The Wayward Church Will Soon Be Ashamed — Carter Conlon

The Prophetic Word and Its Biblical Test

Today I have a prophetic word for you and I would tremble to even say that. Unless I knew in my heart that this was true and believed it with everything in my heart now prophetic word is when God Speaks to a vessel that he chooses about something he's going to do.

It's not happened or perhaps is just beginning, but it's something he intends to fulfill and Of course the test of the prophetic word is whether or not it comes to pass. You perfect anybody who speaks prophetically you always can judge it.

Because there's got to be a pattern of it in scripture can never be outside of the character of God. God always acts in line with his character. His character is eternal. The Lord says in the Old Testament I change not he does not change.

We change. He does not change and he will always deal in the same manner With certain situations as they arise in the present and future as he has done in the past so in that context, I'm going to be looking at the chapter 16 of Ezekiel today and Bringing to you a word that I know that God has put on my heart.

The Wayward Church Will Soon Be Ashamed

For his church now for the professing Church now for the true Church of Jesus Christ. This will be something for you to consider and to be cautious of. But this word today is for much more than Times Square Church.

I believe it's a word that God's going to give wings to and it will be Taken in different places and it's it's intended for a larger audience Than the one that's here today. This is I'm only telling you what the Holy Spirit has spoken to my heart.

Ezekiel chapter 16 the title is the wayward Church will soon be ashamed. The wayward Church Will soon be ashamed. Let's pray together. Father I thank you for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Lord, I wouldn't even dare attempt to speak this if your spirit was not upon me.

God give me the right heart. Give me the vision. I need Give me the mind that I need Lord to be able to Bring this out in the manner that you want it spoken. I don't want my own thoughts interjected with this.

I don't want to stand on any soapbox at any time throughout this word. I want to speak it with the tenderness of God's heart. And Lord, I'm asking you to overshadow my frailty. And come with your strength.

Your your heart animate me Holy Spirit. Help me to disappear that Christ alone may be heard and seen. Lord, we don't need and we don't want to hear from men in this generation. We need to hear from you.

I Thank you for this with all my heart in Jesus name. Now you have to understand with the prophetic word there is a cutting that has to happen before the healing and I want to ask you to stay with me.

I may preach a little bit longer than the normally do but I want to ask you to stay stay with this hear it to the end. Because if you don't stay till the end, you'll not understand why God brings such a word.

What's in his heart and where he's going with it? It's the love of God that motivates him to do everything he does. Remember that scripture says that God is love. He does not love does not know God for God is love.

Everything he does comes out of that heart of love even his judgments come out of a heart of love. And when you begin to see this, there's great great freedom in it. Ezekiel chapter 16 beginning at verse 59 right near the end of the chapter.

For thus saith the Lord God I Will even deal with thee as thou hast done. Which has despised the oath? In breaking the covenant. Nevertheless, I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.

Then thou shalt remember thy ways and be ashamed. When thou shalt receive thy sisters thine elder and thy younger. For I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant. And I will establish my covenant with thee and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.

The Wayward Church as the Prodigal Son

That thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth anymore because of thy shame. When I am pacified toward thee for all that thou has done saith the Lord God. Now Luke chapter 15 in the New Testament speaks of a son Who took his inheritance and went into a far far away place?

From the heart of his father. Now when I speak of the wayward church, this is what I'm speaking about. I'm talking about those who at some point in time had an understanding of God came to the house of the Lord and made a profession.

That Jesus Christ was their Savior. Took his word in their mouth. We're given a measure of the life and inheritance that is freely given to all who trust in Christ. And they took that inheritance and it decided somehow.

That the context of which it was presented was too restrictive. This this young son. He took this life in this inheritance his father had given him and he found the place where he's dwelling too narrow and He really didn't love his father at this point know the work of his father.

And he said give to me all that is mine and he took that inheritance. They went into a place far far away from the heart of his God his father. And this is how the Holy Spirit would have me defined this wayward church.

