When The Lord Passes By (Video) — Carter Conlon

God's Mercy in Ezekiel's Picture of Israel

Lord's been speaking to me all summer. I want to start with the first message. He's given me this morning. It's simply called when the Lord passes by. From Ezekiel chapter 16 if you'll go there in your Bibles, please.

Ezekiel chapter 16. Now father, I thank you God with all of my heart. I Thank you Lord For the testimony that you have established here in New York City in this church, I Thank you Lord for the knowledge that you planted in each of our hearts that you are a merciful God and In spite of our frailty and I'm failing a barrenness Lord God yet you walk with us and are committed to us.

And Lord, we ask that we may have the privilege again in our generation of bringing your name to reputation. Touch this frail body this morning touch this sanctuary this audience that you brought together the body of Christ.

To be able to hear these words and father. I thank you with all of my heart God that you have chosen to walk with us at this time. I Bless you and praise you in Jesus name. Amen,. Ezekiel chapter 16. Ezekiel chapter 16 beginning at verse 4 as for your nativity on the day you were born.

Your navel cord was not cut. Nor were you washed in water to cleanse you you were not rubbed with salt no wrapped in swaddling cloths. No, I pitied you to do any of these things for you to have compassion on you.

But you were thrown out into the open field when you yourself were loathed on the day that you were born and When I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood live.

Yes, I said to you in your blood live. Now this passage of Scripture is about an instance in history where God birthed a nation called Israel to himself and He was passing by this young nation just born and struggling to survive a people that had no strength.

Seemingly nobody cared for them. They had no hope and They did not start with a strong beginning. They started with a weak beginning very very much. Like this nation the United States of America people coming from distant shores.

Landing in this new land. Despised by their home nation. Because they had a desire to be free free from overreaching governmental tyranny and Free from unjust taxation that was so burdensome that had denied people the opportunity to advance and to be innovative and to achieve.

They wanted freedom, but they had no strength. They had no real backing. They were despised as Israel once was. And Jesus said no, I pitted you to have compassion on you. But you were thrown into the open field and you were loathed in the day that you were born.

And when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood live. Yes, I said to you in your blood Live. It is the voice of God that established this nation my brother my sister.

It's the mercy of God. This nation should never have been born. It should never have survived. There was a cry for freedom in the hearts of the early settlers of this country. But there was no power no might no backing and I fully believe with all my heart.

Looking at the history and studying what I have studied it is undeniable that it was the voice of God Himself the mercy of God that allowed this nation to be founded as was also the case in the nation of Israel.

Creation, Light, and Spiritual Renewal

Just as in Genesis chapter 1 the scripture says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face Of the waters.

Then God said let there be light and there was light. When God comes to a people to a nation to an individual like you and I. No matter how you came into this world no matter where you were raised in royalty.

Or you were thrown into the field and discarded as the description is of even God's own people in his generation. It's at the sound of the voice of God that darkness gives way to light. Do you remember when God first spoke to you?

Do you remember when you first opened your heart to him and the darkness in your heart the darkness in your mind gave way to light? Disorder gives way to order. Boundaries are formed of behavior life is imparted and provision to go forward is given.

Oh Thank God. Oh, thank God for his mercy. I hope that's the cry of your heart this morning. Thank God for his mercy. Had he not come to me. What would I be? Today, what would you be today had the Lord not come to you?

What would your future be? Would you even have survived? Would you even be here today? Would you already be in hell had he not come to you and spoken to you and turned your darkness to light your disorder to order.

Put boundaries around your behavior gave you life and provision to go forward. Oh give him praise give him. Thanks for what he has done for you and for me verse 8 of Ezekiel 16. He says when I passed by you again and looked upon you.

God's Covering, Covenant, and Provision

Indeed your time was the time of love. So I spread my wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you and you became mine says the Lord. Then I washed you with water.

