The Expectations of the Righteous — Carter Conlon

This message is one of the Times Square Church Pulpit Series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing World Challenge, P .O. Box 260, Lindell, Texas 75771, or calling 903 -963 -8626.

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The Anointing of the Holy Spirit and Freedom from Captivity

Father, I thank you for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. God, I'm thanking you that you will take this word and you have predetermined in your heart to do a work here among your people. And Father, I thank you, God, with all my heart that your anointing is an abiding anointing.

And the evidence of the anointing is freedom from captivity of sin and expectancy that the kingdom of God has come and the work of Christ has begun and will be brought to completion in each of our hearts.

Lord, I thank you, God, for what you're going to do today. I stand against every weapon of the devil, every work of darkness that tries to crush the people of God and keep in captivity the creation of God.

And Father, I thank you today that through the simple preaching of your word, Holy Spirit, you're going to come and do this marvelous work of God. You will enlighten men's minds and you will set people free from the captivity of darkness.

You will heal those that have been wounded in their heart. God, you'll open the ears of those who've been spiritually deaf in the eyes of those who've never seen or understood the risen Christ. God, I thank you with all my heart.

I praise you. I yield myself to you, Lord, and I ask you to use this frail vessel for your glory. I stand back behind the cross and say, Jesus, let your name be the only name that is ever mentioned in this house.

Father, thank you. God, I praise you from the depths of my heart, Jesus, that you are lifted up here. We give you the praise and all the glory in your mighty name. Psalm 9, the expectancy of the righteous, beginning at verse 1.

Psalm 9 and the Expectancy of the Righteous

I will praise you, O Lord, with my whole heart. I will show forth all thy marvelous works. I will be glad in rejoicing thee. I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most high. When mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence.

For thou hast maintained my right and my cause, thou saddest in the throne judging right. Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, and thou hast put out their name forever and ever.

O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end, and thou hast destroyed cities. Their memorial is perished with them. Now this particular psalm is written by David, the king of Israel and most probably at the height of that period in his life when he was ascending as king of all of Israel and after his numerous and seemingly unstoppable military victories.

In other words, David had known incredible victories, but it was only the beginning in a sense of what God wanted to accomplish through his life. And with an eye of faith to the future, David goes in this particular psalm to a place where only those who know God are able to go.

If you've known him, if you're here today and you are righteous, now I want to define righteous. Now righteous means that you have trusted in Jesus Christ, you've acknowledged that you are a sinner, you have trusted in the fact that God became a man, died on a cross two thousand years ago, and paid the price for all of your sin.

You've placed your confidence in him, you've understood that God poured out the wrath that you deserved upon his own son, and you have trusted in this sacrifice for your salvation. God says if you have trusted in my son, I declare you to be righteous.

In other words, the slate is cleaned. All of the sins that you've committed against me, God says I've placed them upon my son, and the list of sins that is against you that would not only damn you in a sense, but doom you for all of eternity are gone.

You are now free to enter into a new and living relationship with God Almighty himself, where he comes into your life and by the power of the Holy Spirit begins to lift you now out of the condition that came upon all of mankind because of the sin that we are born with, that we inherited as it is, because of the sin of Adam and Eve, our first parents in the Garden of Eden.

Now if you are righteous, there should be an expectancy in your heart. Yes, you may only have known a few victories, you may even be struggling here today, but there is something of God that he plants within you.

If you have been justified, if you can honestly say, based on the Bible, there are two things that have to happen in your heart to know that you're righteous. Number one, you have the scriptural knowledge.

You've looked in the Bible and said, this is who Jesus is, this is what he did for me, this is what he asked me to do, and I've done that. I've confessed my sin, I have trusted him for my salvation, I have opened my heart, and I have invited him in to be my Lord and Savior.

Now that's your scriptural basis for righteousness. But it follows, there's a duality with it. The second evidence is God says, the moment I have received you, the Holy Spirit, who is God, will come and live within you, and the spirit within you will bear witness that you are a child of God.