The older brother when this prodigal son returned home defined. This place is a place where he spent his inheritance with harlots spend it on prostitution. Really He became other than what his father had intended him to be.

Israel’s Wilderness Failure as a Warning to the Church

Now this is the context in chapter 16 of Ezekiel in this chapter. We see how even God's own people can lose focus. They can lose perspective in times of prosperity and blessing and divine favor in the Western world in particular.

We've come through several decades of incredible prosperity. Unprecedented really perhaps since the beginning of the world. There's been blessing and divine favor in the house of God as well as upon nations but first Corinthians Chapter 10 the Apostle Paul tells us that the children of Israel on this incredible journey with God Through the wilderness to the land of promise that they lusted after evil things they fell into idolatry and immorality.

They tempted Christ or put him to the test and they murmured to their own destruction. Now Paul says in verse 11 of that same chapter that all these things happen to them for examples and they're written for our admonition.

Upon whom the ends of the world are come and it's in that context. We're going to look at Ezekiel chapter 16. This is given to us as an example of what can happen to a people and how God in his mercy now I want you to keep it in mind or your.

You'll judge this word before you should. How God in his mercy responds? Even his judgments are mercy. So keep this in mind as we proceed in this. We find his response to certain patterns of human behavior in Scripture are always the same.

Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 8 says it this way. Jesus Christ the same yesterday. Today and forever he does not change. Ezekiel in chapter 16. Ezekiel saw the judgment of God coming to Jerusalem and its people.

Although most of the population in that city Which God intimately referred to as his own would not even be aware of what they had become in his sight. Throughout history this repeats itself over and over again.

People come to God they become Christian. The church has a great testimony. Nations are known as Christian nations and suddenly this eroding of the foundation of truth. The eroding of the foundation of loyalty to the Word of God and obedience to the very work of God in the earth Starts to be taken very very gradually away until that which was begun no longer has any resemblance to the original.

God’s Searching Judgment and the Bride’s Unfaithfulness

Now Christ is the author and he's the finisher of our faith and in his faithfulness to you and to me He will come and take away everything that we've learned to stand on that is not like him. It's not built on a foundation of truth.

And I don't know about you, but I'd rather have that come to my life now than when I stand at the judgment seat of Christ. I'd rather have him come now as the psalmist David said no God. Search me know my heart prove me try me and see if there's any way in me.

Any wicked way David says he calls it a wicked way. But David said it might be a way that I'm not aware of. It might be something I'm doing in my life. It might be a practice. I've embraced it might be a perspective of God and what it means to be a follower of God that isn't in line with truth and David calls it a wicked way and he said Lord come and test it and prove it and see if any of this wickedness be In me and lead me in the way of life everlasting.

When I read this chapter of Ezekiel, I hear a broken heart. I Hear God's heart because he refers to Jerusalem as his bride. He talks to the people of Jerusalem. He talks to the city as if it's one person as if it's a bride That was prepared and brought into a place of Worthiness to be able to walk with him and to honor him in the earth.

But somehow this pride has failed and fallen drastically From what her calling has been in the earth and I hear a broken heart as in a broken bridegroom. Who comes home and finds out that his bride has not been faithful to him.

Jesus’ Lament over Jerusalem

It's the same cry we hear in Matthew 23 When Jesus cries Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee. Often what I've gathered thy children together.

Even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings and you would not he cries out Oh Jerusalem. How often I wanted to gather you and I didn't want to put you in ranks. I didn't I didn't want to. I Didn't want you as in arming as it is.

Although that may be part in the sense of the Christian calling in the world. He said I wanted you as my bride. I wanted you as my very own. I wanted to draw you into the closeness of my heart and I wanted the two of us to walk together.

That we become one in this world as we walk through the world. And he said I would have gathered you. I wanted to but your house in verse 38 of Matthew 23 He said your house is left unto you desolate.