I thoroughly washed off your blood and anointed you with oil. Yes. Yes, you made tremendous mistakes America tremendous mistakes. You were the recipients of incredible grace and freedom yet You denied that grace and freedom to others and you didn't make mistakes but God passed by again and looked upon you when you had grown and you'd become more mature and Made a covenant and swore with an oath to you and you became his he says and I washed you in water.

I washed off your blood and anointed you with oil. I took away the shame. I forgave the shame of your mistakes and the injustices that you had committed against others. Even though you yourself were fleeing initially from injustice as you perceived it.

I clothed you With embroidered cloth and gave you sandals of badger skin. I Clothed you with fine linen covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments. I put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck.

I put a jewel in your nose Earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver and your clothing was a fine linen silk and embroidered cloth. You ate pastry of fine flour honey and oil.

You were exceedingly Beautiful and seceded to royalty. In other words It was evident that the strength of another was upon you and the whole world knew it. It was no secret. You became something in a few short years that you could never have become in your own strength and by your own Ingenuity.

I did it for you that says the Lord it was my covering. It was my majesty. It was my beauty. It was my provision. It was my light. It was my direction and You became the envy of the world. People looked at you from as they once looked at the temple of Solomon and came because of the reputation of the Lord and Desired to walk inside of your borders and be part of what I gave you and made you to become.

Your fame went out among the nations because of your beauty for it was perfect through my splendor. Which I bestowed on you says the Lord God. But you trusted in your own beauty. You played the harlot because of your fame and you poured out your harlotry on everyone passing by who would have it.

You took some of your garments and adorned multicolored high places for yourself. In other words, you begin to dress yourselves in the clothing of the rainbow. You played the harlot on them and such things should not happen nor be.

You've also taken your beautiful jewelry from my gold and my silver which I'd given you and you made for yourself male images and played the harlot with them. You took your embroidered garments and covered them and you set my oil and my incense before them.

And also my food which I gave you the pastry and the fine flour and the oil and the honey which I fed you. You said it before them a sweet incense. And so it was says the Lord God. Moreover you took your sons and your daughters whom you bore to me and these you've sacrificed to them to be devoured.

Idolatry, Children, and National Repentance

We're living in a generation Where our children are being indoctrinated into perversion in our grade schools. Where our high schoolers are being forbidden to pray and told there is no God where our college students are being radicalized against both God and country exactly as the Word of God says.

You've slain my children verse 21 and offered them up To them by causing them to pass through the fire. And in all your abominations and acts of idolatry you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare and struggling in your blood.

You trusted he says in your own beauty and you forgot me and Because of it your demise is obvious. Your light is now turning to darkness. Your order is turning to disorder. You no longer want boundaries on Your nation on your behaviors on your thoughts.

You no longer want the Lord God to govern you America as a nation. Yet in spite of all this the Lord is passing by one more and perhaps one last time. One more called to mercy. I shudder to stand in this pulpit and give this word this morning.

I have Grappled with it. I have struggled with it yet in my heart. I know when God is speaking one more time. One more time the Lord is passing by one more time. Whether it's to awaken a nation or to gather to himself what's left that can still hear his voice in any event.

He is passing by again. Jesus is passing by the mercy of God is passing by. The voice of God is calling out to you and it's evidenced by something that I call a moment of conscience. It's not an audible voice.

It's an interior voice because we as a people as any people are created in the image of God and there's an inner Conscience of God planted there and until that conscience is burned out by Willful rebellion and sin and a willful act to say I am NOT going to go with God.

I don't want to hear his voice anymore until that moment comes. There's still an opportunity for God to call one more time a moment of conscience you know Luke chapter 15 talks about a young man who lived in his father's house and In his father's house was provision.

Covering everything he wanted was in his father's house, but he got bored with it somehow. And he thought well, I thought this was freedom, but I think there's another freedom. Maybe I'm being denied.

So he asked for his inheritance and he left his father's house and he went far far far away from the kingdom of his father and He took the inheritance of freedom that he had because his father freely let him go.

He didn't try to even restrain him. He didn't even hold back on his inheritance gave him his inheritance and he let him go and he took that inheritance of freedom. And he wasted it on himself with completely selfish living.

