The Lord Your God Is With You — Carter Conlon

Joshua's Commission and God's Presence

Joshua chapter one, please. If you go there with me, Joshua chapter one. My message is entitled, the Lord your God is with you. The Lord your God is with you. Father, I thank you, Lord. Oh, Jesus, I thank you for the anointing of your Holy Spirit.

I thank you, Lord, for the plan that you have for each of our lives. I thank you, God, for truth, Lord, that you reveal to us in your word that cannot be put away, it can't be circumvented, it can't be withstood against.

Oh, Jesus, Son of God, speak to our hearts today, Lord. Give me the grace, Lord, to share this word with this congregation. Give us the courage to believe it, Lord, and to embrace it and put it into practice.

I thank you for it with all of my heart. In Jesus' name. Joshua chapter one, the Lord your God is with you, beginning at verse one. After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying, Moses, my servant, is dead.

Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses.

From the wilderness and this Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the great sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life.

As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.

Only be strong and very courageous that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wheresoever you go.

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. I wanna share with, praise God. I'm glad the Lord's spoken to your heart already this morning.

God's Calling Through Personal Experience

I wanna share with you a very personal story. And I wanna also bring it to a place of understanding that what I'm about to share, though it's very personal to me, it also applies to you. It applies to everybody who is here.

There are certain patterns of God's dealing with and through humanity that don't change. They're not exclusive to just one, two, or five different people, but it's for the whole body of Christ. The manifestation of God's spirit, the divine purpose of God to be established in the earth is accomplished through the whole church, not just one or two as it was in the Old Testament, but now through you, through me.

We are his body, his church, his living testimony on the earth. It was late 1993 or early 1994. I don't remember the exact time, but I had just come into my office in Canada as a pastor at that time, and I suddenly felt an incredible presence of God's Holy Spirit come upon me.

I've only had that happen a few times in my life. Everything is heightened. I can't explain it. It's as if the presence of God just makes everything surreal. You start noticing things around you you didn't notice before.

That's the only way I can explain it. I knew it was the presence of God. I knew it was the Holy Spirit. I knew God wanted to speak to me. So I told my assistant at that time, I said, please, no phone calls, no interruptions.

I'm gonna lock myself in my office. I feel the presence of the Lord has come on me for a reason, but I don't know why. I went into my office, I sat down at my desk, and I felt the Lord speak to my heart and say, go to where you are presently reading.

In the Old Testament, I read my Bible in four places every day, and to get a panoramic view in a sense of the scripture. So I read right through the whole Bible at the same time in different places. And at this time in the Old Testament, I was in First Chronicles chapter 28, and I felt the Lord say to me, go there and begin to read.

So I went into chapter 28 and I began to read, and it was about verse 10, that I don't know if you ever had this happen to you, but the words of God just literally draw off the page. If you're walking with the Lord, if you have a heart to serve God, this does happen.

God speaks to me through his word. That's the way he's always spoken to me. That's why I do the best that I can to be a student of the word of God, to know the word of God, to stay in the word of God.

And if I'm reading something, never to assume because I've read it before that I fully understand it. Always asking the Holy Spirit to give me light. The verse 10, this is where God began to speak to me.

David's Charge to Solomon

Consider now, this is First Chronicles 28, for the Lord has chosen you to build a house for the sanctuary, be strong and do it. Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the vestibule, its houses, its treasuries, its upper chambers, its inner chambers, and the place of the mercy seat, and the plans for all he had by the spirit of the Lord.

And then verse 19, all this said David, the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me, all the works of these plans. And David said to his son Solomon, be strong and of good courage and do it.

Do not fear nor be dismayed for the Lord God, my God will be with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you until you have finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord. Here are the divisions of the priests and the Levites for all the service of the house of God.

And every willing craftsman will be with you for all manner of workmanship, for every kind of service. Also the leaders and all the people will be completely at your command. It was then after this passage of scripture, the Lord told me, spoke to my heart and said, now go read the book of Joshua chapter one, which I just read to you, verses one to nine.

Leaving Canada to Help Complete a Work

And in that moment, the Lord spoke to my heart and said, I'm sending you to another place to help further a work that's another man has begun. Somebody else has begun this work and I'm sending you there to help him bring this work to completion.

I had no way of understanding it, but I knew it was God. I didn't know what it was, but I was so convinced it was God's Holy Spirit speaking to me that I went into my associate pastor and told him, I said, you need to start preparing your heart to take over this church.