For I say unto you you shall not see me henceforth till you say blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. Jesus said you'll not see me until in your heart you say God. Thank you for sending your messenger to speak truth to my heart.

Until that comes to you. Until you're no longer so stubborn and entrenched in a self view and a religious view and a God view. That nope until you're ready to let my messengers come and speak into your heart.

Says you won't see me. You'll you'll hear about me. You'll have historical evidence of me, but you won't see me Personally and we're living in a generation where there's very limited view of God now even in his own house.

There's so people because they're not seeing The image of God, it's they're not understanding who they are in Christ. It's because of this that much of the charismatic in particular in Pentecostal churches in the last two decades have run the world looking for an image of God.

And he says you'll not see me because you've closed your heart to truth. You will not let me come and challenge that foundation you stand on that's unlike me. Ezekiel chapter 16 verse 1 he says again the word of the Lord came unto me saying son of man caused Jerusalem to know her abominations and Say thus saith the Lord God to Jerusalem thy birth in the night.

Nativity is of the land of Canaan. My father was an Amorite and their mother was a Hittite. Paul the Apostle Says it this way in in 1st Corinthians. Let me just read it to you for time's sake. Chapter 1 and Verse 26.

1st Corinthians chapter 1 verse 26 Paul says these words. For you see your calling brethren how that not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

And God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty and base things of the world. Which are despised as God chosen. Yea, and things which are not or nothing to bring to naught things that are that no flesh should glory in his presence.

But of him are you and Christ Jesus who of God is made to us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification. And redemption that according as it is written. He that glories let him glory in the Lord Prophet Ezekiel.

God sent through Ezekiel to Jerusalem. I came to you. He said you were nothing special. You were full of mixture just like every other man in the world. I didn't come to you because you stood out among the nations.

I came to you and I came to you when I found you you were in a deplorable condition in verse 4 He says as for thy nativity and the day you were born your navel was not cut. Neither were you washed in water to supple thee that was not salted at all nor swaddled at all.

No, I pity thee to do any of these unto thee to have compassion upon thee. But that was cast out into the open field to the loathing of that person in the day you were born. But folks, that's the testimony of many of us here today.

God’s Mercy Gives Life to the Spiritually Dead

The Lord says nobody cared for you. You were in a pitiful and a fallen condition. You were not of royalty. You were not of noble birth. You didn't have a wisdom. You had no pedigree. There's no reason that I should have stopped and even looked at you.

But I saw you God says in that condition and when I saw you I loved you. And the compassion of my heart went out to you. I Saw that you had nobody to care and you were in a pitiful condition and folks.

That's the testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ. That is my story. And if you are wise today, that is your story. I will never ever forget where God took me from. I Will never forget as long as I live there without the hand of God upon my life without his mercy clothing me.

I am absolutely nothing going nowhere powerless against sin powerless against the things of the flesh powerless against Everything of hell and the world that would come against me to destroy me. I only stand because the mercy of God has come into my life.

Verse 6 he said and I passed by you. I saw you polluted in your own blood and I said to you when you were in your blood live. I said unto you when you're in your blood live and the word in Hebrew means live again.

Enjoy life. Be quickened be preserved. Be quickened because to live. He said I came to you and I spoke to you. You didn't speak to me. I spoke to you. You didn't choose me. I chose you. And I spoke to you and I said live.

Praise God if you are in Christ. If Christ is in you you are alive from the dead. You are alive by the Spirit of God. You are made anew by the Spirit of Almighty God as I am you are going as we behold Christ as we want the Christ of the Bible as we behold the truth of God's Word as we Enter into the work of God in the earth, which is the redemption of fallen man.

We are changed from image to image and glory to glory and the very heart of God That looked on us and called us out of our poverty is now in us and moving through us to rest the rest of people. That we meet in the world every day.

We walk with him. We talk with him. He calls us his own. We are co-laborers with Christ bringing this salvation to a fallen world. Praise God praise God for the simplicity of Christ. Verse 7. He says I caused you to multiply as the bud of the field.

