Grinding in the Prison House — Carter Conlon

We're going to be speaking number five in the series this morning on the Corinthian problem, subtitled The Root and Resolution to Powerlessness in the Last Day's Church. And there is a concern that has been expressed by someone that felt as I'm preaching this that I'm saying goodbye to the church, I'm on some kind of a journey, I'll be leaving here.

I just want to, if there are one or two that are concerned about this, I want you to alleviate your concerns. I'm not going anywhere. Teresa and I are going to be staying here. So this is a journey that the Lord's had me on.

Surrendering Personal Security to God

Remember Paul said to Timothy, the husbandman that labors must be first partaker of the fruits. There have been four times, this is the fourth time in my life that the Lord has asked for something that was dear to me.

Twice it's been finances to give away savings that I had, we'd accumulated that I thought were going to give us some measure of security in the future. Once it was my career, giving up all that in a sense offered security again.

And this last time, it's my own vision, I guess, of the rest of my life, how I'd like to live it. And it has a lot to do with family and grandchildren and things like that. And the Lord says, no, Carter, one more time, I want you to give it all to me.

And I want you to embrace the cross and whatever that means for your life, wherever it takes you. And I just, so it's a spiritual journey that I've been on. And I thank God for this, because it would be a fraud for me to preach any of this to you that if I'm not having to live it myself, for those who wish I would be leaving, all I can say is just live long enough.

You'll get your wish. You'll get your wish eventually. Judges chapter 16, please, if you'll go there, Judges chapter 16, message title this morning is grinding in the prison house, grinding in the prison house.

Father, I thank you for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Lord, you are truly, truly speaking something to us and to this generation. I pray God give me the ability to speak this. Give us the ears to hear it.

Lord, help me to disappear that you may appear. Lord, help my voice to fade that yours might increase. I thank you, God, with everything in my heart that today is a day of victory. Lord, today you're going to break bondages.

There's going to be something of the devil is going to come crashing down and people are going to be free. I thank you, God, with all my heart, Lord, there will be a shout of incredible and spiritual freedom at the end of this day and give you praise and glory for this in Jesus' name.

Samson’s Loss of Vision and Profitless Labor

Grinding in the prison house, Judges chapter 16, beginning at verse 18. This is about Samson, a mighty, mighty anointed man of God called to bring deliverance to the people of God. And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines saying, come up this once for he has shown me all his heart.

Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her and brought money in their hand and she made him sleep upon her knees and she called for a man and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head and she began to afflict him and his strength went from him.

And she said, the Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he woke out of his sleep and said, I will go out as at other times before and shake myself and he wished not or he did not know that the Lord was departed from him.

But the Philistines took him and put out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with fetters of brass and he did grind in the prison house. That's the title of this message this morning, grinding in the prison house.

Now Satan's plan for every true believer in Christ is to take away your spiritual vision and to move you and I into almost profitless labor, that's where Samson ended up, and where there's no outflow of the supernatural in your life.

That's the devil's plan for you folks. Make no mistake about it, he has seductive ways that he'll move you to this place so that you are no threat to his kingdom. No spiritual vision, that's where Samson ended up.

Profitless labor, almost profitless, he's grinding in the prison house so obviously there's perhaps a few things that are being done that are of some value and no outflow of the supernatural in his life.

The Corinthian Church and Satan’s Devices

Now Paul said to the Corinthian church, we've already discussed this in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 19, Paul said, you suffer fools gladly, seeing yourselves are wise. Now Paul said, you've opened your door to people who are preaching to you that the Holy Spirit, governing the hand of Paul, as he's writing, calls these people fools.

You suffer them gladly, you've opened your heart to them, you've opened your home to them. He says you suffer or you allow if a man brings you into bondage, if a man devours you, if a man takes of you, if a man exalts himself, if a man smites you on the face, in other words, Paul brings them in and makes a mockery of who you are truly called to be in Christ.

Now Paul was a spiritual father and he's imploring this church, this season as it is, where God's testimony had come into this society called Corinth. Paul saw the danger, he knew where it was heading, he knew biblical history, he saw the patterns and plans of the devil.

