A Dead Man, Four Lepers, Barren Women, and You — Carter Conlon

Praise God. Thank you. You may be seated in the house and for those that are with us online tonight, we're going to be having a time of communion after the short sharing of God's word this evening. And if you can get some bread or crackers and some juice of any sort, and you can celebrate with us the victory of Jesus Christ on the cross that gave you the power not only to be forgiven, but to live a new life, the life that God has for you on this side of eternity.

It's a supernatural life. And I encourage you as we do every Wednesday night to stay and pray. If there's a few of you gathering or even if you're alone, stay in your home and after we go offline, we go off the air, take, take a moment just to pray.

We're going to do that here tonight. We do that quite often on Wednesday night here at our Bible school summit, international school of ministry, and we encourage you to do the same. I want to encourage you this year to get some people to come and join you in this prayer meeting and we're going to continue to pray for you that you would experience.

The Promise of Pentecostal Empowerment

Now you might or might not know what this means, but you would experience what the early church did on the day of Pentecost. They gathered together in weakness, but suddenly God came into the room. And when he came into the room, he infused those people with his own life.

He intertwined his own life in theirs and their weakness in a sense yielded to his strength, their confusion to his clarity of thinking, their powerlessness to an ability to stand before their generation with an anointing of God, a presence of God upon them, that even the religious or the, even the anti God people of that generation had to bend their knee because they saw something that can't be produced by any amount of human effort in this world.

And when they saw it, they said, and in effect, the Lord is God, the Lord is God. What must we do to have a relationship with God like you do? So I want to encourage you to invite people into your home and they don't have to be victorious people.

Matter of fact, sometimes it's better to have people who are, who know their need of God and bring them in and let's pray together. And we're going to continue to pray for you this year. We've got some, all our brand new Bible college students.

Can you give us a shout in the sanctuary so they know you're here? And the Wednesday night services are not for us, they're for you, for those that are with us from all over the country, the area and all over the world.

People coming in from various and numerous countries throughout the world. And we're going to continue this year to pray for you and we're going to believe that this is going to be a year of the miraculous for you.

Would you agree with me that we need a supernatural visitation of God again in this generation? Now would you agree with me that God is willing to do that? Now we know we need it, but sometimes we, that's where we stop.

We say we need it, but we feel in our hearts like perhaps we don't deserve it. We never have and we never will. But God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son. And may I say it this way, God so loved the world, loves the world today that he will actually empower you to be a living witness of the fact that he is still God.

Psalm 29 and the Voice of the Lord

Psalm 29, if you have a moment to turn in your Bibles or on your phone or whatever it is. I know the students don't have any phones to turn to. You won't die. As a matter of fact, you'll live once you get away from all the exterior stimuli that's all around you.

And all your phony friends on Facebook will still be there when this is all over at the end of the year. Psalm 29, Father God, in Jesus name, oh God, oh God, oh God, Lord, we ask you for a spiritual awakening in our generation.

We ask you to come with power, come with glory, come in the way that only you can. Lord, we have no boast before you. I have no boast before you tonight. I can't present to you a single thing that would cause you to or cause anyone to believe that I deserve your mercy, but you've given it anyway, God, in your power and your grace.

Oh God, we ask you tonight to do what only you can do. Send your Holy Spirit one more time before you come back into this earth again. Send your Holy Spirit one more time and God, let a great, great harvest be gathered in for your namesake and for your glory.

Bless this word tonight and the sharing of your word and may it find a resting place in each of our hearts. We ask it in Jesus name, amen. Psalm 29, a psalm of King David who knew the power of God. He knew that when God speaks and you move in the direction of his voice that miracles begin to happen.

Things that can't be done by any amount of natural human effort come into view. And people are encouraged. He would have known that the day that he stood in the valley and fought against a giant that not one single man in the army of Israel had the courage to fight.

But God sent a teenage boy who was able to hear his voice and being stirred by the leading of God and for the glory of God went in to face what's humanly an impossible battle. But when we learn to cooperate with the voice of God, God begins to do something through us that only God himself can do.