And you've increased in wax and grade and your come to excellent ornaments that breast their fashion. The hair is grown. Whereas you were half naked and bare. Now when I passed by thee and looked upon the behold That time of love had come.

I spread my skirt over thee and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto thee and entered into a covenant with thee saith the Lord God and you became mine. Then washed I thee with water. Yea, I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee and I anointed thee with oil.

God says I and caused you to increase. I Cleansed you from all of the filthiness of the flesh and the dominion of sin and I anointed you. I called you my own and I sent you out into the highways and byways of this world to bear witness to the one who found you in your poverty and was kind to you and Changed you and to tell as many people as you could find about this incredible banquet of God that has been prepared for rich and poor for educated and uneducated for black white brown Red and yellow for every race in the earth for every language for every kindred.

An incredible Banquet of mercy has been prepared in Christ and I sent you out as my bride. I sent you up to tell all men that the door is now open. The time has now come and anyone who thirsts can come and drink of the water of life freely.

I sent you to tell them. I Sent you not just with a message. I sent you with an experience of God. I sent you with the power of the Holy Ghost upon you. I Sent you with a new mind a new heart and a new spirit.

I sent you with a new value system. I sent you with the eyes of heaven. I Sent you with the heart of God. I sent you into the world. Verse 10. I Clothed you with broidered work. I shod you with badger skin.

I girded you with fine linen and I covered you with silk. I decked the also with ornaments. I put bracelets on your hands and a chain on your neck. I put a jewel on your forehead and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown upon your head.

Thus you were decked with gold and silver. And your raiment was a fine linen and silk and broidered work. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. And you were exceedingly beautiful and did prosper into a kingdom and Thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon.

They said the Lord God. The Lord said I gave to you my image my likeness and it made you famous among the heathen. In Acts chapter 2. I want to suggest you that the hundred and twenty didn't come out of the upper room with a plan.

They come out with a person. They come out with a living relationship with the Living God. They come out with an empowerment of the Holy Ghost upon them. They come out with a countenance that caused evilness and religion to bend its knee and say what must I do to be saved?

That was how the church was commissioned to go through the world. That is the Commission on your life. And that's the Commission on my life. Verse 15. He says but you didn't trust in your own beauty and you played the harlot because of your renown.

And poured out your fornications and everyone that passed by it his it was God said through his equal you became enamored with all the attention given you and you began to give your affection to every stranger That passed you by.

Idolatry, Celebrity Christianity, and the Loss of God’s Glory

Verse 17 says you've also taken your fair jewels of my gold and of my silver. Which I'd given you and you made to yourself. Images of men and you did commit whoredom with them and you took my boarded garments and covered them and you set mine oil And mine incense before them.

He says you were drawn to the images of fallen men pretending to be godly and you began to worship them. And if you don't believe this is happening in our generation I challenge you to go to a Christian bookstore this week and Find the bestsellers.

Ask them which are the bestsellers and look at them. Look at the covers of the images of men not the images of God. Five steps to be like me. Five steps to better yourself. Five steps to the new you. Five steps to a wonderful destiny.

With their glossy faces on the cover. Not so subtly telling the Church of Jesus Christ if you use the principles of God, you will look like me. It's not even subtle. You don't even need discernment to see it anymore.

And the Lord said this is what you did. You took all of what I had given you you took this anointing. And you bowed before men. You bowed before their ideas and they taught you to worship the creature more than to worship the Creator.

And you became enamored with your own beauty and your whole theological. Focus now is how you can be smarter better better-looking more prosperous. You lost the call of God. Church. Romans 125 says they changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator.

The Sacrifice of Children to Human Passion

Verse 20 says moreover. You've taken your sons and your daughters whom you've born unto me and you've sacrificed them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter. You've slain my children and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them.

Ezekiel says you sacrificed your sons and daughters to be fueled for the egos of false teachers. And you sent them into the torment of unbridled human passion. Know where that I'm aware of in the world.