There'll be an inner cry, Abba Father, there'll be an inner awareness that God, something has changed in my life. I'm no longer the same man or woman that I used to be. Oh yes, I might still be struggling, I might still have enemies on every side, David's still dead at the beginning of his reign, but there's an expectancy in me now.

I now have God who created the universe living within me. Oh beloved, if the church could just get a hold of this, not by textual knowledge, but by experience, if you and I could fully realize that the God of the universe, if we have trusted in Christ, is now living within us, and because of that, there ought to be an expectation.

And by expectation I mean we're living in a state of expectancy because God Almighty has decreed that He is going to do something through our lives that we could never do in our own strength, only God could do it.

There's an expectancy of the righteous. And David has this expectancy in this particular psalm that he's writing. He is still in battles, he's still fighting enemies that are around him, he still has a long way to go before he gets to the end of his reign and the end of his life.

But he has begun to experience victories and he has this inner knowledge in him that God is with him. You might be the most struggling Christian in this place today, but if you have been accepted by God, if you are righteous through Christ, you have an inner knowledge.

I don't have to tell you about it, you already have it. There's this spark in you that just tells you, it's this voice of God that says, I have something very special for your life that I'm going to do.

I'm going to raise you, I'm going to fight against your enemies and establish the testimony of my life, interwoven as it is in and through your life. And David says, I will praise Thee, O God. Now everything that David says in Psalm 9 is in the future.

He's going somewhere and he knows because God is with him, he's going there. He says, I will praise Thee, O Lord, with my whole heart. I will show forth all Thy marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in Thee.

I will sing praise to Thy name, O Thou most high. When mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at Thy presence. Amazing. That should be your testimony. If you have been cleansed from your sin in this house here today, you should have that testimony.

I will praise you, O God. Yes, I might be in a storm. Yes, I might be in a battle. Oh, yes, my enemies might be on every side. But Almighty God, I will praise you. I will show forth the marvelous works that you have determined to do from within my life.

I will be glad and rejoice in you. I will sing praise and my enemies will fall. My enemies that are coming against me on every side, O God, they will fall. I have this expectancy in my heart. David says they're going to fall because of one thing.

They're not going to fall because I have more Bible knowledge than my enemies. They're not going to fall, although that's a good thing. And you should have more Bible knowledge than your enemies. But he says they're going to fall in verse three because of your presence.

It's amazing. It's because you are with me. Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords, who died and said in his final moments, it is finished, who broke the chains of sin off of all humanity, who canceled the legal right of the devil to own the creation of God because of Jesus Christ in me and around me and through me, because he sits on the throne at the right hand of all power and also lives within my own heart because of the presence of God.

My enemies will fall. They will fall. They cannot stand against what God has determined to do within me. Paul says in the book of Romans chapter eight, I'll just I'll just read it to you in Romans chapter eight and verse twenty nine.

Paul says it this way. He said, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Paul is saying God knew that when you came to him, that he had a purpose for you.

He foreknew that when you came to him, he had already destined that through the life of his son within you, you were going to be brought to a place that he had determined your life to go to. And he says in verse 30, moreover, whom he did predestinate, then he also called and whom he called, then he also justified and whom he all whom he justified, then he also glorified.

The moment you turn towards Christ, the scripture says God called you. Isn't that amazing? With an audible voice, he called your name and says, I have a purpose for you. I have a plan for your life. You didn't just find God.

God has never been lost. God revealed himself to you. You were lost. And God, in his mercy, came and revealed himself to you. You didn't just decide one day to start thinking about God. You didn't just decide to come to church today because it's Easter and because your family forced you to come into this place.

You are here today because God is drawing you here. God is drawing you. God, if you can hear it today, he's calling your name. He's calling you by name. The Holy Spirit is whispering your name. He's telling you he loves you.

He's telling you he came to the earth two thousand years ago and paid the price for your sin. He called you to a holy calling. And he goes on to say, and then he called them. He also justified so many people never respond to the call because they look at themselves and say, well, listen, God, do you really understand who it is you're calling?

Do you know the things that I have done? Oh, yes. God knows the things you've done. He knew you were going to do them before you even formed the intent to do them. He knows even more than you can think or understand.

