America and Its Children Need Deliverance — Carter Conlon

America and Its Children Need Deliverance

I have a message entitled, America and Its Children Need Deliverance. America and Its Children Need Deliverance. So Father, I thank you, God Almighty, for calling us, Lord, to be your people at this time.

I thank you for the anointing of your Holy Spirit that lifts us out of the darkness of human thinking and brings us into an understanding of spiritual realities. Thank you, God, for the anointing of your Spirit in this sanctuary and upon your word.

Lord, we face a darkened day and we ask you, God, as according to your word, you tell us that the entrance of your words gives light. So give light to your people today. Help us, Lord, to see a way forward.

Help us to understand where the power of your Holy Spirit really lies. Give me the grace to speak this, my God, and give us the grace to hear it. And we thank you with all of our heart in Jesus' name.

The Call to Prayer and Fasting for the Nation

America and Its Children Need Deliverance. We're going to be fasting this week for three days from solid food, not from liquid at any time, but from solid food only Tuesday all day, Wednesday all day, Thursday all day.

We'll be meeting every night at 7 p .m. to pray. We're going to pray the first evening for the city here, for New York City. We're going to pray the second night for the nation and the third night for the nations.

We have videos that we'll be showing. We have people that hopefully will be coming in from around the world on Skype on Thursday night. We have students from our Bible school that will be telling us about the need of their respective countries, and they'll be praying with us for their nations in their native language.

So we look forward to a powerful time of prayer based on 2 Corinthians, Chronicles, rather, 714. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray. We need to pray now because America and its children need deliverance.

Jesus Rebukes a Faithless and Perverse Generation

Matthew chapter 17, beginning at verse 14. And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to him, kneeling down to him and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son for he is an epileptic and suffers severely for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.

So I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, oh, faithless and perverse generation. How long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to me.

And Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him. The child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, why could we not cast it out? So Jesus said to them, because of your unbelief, for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you.

However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. Now this story above all else shows us a picture. It's a type of what can happen to any society that casts away the true seeking of God on its forward journey.

Any nation as history has shown us is only one generation away from becoming something that God never intended it to be. I can feel the exasperation in the heart of the son of God as he looks at his own people who were destined by him to be a blessing and a praise in the earth.

And now he looks and he sees a family captivated by darkness. And he looks and says these words, all faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? And how long shall I bear with you?

The Power of Worldviews Over Future Generations

Jesus said in Luke chapter 16 in verse eight, that sometimes the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. For example, Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Russian communist party said these words, give me just one generation of youth and I will transform the whole world.

And how right he was when we consider how many millions of souls he took with him into everlasting darkness. He was, as are all who seek to herd societies into their own worldview, an enemy of the cross of Christ.

You see, for those who want to control society, those who want to control people, control their thought, control their speech, have to eventually stand against the word of God. Because the entrance of the words of God gives light, causes us to be able to think, we respond to truth.

And people who want to control societies always know that those who live in the light of God's truth, if they ever discover the power of that truth, they can overturn the objectives of those who would want to dominate others.

Isaiah chapter 59, verse 19, tells us when the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. Now the only standard is the people of God. You understand that you are the standard.

If you are a son or daughter of God, you are the standard that the Lord will raise up, will use your life to make a difference. You will have power to stand against the onslaught of darkness and push it back.

As a matter of fact, he said, if you have just faith, the size of a mustard seed, even though something seems to be entrenching itself in society and becomes almost unmovable, you have the power in prayer to say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move and nothing will be impossible to you.

There's incredible power in the prayers of you and I, when we are surrendered to the will of God, when we understand why we're on the earth, what the purpose of our life, now that we're redeemed, what is our purpose?

Why are we left here? What does God desire to do through us? And what can he do through us? Are we destined to just let darkness invade our borders and surrender our sons and daughters to it? Or is there something that we can do?

The Church as a Standard Against Darkness

Is there a power maybe that we really need to rediscover in this last moment of time? I stand here today to tell you that the glory of the latter house is going to be greater than the former. I thank God for 120 people who went into an upper room in a day when Roman thought, Roman culture, Roman might, Roman scorn of the ways of God was threatening to overpower the whole known world of that time.

And all God needed to stand up against it and push it back into the sea was 120 common ordinary people who were willing to be literally invaded in their hearts by an extraordinary God. Now, this story begins with a prayer.

In chapter 17 of Matthew in verse 14, it says, when they had come to the multitude, a man came to him kneeling down and began saying, now this was a prayer. It's not a prayer of faith, but it's the beginning of an awakening.

It's a concern. It's a pleading. This man knew that something had gripped his next generation. His hope had been invaded by a demonic power. His future was in jeopardy. Now the people of God of his time were only one generation away from being completely overthrown and dispersed throughout the world.