One day a famine came into that nation a famine a famine for a virtue a famine of decency famine of love a famine of compassion a famine of provision a famine of kindness. A Famine came into the land and everybody knew it.

Everybody's starving. Everybody's angry. Everybody's looking for something of Provision and it but the selflessness of that society had ingrained itself So deeply that everybody's in it for themselves now and everybody's pointing the finger at somebody else this poor young man Ended up in the same field with others feeding things.

He never thought he'd ever feed in his lifetime. And the scripture says in Luke 15 verse 17 he came to himself. That's what I call a moment of conscience. What am I doing being part of this selfish place?

When my father's house in here, nobody will even give me pigs food to eat. But my father gives bread to everybody in his house. What am I doing here? Why am I? Still counted among this failing falling society.

Why have I left my father's house? What was it about him that I I thought was so deficient that I had to somehow leave. Why did I think? Why did I think? Why did I think that happiness was going to be found in sexual revolution?

Rebellion against God and knowledge. Why did I think That my father was not worth living for and staying with. When it was he who gave me life. It was he who nurtured me. Was he who swaddled me? It was he who gave me a reason and a purpose to live.

It was he who put his beauty upon me and made me the envy of the nations. What was it about him? What fault did I find in him that I walked so easily away from him and ended up in such a dark place? So powerless yet still my father's son, but yet I can't represent him here because I'm too intermixed With the ways of the fallen society all around me.

The Prodigal Son's Return

And in the midst of this famine that hit the land he began to pray. In the midst of the famine that has hit our nation in this generation. The smartest thing that you and I can do is begin to pray. It wasn't much of a prayer, but it was a prayer.

Father I've sinned. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants in your house. That was all that was all he could pray. He suddenly recognized his condition. He suddenly recognized that he was the son of a wealthy man yet He had he was associating with the now the poverty of the nation may I put it that way the spiritual poverty of the nation.

And he recognized what he had done. He came to a moment of conscience and he said why am I living here? Why am I living so far beneath? What God has for me? Why have I settled for this mediocrity? When the Lord has already proven that he's willing to put such a majesty upon me.

He's willing to give me power to go forward. He's willing to establish boundaries around my life not for evil. But for good and to make me into the kind of a person that only God can make me into. When Solomon built the temple.

Where God's only tangible presence at that point in history was dwelling on the earth the physical the actual physical Presence of God was there. There's a kind of glory of God. Solomon dedicated the temple and he prayed a prayer and he said when there's famine in the land.

Pestilence or blight or mildew locusts or grasshoppers when their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities. Whatever plague or whatever sickness there is in other words when we have become much less than we were destined to be.

When we've we've fallen from that place of understanding. What we're to be in in Christ. Whatever prayer whatever supplication is made by anyone or by all your people Israel. When each one knows the plague of his own heart, this is significant when each one knows there's no arrogance here anymore.

There's nobody coming and saying Lord because I've done thus and thus then you're obligated to do thus and thus for me. No, everyone knows the plague of his own heart. Everyone knows everyone not just a few.

Everyone knows without your grace I can't stand without your power. I can't go forward without your boundaries. I Don't I'm afraid of what I'll become. Without your strength upon my life Lord, I know that within me dwells no good thing apart from your Holy Spirit.

Apart from your Word of God in my life. If you took those from my life, there's nothing left. I am completely reprobate my God. So I come to you in mercy. I come to you as the prodigal son. I'm getting up from where I am and I'm getting down the road.

I'm going home. You know, I was so far away from his father. I don't think his father could hear his prayer. I think he but he could see it before he could hear it. When each one knows the plague of his own heart and spreads out his hands toward this temple then here in heaven your dwelling place.

And forgive and act and give to everyone according to all his ways whose heart you know. For you alone know the hearts of the sons of men that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land.

Which you gave to our fathers. The next chapter in chapter 9 of first Kings it says verse 2. And the Lord appeared to Solomon the second time as he had appeared to him at Gibeon and The Lord said to him.