That's why Paul could write, we're not ignorant of Satan's devices. A lot of people are, even in our generation, but Paul wasn't. He knew how the enemy worked and he's coming to this church and as a father, trying to guide as it is wayward children that are heading out into a place of peril and they're not aware of where they're going.

And he's pleading with them in a sense, would you consider what it is that God has given me to speak to you about? Now, if you go ahead just for a moment to Proverbs chapter 5, it speaks of the spiritual condition that Samson arrived at and I can't even fathom when we get to the throne of God, the countless thousands that have followed in his footsteps, have made the same tragic mistakes that he made.

Seductive Religion and the Loss of Honor

In Proverbs chapter 5 verse 7, the writer says, hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Remove thy way far from her. Now when you see the her in here, it really speaks about a seductive religion, I've always believed that about these verses of scripture.

And come not nigh to the door of her house, lest thou give thine honor unto others and thy years unto the cruel. Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth, or in other words, what should have been yours is taken from you, and your labors be in the house of a stranger.

And you mourn at the last when your flesh and body are consumed and say, how I have hated instruction and my heart despised reproof, and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me.

Now Satan's plan against the church has always been to turn the supernatural into the natural. It's to have the plan and the power of God that's most clearly understood through the preaching of the cross to fade into the background.

Paul wrote to the church of Corinth, and he said, I fear lest your minds in 2 Corinthians 11 verses 3 and 4 should be turned away from the simplicity that's in Christ. Paul said, I brought something to you of the Savior.

I brought to you an understanding of where true power in the Christian life lies. It's not in gathering to yourself. It's in giving the life that God's given you and letting it flow through you to others.

And Paul was clearly saying, this is where the power of God is, and he's trying to put a picture as it is of Calvary before this church and saying, look, this is where the power is. This is where your redemption was bought.

This is how the power of God moves through this generation until Christ comes again. And then he says, if somebody comes and preaches another Jesus, you're in a spiritual condition that you might receive it.

You might well bear with it, Paul says. And folks, that's the tragedy. We're living at a time when another Jesus is being preached in many, many places. It's another Christ. It's his name, but it's not him.

It's not what he represents. It's not where his power is. And this is where we've arrived at. And I think throughout biblical history, we've come to a time very much like when the children of Israel were in captivity in Egypt, and suddenly Moses appears on the scene.

Moses, the Cross, and the Simplicity of Deliverance

And the people were confronted with what they had lost sight of. They had lost sight of the power of God. Where is the power of God? How does the power of God manifest? How does he operate? What does he do?

Moses did not appear on the scene with a strategy, a 10-year plan, seven steps to spiritual freedom. Moses walked into the camp, an older man. He's got a stick in his hand, which is really a type of the cross of Jesus Christ.

He's got a sermon that God has given him that's only one line long. Thus saith the Lord, let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness. That's his whole message. And that's the plan of God.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 .18, this is foolishness to the natural man and the natural mind that's always looking for its own strength to its own resources and counting its own numbers. The natural mind, the natural man that looks in the mirror and says, now I know how to do this.

I know how this can be done. I've been given intelligence. I can figure this out. But Paul says earlier in Corinthians, it's not the mighty, not the noble, not those who know everything that are called.

It's the weak. It's those who know they need a savior. Those who are aware that I don't have what it takes to do this, who open their hearts and God comes in and supernatural power, and they simply begin to follow him in obedience as Christ followed the will of his father in Gethsemane, even to the cross.

There's a church that follows the will of God through Jesus Christ. And God begins to move through them in the supernatural one more time. Now, in order for Satan to hold captive a people who in Christ have a strength superior to his own.

Now, the devil knows it. He knows that you have a strength in you that can take his kingdom down. You, I'm not talking about collectively, all of Times Square church, I'm talking about you individually, you, young lady, young man, older person, you're sitting here.

You have within you the resident power of God, if you're a true believer in Jesus Christ. And Satan knows it. He lives in fear of the day that somebody realizes this and rises up out of obscurity because he knows history.