But in spite of it all, he says, I'm not calling you because you are anything more than special to me. You are the very center. You're the apple of my eye. You are the very delight of my heart. I created you for fellowship and I know you failed and you've fallen.

But I called you. And because you're responding to the call, I've come and died for your sin and I'm justifying you. Then he called. He says he also justified. That means he paid the price. He satisfied his own wrath that should be yours because of the sin you've done and committed against God.

He poured that wrath upon his own son. An innocent man paid the price for your sin and for mine. Isn't it amazing the love of God? That's why when people who have rejected the love of God one day finally stand before his throne, there will be no excuses.

There will be nothing to say. All of a sudden their minds will be open. Every man and woman ever born will understand how much God had loved them, how often he had reached out to them. And sad to say, perhaps some have even attended this church will be there one day realizing that the Holy Spirit had been reaching out to them, calling their name, wanting to cleanse them of their sin.

But they had hardened their hearts to the word of God. They formed their own nonsensical notion about God, who God is and how God works and what God does. And unfortunately, it falls short of the glory of God.

And he says those he called, he also justified and whom he justified them, he also glorified. And the word for glorified means he gave them the power to be brought to a glorious place, to a place of honor, to the place, God says, where I'm destined you to go.

I called you and then I justified you means I paid the price for your sin and now I've given you the power to be brought to the place where I have determined your life is to go. It's amazing. When you begin to really understand it and then Paul goes on to say, then what shall we say to these things?

If God before us, who can be against us? Paul says, if you see it, can you understand it? That God is so for us. He has so determined to take you and I to a certain place in him where our lives will glorify him.

And he said, if God is so for us, then who can be against us? Oh, beloved, this is the one scripture I learned as a new Christian that delivered me as it is from a nine year captivity of darkness. It was in my life, a fear that was overwhelming my sense of identity.

Even I was being swallowed by this fear that was on me. I read this one scripture. If God before us, who can be against us? God is for you today. He's not against you. And the devil would try to have you convinced that, oh, you're such a failure.

You're so weak. You're so powerless. You're you've lived such a lie. You live such a lousy life as it is that why would God even want you? But the scripture says God is for you. He's not against you. If God didn't want you, he wouldn't have come to the earth two thousand years ago and died on a cross to pay the price for your sins.

If God didn't want you, he wouldn't be anointing me today to preach this word to you. He wouldn't be crying out at you. He wouldn't be reaching out to you if he didn't want you. He wants you no matter where you come from, no matter what you've done, no matter what kind of sin and bondage might be in your life, no matter how unclean you feel.

He wants you. He's always wanted you. You were created for fellowship with God, not just in time, but through all of eternity. You were born to rule and reign with Jesus Christ for all of eternity, not just to come to church and be made to feel good by some songs once in a while.

But this is to be a day to day experience in God. The glory, the strength of God in your life. Paul says he that did not even spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him that's with Christ also freely give us all things?

Amazing. Paul says that God wouldn't withhold his son. Why should we even think that he would withhold anything from us who are his children, who have responded to the call of his voice? Think of David for a minute as a boy and you wonder, where did this type of faith start?

Small Beginnings and the Faithfulness of God

This faith that David says, I'm going to praise God. I'm going to show forth his works. I'm going to be glad in him. I'm going to seek praise. My enemies will fall at his presence. You see, it all started when he had a few sheep out in the wilderness.

It started when David said, Lord, I'm just going to guard that which you've entrusted to me. It's not very much. And that's where it starts in the Christian life. You know, you start out and you don't have much, but you have God.

It's a it's kind of a paradox. You have everything, but are just not really fully aware of it yet. You have God living within you, but he has to start by if he gave you the whole package in the beginning, you'd be overwhelmed.

Many of you here today, if he took you from where you're living right now and stood you before a million people and said, tell him about me, you'd just absolutely cave in. And that'd be the end of your life.

It would be all over at that particular point. He doesn't do it that way. He takes it. It's the same way you build a building. You lay a foundation. You put one brick at a time on it. You build it slowly.

