Scotland 2009 - Pastors and Leaders — Carter Conlon

Praise God, thank you, Greg and the ensemble. Appreciate the dedication of singers that so give their time and their life to the work of God. Good morning. I trust that you can all hear me. Got enough, got a speaker for everybody here today.

This morning, I woke up early and began to pray. I said, God, I don't want to just bring the, you know, the tendency that we always have when we go to especially speak to pastors is you kind of bring the gems of revelation that God's given you, but it's not necessarily a living word.

And the Lord had been putting a thought in my heart and I couldn't fully grasp what he was getting at. And this morning when I got up, he just started unlocking it and opening it and said, this is what I want you to speak today to the pastors that are gathered together.

And so, and then after this session this morning, then Pastor Teresa is going to be speaking in the second session and bringing us a word from the Lord. And then after that, then Pastor Neil Rhodes, another one of the associate pastors at Times Square Church is going to be wrapping it all up after lunch today.

One of the crowning achievements, I think, of the life and ministry of Pastor David Wilkerson is a book that he wrote. It would be his last book. It's called The New Covenant Unveiled. It's an unveiling of God's remedy to defeat the power of sin in the last day church.

A phenomenal book, a phenomenal series of messages. And Pastor Neil will be bringing an encapsulated version of that after lunch today. And I do recommend if you do get any book in this generation at all, if you can go online to Times Square Church or tscnyc .org and get a copy of The New Covenant Unveiled.

It is one of the most, it's simple, but you know, it's the tendency of the Christian church that we can quite often lose the simplicity of Christ. Paul himself said, I fear that if having started, you lose the simplicity that is ours in Christ.

These are not, there's nothing new in it. It's not revelatory. It's just, it's truth that was known in the church and be easily proven. Puritan writers knew it. They knew about, they understood the new covenant of God.

And Pastor David brings it out in a modern context for the church today. Very liberating, incredibly liberating, simple, but very, very liberating. So I think you're gonna be greatly blessed. If you have your Bible with you this morning, I'm getting a lot of echo, Ivan.

Is it possible maybe we're too loud? I think everybody can hear, thank you. I wanna, if you go to Genesis chapter 26, if I were to give this a title, I guess I'd call it Redigging the Old Wells of Abraham, for lack of a better title.

Genesis 26, I'd like to start reading at verse 15. This is Isaac now, the son of Abraham, following in the footsteps of his father. And he said, for all the wells which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham, his father, the Philistines had stopped them and filled them with earth.

And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Abimelech being the king of the Philistines, go from us, for thou art mightier than we. And Isaac departed thence and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar and dwelt there.

And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham, his father, for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham. And he called their names after the names by which his father had called them.

We're now at verse 19. And Isaac's servants digged in the valley and found there a well of springing water. And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac's herdmen, saying, the water is ours. And he called the name of the well Issach, because they strove with him.

Then they digged another well and strove for that also. And he called the name of it Sitton. And he removed from thence and digged another well. And for that they strove not. And he called the name of it Rehoboth.

For he said, for now the Lord hath made room for us and we shall be fruitful in the land. And he went up from thence to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared unto him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham, thy father.

Fear not for I am with thee and I will bless thee and I will multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake. And he builded an altar and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac's servants digged a well.

Now, father, I pray God, Lord for the anointing of the Holy Spirit and God, where you are, there's life, where you are Jesus Christ, there's strength, there's redemption, there's correction and there's hope.

And Lord, I'm asking for an anointing today, God, to bring out this simple truths in such a way, Lord, that they become very attractive to our hearts. Something that we long for, something that we aspire to as a higher way of living than the way of the natural mind.

Redigging the Wells of Abraham

Help us today, oh God, help me to speak this clearly. I thank you for it in Jesus' mighty and holy name, amen. Now, Abraham had once dwelt in the same place where Isaac now found himself in our opening text.

But the interesting thing is after Abraham left, the Philistines filled in the wells that Abraham had dug with earth. Now, that's a type of something. I don't know why they filled them in. In those days, water was life.

You didn't have water, you didn't have life. You had no water, you had no livestock, you had no crops. It was essential to life. And you would think that if somebody had digged a well in your land and it was producing some kind of a springing, bubbling water that you'd wanna keep that well.