I'll be leaving soon. He said, where are you going? I said, I don't know where I'm going. All I know is that God spoke to me today and I know his voice. I've walked with him long enough. I know when he's speaking to me, sending me to a place to help a man who started a work, finish that work, bring it to where it needs to go.

I remember it was in 1994 on May 19th. It was Pastor David Wilkerson's birthday. That's why I can remember the date. He called my home in Canada asking if I would be willing to come to New York City the following Tuesday to speak in a service here.

I arrived in New York and I didn't know much about David Wilkerson. I didn't know much about New York and what I did know, I didn't like. Realistically, the only thing I knew about New York is the cross and the switchblade.

If you've seen the movie with people chasing each other and killing each other through back alleys and cemeteries, it was not exactly very appealing to come and minister in a place like this. I remember staring out the window of an apartment that belonged to World Challenge at that time and I had not met David Wilkerson yet.

I looked out the window and again, the Lord said, do not be afraid or dismayed. Do not be afraid that what I'm setting before you is something that cannot be accomplished and do not be dismayed by looking within your own life and coming to the conclusion there's not enough resource in there to do what I've asked you to do.

I've sent you, the Lord said, that's all you need to know. After he spoke to my heart again, there's a knock at the door, it's a man called David Wilkerson and he and I went for a walk together and we were standing across the street on Broadway underneath the marquee of a Broadway show that used to be called Cats Across the Street and we were standing underneath the marquee and he stopped and he looked at me and he said, I've started, Lord has used me to start this work, he said, but it's grown very, very quickly and it really needs, I need help.

He said, that's all I can tell you. And he said, would you be willing to pray about coming to help me? And I remember the words that God spoke to my heart in the moments just months before in my office that he was going to send me somewhere to help a man bring to completion the work that he had started.

And I looked at Pastor David and I said, don't you think you should hear me preach first? And he said, oh yeah, of course, of course. But he already knew, the Holy Spirit had already spoken to his heart and he knew that God had spoken to my heart.

And over the course of the next seven years, having come here in August 1994, exactly as the Lord said, David Wilkerson spent seven years pouring into my life the pattern of God's church, the pattern that the Lord had revealed to him of the treasuries, the vestibules, the houses, the upper chambers, the inner chambers, and most of all, the place of the mercy seat, the new covenant of God in Christ Jesus.

An understanding of grace that so enlarged and expanded the gratitude of my heart towards God that I once told him, if that's the only reason that God brought me here, that would have been good enough to fully understand, to comprehend all that the Lord has been doing and is willing to do in his house and to understand the working of his house.

And I remember one of the last times that I saw him, I don't remember the exact words, but it was something like this. We were just sitting, we were just talking about the future. And he said words to the effect that I brought the people this far, now you take them in.

You take them into the place of promise. But that's exactly what the Lord had spoken to me in Joshua chapter one, that God had commissioned this young man, Joshua, to lead his people into the promise, their promise, their place of promise, the borders of that promise.

Joshua, the Hungry Heart, and Consecration

And so the words of God applied directly to my life, but I wanna share with you how they apply to your life. In Joshua chapter one, it says, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass, the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant.

Now, first of all, I think this is incredible. I did all the research that I could do to find out who is this man, Nun. And just as his name says, there is Nun, there's nothing written about him. His name means fish, that's what it means, the son of fish.

That's an incredible meaning. It's, you see, it means to me, that God's selection of who he's going to use to impact another generation is not based on education, lineage. Doesn't the Bible say that? God doesn't choose the wise or the noble or the naturally strong, but it's the hungry heart that gets the victory.

It doesn't matter whether we have an education or we don't, whether we are good at speaking or we're not, whether we have influence or we don't have influence, none of this matters. The choice is God's, and it's the hungry heart.

It's the person that says, yes, Lord. It's the one who says, God, I want you, I want your kingdom, I want everything that your kingdom is going to be through my life. I don't want to be sold short of what your calling is on my life.

And, you know, the Bible tells us about Joshua that he went with Moses into this place of prayer. And when Moses would get up and go out and go home, Joshua would stay and pray. There was something in this young man that was like, God, I want to serve you.

I know I come from nowhere, I come from nothing. You know, he was born into slavery. You have to understand, at the time Joshua was born, the people of God were slaves in Egypt. His father was a slave, probably worked under harsh conditions, as the scripture tells us, that their lives were made bitter bondage in mud and straw and brick.

And Joshua would have been the son of a slave, but there's something in his heart that says, God, I feel called to be more than I am at present. It's something that only you can do in my life. And he understood, it's only through consecration and prayer that these things could happen.