David says, give to the Lord, oh you mighty ones. Give to the Lord glory and strength. Give to the Lord the glory due to his name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters.

That means every trial we'll ever face, all confusion of this world and there's no shortage of confusion in this world right now. As a matter of fact, the world is insanely confused in my opinion. But his voice is over all of these things, all of these waters.

The God of glory thunders. The Lord is over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. In other words, he speaks not as people who don't know God speak, but he speaks as one with authority, as a king would.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The voice, yes the Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon. He makes them skip like a calf, Lebanon and Syrian like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord divides the flames of fire.

The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare. And in his temple, everyone says glory.

In his temple, where he dwells, among the people that belong to him, everyone says glory. And my promise to you online tonight, my promise to the students in this church that gathers here on Wednesday night, is that before the year's out, you're going to shout glory.

You're going to shout glory and nobody's going to tell you to shout it. You're going to shout it. As a matter of fact, you're going to shout it before the prayer meeting starts. You're going to walk in here and words are going to fail you.

And when they fail you, all you can say is glory. And I'll explain that in just a moment. Everyone says glory. The Lord sat enthroned at the flood. The Lord sits king as king forever. The Lord will give strength to his people.

Glory as the Weightiness of God's Work

The Lord will bless his people with peace. I want to talk to you tonight about a dead man, four lepers, barren women, and you. Let me say that again. A dead man, four lepers, barren women, and you. You say, like, how do I fit into all of this?

Well, you'll see in just a moment. Well, as a matter of fact, some of you are saying, yeah, that's me, that's my company. Those are the people I hang out with, dead, lepers, barren, and me. Now in his temple, the scripture says, everyone shouts glory.

And the word glory in the original text essentially means the weightiness of God that was infused in me when he spoke and I believed him. In other words, God's, the weight of God, that which only God can do.

He spoke, I believed, and God did something in me and through me that only God can do. And when that starts to happen in your life, nobody has to tell you to shout glory. The band doesn't have to crank up and hit the right note for you to start singing.

You walk in and you just say, glory to God. Only God could have done this in my life. Only God. I remember we were in Burundi many years ago and it was a tribe of actually Pygmy people called the Twa.

And we brought them a truckload of goats in from Tanzania and another truckload of chickens. Now these people had no means to make a living whatsoever. And when they saw us arrive and when we started to carry the goats up the mountainside and give them to them and they brought them into their homes, they had huts made, and they brought the goats and chickens actually into their homes.

And then they got together and they sang a song to us. And it was in their own language, so I asked somebody there, what are they singing? And their song was, only God could have done this. Only God could have done this.

We prayed for help and help has come. Only God could have done this. Now they were giving God glory for two goats and five chickens, do you understand me? In every home. It was impossible for them, but they prayed, they turned to God and suddenly truckloads of provision from God arrived.

And they knew that although God put it on our hearts to do this, we were responding to His response to their prayer, to their cry. Only God could have done this. And these people are going to praise God for two goats and five chickens.

I'm going to praise God for what He's done in my life. I'm going to praise God for the victories He's given me. I'm going to praise God for the changing of my heart. I'm going to praise God for the things that I've seen over the years and I'm going to praise God for the things I'm believing for as well in the future.

Hebrews 13 .8 tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. He doesn't change. Now we either believe that or we don't. We have to get to the point in this generation where we believe that the God of Acts chapter two is still the God of Acts 20, 23.

Nothing has changed. He's still the same. And He will still respond when we cry out to Him and He will still bring us out of the natural and into the supernatural. The voice of the Lord, David says. David knew this voice.

I know this voice. I know and measure what it's like when God speaks and you move with God and miracles start to happen. I could tell you all kinds of stories tonight of what God has done over the course of years and I feel that the mandate that God's given myself and others like me who have come before many of you is to take the baton and pass it to the next generation and say it's great that I can tell you my stories but it's time for you to get yours.

You've got to get your story so if the Lord tarries and you get to be 70 you can pass the baton on to the next generation and say I have heard His voice and when I walked with Him He did in me and through me what is humanly impossible to do.