I've heard your prayer and your supplication that you made before me and I've consecrated this house. Which you have built to put my name there forever and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually.

I've heard your prayer The Lord said to Solomon. I've heard your prayer. I've heard the prayer that you prayed when you said if there's famine if there's pestilence disease your enemies besieging you in your cities.

Whatever plague or whatever sickness there is if The people of God each one knowing the plague of his own heart spreads out his hands toward this temple I will hear from heaven and forgive and act and give to everyone according to all his ways whose heart you know.

For you alone know the hearts of the sons of men. If ever there was a time to pray in America, it's now. Now it's time to pray. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not next year. Now is the time to pray. Now is the crucial moment?

America Called to Pray

I Firmly believe that the future of this nation hangs in the balance now. If we don't pray. Mark my words if we don't pray. There's going to be a darkness here that you will wish you never had to walk through.

There'll be struggles. There'll be trials in our cities. There'll be difficulty in our states. There'd be division. There'd be things come into this nation that you'd never thought you would see in your lifetime.

But if we pray. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray. If they will seek my face and turn from their wicked ways that they will seek my face and get out of the pigsty and they will seek my face and get up.

And saying I'm going back and I'm going to become everything that my father wants me to be. Everything he has ordained me to be and destined me to be. I Am a son. I am a daughter of those that God saw and washed and blessed and I'm not going to live Beneath my inheritance any longer.

I'm getting up and I'm going home. I'm going back to my father and I don't care if he makes me a slave in his house. I don't care. There's bread in my father's house. There's provision in my father's house.

There's purpose in my father's house. There's healing in my father's house. There's deliverance in my father's house. There's power in my father's house. I'm getting up and I'm going back to my father's house.

I'm not staying here any longer. America for those listening in the days ahead on the radio get up and get home and get up and get home now. The Lord is passing by. The Lord is passing by. You know, there was a blind man on the side of the road and he had been begging and blind for so long and One day he asked he saw heard a commotion.

He said what is this? Jesus of Nazareth is passing by you see that was only going to happen once in his lifetime. Most likely he'd never never happened again. Now. He could have stayed silent. Everybody was telling him to be quiet.

Could have listened to the crowd and not prayed. He could have yielded to the public pressure at the moment there was certainly public pressure on that man be quiet. We have an agenda. You're not part of it.

So just be quiet. But he was tired of living beneath his inheritance. He was tired of begging. He was tired of sitting on the side of the road. He was tired of living off the charity of Mankind who quite often were so just like this prodigal son that most people didn't care about his condition.

He was tired and but it is hard. He knew that Jesus the Son of God is passing by and so he didn't care and he cried out Jesus Son of God have mercy on me. Have mercy son of David. She began to pray and even though people were telling him to be quiet. He kept praying.

I am tired of this. I'm tired of being blind. I'm tired of begging. I'm I'm tired of not seeing a way forward. I'm I'm tired. Jesus stops everything that says bring that man to me. What do you want. I want to see.

I want to see and It's as easy to Jesus as saying See, that's all he had to say. See he was away down the road. He was so far off that the father probably couldn't hear his prayer. That's for sure, but he could see it.

His countenance that he was broken. He was tired. He recognized that he had abandoned something great for something. That's just an illusion. He'd walked away from what is real for what isn't. What is true for what's a lie and his life was just a mess.

The Father Runs to the Returning Sinner

How surprised that boy was to to look up and see his father come running. You know, we expect God to fold his arms and tap his foot. Sit on his throne and say well, it's about time. It's about time America.

It's about time that you came and look at the mess. You've made in the family name. Look what you've done with the inheritance of life and freedom that I gave to you. No. That's not what he did. The scripture says that the father and this is out of the mouth of Jesus.

So he is declaring the heart of God. Now the father ran down the road to his son. The father ran. The father will run to you today. No matter where you are. No matter what you indulge in throughout the week.

No matter what kind of captivity you find yourself in or how spiritually poor you feel. Or how much your conversation has been unedifying? The father will run to you run. Not not stand here and wait for you.

