true God, but it appears that most of their voices had gone silent. Elijah said to the people, I alone am left a prophet. In other words, I alone am left among those who are called of God to confront this wickedness that's in our generation.

And Baal's prophets are 450 men. Now we know that there were 7 ,000 others because God told Elijah later on, you're not the only one, there's 7 ,000 more. But it's interesting that Elijah wasn't aware of even one of the 7 ,000.

It means they hadn't bent their knee, but they had not opened their mouths either. There were very few that were taking a stand. Maybe there were a few, but he hadn't encountered them. And I think Elijah would have been aware of it.

And we're witnessing a strange silence in the house of God in this moment of time. I don't know if you're aware of that or not, but there are some, there are a few, thank God, but there's a strange silence of people just carrying on and not aware of the hour we're living in now, not aware of the peril of the moment that we're actually in, not aware even of the soon coming of Jesus Christ, not aware that the next great event about to take place on the earth might very well be the rapture of the church of Jesus Christ, promised in the Bible that moment where God himself is going to come and he's going to take his church from the earth, ushering in after that moment, the greatest period of trial that this world has ever known.

You hardly hear it preached anymore. It's as if the gospel that Peter spoke about where people will mock the soonness of his coming seems to have come upon us. And, but it was, it was exactly at this moment that God revealed the truth that endures even to our day.

It says, Elijah took 12 stones in verse 31, according to the number of tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come saying, Israel shall be your name. This is a profound thing. You see, Jacob in Genesis was the third in line from the promise that God had made to Abraham.

Returning to God’s Original Purpose

God took a man called Abraham out of his family, out of his house, and he made him a promise. He said, Abraham, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to multiply you as the sand on the seashore, as the stars in the sky.

I'm going to make you more than you could ever hope to be in yourself. And through you, all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed. Now, Jacob is the third in line, but Jacob was a liar and Jacob had sought the blessing of God another way.

And it had driven him into the wilderness. He was in a place where it looked like the victory was outside of his grasp, but suddenly he got up and wanted to go home. He wanted to come back to the purpose for his life.

And I know there are people here today that you don't even know why you're here, but I'm telling you, you're here because God has destined you for a purpose that's bigger than what you understand. It's more than you will ever know.

When you get into right relationship with God, he begins to, not only does he clean the slate of the wrong that you have done, but he begins to do in and through your life, what you could never hope to do in yourself.

He blesses you. He comes against your enemies, gives you freedom. He promises to take you through to the fullness of what you're to be on the earth and the promise of heaven after you die. That's the promise of God to those who turn to Christ for their salvation.

When Elijah was rebuilding the altar, he took 12 stones and he made this pronouncement, Israel shall be your name. Jacob found himself wrestling with God. And I know there are people here today, you're wrestling with God in your heart.

You're saying the same as the people of Elijah's day once did. How deep do I want to go with this thing? How far do I want to go? How radical do I want to be? How much do I really want to obey God? Is it possible to have heaven in a full cupboard at the same time?

Can't I worship both? Do I have to go one way instead of the other? But when Elijah rebuilt that altar, he made this profound announcement, Israel shall be your name. And it was in that place where Jacob wrestled with God.

And he said to God, I won't go into what you've destined for my life until you bless me. And he knew exactly what he was saying when he, he wasn't just looking for a fancy touch from God. He knew that blessing, what that blessing meant.

He knew that blessing of God that was promised to his great grandfather was, or grandfather was going to make him more than he could be in himself. It was going to cause him to be yielded, not just to live for himself, but for the sake of others, that the blessing on his life was destined to be a blessing for other people.

And ultimately through him, the world would be blessed. The Christ's lineage was inside of him folks. You and I know that today. And we learn from this, that each of us can triumph in spite of our weakness.

If we're willing to return to our original purpose, Jesus Christ is calling out to his church now in America. If we will return to our original purpose, God will bless us again. God will give us strength again.

God will lift us up again. God will give us favor again. God will vanquish our enemies again. If we are willing to return to our purpose, that we are called of God to be a blessing on the earth. God says, I will multiply you.

I will stand against your enemies. I will make you more than you could ever hope to be. I will take you in your weakness and I will become your strength. And all men will know that I am God. When they see what I do through your life, if you are willing to return to your purpose, verse 32, it says, then with the stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord.