He knows what has happened. He knows what can happen to his kingdom when a young boy like D .L. Moody, who could almost neither write nor read, and he was a prankster, worked in a shoe repair shop, who comes to Christ through a Sunday school teacher and decides that he's giving his all to God.

And then all of a sudden, thousands and thousands in the years to come, their lives are transformed by this bumbling, stumbling preacher, as historians recounted, who could hardly say the word Jerusalem.

Folks, people came to laugh at him, but the power of God moved through him. And God moved in incredible power because there was a man, one more time, or a woman, as history has recorded, that finally says, I realized something.

The devil is out there trying to convince the whole church world that he's got all the authority. But I realized something, that one grandmother who lays hold of God can put him to flight and cause there to be a revival in our cities.

Samson’s Strength and the Believer’s Position in Christ

But he must go after something. In order for him to hold the people captive, he has to go after something. It's the only thing which he knows if they will yield it, it will make them as weak as other men.

The strategy of the devil doesn't change. He's after something in you today. And if he can get it, you're going to be just as weak as every other person in this society. Although you'll be speaking the name Jesus, but there's no manifestation of his glory and his power.

Book of Judges, again, chapter 16, tells us that Samson could not be held with any form of cord that this world could produce. Delilah, which is a type of this seductive religion, comes into his life.

And she overtly asks him, it's not even hidden, tell me, where is the source of your great strength? And how can we afflict you? How can we take this strength away from you? But Samson has an inner knowledge, and he begins to convey this knowledge.

Now, he's playing a very dangerous game when you play with sin. It's dangerous. In Judges 16, chapter 16, verse 7, Samson said, If they bind me with seven green wits, or that means cords that were never dried, then I will be weak and shall be as another man.

Now, Samson knew that he could not be bound with any multitude of new devices. That means any new battles, any new trials or strategies that you may not have faced before. The devil will try to tell you, believer in Christ here this morning, that he's going to get you, he's going to bind you, there's something coming your way, there's something you've come into.

Maybe in the last while, a new battle, you've never faced it before. And he's trying to tell you, you're not going to get through this. But Samson, with the anointing of God, he knew that there's nothing new that can be brought that hasn't been gone through by Christ.

Now, we know this, Samson didn't, but there's nothing that Christ has not triumphed over. He's broken all the cords of sin, he's broken every power of hell. There's absolutely nothing that can come your way, the devil can throw at you that is new.

There's no new struggle, there's no new battle that can bind you. And take away the strength of God that is in you. And then later on in chapter 16, again in verse 11, he said to her, if they bind me fast with new ropes that were never occupied, I shall be weak and be as another man.

And tells us that he could not be bound with even the greatest of the proven strengths of this world. Things that have been proven, things that have been tried, things that have had the strength as it is perhaps to hold gates shut and pull ships and do other such things.

Samson knew that with the anointing of God on him, no matter how great a strength in the past, if it's an old battle, if it's an old strategy, an old tactic, whatever it is, you cannot be bound with it.

Child of God, do you know this this morning? Do you realize this? Do you know your position in Christ? Do you know that when he said at the end, it is finished and it was not just for dramatic effects or to look good in the scriptures.

It was finished. The power of hell was broken. The power of the demonic to bind you was over. As a child of God, you are raised from the dead by the Spirit of the Lord. And the power of sin and death has no more dominion over you.

There's nothing of this world that can stop what God wants to do and enter your life. Chapter 16, again in verse 13, Delilah said to Samson, up to this point or hitherto, you've mocked me and you've told me lies.

Tell me where you might be bound. And he said to her, if you weave the seven locks of my head with the web. Now he said, in other words, I can be, I'll become weak. And Samson knew he could not be defeated in his mind.

That's really what it speaks about. You can try to tie my head down as it is, but I can't be tied down. You cannot be defeated in your mind, folks. That's where the argument is, but you can't be defeated there.

If you're in this book, if you know who you are in Christ, there's no weapon formed against you, no weapon that can prosper. Do you understand? And every tongue that rises against you in judgment, you have the right in God through Christ to condemn it.

