Scotland 2009 - Evangelistic Rally - Part 2 — Carter Conlon

Well, a very warm welcome from the Town Hall in Greenock, Scotland, to all of you who have ventured here tonight and to all of you who may be watching us across the world. The proceedings tonight are being streamed through Times Square website and available to anybody across the globe.

But most important, we give a warm welcome to the Holy Father, God, who is with us tonight. Amen. God is here. God is here to touch every situation, every heart, every life, young, old, maimed, crippled, hurt, rejected.

And I've been listening to stories through today of just what's been happening, lives at the end of their days coming to faith, realizing that God loved them, perhaps for the first time in their life.

We've heard of schoolchildren coming to faith already understanding that materialism isn't the answer. We've had people in care homes. We've had people off the street finding God today, 2001. God is in Greenock.

God is across the world, but God is in Greenock. So a very warm welcome from the organizers who are Inverclyde Christian Initiative, Teen Challenge Strathclyde, and the Haven Kill Macomb Drug Rehabilitation Centers, and to our friends who have come a very long way to be with us tonight from Times Square Church in Manhattan in New York.

We're overwhelmed. There are some 230 people who have traveled 3 ,000 plus miles to be here because they care and because they love a God who cares. And they've joined with people in Scotland and in this local area who love God and who care and who watch around them every day wickedness, sin, depravity, hopelessness, despair, rejection, lack of forgiveness and understanding.

And the 230 people have joined hearts with those here to ask God just to love, God already loves, but to let them know that God loves them, that there is an answer to absolutely every plight of the human man and woman, and how this nation needs an answer to the every plight of man, woman, and children, and that answer is with us tonight, God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

So we're very glad to introduce you to Times Square Church and this wonderful choir behind me, and to their senior minister, Pastor Carter Conlon, and his wife Teresa, who have come in Carter's case a second time.

He was here last year to be with us, and we are so grateful, and we extend our arms and our words of love to you to thank you most sincerely for being with us. Let's give them a clap. Praise God. And now we're going to sing.

Over to you, Greg. Greg is the musical director in Times Square. Greg Thomas, give him a warm welcome too.

Over there, but I think there's some happy people in this place tonight. Hallelujah. I would just like to let you know of some of the upcoming events that are happening this week, in addition to these meetings that happen every night at 7 o 'clock here.

We are having these meetings every night until Friday, and then they're going to move to another location, and we'll be able to have more information about that. But tomorrow morning, there's going to be a pastor's conference.

It will start at 10 a .m., and it will be here in this hall. So we invite all the pastors in the area and those people that are in ministry to come and join us for a very special time of ministry tomorrow morning here at 10 a .m.

There'll be two sessions, then lunch, and then a third session in the afternoon. So we look forward to all our ministry brethren to join us for that very special time. On Friday evening, after the 7 o 'clock service here, there will be a youth meeting starting at 10 a .m.

Sorry, 10 p .m. here in this place. And so that's after. We will meet again on Friday at 7 p .m. for our regular time of praise and hearing the word. But after that, it'll give time for everyone to dismiss, if we can, and there will be a very special youth service.

And I just want to encourage you, if you know young people, please invite them to this service Friday night at 10 p .m. in this place. It is going to be such a powerful time where young people are going to meet the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is going to be the presence of God here in a very powerful way. I can say that confidently because on Friday nights, we have a youth service and the Lord comes to these services. And the presence of God does what only he can do, and he is reaching out to young people.

He is breaking through the darkness, and people are, and young people especially, are being miraculously saved. And so the ministry is geared for the youth of this city and the surrounding area. So please get the word out Friday night, 10 p .m. in this place.

God is going to do a very special work in the hearts of young people in Greenock and Greenock area. And finally, Saturday, there is a women's conference, and that will be Saturday morning here. It starts at 10 a .m.

I believe we are meeting in another room, and we, in these women's conferences, we have, we gather to experience the presence of God, and he does not disappoint us, and he comes to these meetings. And ladies, I recommend you come because the presence of God is there, and he ministers very deeply.