And anything that is built right is not done in haste. And he gives you a few things, a little knowledge of him. You begin to grow in that grace and in that knowledge. And as you are secure in that knowledge, then he begins to add to that knowledge of who he is.

David started out with just a few sheep in the wilderness. He was entrusted with these sheep and he took that charge seriously. The truth that God gives you, the ministry that he will hand you, take it seriously, begin to fulfill that ministry with these few sheep.

And the devil tried to take that life that God was giving him right in the beginning. He sent a lion into that flock. He sent a bear into that flock. But David said, no, you're a devil. You're not getting what God has entrusted into my hand.

It's only a few things, but you're not getting it. And, you know, I was thinking of this particular concept when I was reading some of the church ministry reports this week and in the New Believers class that we have here at Times Square Church.

Now, here are the praise reports of people who have been handed a few things and are just starting out a brand new walk with God. One student asked the Lord to give her time to study the Bible. And she knows that the class, that the New Believers class, is an answer to that prayer and is an example of his faithfulness.

She was just saying, God, help me to study. I'm brand new and I don't know all the truths of God. And so she was led into the New Believers class and says, now, God, this is the first thing you've handed to me.

This is the sense of awareness. Another person said, the Lord is answering my prayer by granting me a greater sense of the Holy Spirit's presence and more love for my wife. Now, isn't that amazing? This is where this is starting for this particular man, his awareness that God is with him.

He's a brand new Christian. And he says, God is giving me more love for my wife. Now, folks, that's that's supernatural, because in the natural, in the world, it starts on a pinnacle. You know, it starts with the songs and the vows, the kisses and the bridesmaid and the roses and the whole thing.

You all know it just goes downhill from there in the natural. That's the pinnacle. The only the only way you can ever hope to achieve it again is watch it on video, if you're lucky enough to have a video.

But the marriage just goes down the tube in most cases from there, especially in our generation. But in Christ, there is a love that begins to develop that has nothing to do with the natural. It has nothing to do with the natural man.

It is supernatural. It's something of God where the two are intertwined as Christ is with his church and the two begin to become one. And this new believer is beginning to understand that, hey, God is real because I came home the other day and maybe he's only saved for a month.

And I'm starting to love my wife in a way I've never loved her before. I thought my marriage was over. I thought it was finished. But there seems to be this love that is now coming from within me that I know is not me because I had no power to do this before.

You see, he's being handed something of God. It's only a small beginning. Another woman in the class asked the Lord for direction in her life, and she has been drawn into God's word and been comforted.

She said, God, help me, guide me. And God says, just the Holy Spirit just drew her into the Bible, and she's finding her source of comfort in the word of God. Another new Christian has been given an awareness of God's divine favor in the workplace.

Here's a person that is going to work and has been struggling along in the job as it is. And all of a sudden, I don't know the concept of divine favor that they have, but it could be that their thinking is getting more clear.

That happens when you come to Christ. Your thinking clears up. And there is this inner voice as it is, this inner witness. It's not an audible voice, but there's an inner sense. You can read about it in Psalm 112.

It says the man who's righteous and fears God, God guides him. He allows him to conduct his affairs with discretion. He gives him sense in his day to day activity. And this man is becoming aware in the workplace that, hey, I have God's favor on me.

I seem to know what to do. And when you have God's favor, the people around you will begin to notice that too as well, especially those who are interested in true productivity. Another person says the Lord has caused me to depend on him more and has given me a grateful heart for all he's doing in my daily life.

Now, that's evidence of God's presence, a grateful heart, you know, from all these years of grumbling and complaining and finally coming to Christ. And then all of a sudden, this gratefulness comes into the heart.

It's evidence of the fact that Jesus Christ is alive. Another new believer's prayer has been answered by giving her the grace to be loving and compassionate. These are characters being tested at work.

And, of course, that will come into everybody's life who loves God. And she says, I'm being tested, but I'm finding in my life a new grace and a new character, an ability to stay calm, an ability not to answer back in like kind, an ability, perhaps, which is evidenced by a compassion for those who are still living in spiritual ignorance and in darkness.