If you live a casual Christianity, then you're going to be of casual effect in your generation. It does require something to be used of God, requires a dedication, it requires a separation, a sanctification.

I remember when I first came here, David Wilkerson said to me, I want you to shut away two days every week and pray. You know, for most preachers, you'd think that would be a dream, because I was involved in everything in the church I was pastoring in Canada.

Yes, we did pray. Yes, we did meet and pray in the morning and we prayed at night, but I was involved in everything from painting to cleaning, to cutting grass, to picking up and re-cementing tombstones in the cemetery and everything else like that.

You know how hard it is to pray for two days? If you can't say yes, then you've never tried it. I can tell you that much. It's difficult. You think it would be a dream come true, but you get up at six or seven in the morning and you've read your Bible till 11 and you pray till one, then what?

You know, it was hard. It was disciplined. Now I can spend time with the Lord, but it took a dedication. It took an understanding. David Wilkerson knew that, that if you're going to amount to anything, you have to learn how to pray.

You have to learn how to press in. You have to learn how to seek God. That's why the theme of our church is it's time to pray. That's why we're on radio going across the nation, calling the nation to prayer.

That's why we're on secular radio, calling society that doesn't know God to prayer. That's why this church is beginning to have an influence in the Christian world because we have learned and are learning how to pray and be set apart for God.

The Lord speaks to every new generation. Thank God for those that have come before us, but the torch is now in our hands and he's speaking to you. And he's speaking to me. After the death of Moses, it came to pass, the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun.

After, you see, we're here today because other generations have carried the torch to us. Some had to go into the arena. Some went to jail. Some paid with, were burned at the stake. Some paid with blood, but they got the torch to us.

Do you understand? They got it to us. The torch is now in our hands and thank God for people that God spoke to in times past, but now is now and you and I are the people that are here and we are the ones that God is now speaking to if we have ears to hear what the Spirit is speaking.

Crossing the Jordan and Dying to Self

He said, Moses, my servant is dead. Now, therefore, rise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people to the land which I'm giving to them, the children of Israel. Now, Jordan represents the boundary between the old and the new.

The old way of living and the new life that is promised us in Jesus Christ. Jordan is a place where we die to ourselves when we rise out of the water in newness of life, choosing to live according to the will of God and believing that he will supply the power to fulfill it.

That's what the Jordan River is. Even preparing this message, I found myself in prayer this week saying, God, I go into the Jordan again. I go down under the water and I want Carter Conlon to be a dead man.

I want him gone. I want no part of him anymore. I want you to raise me from the dead. I want it to be your thoughts in my mind, your leadings in my heart, your direction for my feet. I want everything that you have for my life in the future.

That's what the Jordan is all about. And Lord, you promised to supply the power to fulfill it. If the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead is upon me, the Bible says, he shall also quicken my mortal body.

So God, you will give me the strength to do what you have called me to do. It doesn't matter about age. It doesn't matter about health. It doesn't matter about any of these things. God, I want your will.

I want your way. I want what you want for my life. I don't want what I want. What I want will bring a dullness. What I want will leave somebody outside the kingdom of God. I don't want what I want. I want what you want.

Oh God, let it be. Let it be. Even Jesus Christ himself showed us the way when he was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, yielding his own will to the will of his father and receiving the immediate witness of the Holy Spirit.

This is a divine life. This is a supernatural life. This is a life where God has determined to do something through you and through me that only he can do in our lives. It's when you choose to live for God that you begin to hear his voice.

Let me say that again. It's when you choose to live for God, then you begin to hear his voice. And the evidence of the Spirit begins to be known in and through your life. It is an amazing journey to be led by the Spirit.

It's an amazing journey to watch God do through your life what only God can do. For the children of Israel, the promised land was a physical place. For us today, the promised land is Christ. It's a spiritual place.

It's a place of redemption. It's a place of regeneration. It's a place where we are set apart for the things of God. It's a place where we learn to hear the voice of God. It's a place where the kingdom of God begins to advance through our lives.

It's a place of supernatural giftings given to those who are yielded to the purposes of God. It's an incredible place. It's a wonderful place. It's a glorious place. It's an exciting place. The promised land in Christ.

God's Promise, Victory, and Opposition

Verse three to five, he said, "'Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, "'I've given you,' as I said to Moses, "'from the wilderness and this Lebanon, "'as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, "'and all the land of the Hittites, "'and the great sea towards the going down of the sun "'shall be your territory.

"'No man shall be able to stand before you "'all the days of your life. "'As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. "'I will not leave you nor forsake you.'". The plan of God is sure. The promise of what God will accomplish through you is true.