So there is something for everyone this week. Please do not miss anything, and don't come to this place alone. There are flyers available in the back that will give you, keep you in remembrance of the times and the dates.

So we ask you to take one when you leave this place. God bless you.

Just before we come to hear Pastor Carter, just a couple of announcements I really should have made at the beginning. First of all, if there is a fire, other than the fire of the Holy Spirit, on your life and on mine, then you want to go that way.

I feel like an airline pilot or steward, or that way. There are green lights that will keep you right. I don't think there's a dotted line along the aisle, but nevertheless, that way or that way. We don't expect that, of course, tonight.

One other point of detail. We have made provision for young children in the hall just behind this side of the arena, and there is a speaker in there, so parents will be able to hear the message tonight.

So if your child is just a little bit overexuberant and noisy, could we ask respectfully that you go into the room at the back there, where you will be able to hear as well as you'll hear in here. So a very warm welcome now to Pastor Carter Conlin, Senior Pastor of Times Square Church.

As we say over here, just a little church with over 8 ,000 members. I've been there. It's like Sockeye Hall Street when they come out, but a man with a real message for us at this time. Please welcome him.

Christ's Word for a Church That Has Lost Hope

Thank you again, Chris, for your kindness. Bless the Lord. Good to see the third tier tonight. People up here, you've got the best seat in the house, but you've also got the longest walk to the altar, too, tonight as well, so keep that in mind.

You might want to check for the exit door, how you can get down here at the end of the service tonight. I was woken up this morning at 2 o 'clock in the morning, and it was up until about 4 .30, and the Lord gave me this word that I'm about to bring to you tonight.

It's a word for you. It's from the heart of God. I'm going to only have to ask the Holy Spirit to bear witness to it. If you're a Christian person and you have the Spirit of God within you, He bears witness to what is coming from His heart, and so you'll have to trust the witness of Scripture, the text of Scripture, and the witness of the Spirit in your heart to know that God has brought a word specifically for this gathering tonight, and in particular for the Christian people in this town.

Would you pray with me, please, before we begin? Father, I just thank you, Lord, for the touch of the Holy Spirit. I thank you for your anointing. God, without your anointing, I couldn't preach tonight, and we couldn't hear.

You're the author and the finisher of our faith and all life, and so, Lord, we place this gathering into your hands tonight. We ask, O Jesus Christ above all else, that your name be lifted up in our hearts and glorified, your truth be understood, that your kingdom come, your will be done in us, O God, on earth as it is in heaven.

O Jesus, I pray, God, that you do something so profound that we'll never be the same again. None of us, O God, could walk away from your word ever, ever, saying that we didn't know, we didn't understand, we didn't have a chance to change.

O Jesus, help us tonight, O God, to hear these words. Help me to speak them, God. Override the frailty of this human body and the frailty of my natural mind. God, give me an understanding of the truths I'm about to speak and the tenderness of God to deliver it, Lord.

And Father, I just thank you for this with all my heart tonight. O God, let your kingdom come to Greenock. O God, break the bondage of hell in this town, these surrounding communities, Lord. O Jesus, O Jesus.

We hear reports today of high school, young people in secular high school, so open to the gospel, so hungry for truth. O God, we pray, Lord, speak to us, God. Help us, Lord, to understand the hour that we're living in.

And what is our response and what is our responsibility in this? We thank you for it in Jesus' mighty name, amen. If you do have your Bible with you tonight, I'm going to be speaking, the text is going to be Luke chapter 24.

The Road to Emmaus and the Loss of Hope

You can possibly try to follow along with that if you want to. Luke chapter 24. Our journey tonight begins on a road called Emmaus. This is after the death and the resurrection of Christ, although that there were very, very few people that really understood that he was raised from the dead, other than a few women who had been at the tomb.