Not push your face down and you're failing. And not only did he run. But he covered him. He embraced him and you have to understand when he embraced him that boy smelled like pigs. He'd been out in the field feeding pigs.

He probably hadn't bathed or showered in weeks. And when the father embraced him He took the smell of his son upon himself when Jesus went to the cross. He took our sin. He took our failing. He took our struggles.

He took our trials. He took our our rotten conversation. He took our he took everything and he took it on him that which we smelled of he took it upon Himself and then commanded the best robe in the house to be put on us.

So now the son has got a beautiful robe and the father smells like the son. Isn't it amazing? It's the cross if ever you've seen the cross in its fullness. This is a picture of the cross. The father now smells like the son.

But the son has the best robe in the house on him. His smell is covered his shame is covered his failing is covered. He's brought back not as a slave. But as the full inheritor of the father's house and everything that the father has.

Then he puts a ring on his finger and gives him the the power to become the young person that God had destined him to be. His darkness turns to light his disorder now is turning to order not just asking us to Don't do this and don't do that and don't do this and don't do that he's know that the focus of God is here is what I've called you to be and I am going to give you the power to become that.

Not by your works not by your strength, but by the spirit of Almighty God. Within you you will become Everything that I have called you to be. Not through your success, but through your failure. Not having done it all yourself, but recognizing that if somebody doesn't do it for you.

It's simply not going to happen and Then he gives him shoes and invites him on a journey but that journey is inside of the boundary that God now establishes for his behavior for his life and The provision he gives him to go forward when you open your heart to God.

Everything returns everything comes back. Everything is restored and is restored now with a maturity that this young man never had on day one. I believe That we can have a spiritual awakening in this nation that has maturity behind it.

It has maturity. It has an understanding of God. It has an understanding of the cross. It understands the purpose of the Christian life. It understands the power that God gives to achieve it. It understands that this is all mercy.

The Gospel of Grace and Coming Home

Mercy mercy. All it requires of you and of me is an admission God. I can't do this by myself. In myself, I'm going to end up living in this place that I don't want to live and I'm not Destined to live there.

I wasn't called to live there, but I'm powerless to escape it without you requires you and I to believe That Jesus died on a cross for you and for me. He didn't die so that he could pick us apart and look at our failings and failures.

He died to receive us to himself. The Bible says God so loved the world. He gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be Saved and just come home.

Come home. For some that are listening to the sound of my voice today. It's time to come home. It's got to start somewhere. I see in my spirit A flood a flood of people coming home to God in the days a literal flood of people coming home.

But I want to remind you that every flood starts with the trickle. Every flood starts with a small river every flood starts with somebody somewhere. Getting up and saying I'm going home and I'm going to become everything that God wants me to be.

I'm walking out of the pig's field and I'm going to the father's house. That's where my covering and provision is going to be. That's where the purpose of my life is going to be found and I am going by the strength of God by the mercy of God, I'm going to live a life that is pleasing to him.

It starts somewhere. Starts with a trickle it starts with a few. But it starts it starts. If we're gonna call a nation to come home. Then the first people that need to come home are the sons and daughters of God who are not living where they should be living.

Everyone who knows the plague of his own heart. Solomon said everyone who knows Oh God. If the statistics are right. Today about 70 of you are into pornography of some sort if the statistics are right.

You're dabbling in it on your cell phone. You're taking the little sneak peek once in a while. In the secret place where you think nobody sees you but about 70 of the people here are into pornography.

That's the pigs field. That's where you ought not to be. So don't be looking at the person beside you because it's seven out of ten are doing this. Men and women. That's just one example. That's just one example.

We need to get out now as the people of God from where we shouldn't be. If we're believing for a nation it must start first in the house of God. First in the house of God. It's time to get up. It's time to come home.

It's time to let Jesus cover you. It's time to get that ring of authority. It's time to get the sandals of a journey with God inside the boundaries of what he says your life is to be. It's time to believe for freedom.