He said, "'I have determined to do something "'through your life.'". Do you know that? Do you understand that today? When you came to Christ, a divine plan that God had already written down for your life began to come into effect.

This plan of God promises you victory. There are borders from the wilderness of Lebanon, the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Hittites, the great sea towards the going down of the sun shall be your territory.

Do you understand? God has determined to do something through your life and through my life. He has determined it already. The only thing he requires of us is that we be set apart for him, for his purposes.

Set apart, oh God, what is it that you have for my life? Where do you want to take me? What do you want to do? And how shall I win the battles that will come against me? In verse five, he says, "'No man shall be able to stand before you "'all the days of your life.

"'As I was with Moses, I will be with you. "'I will not leave you nor forsake you.'". Here's the beauty of this plan of God in your life. In order to stop what God has determined to do you, those who oppose you have to be able to stop God himself.

Because it's not you, it's God Christ in you. That is the plan. They have to be able to stop God. That's why Paul the apostle could say, no mountain, no valley, no opposing force, no enemy, no power, no principality, no spirit, no angel, no nothing.

Nothing can separate me from the love of God, which is mine in Christ Jesus. I am already more than a conqueror through Christ who loves us. Thank God for that. The plan of God in your life can't be stopped.

The only thing that can stop it in its tracks is the lack of making a choice to live for God or the unbelief that so nags at the corners of our life all the time. But let that thought get so deep within you.

To stop you, the devil has to be able to stop God. And he can't stop God. You carry the living God inside of this earthly vessel. No man, no man. That's why I said to the Church of Philadelphia, you only have a little strength, but I've opened the door before you and the door that I opened, no man can close it.

I've opened a pathway to you, Times Square Church. I've opened a pathway to you. Every saint of God, no matter whether you're big or small, whether you know a lot of your Bible or just a little, God says I've opened a pathway to you and no man can close that door.

No one, no power can stop what I'm gonna do through your life. Listen to the words of the Psalmist David that I'll read to you in Psalm 18, verses 28 to 38. For you will light my lamp. The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.

For by you I can run against a troop. By my God I can leap over a wall. As for God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord is proven. He's a shield to all those who trust in him. For who is God except the Lord and who is a rock except our God?

It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer and sets me on my high places. He teaches my hands to war so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

You've given me the shield of your salvation. Your right hand has held me up. Your gentleness has made me great. You enlarged my path under me so that my feet did not slip. I have pursued my enemies and overtaken them.

Neither did I turn back again till they were destroyed. I have wounded them so they could not rise. They have fallen underneath my feet. Shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Let them criticize you.

Let them mock you. Let them scorn you. Let them threaten you. No man, I've lived long enough to see it now. I've lived long enough to face opposition and I've lived long enough to see the hand of God at work.

And I can tell you this scripture is true. No man, no one can stop the plan of God. If you have a pure heart, if you want to see Christ honored in your life and in your generation, there's not a person alive, there's not a devil of hell, there's not one power or principality can stop the work of God in your life.

Jesus himself said in Luke 10, 19, behold, I give you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Be strong, verse six, Joshua one, and of good courage for this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.

You see, when you're set apart for God, when you're walking in the divine of Christ, it's not just about you, but it's for everyone else over whom your life will have an influence. You will divide an inheritance which I swore to their fathers to give them.

Praise be to God, you stand. You might be the only one in your family who's a believer in Christ, but you stand and watch what God will do in your home. Watch what God will do for your children. Watch what God will do for your grandchildren.

Watch the hand of God at work. You stand, you hold your ground, you worship your God, you live for him with all your heart and you watch what God will do in your home. Be unto the Lamb of God. Not only will you win, but you will bring other people into victory that weren't even searching for God.

They weren't even thinking about God. In some cases, they were determined not to walk with God, but a sudden thought will come into their heart. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I should live for God because you held your ground and the door was open to many to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Scripture Meditation and Obedient Success

Give him a shout of glory. Verse seven says, only be strong and very courageous that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left that you may prosper wheresoever you go.

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth. You shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. Then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success.

The psalmist in Psalm 119 verse 130 said, the entrance of your words gives light. Psalm 17, partway through verse four and verse five, the psalmist says, by the word of your lips I've kept away from the path of the destroyer.

Uphold my steps in your path that my footsteps may not slip. We are to know this book. We are to study this book. We are to prayerfully read this book. We are to ask God to speak to us through this book.