The weight of God came into my life. My thinking was cleared up. My timidity was replaced by the courage to believe and my reluctance to move forward was replaced with a boldness to take on the enemies that are trying to destroy this generation and so many of our families and our testimonies.

Lazarus and the Voice That Raises the Dead

John chapter 11 the voice of God spoke audibly to a dead man. Now that's quite a distance. I mean the man, it was Lazarus, the man was dead in John chapter 11, he was dead for four days but the voice of God is not limited to us having anything left in a sense to give to His kingdom.

You know sometimes when you're dead you're better off than when you think you're strong. You know he knew he was dead, there's no doubt about that, I don't know where he was but he would have known he was dead and suddenly he hears God calling his name.

I don't know where somebody is tonight that's online, maybe you say pastor that's me, the only difference between me and Lazarus is I'm still breathing but I'm just as dead. I'm in a dark place, the people who know me have put a stone in front of me, they say he stinks and there's no hope for me.

But you see their voices have a lot of things to say but one voice has the power to bring you back to life again. One voice has the ability to call you out of wherever you are and into the place where God has destined you to be.

The only thing that Lazarus could do is the very thing that you need to do today is just simply get up and move towards the sound of His voice. There's nothing else you can do. When you hear Him calling you, in this case it was an audible call, simply get up and start moving towards the voice of God and you watch what God will begin to do.

The first thing that happened to Lazarus is that they unwrapped him, he was all bound up with death clothes really. That means when we get into behaviors that we shouldn't be into, our minds get wrapped up in death and our feet are tied, we don't have the ability to go forward and our hands are not reaching out the way that God destined them to be.

But when we start moving towards His voice, the very first thing that happens is that we begin to find ourselves, the bonds that held us start to be loosed. Then he said to Martha, Lazarus' sister, did I not say if you would believe you would see the glory of God?

I find this interesting because there's no evidence in the Bible that Martha actually believed, ever believed. When Lazarus was raised from the dead, she believed. I was looking at it today and I was wondering, is it possible that he was speaking about Martha in this verse of scripture?

Obviously the Son of God speaks on a multiplicity of levels. But he said to her, did I not say that if you would believe you would see the glory of God? In other words, she's about to witness the raising of her brother from the dead, but she's a person who just, she's limited in a sense to doing what she can naturally do, which is pots and pans and buns and cooking and all this stuff that she's doing and serving.

She's never known the supernatural. And I just started to think about it. Is it possible that God was saying to her, as He's saying to somebody tonight, did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?

You Martha, you're going to witness it with your eyes, but if you would believe that I have the power when I speak to change every situation, that if you would believe that you too would see the glory of God.

I cannot but wonder, was he speaking to Martha about her own future? Was he trying to draw her out of, it was a good thing she was doing, but it was short of what God had for her lives. And that's the case for many of us.

The Four Lepers Who Moved Toward the Enemy

We're not doing bad things, we're actually doing good things, but the things we're doing are short of what God has for our lives. Second King 7, he spoke to four leprous men internally. Now to Lazarus it was audibly, but to the leprous men outside the city gate, he spoke to them internally.

They were sitting outside a city that was starving, the city was surrounded by enemies, and suddenly a thought comes into their heart, like if we're going to the city, we're going to starve. If we stay here, we're going to die.

Let's just get up and go into the camp of the enemy. And as they got up, because they were in the plan of God, and as they got up and moved into the enemy's camp, the scripture tells us that God turned up heaven's stereo, may I call it that way?

Does anybody know what a stereo is? I guess kids, do you read, is that a word that doesn't exist anymore? They turned up the, what do you call it now? The who? The ballroom? Oh the volume. No I was thinking like, what's music on today?

What is? Earpods. Earpods? Earpods. Okay, alright. Anyways, he turned it up, whatever it was, and caused the enemies, the Syrian army, to hear these four lepers as if they were a whole army of horses and chariots.

And they were so terrified by what they heard that they fled. They were just four lepers that God spoke to. But he spoke to them internally, and sometimes the voice of God comes audibly, but sometimes the voice of God just comes internally.