Is this more tragically represented than in England today? England a country that once was famous in the world for its missionaries. Famous for the knowledge given it famous for its military power and it had all come.

Because there was a foundation of Christ in the nation. And Today the youth are in English towns all over England folks. It's tragic. They're running at 12 13 years of age into the streets half-naked to see who's the first one who can get drunk and wind up in the gutter.

It's so widespread it's become almost pandemic for lack of a better word in England today. You left off the truth you left off the calling of God and because you left the calling of God. Your sons and daughters you set them in a place where unbridled human passion is now governing their lives.

When once they could come into the house of God and the glory of God would be there. Verse 24. You've also built an eminent place, which is a brothel house and you've made a high place in every street.

And you've built a high place at the head of the way and made that beauty to be abhorred and you've opened your feet to Everyone that passed by and multiplied thy whoredoms. Here's what the Lord says your houses of worship became brothels in my sight.

God says that this is the pattern of Scripture. This is inspired word by the Holy Spirit folks. We can run from it if we want, but God spoke it to his own city, Jerusalem. He said you see temples and places of praise.

He said I see brothel houses because everybody that passes by you now open your heart to them and The place of intimacy that was reserved just for me. You're now letting every stranger that comes through now.

You're letting them into your heart and you're letting them govern your life and you're letting them lead you in the ways that you are going. Verse 27. He said behold I've stretched out my hand over thee and I've diminished that ordinary food and really what it really means I put you on a short allowance.

That's what Hendrickson commentary says about verse 27. I. Here's what it says in the New Living Testament. That's why I struck you with my fist and reduced your boundaries. I handed you over to your enemies the Philistines and even they were shocked by your lewd conduct.

We're living in a generation when Islam is coming in like a flood Into many nations and it's strange and they are ashamed At the conduct of nations that are were purported at least to be Christian. They're ashamed at the conduct the Lord says I did this.

I allowed this to happen. I Allowed your enemies to gain ground on you. Verse 37. Here's what the Lord says behold, I will gather all thy lovers with whom thou has taken pleasure and Them whom you've loved and with all the those that you've hated and I will gather them round about thee and I will discover thy Nakedness to them that they may see all thy nakedness and I will judge thee as women that break wedlock.

And shed blood are judged and I will give thee blood and fury and jealousy. I will also give thee into their hand and they shall throw down your eminent place and break down your high places and strip You of your jewels and take your fair jewels and leave you naked and bare and they shall bring up a company against thee and they shall stone thee with stones and thrust thee through with their swords and they will burn your houses with fire and Execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot.

And thou shall give no higher anymore. So will I make my fury toward thee to rest and my jealousy shall depart from thee and I will be quiet and be no more angry. The Lord says your enemies will surround you and their advance against you and seeming power to overthrow you will bring you to shame.

To the same kind of shame as someone who is exposed as uncovered in a public place. But I thank God with all my heart that this is not the end. If this was the end of the story We would be of all people most dismal.

God’s Covenant Mercy and the Restoration of His People

This is not the end. I began in the beginning by tell you telling you the God is a God of love. Look at Ezekiel chapter 36 now. Here's the end of the story. Ezekiel 36 verse 20. He said and when they entered onto the heathen whether they went they profaned my holy name.

When they said unto them, these are the people of the Lord that are gone forth out of his land. But I had pity for my holy name. Which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen whether you went.

Therefore say to the house of Israel verse 22. Thus saith the Lord God I do not this for your sake. So house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake. Which you profaned among the heathen whether you went.

God says I'm about to do something. I'm going to bring The wayward church to shame. I'm going to bring this church to an open shame in this generation. The people of this society are going to gather around about it, they're going to openly begin to speak against it.

They're going to cast stones at it. They're going to draw out their swords and this this bankrupt church is going to be known for what it really is. Powerless and naked in the sight of God. It's a lair to see in church.