And he made a trench around about the altar. It speaks about returning to unity with Christ and with each other. The book of Acts chapter two, that's where the original church was just in an upper room.

Almost all of them failures, weak people knowing they needed God, but they were in unity with God and with each other. And when they were found in that place, the power of God descended upon them and history was changed.

The Cross, Resurrection, and Surrendered Weakness

Verses 33 to 35 says, he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, laid it on the wood and said, fill four water pots with water and poured on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood. Then he said, do it a second time.

And they did it a second time. And he said, do it a third time. And they did it a third time. So the water ran all around the altar and also filled the trench with water. It speaks to me of the victory of the cross.

Jesus Christ was three days in the grave and he was raised by the power of God from the dead. And the promise of God to those of us who put our trust in Christ is that we too will be raised from the power of death that comes because of sin will be raised from the, out of the infirmities of our flesh will be brought into a newness of life through Jesus Christ will be made into more than we could ever hope to be in our own strength.

We'll be taking places where we could never go in our own strength, given things to say we never even thought of. We'll have a new heart, a new mind, and a new spirit. We will actually in our feebleness enter in to the victory of another.

That's what it's all about. That's why I talked about victory comes when victory can no longer come. Victory comes when we finally realize I can't do this without God. I won't do this without God. I'm not even interested in doing this without God.

I'm going nowhere without God. I'll know no victory without God. Suddenly when we find ourselves just on that altar of self-sacrifice on that altar of just saying, God, I'll give you my life. I'll give you my future, but I'm not going alone.

I'm not trying to try to do this thing in my own strength for I know it's not possible. Suddenly we find our little sacrifice on that altar swallowed up by the power of God. The scripture says he turned and he said, hear me, oh Lord, hear me, that the people may know that you are the Lord God and you've turned their hearts back to you again.

You see, that's the foundation of the Christian life. God, answer my prayer and change me and set me free that people around me may know that you are God and their hearts would be turned back again. I'm not asking you to know more than others.

I'm not asking you for an argument. I'm asking you for an experience. I'm asking you for an indwelling of God's Holy Spirit. I'm asking you for an empowerment of God that can only come from heaven itself, not in my strength, but in my weakness.

I am willing, oh God, to live out the purpose that you have for my life, but you've got to be the source of power and strength because I'll never do it in my own. This is the cry of the church in this hour that will be victorious.

God Almighty, turn the hearts of the people back to you again. Turn the hearts of my family back to you again. Turn the hearts of my children back to you again. Turn the hearts of my community back to you again.

God, turn the hearts of this nation back to you again by doing something so profound in my life, by doing something so otherworldly in my life that the people who know me, who stand and witness the transformation, look upon my life and say, the Lord is God.

The Lord, he is God. Their hearts turn back to you again. That's what God did, folks. That's what he did in the beginning. The church was touched by the power of God's spirit in the book of Acts. They were living in a generation that had the bloodlust against the church of Christ in their heart.

They had just crucified their savior. They're not interested in enduring their followers. There was a religiousness that hated God. You say, how can you say that? They crucified the son of God. It's not even debatable, but yet out of that upper room came 120 ordinary people like you and like me, filled with the power of God, having come out not in their strength, but in their weakness, but now in the strength of God.

Revival Through the Power of the Holy Spirit

Victory had come when victory could no longer come. The whole of society was against the testimony of Christ. They stood out in that marketplace with such a market presence of God upon their lives. The people who were engrossed in another form of religiousness looked at them, and 3 ,000 people that day said, what must we do to be saved?

What must we do to have that kind of a life that you have now, that kind of power, that fire from God that has come upon your life? What must we do to have that? I tell you, the presence of Christ in a person's life in full measure is still as attractive and still as powerful today as it has always been throughout history.

When you and I begin to cry out and say, God, give me your power. Jesus, give me your power for my family. How many here have unsaved family? I know you almost all do. God, I can't win them with an argument.

I've tried. It doesn't work. We end up going to Thanksgiving and fighting across the dinner table about what is true and what is not true. Lord, I'm asking you for something beyond an argument. I'm asking you, God, to give me victory when I can't win it in my own strength anymore.

I have rode God, but I'm sinking. I've tried to fight, but my courage has left me. I have tried to procure my own testimony and my own freedom, but I find myself overwhelmed by the forces that are around me.