And it's only conjecture on my part, but I think the Philistines saw something so, because they told Isaac, they said, you are more and you're mightier than we are. They were afraid of Abraham. They were afraid of Abraham's descendants.

And the powers of darkness are afraid of the church and rightfully so of Jesus Christ. And Abraham had a strength. There was this touch of God on his life. There was this progression of power, kingdom in Abraham, which they knew they didn't have.

And most likely after Abraham's departure, maybe they went to the wells and they drank from it. And they said, and they didn't change. And because the natural men don't change. They can touch spiritual things and they don't change.

It's only a spiritual man or woman that will touch us something spiritual and actually change. The natural men don't change. They just get darker. They touch the things of God and the light in them becomes darkness.

Jesus warned, said, if the light that is in you become darkness, how great is that darkness? Have you ever met a man or woman who studies scripture for years and it's never touched their lives and how dark they've become?

There's no darker darkness than a religious darkness that can come on a heart that's not really given to the change that the word of God brings. And so the Philistines said, well, lest these people, that's only my theory, but I think it may have some validity.

Lest these people come back and drink from this well again and become more than we are and overpower us. We've got to fill these wells because it really didn't make sense to fill a well in that or any other generation.

And so Isaac comes back into the place where Abraham had once dwelt. And now he has to re-dig those walls of Abraham. And it's a type in a sense of you and I having come to the place where all those who have served Christ before us, they've found something of God.

Not everybody found it, but many did find it. They found a life, they found a strength, they found a power to be transformed themselves and to change their societies. They moved into something of supernatural life.

And this world and every power of darkness in it would do everything it can to fill these places that we don't find our strength where those before us have found this supernatural strength of God. And it's in that context that I'm sharing this truth this morning.

Abraham’s Prayer for Abimelech and the Wells of Blessing

Now, I just wanna briefly go over it. I'm not gonna read it all because I really don't have time. We've only got a 40 minute session this morning, but let me just quickly go through what I've been reading again this morning.

In Genesis 20, tells us that in this place, that's Gerar, that Abraham prayed for good to come to a man and to his house who had unknowingly wronged him. Now, it was in Gerar where Abraham's wife, Sarah, had been taken into Abimelech's harem.

And because of this transgression that Abimelech had done against him, that he was not really even aware that he'd done it, Abimelech's, the wombs of his house were closed. And so there was no chance they were actually doomed to be extinct in a sense, unless God lifted his hand off of them.

And once this man was reproved by God, Abraham prayed for him and Sarah was given back to Abraham out of Abimelech's harem. And Abraham prayed for this man. And when he prayed for him, the wombs of his household were opened again and they were able to bear children.

And this is where the Lord, I've been on this journey. So I'm gonna try to share it. I don't wanna be overly theological. I'd rather be a little more practical this morning because I've been on this journey.

I've seen some of this blessing. One of the greatest blessings that has come into my life as a pastor and a Christian and the lives of congregation at Times Square Church is a few years ago when we made a decision to host a pastor's prayer meeting in the city.

Reason but to bless the pastors of New York City and tri-state area. We've had over a thousand pastors now come to these meetings. There's a core group of 40 to 70 that attend almost all the time. And then there's a flow through every month of different pastors.

We meet together, we pray together, we worship together and we have a meal together, then we fellowship together. There are a lot of different distinctives in this meetings. Some people believe in eternal security, some don't.

Some speak in tongues, some don't. And you know all of the things. I don't have to tell you, you're in ministry, you understand. And some put prayer shawls on their heads when they pray. Some pray as if they've just run a marathon and they're out of breath and others pray quietly.

And it's just so, it was very difficult to get through it in the beginning. Just to be able to handle the differences because we are all, we all have this frailty this human frailty that what we do is right and what everybody else does is wrong.

And it's in all of us and we tend to gravitate to practices and the problem of that is that we end up isolating ourselves in the body. And we say we love the head, oh we love you Jesus so much. You know and we know in Ephesians that we're connected to the head and we are the body.

But in a sense we're trying to love the head and not the body. And it just doesn't work that way. I don't believe you can fully have the head until you've embraced the body. If you don't believe that for all the men that are here or just any of the women, go home tonight to your husband or wife and say honey I love your head but I hate your body.