That says I'm rich increased with goods and have need of nothing but the Lord says you don't know that you're miserable poor blind and naked and The Lord says I'm going to do this and this church is going to this church this wayward church.

I'm not talking now about the genuine Christian. I'm not talking about the honest seeker of God. I'm talking about those who have taken this life. They had a genuine experience with God and they've gone far away from the purposes of God through his church in the earth.

The Lord says for my name's sake. I'm going to bring you home. Because I am your husband. I Am faithful to you, even though you are not faithful to me. I remain faithful. I cannot be anything other than what I am.

I am a God who loves you with an everlasting love. And though you may forget your own children. I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. I've never forgotten you your walls. He said are continually before me praise God now.

Listen, you're really going to get this as we go on. He said I will sanctify verse 23 my great name which was profaned Among the heathen which you profaned in the midst of them and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord.

Say it the Lord God when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. I'm gonna bring you home. He said and I'm gonna do something profound first. I have to show you what you are. And when you see what you are and you know what you are I'm gonna cause you like the prodigal son to come to yourself.

I'm gonna cause you to see your condition. The prodigal son went a long time into a lot of places. But the Bible says one day finally he came to himself and said what am I doing here? What am I living in compliance with the value system of a world that is perishing all around me came to himself.

And he came to himself by the mercy of God. The mercy of God is going to gather a church in this last hour of time. The mercy of God is going to cause him to go after his bride that had been Captivated by the schemes of man and by the lies of Satan himself and the mercy of God Is going to rise up like a fury and say not so fast Satan.

That's my bride. That's my church that you've got. I'll be sanctified in you before their eyes. I'm gonna take you and something miraculous is going to happen. Sanctified means set apart means holy means free means undefiled means empowered by the Holy Ghost.

It means made into another person means given a new mind given a new commission given a new heart means taken out of mixture and brought into the purity and Simplicity of a genuine walk with God through Jesus Christ.

Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. Verse 24 says I'll take you out from among the heathen. I will gather you out of all countries and I will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you?

You shall be clean from all your filthiness and all your idols. Will I cleanse you? Remember this prodigal son when he started to come home. The first thing the father did was cover all. The stain of sin cover all the stench and smell of the world and everywhere He had been.

The Lord says I'm going to cleanse you a new heart. Verse 26. Will I give you a new spirit? Will I put within you? I'll take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I'll give you a heart of flesh. I'm going to give you a heart to obey me.

You're gonna know who I am. The Lord says you're gonna know me from the least to the greatest. You're all going to know me. I'm going to write my law upon your hearts praise be to God. I'm gonna put a song of joy in your mouth No matter what happens to this world.

And you're gonna say like the psalmist David though the mountains fall though the seas overflow their borders. I will not be afraid. There will be a song of joy in your heart in this last moment of time and the heathen shall know that you're mine when I'm sanctified within you.

And I'll put my spirit within you and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall keep my judgments and do them. God said I'm gonna put my spirit upon this church this wayward church. That one day soon is going to get up in all of her shame and start coming home to me.

And I'm going to put my spirit upon you and it's going to become a delight to walk with me and to obey me. You'll dwell in the land. I gave to your fathers and you'll be my people and I will be your God.

Verse 29. I'll also save you from all your uncleannesses. I'll call for the corn and increase it and they load and lay no famine upon you. Lord said I'll open this book to you. And this will become the delight of your heart.

You won't want to hear men's opinions about God. You will have God's opinion about himself. You will open this book. Your heart will be alive. You will be like the men on the road to Emmaus. Your heart will burn at fellowship with God.

Everything else will begin to pale in comparison to fellowship with him. He says I will multiply the fruit of the tree in the increase of the field. You shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.

God said I'm going to make you much more than you are. I'm gonna bring you back into the simplicity of what it means to be the Church of Jesus Christ. You're going to walk with me through this world. You'll no longer be suffering from spiritual famine.