He just begins to move us in a direction. That is as much the voice of God as if Christ himself is standing at a grave and saying, Lazarus, come forth. We need to learn to hear that voice, and move with that voice, and it was really an impossibility.

Four lepers walking into the camp of an entire enemy army that had surrounded the city and were trying to starve the city out. Amazing. Isn't it amazing what God will do? Jesus Christ is what? What is Jesus?

The same today and forever, right? Do you believe that? Do you believe that in your diseased condition he can use you? Do you believe that in your deficiency? You know, lepers, they're just sitting there watching each other fall apart, and that's what Bible school can feel like after six months.

You know, you're just like, everybody's sitting there staring at each other, just saying, oh God, I thought I was so holy when I came here, and now I'm falling apart. You know, what have I done with my life?

You know, well, okay, I might as well get up and move towards what God has for my life. Not realizing he's turning up heaven's sound system, and making a sound of your feet like a marching army into the camp of darkness.

He's the same, and when it gets in our hearts, and we're not looking to our own intellect, we're not looking to our own ability, we're not looking to our own strength anymore, but we're hearing something from God, and we're starting to move in unison with God, because the voice of the Lord is above all the waters.

The voice of the Lord strips the forest bare. The voice of the Lord is the final word. It's the final word on what happens in your life. It's the final word on the end of a society. It's the final word on what's going to happen to the heavens and the earth in the future.

The voice of the Lord is above every voice, and when you learn to hear the voice of God, and this is important for people that are online tonight, move towards that longing in your heart, that thought that God has planted there.

Get up and go down into the camp of the enemy. It's not by your might, nor power, your intellect, it's by the spirit of God that the victory will be won in your life. In 1 Samuel 1, verse 17, there was a woman who came into prayer, and she was just so tired of being barren.

Hannah's Prayer and the Birth of a Prophetic Voice

She was empty. She so wanted life to be born in her womb. It was the chief desire of her heart, and she was so used to being disappointed that her prayer, she couldn't speak it anymore. Only her lips could move.

Have you ever been there? Have you ever been so disappointed, even in God, that you can't utter the words anymore unless you be disappointed one more time? She couldn't speak. She was so grieved. She could move her lips, but nothing would come out.

I've been there one time. I know what that feels like, where you just can't get the words out of your mouth anymore because you just don't want to be disappointed. She was there, and it was Eli the priest that spoke to her and told her, the Lord grant you the request that you have placed before Him.

The scripture says she put away her grieving as it is and got up and went home and started to enjoy life. It was the spiritual leader that spoke to her. Tonight, maybe you can't hear the voice of God.

I don't know online. Maybe it's such a foreign concept to you. Maybe the negativity of your heart is so strong that you can't hear the positivity of God wanting to move you in a direction of victory, but you can hear my voice tonight.

I am a spiritual leader. I am in your living room right now, or your car. I know there's somebody that texted in and said, I always go into my car to listen to the prayer meeting because I like it better, so I'm speaking to you tonight in your car.

I am a spiritual leader, as this guy was to Hannah. I'm telling you, God will be faithful to you. God will meet the desires of your heart. God will give you a victory that you could never have in your own strength.

It's amazing. I wish I could have heard Hannah's prayer when she found out she was going to have a child. This voiceless prayer birthed a voice that guided the nation for 40 years. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

A lady so discouraged and so empty that she couldn't speak her prayer, gives birth to a voice that guides the nation, Samuel, the prophet, for 40 years. Lastly, in Genesis 18, God spoke in person, within the range of a lady called Sarah's hearing.

Sarah, God's Promise, and the Question of Possibility

She was too old to bear a child. She had long suffered disappointment. She had a promise that you're going to have descendants. Her husband had it. Of course, the promise was to come through her life.

She had a promise that you're going to have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. Yet, it's been years, and years, and years. The promise is not fulfilled. There is no real heir that's come through her life.

Suddenly, she gets a visitation from God. The Lord God is speaking to her husband, Abraham. She's in the tent, and she can hear his voice. It's an audible voice she's hearing. The Lord says, your wife, Sarah, is going to have a child.