He says, if you will stay in this book, I will prosper your journey and you will have good success. I remind you, some people wanna hear the voice of God but they don't want to do the work of reading what God has already said.

So they become prey to mystics and mysticism. They look for this voice that's somehow gonna fall out of the heavens. Well, that's not the way God's ever spoken to me. God speaks to me through his word.

God speaks to me in this book. He doesn't have to come up with something new because he's already said it all. He simply has to be able to lead me to it and speak to me through it. It's so important. Do not let the words of this book depart from your mouth.

Meditate in it. Think about it day and night. You may not have a lot of time in the morning. You may not have the time. I have the time to spend a day or two in the Bible. You may not have that time but you can ask God to give you a verse.

Just a verse. Say, Lord, establish my thinking for the day. What is a good verse for me today? And you could maybe read that verse five times and meditate on it all day and think about it. It's life. It's light, the scripture says.

It's direction. It's God speaking to you. It's something you can meditate on day and night. You can observe to do it according as it is written and you will have a prosperous way and good success as the scripture says.

Courage Because God Is With You

And lastly, in verse nine, it says, have I not commanded you be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid or dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. I've sent you, the Lord says.

I've commissioned you. I've started something divine in you that cannot be stopped. Now don't be afraid when you see the size and scope of what opposes you. If you're going to live for Christ, you will be opposed.

You'll be opposed from without and as Paul said, you'll also be opposed from within. You will be opposed. There'll be something outside that calls you to fear. There'll be something inside that calls the same way.

But he says, don't be afraid when you see the size of what opposes you. Talk about a direct word for Joshua for he was about to go into the very place where a previous generation had turned back because of the size of the giants.

And do not be dismayed by looking at yourself and feeling too small for the challenge. This is what fear and dismay are bedfellows. Fear comes when we see the opposition that's against us, the size of the opposition or the magnitude of it.

And dismay comes when we look inside of ourselves and we don't see the strength of the resources to be able to stand up. We feel too small for the challenge. The error of all this though is it's not the battle.

It's not ours, it's the Lord's. It's not we who have to do this thing for God. It's we who allow God to do this for himself through us. And there's a huge difference between the two. The basis of courage, the basis of having faith that finished the journey is a simple word at the end of verse nine of Joshua chapter one.

For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. The Lord your God is with you. The Lord your God is with you. You don't know how many times in the last 24 years now I've gone back to these verses. For the Lord your God is with you.

For the Lord your God is with you. There was a season in the early years of being in this church when I would sit where Pastor Patrick is right now and I would stare at that light right there until my eyes burned.

There was a sense of God, how am I gonna get through this? This is so difficult, this is so different and the opposition is so great. And the Lord would remind me of what he had spoken to me before even knowing about this calling.

For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days. They will try, but they'll not be able to withstand because I have commissioned you and I'm going to do this through your life.

Thank God for the goodness of God. Thank God, thank God. But it's not just for me, it's for you. See, Christ has a church, a people. We are all called to go into the place of promise. It requires a dying to yourself.

It requires the Jordan, requires a baptism. Saying not my will but thine, not my ways but yours, not my reasonings but your word. That's what it requires. A lot of people want heaven, but they don't want any hassle.

It's like I don't mind search and I don't mind singing, but don't ask me to live it. But those kind of lives will never really have much of an effect. And I don't wanna hurt you when I say this, but it may also hurt the people closest to you who could have known God.

But when you make the choice to stand, say I'm going into the Jordan. I'm not living on the wrong side of the Jordan. I'm going into the Jordan. The children of Israel had to pass through the Jordan before they could see Jericho come down and the land conquered.

Jesus himself went to the Jordan to show us the pathway to the promised land, the humility that's required, the dedication. And so I choose, I choose that baptism of death to myself. That baptism of saying no longer I, but Christ who lives in me.

Not my will, but thine be done. I choose, that's a personal choice. But when you make the choice, you look throughout history, nothing ever happens through undedicated people. Nothing, nothing. You have to search the records.

You have to go to whatever it is, .com, put some spit in an envelope and find out who your ancestors were. But if one of your ancestors, if one of your ancestors had stood up for Christ, you don't have to put spit in an envelope.

It's already written and you already know who that person is. I don't want to be one of those that somebody in the future has to spit in an envelope to find out who I was. I want them to know who their grandfather, their great-grandfather, their great-great-grandfather was because I chose to live for God.

And because of it, the blessing of the Lord has been open to them. They've known Christ as their savior. I have a promise of God in my heart that my family lineage will be known for missions. It's a promise that God gave me.