And just see what kind of a relationship you're gonna have that night. And so that's exactly what we do to Christ. Oh we love you Jesus but I just can't stand your body. I can't stand it. And when we began to pray for churches as a congregation, sincerely pray for other churches and it's a practice now in our church.

When we, we'll have 2 ,000 people gather for prayer frequently and when we pray in our services we say God bless the Methodist churches, bless the Baptist churches, bless the Brethren churches, bless the Salvation Army and we name the churches in our city and we say God fill them to capacity.

We don't spend all of our time praying for ourselves. We say fill them to capacity. God bless the ministers in the pulpits and give them a fresh touch from heaven. And there's such a stirring happening in the church because this is what Abraham did.

He prayed for another man and that had unknowingly, he felt, he may have felt he had some kind of a legitimate grievance against this man but he moved, that was one of the wells that he drank from. He moved beyond this self-consumption and he could have just taken his wife and walked away and said well all the rest of you die.

You deserve to die for what you did or how you've lived and what you practice and I don't agree with what you do. I don't agree with you take other people's wives as it is which was the practice then and just because you desire to.

But he prayed for them and if we don't drink it that well then we're just allowing the Philistines to put a pile of dirt, that's the first truckload. It takes a while to fill the well of God's life but that's the first load that the enemy will put in that when we become exclusive and that brings an obvious narrowness to it.

We end up a one spoke bicycle wheel. You know just probably thematically on one point all the rest of our lives. Preaching one thing, standing defending that one thing. The church doesn't grow, there's no life and you're constantly digging in the Bible for some way to prove that one thing that we're holding to that we say is God and everybody else is wrong and we miss the whole point.

Unity in the Body of Christ

We just miss what God wants to do and we end up starving ourselves spiritually. Out of this prayer meeting in Genesis 21 as we, I'm not gonna read it through but as we follow through it's immediately after this he prays for Abimelech in Genesis 20 that in Genesis 21 verses one to eight it's that's where Abraham begins to experience the miraculous power of God.

That's where Isaac is born. Now the Philistines must have been a phenomenal thing when the report goes out that a 100 year old man has just had a son. I mean that'd be phenomenal and they knew this was miraculous.

This is where God began to release his miraculous power in his life. If you follow the course of Abraham's life in Gerar because we're talking about that area of the Philistines where these wells were dug and if you follow sequentially the life of Abraham you'll see exactly what he was spiritually drinking.

I know there was physical water but he was drinking something of his relationship with God and now the miraculous power of God begins to flow through him. Out of this prayer meeting that we started in New York City for example and it was as I said earlier it was very, very difficult in the beginning.

It's very, very hard to find common ground but we eventually did. We had to plow through, we had to press through and I had one man that started coming to prayer meetings in the beginning and in my opinion he couldn't speak normally.

He was so religious. He just you know blessings and peace and much grace and benevolent sanctification to you my brother. You know that's the way he would speak all the time and it was like goodness sakes why don't you just say hello?

You know and it was in my heart and it just wasn't normal. It was just so utterly religious and as time went on he came every month for three, four years and as time went on he got more normal. It just happened.

I don't know. He just, I'd say hi, how you doing? You know I'd say yeah great how are you? And it just like things changed and then he got killed. He was killed by a car a few months ago. I was away in another country and I didn't know it had happened until I got back and I still have a grief in my heart because I love that man.

I love that man. When we started out we had nothing in common. I went and spoke to his church one time and I just felt we had absolutely nothing in common but Christ you see. But then again we had everything in common because he really loved Jesus Christ.

His mannerisms were different. He had a different focus. There's some few theological things that are really not essential to getting to heaven. But the fellowship that we've established is a bloodline fellowship and I constantly say if you're over the bloodline, if you've trusted Jesus Christ for your salvation and if you love him then you are my brother.

You are my sister. We are all part of the family of God. We're on this journey together and like it or not on the earth we're going to spend eternity in heaven together so we'd better get used to this now and God is able to break the barriers down.

And so out of this prayer meeting that started out just almost as an exercise in a cooperative spirituality if I can't call it anything but that. Out of this prayer meeting came a burden that God gave to us to gather the churches together in New York City in the tri-state area in Times Square and call the city to prayer.