You have the right to condemn it. You have the right to declare it null and void. You have the right to tell Satan to go right back where he belongs. You have this authority. You cannot be bound in your mind.

You cannot be tied down with thoughts. You cannot be overcome with new trials. You will have within you the Christ who rose from the dead, folks. You have within you this Christ. You cannot be triumphed over.

Folks, if you and I just get to the point of understanding that and don't live your whole life fighting this battle, you've already won. Amazing when you think of it. The devil just keeps you fighting and fighting and fighting, and it just never dawns on people, hey, I've already won this battle, I'm already on the victory side.

This opponent is already triumphed over. I'm already standing on his head, what more do I need to do? He's already under my feet. All he's doing is flapping his yap from the ground, and I'm just buying into his lie and fighting this battle, it's won.

More Than Conquerors Through Christ

Praise be to God. That's why Paul said, I'm more than a conqueror in Christ, I can do all things through Christ who has strengthened me. Blessed be God, blessed be God. Whatever God's called you to be, you can be, you will be if God is in you.

If he's calling you to do it, you will do it. Christ in you will accomplish his purpose for your life, and the purpose for your life and mine is always to give him glory, to bring glory and honor to his name by doing things that cannot be done by the natural man or the natural mind.

Now, Samson said, she vexed him, she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, and vexed him unto death. In verse 17, he told her all his heart and said, there's not come a razor upon my head, I've been a Nazarene unto God from my mother's womb.

If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man. Here's what the devil is after. If my separation to God, this is what Samson finally told this seductive spirit, if my separation from God for the purpose of freeing others from oppression is willfully or unwittingly forfeited, then I will become weak as any other man.

Separation to God and the Church’s Calling

And that's why we're living with a weak and emaciated church age, folks. The separation, the enemy's gone after it and he's gotten it. The separation, the separation really from the purpose. When the angel of God appeared to Samson's mother, told her, he said, you're going to have a child, this child's going to have the Holy Spirit, he's going to be mighty, and he's going to deliver the people of God, he's going to deliver his people.

That was the call in his life, that's why there was this might. And folks, when we lose that separation, when we begin to take this anointing and use it for ourselves, when we begin to live to ourselves, when the whole focus of coming to church is, what can I get out of God today?

And we've lost this separation, we've lost this understanding that I'm not called to be as the world, I'm not called to think like this world. This whole world is living for itself. And look at the mess it's in today, folks.

I'm not called to be a reflection of that mess. I'm called to be empowered by the Spirit of God for the sake of the souls of every man, woman, and child ever born into this world, to let them know that they can be free, to let them know a Savior died for them 2 ,000 years ago, to let them know they can have hope and a future and an end that their heart in God has always desired for.

Samson said, you take away my separation, you take away this Nazarite vows it is that's upon me, and I will become weak. And this, folks, is why we're living in a weak church age. This is why a society can pass by the doors of most churches in America today, not even giving what's going on in there a second thought, because the value system is the same.

There's nothing in there that confronts the ungodliness that is all around them. Paul knew that this is what Satan was after in the Corinthian church, and he battled desperately to get them to see exactly what was at stake.

To take away this separation, Satan will always send and use a form of seductive and enticing religion. That's what he's always done. What did he do in Eden? He came, the Scripture says he was more subtle, more cunning, a strategy as it is, a scheme, and he comes with a subtlety.

He's described as a snake in the Garden of Eden, but I wonder sometimes, did he appear in a white suit? Did he look like something that was really attractive? How did he appear in the Garden of Eden? He came in in subtlety, and he walked in and talked to Eve and subsequently Adam, and he threw out a theology that masqueraded as something that would fulfill.

When she saw, it says it was good for food, something that would bring personal gratification. It was desired and it was pleasant to the eyes, good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and desired to make one wise.

Then she bit into the theology of the devil himself, and she moved away from that which had been upon her, this incredible glory of God that was on Adam and Eve. Think about Delilah coming to Samson and causes him, and just pleads with him, this pleading religion as it is, this pleading spirit, show me the source of your strength.