Now, Lord, God, I'm giving you my life. I'm giving you my heart. I'm giving you my future. I'm putting it all on the altar. I'm putting it all in your hands. God, I'm going to fill this trench three times with water because I don't want any false spark igniting my heart of human zeal or any kind of self-effort.

This is going to have to be you, Holy Spirit. It's either all God or nothing. I thank God that we're back at that place again in history. We have arrived again, folks, in our present day here in America.

It's all God or it's nothing. Isaiah, a prophet of God, saw his own weakness. He was lifted up in a difficult time in the history of his nation to the presence of God, and he saw the power of God. He saw the mercy of God, and he saw his own littleness in the sight of God.

He saw his own weakness, suddenly became aware of his inability to do anything for the kingdom of God. Although he had been doing things for God's kingdom for some time, but being drawn into God's presence, he now saw how empty and powerless it all was.

Standing there in his littleness, standing there feeling undone, standing there feeling like a failure, out of his own mouth, he said, we're all unclean. All our good works are filthiness in the sight of a holy God.

I've spoken about God, but now I've seen him. He said, woe to me. Woe to me, O God. If you don't show me mercy, I'm finished. I'm done. Suddenly, he started hearing the voice of God, and the voice of God speaking to himself was saying, who will I send and who will go for us?

Who will go? Recognizing his littleness, recognizing his inability, recognizing his nothingness, he raised his hand, said, here am I, send me. From that moment of weakness, we have one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament.

Plus, he was given a panoramic view of almost all of time ahead of him, including Christ and the cross and the church, even into the coming kingdom of God. He saw it all and wrote it down in a book called Isaiah 66 chapters.

That's the cry of my heart today. You see, part of humbling ourselves in the sight of God is just the recognition that we can't do this. The recognition that I've rode hard, but I'm sinking. The recognition that I've fought as best as I can, but I'm dismayed now because I'm looking inside of my life and I can't find the resources to fight this fight anymore.

The recognition that apart from an intervention of God, this society that surrounds me is going to captivate me forever. I will not have an influence on it. It will hold me captive and become my taskmaster.

But it's also a recognition that in my weakness, if I will lay my life down and call out to him for the sake of others, that he will come down. And the scripture says that when the fire came down, it consumed the burnt sacrifice.

I mean, it consumed this life that was laid upon this altar and the wood and the stones and the dust and the water. It just took it all and consumed it in itself. And of course, that fire was the presence of God.

Folks, we need a revival like we've never needed it ever in the history of this nation. We've had great awakenings in America, but without humility in the house of God, there will never be a third awakening.

And it is now our only hope as a nation. There's no plan B. There's no alternate hope. The only hope for America now is you and me. The only hope is a people who are God-filled, a weak people, a people who know what we are without God, but a people are willing to recognize that if I will return to my purpose, God will bless me.

God will bless me. And so on that note, I'd like to give an altar call this morning. An altar call means that we invite people to the front of this auditorium or between the screens in the annex in North Jersey as well, or just to stand up in your living room at home.

You've heard the word today. I have delivered to you as best as I know how what I believe that God put on my heart. There's a point in every person's life where we just say, here am I, send me. Here am I, God, in my littleness, my fear.

I feel like I'm sinking, but if you can use me, here am I, God, send me into my family, my community, my nation, and make a difference through my life. I will no longer halt between two opinions I'm in.

Here am I, God. If that's the cry of your heart this morning, I want to invite you in a moment as we stand to join with me at the front of this auditorium and we're going to pray. Years ago, years ago, probably about 36 years ago now, I was in a church like this.

An Altar Call for Surrender and Service

I heard a message. I was a brand new believer in Jesus Christ, only saved a couple of years. I heard a message and God began to stir my heart and speak to me that he could do more through my life than I could ever dream or imagine.

And they had a divine purpose for my life, that he could bless me and he could bless others through my life. I felt like I had nothing to give him. I was a new believer and I was just coming out of darkness myself and coming out of old ways of thinking and living and doing.

I was powerless to give him. I had nothing to give him. I felt like I had less than the little boy who brought a few loaves and fishes to Jesus to feed the multitude. But that morning I got out of my seat.

There weren't that many that responded, only a few of us. And I knelt down right on this side and I began to weep. And I said, God, I feel like I have nothing to give you. If you could use a bad temper, I got that, got that down.