And they were on a journey, it's called the road to Emmaus, and it's a road that is any road. It could be any road in any town. It could be a road that you're on tonight. Ultimately, it was a road that led away from Jerusalem, and it's a type of a road that leads away from the place where I once hoped, where I once believed, where I once heard, where once there was a message that stirred my heart, and I had honestly believed that this, on this road, or in the place that I was previously, that this was all I had looked for, but somehow it had eluded me and disappointed me.

And there were two men walking along this road, and they were having a discussion. And suddenly, Christ Jesus himself drew near to them. It says in chapter 24 and verse 15, and verse 16 says, but their eyes were holden that they should not know him.

He was there, but they didn't know he was there. And what a tragedy. You know, you and I can get to a place like that, where Christ is all around us, but we're not aware he's there. He's speaking, but we're not aware.

We can't hear him speaking. And he spoke to these men, and he said, what kind of a communication are you having? What are you talking about? And why are you so sad? And then Cleopas, one of them, said to him, are you only a stranger here in Jerusalem and you've not known the things which are come to pass?

Are you just a stranger? Can you imagine talking to God Almighty, who created heaven and earth by the word of his mouth, who had just died on the cross to redeem fallen humanity, had all authority and all power, and if you read the gospels, he had very clearly revealed the pathway he was on.

Nothing was hidden. Read John 15, 16, 17. You see it very clearly. He wasn't hiding a single thing from any of his disciples. Yet there was something in their hearts that had closed their ears to what he was about to accomplish for them on Calvary.

And they said, are you just a stranger and you don't know what's come to pass in these days? And he said to them, well, what things have happened? And they said, well, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him.

They said, don't you know, haven't you heard that God once walked among us with such mighty words and deeds? And he himself bore witness to the truth among the people. Do any of you know here tonight that God has walked in Scotland in a powerful way?

Is it only us in America that are aware of it? I hope that you're aware of it. I hope you have not become a stranger to your own heritage in this country. Scotland has produced some of the most powerful moves of God in the known world in our time and our previous times to where we are today.

And missionaries have gone out. I think of Mary Schlesinger went out to Africa, a young girl that had that Scottish DNA in her to fight. That's the one thing I know about the Scottish people. You've got something planted in you by God to fight.

Now, the problem is if you're not fighting for the right thing, you will fight for the wrong thing. If you're not fighting for truth and righteousness and the honor of God among men and the souls of those who are captivated by sin, then you'll be in pubs and bars fighting.

I was speaking with a young man recently who told me, he said, up till just a couple of years ago, he said, I used to go down to the pub and get drunk most nights. And he said, I knew most of them in there from previous youth groups in church was all Christians getting drunk and all, all his age and middle twenties and fighting, but fighting the wrong fight, having lost heart, having lost hope.

And I do hope tonight that you can realize that God is calling you to something again, that he's speaking, he's come to you. He's bringing a word to your heart saying, this is a dark day. This is an end time hour and I need an army again.

And I know where to find one. There's a great fighting spirit among the Scottish people. And I pray God that you rise to the occasion. Every man, every woman of a young person, you begin to realize that God has put something within you as a culture, but he's also put his Holy Spirit upon you.

If you turn to him in truth and righteousness and gives you a power much beyond anything that comes from human ability. And he said, he was mighty indeed and word before God and all the people. And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him.

We had such hope in him, he was the hope of our people. He was the strength of our nation. We turned to him, we looked to him and such mighty things were being done. The dead were being raised, the lepers were being cleansed and the unclean were being made clean.

The poor were being fed, the naked were being clothed. People in tombs who are just living with haunting memories of the past were set in their right mind. He had authority that we'd never seen before and we entered into that and we truly believed that this was our future.

And indeed for a moment of time it was our future. But somehow religion overpowered him and he was put to death by religion because that's really what they said. It was the chief priests and rulers who delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him.

We thought he would give us power, the kind of power we were looking for, but somehow religion came in and swallowed him and put him to death. We trusted, they said in verse 21, that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel, and besides all this, this is the third day since these things were done.

We trusted, it's past tense. In other words, it's been a long time since our hope was lost. It's assigned now to the text of history. It's something that happened in the past. And we know about the past, but today we're just on this road of despair and hopelessness, and it's gone.