I want you to understand this. They had no idea that they were hanging off a cliff, spiritually speaking. And one day, AD 70, the Roman armies were going to come in and destroy the temple and scatter for 2000 years.

The people of God of that time throughout the world, the Jewish nation, they had no idea. And sometimes you and I can be unaware of the moment we're living in. Oh, I pray to God, you are aware of what we face in this generation.

I think there's beginning to be an awakening in people's hearts. This prayer, which is not filled with faith yet, but at least it starts with a pleading. God, I see something has gripped the next generation and I don't know what to do about it.

Faith, Belief, and the Deliverance of the Captive

In another passage that deals with this particular scenario, the father just said, if you can do anything, help us. Jesus responds to this father and says, if you can believe all things are possible to him who believes.

Verse 15 says, Lord, have mercy on my son for he's an epileptic and suffers severely and often falls into the fire and into the water. Now the word epileptic, this is the new King James. It's not a good translation of the original word.

Let me just say it straight out. The original King James says he's a lunatic. And really that is closer to what the word actually means in the original text. Here's what it really, here's what happened to this son.

The word, the original word says he's moonstruck. In other words, he's looking forward and has no grip on reality. He's fixed on something and sees it as a heavenly objective. May I put it that way, but it's not grounded in reality.

He's lost his mind. He's crazy. He's a lunatic. He's unaware of any danger when it stands before him. That's the father said he often falls into the fire and he falls into the water. He's got this worldview now.

He's looking forward to something. He might even be euphoric about what he sees, but he doesn't see its danger. He doesn't understand that it's burnt others before him. It's drowned others that have in this direction.

He doesn't see it. He's unaware of danger when it's presented himself to him. So I brought him verse 16 to your disciples, but they could not cure him. In other words, something had happened to this next generation of this father, where traditional religion of the day was powerless to confront it.

And we are living in a moment like this folks, listen to me real careful, not only content with killing children in the womb. Now we want to consider killing them outside the womb strictly for convenience sake.

It's almost unthinkable that a nation such as this would even start to have this kind of a worldview and the ones who survived the womb or those moments after they're born. Now we put them in grade school and we indoctrinate them with perversion.

We confuse them about who they are. We offer them nothing but confusion when it comes to morality, when it comes to God, when it comes to who they are in Christ, we simply try to baptize them with confusion.

Those who survived, we bring into our high schools and in our high schools, we tell them there is no God. We mock them if they try to pray to God and we forbid them to pray. And if that's not good enough, we bring them into college and many of our Ivy league schools are nothing more than indoctrination centers against God and against country.

And so here we are with a generation of young people who are moonstruck embracing a way forward that is, that is proven to be lunatic. It has drowned people who've tried it before. It has burnt those in violence who have thought that this was a wonderful way to go a great social order in the future.

And the traditional religion of the day folks is not powerful enough to confront it. Our three little, our three little tucky sermons about with rhyming words, our little concepts about God on Sunday is just a parade of lunacy in this moment.

There has to be something of God touch this church generation. There has to be something of God that takes us deeper than we've ever gone before. Jesus said in verse 17, Oh, faithless and perverse generation.

How long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to me. The word perverse means distorted, misinterpreted, corrupted, and turned away. He's talking to his own people. Now he says, you were sent in the world for a purpose.

You were put here to be a declaration of the glory of God. Genesis 22 and verse 18. He said to Abraham in your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. God spoke this to Abraham right after he was willing to take that which was dearest to his heart and sacrifice it to God.

It was not a man who was living to preserve himself. He was a man who was living for the honor, for the glory, for the word and for the will of God. And God gave a promise to this man, Abraham, the Bible declares him to be the father of faith.

He says in your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice because you heard my words and my words moved you to action and that action moved you to self-sacrifice.

You didn't live, you didn't try to craft or create a religion just for your own benefit. That's the kind of religion that was powerless in this moment that Jesus spoke about. The kind of a religion that loves titles, that loves position, that loves power, the type of religion that wants the favor of the people more than the favor of God.

It has no power in any generation. God deliver us from this kind of ministry in this generation and put men and women in the pulpit who will preach the word of God again. In your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.

You Abraham, you who are not willing to withhold from even your dearest son, you were willing to follow where I was leading you. Oh God, help us again in this generation not to live this Christian life for ourselves.

Help us to get away from this cherry picking Christianity that goes and picks the little sweet pieces of fruit, everything that makes us feel good, that enhances our self-image. God, help us to get away from this.

We have a whole generation that we're losing now and it's time for the church to rise. It's time for the church to pray. It's time for the church to deny herself one more time because America and its children need deliverance.

Faith Comes by Hearing and Following Christ

Do you understand? There has to be deliverance. We either have a spiritual awakening in this country or we go into unspeakable darkness. These godless philosophies that take over nations, especially nations that once knew God, always turn to violence and always turn against the of Jesus Christ.