And it's amazing. These are just small beginnings. These are just few sheep like David had a few sheep out in the wilderness. But if you are wise, you will protect these. Never let them slip through your fingers.

Say, God, build on this now. Build on it. Help me to understand how you work and let these things that you've begun to do in my life, let them be on the increase within me. Zechariah was a prophet raised up in the Old Testament.

The people began to be discouraged. They'd come back out of captivity. They were rebuilding the place of worship. And they got discouraged because of the opposition. And they looked upon what they were building.

And it seemed so small and it would seem so insignificant to them. And then God raised up a prophet. And Zechariah, I'll read to you from the New Living Testament. He said, do not despise these small beginnings for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.

Do not despise these small beginnings in your life. If you're a brand new Christian today, you may be fighting on seven fronts and have victory on one. But do not despise the small beginning. It is evidence that God is in your life.

It is evidence that you're not going to fall with those who live around you in society without God. You are going to make it through to the end. He said, it's not by force nor by strength, but by my spirit, says the Lord Almighty.

Now, we know that it's not by power. It's not by might, but it's by my spirit, says the Lord. And then he goes on to speak to the man who's in charge of this building. And he says, nothing, not even a mighty mountain will stand in your way.

And every obstacle that comes before you, it will even flatten out before you. He says, I've commissioned you to build something. And I am the source of your life and strength in building it. And you will be there when the first stone of the building is set.

And you will be there when the building is finished. And everyone around you will stand there and look upon this building that has been built by the hand of God through human vessels. And they will shout grace, grace to it.

In other words, they will say, God bless it, God bless it. It could not have happened but by the power of God. Oh, beloved, you see, that's the destiny that God has for you. Your life, when you come to Christ, it starts out small.

It begins to build an awareness of his presence into your life. You don't have to do this through human effort, you know. You see, God is in you. And he says, now, I'm just, I'm going to help you get rid of human effort.

Because human effort got you into the mess that you're in. And it's not going to get you out of the mess. I'm going to help you to understand that my nature is now in you. And I've given you promises.

And it's by embracing these promises that I will teach you that you will begin to know my new life within you. It's amazing when you begin to see it. It's not by your might. It's not by your power. It's by my spirit within you.

I will begin to guide you. I'll begin to lead you. I'll begin to make you into the person that I've destined you to be. And when you get to the end, you're going to look back. And everyone who knew you is going to shout grace.

Almighty grace. The goodness of God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Is that what you want today? Do you want it? It's within your grasp if you're a Christian. It's not some pie-in-the-sky theology.

This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the power of God that is given to those who believe in Christ. Now we go on from here. And David says again in Psalm 9. He says, I will show forth all thy marvelous works.

In other words, everything that you have destined to do through my life, God, is going to happen. I'm not going to settle for mediocrity. I'm not going to be overrun by my own frailties. I'm not going to let these evil voices that try to tell me I'm going to amount to nothing triumph over me.

I'm not going to give in to the frailties of my own heart if my own heart condemns me. The scripture says God is greater than my heart. He's greater than my own frailty. He's greater than every voice of the devil.

He's greater than every power of evil that will try to stop the testimony of Christ from being formed in your life. The devil will fight against you with every lie he's got in his arsenal. Because he knows that God is destined to break something in you of himself that will cause people.

It will cause your children. It will cause your grandchildren. It will cause the people in your workplace, in your community to stand up and shout grace. This can only be the goodness of God. There's no other way this could have happened in his life.

They will see it. They will shout. They say, this is not the father I knew. This is not the husband I knew. This is not the sister or brother that I knew. When I see what has happened, it could only be the power of God.

It could only be the glory of God. Religion will just cause you to begin to attempt to change in your own strength. And it's fruitless. It's powerless. But the New Testament provides all the power of God that you will ever need in the Holy Spirit to make you into the person that God has destined you to be.

Take you where God has destined you to go and make you what God has destined to make you into. Open your mind and open your eyes and your heart and your thoughts and take you so far beyond human limitation that people will stand in awe.