Whatever was here, it's been overpowered by something else that was in our midst. It's like the house of Israel in Ezekiel chapter 37. You remember, God took the prophet to a place where the people of God of that time, Israel, had died around some altars that they had created.

And their bones were laying in the dust. And God spoke to this prophet and said, can these bones live again? Ezekiel said, God, you know, you're the only one who really knows if they can live again, and the Lord told Ezekiel, he said, prophesy to them, begin to speak to them.

Their hearts will be stirred again. They'll stand on their feet, an exceeding army, and they did exactly that. Bone came to bone, strength came back. They stood up and realized that the calling of God was not only a high calling, it was a holy calling, it was a wonderful calling.

It was a calling worth living for. They began to be recipients in their hearts of the mercy of God. And then God told Ezekiel, call out to the wind. In the Hebrew, it's the ruach of God, the breath of God, the Holy Spirit, really.

Call out to the breath of God, that he may breathe upon these who were once slain. And the breath of God came and they lived again. But they had said in their heart, behold, they say our bones are dried and our hope is lost and we're cut off for our parts.

Or that means actually from what was once ours, we're cut off. And that can get in all of our hearts. We can sit in church and say, I know of the glorious history. And I know how powerful God is and I know what he did, but what happened to it all?

How did we lose it? And we sit here today, I feel so dry, I feel so empty, I feel so powerless, I feel so hopeless. We had really hoped that this Christ was going to make a difference in our society and in our nation.

But now we sit and it seems to be we're so dry. We don't seem to have any power in our hands, in our feet anymore, in our voices. And the word that we speak seems to be so lifeless and it doesn't bring anything back from the grave anymore.

We've lost what was once ours. In verse 22, they said certain women of our company went to the grave and made us astonished. And they said that there was a vision of angels that said he was no longer there, he was alive.

And so they were saying there's some among us who claim to have knowledge that he is alive, but we don't believe them because we've not seen him for ourselves. That's these two men walking with Christ, the risen Christ, away from Jerusalem.

And they said there are people around that are saying he's alive, but I don't know if I believe it. And maybe that's something that's in your heart tonight. You hear this choir sing, you hear the testimonies, but it's just been so dry for so long.

And the hope you once had seems so far in the past. And you say, well, they say he's alive and they say he's touching lives. They say he's a miracle working God, but I don't know. I just don't know. I don't know if it's really true.

And maybe it's true in New York City, but I don't know if it's true here in Greenock, Scotland. It's been so long since I've experienced what they're talking about. I've not seen him for myself. Then Jesus begins to open his word to them.

And he says, O fools and slow of heart to believe, all that the prophets have spoken, ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in the scriptures all things concerning himself.

And he opened to them again the redemptive plan of God. He said, don't you understand that for something to live again, sometimes it has to die? Sometimes old things have to be put away that all things might become new again.

Sometimes death has to come, that life might be appreciated. Sometimes some things do have to go into the grave. Some things that we do, some ways that we live, even sometimes our perspectives that we have garnered together of God have to go into the grave and they have to die.

We have to lose our hope that our hope may come back again, deeper, stronger, more powerful than it's ever been through all time in history. I believe my brothers and my sisters in Scotland, and in particular, Greenock, Scotland, is in for one of the greatest touches of God.

If you can realize it, in any and all generations. Sometimes hope has to be lost so that it can be appreciated. You heard it from the testimony of David tonight, who stood here and had to lose hope to find it.

Had to lose what he thought he had to gain, what God wanted to give him. And Jesus opened the redemptive plan. He had to be born of a virgin. He had to walk through this earth for 33 years. He had to suffer, and he had to die.

There had to be a loss of something for the gain that God was about to give to all the human race. If there had not been a death, there would not have been a resurrection. If there had not been a death, there'd be no redemption.

If there had not been a resurrection, there would be no power, there would be no hope, there'd be no future for any of us here tonight. But he opened again this redemptive plan of God, this understanding that something has to die, that something else may live.

Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone. But if it dies, it will live again, and it will bear much fruit. Verse 29, I don't think they fully understood, but something in their heart said this is right.

Something in their heart said this is true. Yes, our hope is lost. Yes, we're on this journey away from what was the place of hope. But we are hearing something, and somehow I just know this to be true.

And in verse 29, it says they constrained him. The title of my message is Christ must be constrained. Christ must be constrained. And I want you to hear this to understand it. In the King James text, it says they constrained him.

Because it says, they drew nigh to the village where they went, and he made as though he would have gone further. If you and I are not willing to embrace the heart of God and the word of God, he won't force himself on you or me, none of us.

He's the ultimate gentleman of all eternity. Even he stood at the door of the Church of Revelation and knocked when he had every right to kick the whole thing in and demand disobedience and demand of respect in this house.

But he stood at the door and knocked. He's the ultimate gentleman, and he made as though he would have gone further. But something had been spoken into their hearts. And in verse 29, it says they constrained him.

And they said, abide with us, for it is towards evening, and the day is far spent, and he went into terror with them. I think the best thing that you and I could do tonight and say, God, Christ, the living son of God, it's getting dark now.

The days are getting dark. The time that is far spent. History is moving rapidly to a time when this whole world is gonna spiral out of control, and things that we never believed that perhaps we'd even see in our generation are going to unfold before our very eyes.

Abide with us. It's getting dark, it's getting late, and the day is far spent. We need to know what you're saying. We need to know your truth. It's not enough just to go to church anymore. That's not gonna get you through, it's not gonna get me through.

I need a living relationship with God, and so do you. I need to hear what he's speaking. I need Christ to speak into my life. I need to know why I'm on this earth as a Christian. Why was I born, and then why was I born again?

Why did you put your Holy Spirit upon me? Why have you given me your word? Why have you left me in the earth? If it was just about salvation, why didn't you just take me home? Why didn't you just let me die the day I prayed a sinner's prayer somewhere?

Why didn't you just take me if that's all it was about? But if there's a deeper purpose, if there's a further purpose why I'm in the earth, I constrain you, Jesus, you've got to come to me. You've got to come.

That was the cry of my heart many, many years ago. I was a Christian for at least two years, and I was kind of waffling in and out of half serving God and half stuck in the world. And finally, in desperation, I cried out and said, God, you've got to show me.

You've got to touch me. You've got to call me. You've got to strengthen me. You've got to guide me. I don't care if it kills me. But I know there's gotta be a deeper purpose for my life than just going to work and going home and going to church on Sunday and going home and just the drudgery.

And where reading my Bible is just a legal duty that I'm doing, it's gotta be more than that. It has to be deeper than that. And I constrained him to come in. God, I bless the day that the Lord Jesus put that in my heart to call out to him.

And you will bless the day when in spite of how long it's been and how far back your hope is, and how dry your present experience might be, that you say, God, at any stage of my life, at any place where I am, if I call out to you, you will come.

If I say, Lord, I want you in my heart and house, you'll come. You'll sit down. You'll sup with me, and you'll begin to show me what I need to know. In verse 30, it says, it came to pass, as he said it, meet with them.

He took bread, and blessed it, and break it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight. After constraining him, they sat at a communion table.

Christ's Broken Body and the Church's Calling

And it's at this point where he breaks the bread. Finally, their eyes are opened. They begin to understand something about the Christian life. That Christ was broken from me, that I might be made whole.

He was poured out, that I might be filled with the spirit of God. He was rejected, that I might be received. He was wounded, that every wound in my heart might be healed. He took upon himself everything that I deserved, that everything that I deserved might be put away from me, and I might become an adopted son, or in your case, a daughter of God.

And as he broke the bread, and the understanding came into their heart, that I am now part of the body of Christ. Christ left a body in the earth, and I am called also to be given for other people. I'm not called, I'm obviously, and you are not the redeemer.

There's only one redeemer, but I'm called to be broken, to my pride, to my ambition, to my sense of self, to my agenda. I'm called to be broken, and to allow the living spirit of God, to bear witness in the earth of the testimony of Christ's birth, life, death, and resurrection.