Now that was an impossibility but you see when Abraham prayed for Abimelech's house the next thing that happens, the very next thing is the miraculous power of God is released and we knew this would have to be a miracle.

Here we are all these pastors from all these different, the Salvation Army guys got his uniform on and the Jewish guys got his shawl on his head and we're all different but the Holy Spirit bore witness.

I'm calling you to do this and so we began to move forward in faith to do what really couldn't happen apart from God and I don't have time to tell you the whole story but I can tell you it was miraculous.

The very first year. Times Square is considered holy ground in the United States and particularly New York City. You just simply can't get that real estate. It's just holy ground and there are seven committees established by the city to smile at you and to thwart every effort that you would ever try to get that place for any kind of an event and that's exactly what, they're put there as dominoes that you'll never, hurdles you'll never get over.

We moved forward in faith that first year and we started to call the churches together to prayer and it looked like about 10 ,000 people were going to come. Phenomenal miracle but one week or so before the event, we still didn't have one committee.

There's seven committees have to sign off. The first committee I don't think had signed off yet and the second can't sign off till the first signs off and the third can't sign off till the first and second sign off and so I remember we were talking, I said, what are we gonna do?

And we said, well, God called us to do this. Let's just do it. Let's just move ahead. We have to trust God. It was how many days past, five days? The Friday before the Sunday, we got a call from the mayor's office in New York City and we have something for you.

Please send somebody to pick it up. Now, Mayor Bloomberg is a Jewish man in New York City and we sent somebody down. We had no idea what it was and when it came back, we opened it up and lo and behold, there's a proclamation from the mayor of New York City declaring that Sunday, prayer in the square day for the city, a declaration from the mayor.

This is prayer in the square day. So of course, the committees just fell over like dominoes because the mayor had made it and he's done this for us every subsequent year and we still don't know why. We don't ask why.

We just say, God, this is your hand. This year, there were somewhere, I think a safe estimate is 50 ,000 people were out this year praying for our city. It was all over the world. If you wanna see the event, you can go to NYC, as in New York City, prayer, nycprayer .org and it's a one hour and 12 minutes, I think, and you'll see the whole event in New York City.

That's where the miraculous, when the body comes together, the miraculous starts to flow and if you and I are not willing to embrace the church of Jesus Christ in all of its forms, then we will be relegated to a smallness most of the rest of our lives but if you're willing to embrace the body of Jesus Christ, the full body of Christ, then the miraculous begins to start because in Psalm 126 says, when brethren dwell together in unity, there's an anointing and he likened it to the oil that's poured down on Aaron's head and flows right to the skirt of his garment.

That means an anointing that's all encompassing. It touches everywhere you go. It goes beyond your borders. When we make the choice to walk together in unity and I always say, unity is not a feeling, it's a choice.

I don't feel always like being unified but I choose to be and that's Abraham had to choose to pray for Abimelech and his house. He most likely didn't feel like it because Abimelech had done an injustice to him and injustice to his dignity and injustice to his family and to his wife and Abraham most likely didn't feel to pray for him but he chose to pray for him and when he chose to pray, God turns around and bless Abraham.

Putting Away the Works of the Flesh

In Genesis chapter 21, now after the miraculous begins to happen, he puts away the works and reasonings of the flesh. Now, you know that Abraham had had a son of the flesh and God says, now this son is not going to be a co-inheritor.

You've got to put away the works of the flesh. In America today, I say this with a broken heart but the churches are inundated with works of the flesh. Strategies of the natural mind, strategies to build the kingdom because the church is almost completely cut off, not exclusively but largely cut off from the supernatural and it's all natural now.

It's all, it's just convention after convention of seven steps to build a big church. They don't even have a clue of what a church is. Everybody thinks that if your church gets to 10 ,000, wow, you're a success.

No, sir, I wish I had time to share with you today that what the real role model of success is. Let me tell you in a nutshell. Jesus Christ died for every soul that's under your care. I don't care if you have 21 people in your church.

He died for those people and when you get to heaven, that's what you will answer for. You'll answer for every one of those people that he would have died even if they were the only one that he would have come for.