Now, she's way too old to have a child, and the scripture says she laughed. The Lord said, why did you laugh? My question to you tonight, who's listening online, if I'm telling you tonight that God's going to use your life for his glory and do something supernatural in your life, why did you laugh?

Why do you smirk in your heart? Why is there this chuckle in your heart that says, oh, no, not me. I'm too old. It's too long. It's too far. It's too gone. In verse 14, the Lord says to Abraham, he says, is anything too hard for the Lord?

This is my question to you tonight. Is anything too hard for God? Are you the one person in the realm of all of history that God can't do anything through? Are you unique? He took a dead man and brought him out of the grave by the power of his voice.

He took four lepers and defeated an enemy army. He took two barren women and with one, he birthed a voice that guided the nation. With others, he birthed what became the church. Oh, God. Oh, God. Do you understand that you're here tonight because of that promise being fulfilled in Sarah's life?

Do you get it? Do you understand that through her lineage came the patriarchs of Israel, through the patriarchs came the Savior Jesus Christ, through Christ came the early church, through the church passing on the baton came you.

And so it's as if you were also in that tent and now we're given the opportunity to respond to the voice of God as the voice of God comes to us. You know, some people, sad to say, some people stay in the grave and they just say, put the stone back.

It's too late. I'm too far gone. And others say, well, we're just lepers. What can we do? Let's just stay here and die. Some just walk away from the house of God disappointed, somehow believing that God is not the same as He always has been and can't answer their prayer any longer.

And some laugh. And how sad that is to God. They laugh and walk away. What will you do tonight? Will you laugh? Will you laugh before you turn this meeting off tonight on your computer, your laptop, whatever you have, your cell phone?

Or will you say, God, be it done to me according to Your word? According to your word, Lord, be it done to me. According to Your word, Lord, let the weightiness of your life become mine. According to Your word, take me out of death.

According to Your word, take me out of weakness. According to Your word, lift me out of barrenness. According to Your word, use my life for Your glory. According to your word, may I live to come into the house of God, or maybe I'll live just to come online in this prayer meeting and shout glory.

Responding to God's Voice With Faith

Glory to God. Only God could have done this. I prayed, and he's come. Only God could have done this. I asked for victory, and victory has come. Only God could have done this. I prayed that God would use my life in a way that I knew it was him, and he did.

Only God could have done this. Glory to God. Glory to God for the words that you gave me to speak to that person on the street corner. Glory to God for the healing you brought into my marriage and home and my family, my mind.

Glory to God for the freedom from addiction you brought into my life. Glory to God for breaking all the barriers that kept me in isolation. Glory to God for bringing me into the place where I know that he lives.

I'm no longer an argument about the reality of God. I know that he lives. I know what he can do. I know his power. I know his grace. I know his glory. Oh, hallelujah. Oh, hallelujah. Oh, hallelujah. Glory to God.

Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory that the God of the universe would intertwine his life in mine, that the God of the universe would give me his strength, his cleansing, his freedom, his abilities, his voice, his compassion, his song.

Everything belongs to him. That he would take this empty vessel and he would infuse it with the weight of God. Oh, hallelujah. Glory is right. Glory to God. Glory to the Lamb of God. So tonight you have a choice.

If you can hear, the scripture says in the book of Hebrews, today if you can hear his voice, don't harden your heart. It's what the children of Israel once did in the wilderness and because of it they died in the wilderness.

When he was giving them this incredible promise and they turned back because of unbelief, the scripture says, will you get up tonight? Will you go forward into the plan that God has for your life? Will you believe that even in your emptiness that he can produce something of himself that brings his own name to reputation?

That's what the kavod of God means, actually the glory that he does something so powerful in you that his name, not yours, comes to reputation through it. Praise God. Praise God. I want to challenge you online.

I want to challenge the new students that have come into this Bible school to believe. I was where you are years ago. I was in a church hearing something like this and I leaned forward in my seat and I remember saying, God, could that be true?

Could you use this life for your glory? Could you change me? Could you give me a heart for people? Could you take me out of the frailty of my mind and my thinking and my background and the walls I built around myself and could you actually do something through my life that brings your name to glory?