They will stand in awe. They will have to acknowledge that God is alive. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You and I are his only testimony. We're beyond the days now of fire falling out of heaven on stone altars.

It's over now. We're now in the New Testament. And in the New Testament, the fire of God, the same fire that came on Elijah's altar, now falls upon people who have turned to Christ. That fire is the power of the Holy Ghost.

And we are now the testimony of Christ to our generation. There is no other testimony. We are the testimony. You and me. He's not established any other presence of fire to our generation, but what he does in us and what we allow him to become through us.

David says, I will show forth. I will. I will. David says, I will show forth all your marvelous works. David said, I've touched your glory. I've understood your power. I've seen you triumph over enemies that were stronger than I am.

I've watched as I've run down into the valley and faced a giant that it was causing the whole armies of Israel to tremble. I've seen you direct a little stone into that giant's forehead. I've seen what you can do through faith.

And, oh, God, I've determined in my heart. That's what made David a man after God's heart. He said, I've determined in my heart to show forth all the marvelous works that you've determined to do through me.

I don't want to fall back in five percent of what you've called my life to be. That's what made him a man after God's heart. And the word show forth in the original text means to mark up a score. In other words, David's saying the score is going to be complete.

Hallelujah. To recount, to celebrate. It also means to polish. And I was when I was looking at, I think that's strange. I can understand marking up a score because we can think of athletics, for example, and Paul says I'm more than a conqueror.

And we can put that into some kind of context that we can understand. To recount means when it's all over. David says, and my life is looked at. It will be recounted that all the works that God wanted to do through me, he did to celebrate.

I understand that, too, as well. David says when it's all over, there's going to be a celebration. There already is in my heart and there is going to be a celebration. Hallelujah. Oh, just think of being able to put your feet up in your bed on the last day of your life and give glory to God and thank God for how good he has been and not not die with a heart full of regret.

And you don't have to, even if you're 80 years old here today, you don't have to die with a heart full of regret. God Almighty can give back that which the moth and canker rim have eaten. He's God. He can do anything he wants to do in your life.

You don't have to die full of regret. You have the Christ of this universe willing to come in and dwell you, change you and give you the authority and the influence, perhaps, that you've lost or lacked.

And I can understand the celebration at the end of a man's life when everything is rolled up together, but to polish. And I was really meditating on this. I said to polish. I mean, I understand polishing.

I have to do that at Christmas time. My wife brings out all the silver stuff that's everywhere. And it's usually not silver anymore. So I'm in charge of polishing it. And I understand that until it seems strange.

So I went into the scriptures in the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon says it this way. He says, who is a wise man and who knows the interpretation of a thing? Now, the word thing means it means understands what the word of the Lord has already done.

Solomon says, who is wise and who understands what God has already done? And then he goes on and says, a man's wisdom makes his face to shine and the boldness of his face shall be changed. In other words, he will be polished.

His face will change. The tarnished look on his face that sin brings and unbelief and doubt. And I would like to take you on a tour of Times Square today and look at all the tarnished faces out there today, walking the street and looking for happiness, can't find it, bowing under the weight of sin, little or no hope for the future.

And God says, when I come into your heart and when you begin to understand what I've already done, not what I'm going to do, but I've done it. You're just entering into it. It's already done. It's finished.

I did it on Calvary. I've sent the power of the Holy Ghost. There are now no limitations. There are now no enemies can stand against you. There's nothing can stop the plan of what I want to do in your life.

If you can understand this, your face will change. I can always mark a person who comes into the house of God who has confidence in God. There's something about the way they walk. There's something about the way they look.

There's something about the way they shake your hand. They're polished. The hand of God has come on them and just wiped off the tarnish of fear and unbelief. And they might be going through financial difficulty.

They might be in the storm of their life. Their kids might be living for the devil, but they're walking in and there's a polish of God on them. There's no limitation in their heart to what God can do.

They're polished by the hand of God. It's amazing. And they walk in like David and they say, I will praise you. I will glorify you. I will show forth all your marvelous works. My family will live for you.