It's time To let God do what God's going to do. It's time to put off the multicolored garments of this society and put on the garment of Christ. It's time for God's people to stand and so I'm going to give an altar call.

The Altar Call and a Life of Vocation

Here in North Jersey and in the Annex and those that are on line at home today. Who just want to come home just want to come home say God. I'm tired of the mixture. I'm tired of living where I shouldn't live.

I'm tired of watching what I shouldn't watch. I'm tired of speaking what I shouldn't speak. I'm tired of being part of the selfish crowd. When in your house you give bread to everyone who's hungry. I want to be part of the giving crowd not the taking crowd and Yes, I've made a mess.

But I'm coming home. And if that's you. Listen to me. Listen to me young people, especially y 'all. Why don't all the young people sit in the balcony? I don't get that. Anyways, you do well not you're not old down here, but give your life to Jesus.

Go all the way with God. Listen, there's young people here. You are missionaries. You're evangelists. You're pastors. You're teachers. God is a great life for you. But you won't know it till you walk away from what is taking that away from you.

You won't know it until you make the choice. I Came to Christ at 24, and I'm not regretted the day of it. It's been amazing. It's been a miraculous journey. But I said to my wife The day I gave my life to Christ in that in the vicinity of that day I said if this is real, I want the whole thing and if it's not I want no part of it.

But I want the whole thing if it's real and God gave me the whole thing. I thank God. I thank God for this great journey. May I challenge you now? Remember I said at the beginning of the message listen to me.

You were riding a three-wheeled bicycle when I was first came to this church. Don't listen to me. It's a great life in Christ. Come home Come home. Come home there had to be notes. I'm convinced the father was sending notes by just travelers just to the Sun and all it said on the note.

He'd probably get it once in a while say come home Come home Come home. Come home father. I thank you With all my heart today Lord for your presence in this sanctuary. Even the songs we've been singing today.

You're lighting a candle. You're pushing back the darkness. Well, the candle has always been your church. It's your people. It's young and old. It's men and women. Like us Lord that say Lord. Give me your Holy Spirit.

Empower me to live for you. Help me to pray. Help me to make a difference in my generation. And so father I ask in Jesus name that today this day begins the beginning of a tsunami of People coming back to you again.

I Asked Lord that you would give courage to young men and women who need to get out of their seat and Older men and women who need to get up. And say I'm going. I'm going home. I'm fully going home. I'm leaving everything else behind.

And I'm going to become the son the daughter. That my father has called me to be. I Thank you for it in Jesus name. Thank you, Jesus. Now. Listen to me those that have come to the altar today. You haven't come here today just to get free from something.

You've come here to be to learn to be what God's called you to be. There's a there's a huge difference. That freedom is just a little part, but the calling is the big part. It was in weakness that and you'll always find that God wants to set his people free.

So he waits for an old man who no longer has any strength called Moses. He wants a prophet to announce the coming of Christ. So he waits for a barren womb. He's got a promise. He's bringing in people into the world.

So he waits till Abraham's too old and Sarah's womb is dead. To bring the promise so that when you and I know we can't do this in our own strength. That's when the power of God comes to become what we're called to be.

God's Strength in Human Weakness

Not in our strength in the strength of God. That's where the power is. It's in the strength of God. And so it's not so much that I just can't come here to get free. It's I'm coming here today for the shoes that God wants to put on my feet to take me where he Wants me to go that I will testify about him.

I will talk about his mercy at his grace his power. I will not be afraid of the threats of humankind. I'll not be afraid of the threats that come against me. I will stand up and be a voice for him in my generation.

I will fight for those that have no voice to fight for themselves. I will become what I'm called to be as a believer in Jesus Christ. That's what's happening at this altar today. It's not just all about me.

It's about others and God's going to touch them through your life and through my life by God's grace. By God's grace father, I take authority over every work of darkness. When you came on the scene Lord and you spoke darkness became light.

Boundaryless borders were given borders created by God. Lord provision power everything came with you and at this altar today I believe that with all my heart everything comes with you Lord when you come everything comes you bring everything with you.