Mordecai said to Esther, if you think you're going to be saved just by hiding in the house, you've got another thought coming. Romans chapter 10 verse 17, Paul said, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

That willingness of the human heart to say, God, what do you have to say about these things? What do you have to say about my future? Where are you leading me? What do you want my life to be? Jesus himself said in John chapter 10 verse 27, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

In other words, they are involved in my work on the earth, not theirs, mine. They're not living the Christian life just for their own benefit. They're living for the benefit of others. They see what natural people with natural eyes can't see.

They have a heart that understands things that people who are living for themselves don't see and don't understand. They see danger when others around them can't see it. Bring him here to me. He said, bring him to me.

Folks, let me tell you, how do we bring a generation to Jesus? If we don't know where he is, if we're not walking close to him, if he's just a distant figure in a textbook and he's not part of our everyday lives, if his heart is not my heart, if his voice is not my voice, if his eyes are not looking through my eyes, if his will is not my will, then how do I bring anybody to him?

I'll bring people to a concept of him. That's all they could do down at the bottom of the hill. At the bottom of the hill, when that man first ran to the disciples of Christ, they knew that Jesus had power.

They had just come from the Mount of Transfiguration. They knew he was the son of God, but he was up there and they were down here and there was a gulf between them. And I'm sure that even in the name of Jesus, they took some form of authority, but in their hearts, they were still living for themselves at this point in time.

That's why they had no power. James and John were still vying for position at the throne on the right hand, on the left hand. Peter was still making boasts and promises about his loyalty that weren't true.

John was still leaning on the chest of Jesus as he did at the last supper, but he was going to flee from the garden when he was needed the most. They thought they were what they were not because they weren't close to him the way they needed to be.

Self-Denial and Costly Discipleship

My prayer lately has been, Jesus, draw me to you again. Let your heart become mine. Let your thoughts become my thoughts. Let your will become my will. And would you help me, Lord, not to live just to preserve myself?

Would you help me, God, to fight for those that have no voice? Would you help me, Lord Jesus Christ, to stand up for those that have no defender? Would you give me the courage to say what needs to be said?

I recognize in history that others have suffered for it. Sometimes we think that Christianity is just something that God gives us just so we can escape all suffering, but that's not the case historically.

It's not the case in many parts of the world today. People are suffering for the cause of Christ. May I suggest to you that the Bible we have today was brought to us by people who died with the sword, who were put in prison, who were eaten of lions in arenas, but they brought us the word of God.

To bring this generation to Jesus, we have to be partakers of his work in this world, not ours, his, his work. This casual approach to God is going to cost everybody. Nobody's going to escape. There's a hardship, folks coming on this country, that in just a few years, that if we don't see a spiritual awakening, and if we don't pray now, we will wish and cry that we had prayed.

Prayer, Faith, and the Power to Move Mountains

Verse 18 of Matthew 17, it says, Jesus rebuked the demon that came out of him and the child was cured from that very hour. Now, if you read the account in the gospel of Mark, there was a lot of drama that accompanied that.

He fell on the ground, he foamed at the mouth, he appeared to even have died. But the scripture says, Jesus reached down, lifted him up by the hand and raised him. I tell you, God has the power to raise a generation from whatever kind of captivity it's come its way.

God has the power to raise a generation again. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, why could we not cast it out? And Jesus said to them, because of your unbelief. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you see that faith comes from right priority.

That faith comes from a life that is not gleaning the word of God just to see what it can get, but gleaning the word of God to say, God, what is your will for my life? And where's your power that I can make a difference?

And Lord, would you speak through me? Would you flow through me? Would the giftings of your spirit begin to abound in my life? If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, this mountain.

I don't even know what he was pointing to at this particular point. I don't know what mountain, but I know there seemed to be a mountain of opposition, at least to what God had intended the people of this time to be.

And he said, you can say to it, move from here to there and it will move and nothing will be impossible to you. Nothing. Then he finishes with an incredible statement. However, this kind, this kind, this kind, this kind, the grips, a generation of young people, this kind that distorts the viewpoint, this kind that does not allow people to freely think, but indoctrinates them.

This kind that can grip and captivate a future generation doesn't go out, but by prayer and fasting. And so we fast. And so we pray. Praise be to God. The Lord Jesus Christ is calling us away from a casual approach because the casual approach to this hour will lead to little, if any victory in our crisis time.

Spiritual Awakening and Mercy Over Judgment

Self-denial and faith-filled prayer will bring freedom to many who are captives to this season of darkness that has come upon our day. And what I'm suggesting to you is not going to be easy, but I'm suggesting that if we do it God's way, these mountains can move from one place to another, and we can live to see a spiritual awakening in our nation again.

I don't know about you, but I'm asking God for 60 million people to turn to Christ in our time. He said, nothing will be impossible for you. Nothing, nothing. 60 million is 20 of America's population.