That is the call of God on my life. My agenda must become God's agenda. If I have the life of Christ in me, then Christ is still doing the same work. His work was a redemptive work. Didn't come necessarily just to give people a better life.

He came, that all men might be saved. He came to a fallen, dying world of men and women, created in the image of God, whom he desperately loved. He lost in the Garden of Eden. When he came down, and you read the original text in the Hebrew language, when he came down, it sounds mild when he said, Adam, where art thou?

But actually, the context of it is, Adam, it was a cry in the heart of God. He had lost, and you hear that same cry on the cross, when he says, it is finished, he cried with such a loud cry. I've lost, Adam, and I've lost that which was closest to my heart.

Men and women created in my image that I have determined to be my bride, my church on earth, and my bride for all of eternity. I lost them, but I've come to get them back. I've come to pay the price. The price in blood had to be paid for sin.

I've come to pay the price. And when he cried out, it is finished, I truly believe your name was on his lips. It is finished, the reign of hell and sin and terror is over, hallelujah. And I have now a church on the earth and a bride for eternity in heaven.

But he left his bride on the earth, he left you here, he left me here. That he and I might, and you and God, might walk together in this earth. And that the very heart of God that sent him to a cross might be made manifest through his church.

I wanna read to you a passage. Now, in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 11, the apostle Paul had a lot of problems with this church. The Corinthian church was a very metropolitan church. I call them the New York City of that generation.

Corinth was a central city, central town, all kinds of wealth and pleasure. They had a temple in the middle of the city, and the temple in the middle of the city had 1 ,000 prostitutes in it. And their worship was based on fornication, it was an atrocious place.

And in that place, Paul, the apostle, established a church. But the church there never made a full break from the values of that society. They had an ancestral relationship going on in the congregation, for example, and they weren't troubled by it.

And Paul, somewhat exasperated by these things, came to them and as a father, was trying to tell them, there are certain things that you've embraced that are eroding, as it is the life of God, from you.

And this church, of course, was in danger of really losing its testimony. But one of the most grievous things that was going on in the church is that the church was coming together for the Lord's Supper, for communion, as it is, for fellowship and communion.

And they had fragmented into groups inside the Corinthian church. And the wealthy were eating with the wealthy, and perhaps certain people that held to certain views. Now, they were clamoring to different preachers.

Some were saying, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Peter, I'm of Christ. And so they were dividing along doctrinal differences, styles of preaching, etc., etc. And they were feasting, as it is, around that which was familiar and that which made them comfortable.

And they were pushing the poor to the sides of the temple. And this so grieved the Apostle Paul. He said, when you come together, therefore, into one place, this is not the Lord's Supper. In eating, everyone takes before somebody else his own supper.

One is hungry, another is drunken. Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? He said, shall I praise you in this?

I praise you not. Now Paul goes into an explanation of what communion really is about. This is not just a scripture we read when we have a communion service in the church. Paul is drawing a contrast between the selflessness of Christ and the selflessness that can get into the heart of God's people.

He said, for I received of the Lord, that which I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. Now Paul is drawing a contrast in the scripture. He's not giving us a formula for the communion service. He's contrasting the selflessness of Christ with the selflessness of the Corinthian church.

He said, you're getting together and it's all about yourself. You're eating about yourself. You're gathering around yourself. It's all about how is fellowship and how is God and how's the church gonna give me a better life?

And Paul's saying it's not about you. The communion service that we're going into was initiated by Christ who broke the bread and say, this is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

Do this. Do this. Be broken. Allow this breaking of the personal agenda, this breaking of cultural and language and educational and social barriers. If we gather around these things, we'll not go to the poor.

We'll do exactly what Corinth did. They pushed the poor, the addicted, the immoral, those that were trying to find their way through to God. They pushed them to the sides of the temple because the way they saw it, they had nothing to add to their program or their agenda.

After the same men are also, he took the cup and he said, this cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do you as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he comes.