I can't tell you the day it happened but I do know I went towards the sound of his voice. That's all I can tell you. I just moved to the sound of his voice and said, God, I want it all. I want everything you have for me.

I want the fullness of it. Now some people just want knowledge. Some just want personal freedom. But I wanted everything that God had for my life. I still do today. There's more. There's always more with God.

How can we ever get to the end? How can we ever get to the place of saying I've got all of God that I need? I mean, come on. There's always more. And so I want to challenge you tonight as I challenge those that are online.

Salvation Through Faith in Christ

Begin this way. Admit you need a Savior. You can't save yourself. Believe that God loved you so much that he sent his son to die on a cross to pay the price for the wrong things you have done, the Bible calls that sin, that separated you from God, from the life of God, the plan of God, the purpose of God, the heaven of God.

It separated you completely from God for eternity. But God so loved you that he came to get you. That's why Christ went to a cross. And then start confessing them with your mouth. The Bible tells us that if you believe in your heart and you confess with your mouth, you'll be saved.

You start to confess what you believe. That's basically what it's saying. Whatever is in the heart is going to come out of your mouth. Jesus is the Lord of my life. You start just to confess it. Jesus, you have the right to govern my thinking.

You have the right to determine my future. You have the right to tell me what my life, your life plan is going to be for me. You have the right. I give you the rights to my life. And you start declaring him to be Savior and Lord.

And his promise is that he cleanses you from all sin, brings you home again to himself forever and gives you a reason to live while you live on the earth. And the reason that we live is to glorify him.

Thank God to bring glory to his name. So those online, I'm going to ask you to pray this simple prayer with me and mean it in your heart. And then again, I'm going to tell you next week and the week after and the week after, get your friends, get some strangers even, bring them, say, you got to come.

We're praying God's going to change your life. Just tell them what God's going to do. You don't have to make it happen. You just tell them what God is going to do. Pray this simple prayer. Let's all pray it here tonight for the sake of those listening online now.

Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for loving me. Thank you for dying to pay the price for my sin. I open my heart to you tonight. I invite you into my life to be my Lord, my Savior, and my God. Thank you for loving me and for giving me the promise that you will show me the reason and the purpose and plan that you have for my life.

I give myself fully to you, Lord. Speak to me. I will listen. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. If you prayed that tonight and you really meant it online, text the word decided to 51 ,000, decided to 51 ,000.

You'll get a video from Times Square Church helping you to get started on your new walk with God. Praise God. We're going to go to communion in just a moment. We're going to sing one song and then get some bread, get some juice, and you and I and all these young people and older people that are here tonight, we're going to celebrate the victory of Jesus Christ on the cross for your sin.

Communion and the New Covenant

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which he was betrayed took bread. And when he'd given thanks, he broke it and said, take eat. This is my body which is broken for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Hallelujah. Jesus, thank you. God thank you. God thank you. God thank you for giving us the redemption that we have. God thank you for the promise of new life. God thank you for the plan that you will unfold for each of us in the days ahead.

Thank you, Lord, for taking us out of the confines of small thinking and bringing us into that place where we have the mind of Christ. Thank you, Lord, for taking us to a place where all things become possible.

Did I not tell you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God? Did I not tell you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God? Did I not tell you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God?

Hearing and Obeying the Lord's Voice

You know, in the Old Testament, when God would call somebody, as in the days of Samuel, the advice given to them when they started to hear the voice of God is to say, speak Lord, your servant is listening.

Amazing, isn't that? Speak Lord. And I'd like us to do that here in the sanctuary tonight and do that online as well where maybe you just go to your knees at home and just say, speak Lord, your servant is listening.

Speak to me, God, because your voice is the one that determines my future. Your voice determines the boundaries in the sense of what you determined to accomplish through my life. God helped me to put away the small thinking of my own mind and my own heart.

Speak Lord. Speak to me, God. I'm listening. My advice to you is don't ever say no to God. Don't laugh. Don't laugh when he speaks. Just get up and go forward. All through history, people who heard him speak got up and moved forward and miracles started to happen.