60 million is a lot of young people who need to know there is a God, there's a heaven, a hell, there is a savior. 60 million also includes children that will be born and will not be murdered in or outside the womb.

60 million, 60 million people turn to Christ. It doesn't mean we won't be judged as a nation. Do you understand what I'm saying? I think the whole world is going to go into this horrid upheaval in the days ahead.

It doesn't mean we won't be judged, but mercy triumphs over judgment. Whether or not we live or die, heaven becomes the home of those who turn to Christ forever and for eternity. So mercy does triumph over judgment.

Fasting for a Final Outpouring of the Spirit

Praise be to God. I challenge you with all my heart this Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday to put away, put away eating for three days, unless the doctor says you can't or you're pregnant or for some other reason or diabetic or whatever, but fast as much as you're able and come and meet with us every night from seven to nine.

If you can't come here physically, come in online. These services will be streamed and pray with us for the future of our nation, for the future of our city, for the future of this world, other nations in the world, because I'm believing God with all my heart for one last outpouring of God's Holy Spirit.

One last and final outpouring before Christ comes. One last great in-gathering of the lost. One last pushing away this cloud of darkness in our society. One last season of rejoicing and dancing again in the house of God.

I'm believing God for a moment where we will go out onto the street and we will dance and say, only God could have done this. Only God could have done this. I'm believing that God's going to give us the courage to go into the valley like he once gave David and fight every giant that rises up and says, you will serve us and you will serve our will.

You will serve our way. I'm believing God for the power of the Holy Spirit and the weaponry of prayer, which looks foolish to those who live outside the kingdom of God, but I'm believing God one more time for a victorious church.

I'm believing God one more time for all the people of God who are hiding in dens and caves and holes of the rocks to come out and begin to join this battle of prayer. I'm believing God for a mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit that will open everyone's mouth, cause us to begin to speak the name of Jesus Christ.

The Promise of the Spirit and the Church's Authority

I'm believing God for spiritual authority again in our generation, that we can stand. We can stand no matter how weak we might seem, stand with the power of God inside of our lives and say, I speak to you mountain in the name of Jesus Christ, the son of God, move from this place to another place.

I believe that with all my heart. Praise be to God. I know the world is going to be judged. You know it. If you're reading the Bible, you know, this whole world is going to be plunged into darkness. But I also believe that in the last days, God will pour out his spirit on all flesh.

I believe that our sons and daughters will prophesy. I believe that on servants and handmaidens, God's Holy Spirit will come. Men and women will rise up. Men will preach. Women will preach. Men will touch the powers of hell and cause them to be cast into the sea.

Women will receive their debt raised to life again. I believe it with all my heart. Hallelujah. This is not the season for casual religion. Casual religion will amount to nothing. Just argue about the meanings of words and stand there and give reasons why their children can't be set free.

But, oh, God will have a people of prayer again. Our God will have a people simple enough to believe that when we come to Christ, he gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit. And by God's spirit within us, we have power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy.

And nothing shall by any means hurt us. I believe that as the church of Jesus Christ, the gates of hell cannot prevail against us. The devil may think he has locked in our children behind the iron gates of some of our colleges in this country, but we have power in prayer to command those gates to open and for life and light to go in.

We have power in prayer. By the grace of God, you and I will not be sitting on the sidelines any longer in this or any other generation, but we're going to pray. Is it dangerous to speak this way? I suppose it might be, but I would rather die on the side of faith than live on the side of unbelief.

I don't know about you. By God's grace, by God's grace, I'm getting that mustard seed of faith that Jesus talked about. You have faith the size of a mustard seed. I don't know how he gives it, but I know I'm going to get it and stand and believe him.

I'm not giving up this generation to darkness and neither are you. We're going to fight and we're going to use the weaponry God's given us. Our weapons are not carnal. They have nothing to do with this world, but they're spiritual.

They're mighty in God, pulling down strongholds, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. It's time for the church to wake up again. It's time for the people of God to pray. It's time for us to die to ourselves and let the Holy Spirit begin to take over each of our lives.

Blessed be the name of Jesus. This is where we're going. This is what we're going to be as the people of God in this last generation. This won't be for everybody, but for those of us that it is for, may we have the privilege of seeing 60 million people turn to Christ.

Closing Prayer for Spiritual Authority and the Next Generation

Father, I thank you with all of my heart for this word that I know you put on my heart. I know it, God, with all my heart. I ask you in Jesus' name, God Almighty, God Almighty, help us as your people to begin to pray.

Help us, Lord, to find our voice again in this society. Return us to spiritual authority. Give us the grace, O God, to stand against, Lord, every power of hell that is trying to rob the next generation of your presence and your life.

Father, we thank you with all of our heart this morning in Jesus' name. Amen.