And the measure of success is not that you had a church of 5 ,000 people, is that you got to heaven those people that God put under your care. Praise be to God. That's why everything's going to be reversed when we get there.

Many who are last are going to be first. Many who are first are going to be last when we get to heaven. We put away the works and the reasonings of the flesh. We are able and able to go back into the prayer closet and begin to seek God again and begin to ask him to do what only God can do.

Making Peace and Refusing Unforgiveness

Again, in Genesis 21, verses 25 to 32, he made peace with men who had violently wronged him. The herd men of that particular king had taken away something that was rightfully his and Abraham made peace with them.

It's important to make peace as much as you can with every man, every woman, everybody, especially in the body of Christ. As much as is possible, walk peaceably, the scripture says, with all men. Make peace, make peace and put away the grievances.

Jesus himself said it this way. A man was forgiven a great debt and then he went to another man who owed him a whole lot less than he owed the man who forgave him. He took him by the throat and he wouldn't forgive him and said, pay me what you owe.

And the end result of that is he's delivered to a tormenting spirit. And I want to, I have to believe, like Jesus warned strongly about the danger of unforgiveness. It's a root, it can produce a bitter ministry.

It can be the root that makes us feel exclusive or more important than others. It can bring us out of humility where the true power of God is and lead us into an incredible spiritual pride. It's important to make peace.

I've done everything in my power that I know to be at peace with every man that I have ever wronged or has ever wronged me. Those that I've wronged, I've called and asked for forgiveness. Those that have wronged me, I've called them and asked for forgiveness.

And is it possible we can reconcile? In most cases, reconciliation has come. There are always a few that somebody just chooses to hold to a position of unforgiveness, but yet I am not willing to hold unforgiveness in my heart.

And as a minister, you must be very careful of this. It'll destroy you. It'll destroy your ministry. It'll take away the anointing of God. Your vision will leave and you'll end up tormented in your mind.

You'll end up struggling. And there's an opening gets into your spirit, to the works of darkness. If you have unforgiveness, Abraham drank from this well of forgiveness, drank from this well of taking the lowest seat in the house as it is, and refusing to create a list of wrongs in his heart and said, I'm gonna take the higher road.

If Christ could forgive me, if Christ could overlook my transgressions, if Christ could go to a cross for us in all of our frailties and failings and the things that we've done wrong, then surely in the power of God, I can forgive any man who has wronged me.

It's Bible 101, but it's strange that a lot of people choose to go another way, even though that we have the knowledge of this truth. And then in Genesis chapter 22, he was willing to give up all that was dear to him if God required it.

Surrendering Ministry, Reputation, and Identity

And you know the story, the Lord told him, take your son Isaac and sacrifice him. And he was willing to give up. And you and I have to be willing to give up our reputation. We have to be willing to give up our aspirations of greatness and success and everything else that we think the gospel is supposed to bring to us.

We have to be willing to become servants to the body of Jesus Christ, to take the lowest seat in the house, to give away, to give up. The ministry is not yours. The ministry is not mine. I do not, I pastor Times Square Church.

I do not own the ministry. It is not mine. It is God's. He's given it to me for a season. I remember one time I was praying, and this may sound trite to you, but this is the way the Lord answered me. And I said, God, what is my role in Times Square Church?

What do you want me to do with the church? You know, you'd expect in your mind, oh, I want you to sweep the world and bring in my kingdom. You know, that's typically what we want to hear. The Lord told me, don't spill the peas.

And I thought it was a strange response. And then suddenly I saw myself sitting at a Thanksgiving table. You know, when somebody just says, pass the peas, and you're just careful, you get them, and you just get them to the next guy.

And he said, just don't spill the peas. Just, the way you get it, you hand it to the next guy. That's your job. Don't spill the peas. And I finally understood, oh God, I'm just here for a moment. This is put into my hands by grace, and it's leaving my hands shortly.

It's not mine. I'm only an invited guest here. It belongs to the host of the house. It's not mine. It belongs to God. It's in my hands for a short season. It's passed to the next guy. And I just want to get to the throne of grace one day and say, God, I didn't spill the peas.

I mean, you put it in my hand, I didn't spill it. I passed it on. As warm as I received it, as intact as I received it, I gave it to the next person. And in this place of being willing to give up all that was dear to him, he found God as Jehovah Jireh.

He found God as his provision. He actually found the provision of Christ. He found life. It's so, it's so joyful to let go of everything. Now, we don't let go of it to the point where we're careless about it, but we let go that it's not our identity anymore.

I don't have an identity because I preach. My identity is not in the fact that I pastored a big church. That's terrific. And God has been very gracious to me and sent me a lot of places throughout the world to preach, but my identity is not in that.

If my voice was lost tomorrow, if my health is gone, I'm as whole and entire as I've always been. Nothing has changed. My identity is in Christ. I am who I am because of Jesus Christ. It's not because of ministry.

Don't let ministry become your identity. Your identity is Christ. If ministry becomes your identity, it's a downward spiral all the way. You become defensive and offensive and don't go there. It's not your identity.

Christ is your identity. If I lost my health tomorrow, somebody asked me, they said, if you lost your health, what would you do? And that is a real issue because I do deal with some strong health issues.

All I said, I'd just find a church somewhere that has a heart for the poor and I would start taking out groceries to poor families and sitting down with them and telling them about the goodness of God.

As much as I could squeak it out, I would tell them. Nothing would change. Absolutely nothing would change because my identity has never been in ministry. I didn't want to go into ministry. I fought against God.

I didn't want to preach. I loved what I was doing. It was a long standing battle to leave what I was doing to go into the ministry. My identity has never been in ministry. It's in Christ. I thank God for that with all my heart.

Contention Fills the Wells

Now, Isaac begins to dig the wells again in Genesis 26, where we started in verse 18. And in verse 19, I'm going to show you how these wells get filled up by the powers of darkness again in just another, I'm going to go about five more minutes.

It says, and Isaac's servants dig the well in the valley in verse 19 and found there a well of springing water. And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac's herdmen saying, the water is ours. And he called the name of the well Isek because they strove over it.

That means, Isek means contention. And they digged another well and strove for that also. And he called the name of it Sitna. And he removed from that and digged another well and they strove not. And he called the name of it Rehoboth, which means room.

And he said, for now the Lord has made room for us and we shall be fruitful in the land. The only material that the Philistines need to fill and stop the supply, which God has given you in Christ is strife and contention.

That's all they need. If the devil can get you striving, if the devil can get you into contention, that's all he needs to fill your well. That's it. Then you're just as weak as any other man. He takes away that separation to God, just like Delilah did in the life of Samson, cuts away that separation that makes you different from other men and women in the earth, takes it away from you and then fills that well.

And now you're just a person with a lot of religious knowledge. You know the Bible, you can quote the Bible, even do a bit of good, but you really, really are cut off from the supernatural. That part of the life of God that makes ordinary men extraordinary, makes natural men supernatural, takes us into places we could never hope to go, makes us what we could never hope to be.

If you're a contentious man, I promise you, you're going little or no places in the kingdom of God. And that's just the reality of it. I say that with a very loving heart. Paul said, I fed you with milk and not with meat.

To the Corinthians. For up to this point, you were not able to bear it. And neither now are you able for you are yet carnal. For where as there is among you envying and strife and division, are you not carnal and walk as men?

In other words, are you not living and drawing from the old nature? Is not the earth beginning to fill your well? Paul said, I wanted to give you meat, but you can't hear it. You can't bear it because you're still full of division.

You're still striving. You're still fighting among each other. And he said, because of it, you can't hear it. It doesn't really get any simpler than that. This is the inspired text of God by the Holy Spirit that you can't hear because there's division.

Because they're striving because one says i'm of paul. No, i'm of apollos. No, i'm of peter. I'm of christ and in this body. There's this division. And it can it can appear to be a good thing can be appear to be a holy thing.

This is just sort of my my preference. But the inference is I have no use for these other ones because this is my man. This is my type of preaching. This is my type of gospel and It's falling into that trap of the eye saying to the hand.

I have no need of you. One part of the body saying to the other part. You're not necessary in my life. I don't need you. I think one of the greatest revelations that god's ever given to me is I need every person in the body of jesus christ.

You are as essential to my life as a christian as any other thing that God has ever given to me. James chapter 3 and verse 16 says where there's envy and strife. There's confusion and evil work. Now think of that where there's envy and strife.