I want to take away your strength, and it wasn't even a hidden thing. That's what amazes me about this. She was overt about it. How can your strength be taken away? And he knew that she was ratting him out to the Philistines, but still played this very, very dangerous game.

I wonder how many today could sit in this house and say, you know, I know what Pastor Carter is saying is the truth, but you'll go home, and you'll turn on Delilah one more time. You'll put your Delilah tape in, because, hey, it makes you feel good.

You know, the seductive thing that's going after you, and you actually know it's going after you. You actually know it's going after the source of the life of Christ, but you will still turn it on. You will still listen to that.

That's what Samson did. And he played a very dangerous game, and ultimately it cost him. Go to the book of Proverbs, please, chapter 7, if you will. We're going to take a look at this spirit that comes to take away the anointing of God and the strength of God.

Proverbs 7 and Religious Flattery

Proverbs chapter 7, I'm going to begin at verse 1. Now, I want you to see this as a seductive religion. My son, keep my words and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments and live, and my law is the apple of thine eye.

Bind them upon thy fingers and write them upon the table of thine heart. Verse 4, say unto wisdom, thou art my sister, and call understanding thy kinswoman, that they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flatters with her words.

This is a spirit of religious flattery. For at the window of my house, I looked through my casement, and I beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youth, a young man void of understanding, passing through the street near her corner.

He went to the way of her house, in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night. And behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot and subtle. Remember, it describes Satan in Genesis 3, more subtle than any beast of the field.

With the attire of a harlot and subtle of heart. She's loud and stubborn and her feet abide not in her house. Now she is without, now in the streets and lies in wait at every corner. So she caught him and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him, I have peace offerings with me, and this day have I paid my vows.

Therefore, I came forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee. In other words, I have a relationship with God. I know the way to peace. I've decked my bed, verse 16, with coverings of tapestry, with carved works and fine linen of Egypt.

I've perfumed my bed with myrrh and aloes and cinnamon. Come, verse 18, let us take our fill of love until the morning. Let us soulless ourselves with love. In other words, let's focus on ourselves. Let's do the things that we love to do.

That's what the Spirit says. That's how the Spirit comes. That's how it takes away the anointing of God from the church of Jesus Christ. That's what Paul knew was happening in Corinth. That's what he was fighting for in the church of that society.

This Spirit that says, come now, enjoy yourself. You see, the next verse says, the good man's not at home. He's on a long journey. He's taking a bag of money with him. And he'll come home at the day appointed.

No, no, come, enjoy yourself. Let's focus on ourselves now. The good man is gone. He'll come back someday. And we'll be here when he returns. But let's just do what we want to do. And with her much fair speech, verse 21, she caused him to yield.

And with the flattering of her lips, she forced him. He goes after her straightway as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks. Till a dart strike through his liver as a bird hastens to the snare and knows not that it is for his life.

Think of Samson falling asleep eventually, the Scripture says, on the knees of this seductive spirit. Hearken to me now, therefore, all you children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways.

The Church Grinding in a Spiritual Prison

Go not astray in her paths. She has cast down many wounded. Yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. Many, many strong men. I think of the thousands that are sitting in places, sitting under a seductive spirit, using the name of Jesus Christ, causing the people to turn from the focus that is God to focusing on themselves.

A theologically completely different perspective than that which is found in Christ. And you see the men and women sitting there who should be strong, who should be mighty, but they've been slain by this spirit.

They're sitting there, and everything that God intended them to be now is forfeited, it's gone. They're sitting there glassy-eyed, watching these star-spangled preachers stand before them and talk about themselves, and how they can use God for themselves, and how it's all about themselves.

And folks, their strength is gone, they don't know it. They're simply grinding in a prison house, going around and around with profitless works, no spiritual vision, and no outflow of the supernatural.

Always living in the natural, always thinking, if I just put on a better suit, if I increase my stride just a little bit, if I smile just a little bit more, I'm going to advance in society, and I'm going to have power, and I'm going to have prestige, and all the gold is going to be mine.

Oh, folks, what a tragedy. These are strong men. These are men and women who are destined to do something for God. They should be on the mission field, they should be walking with God, they should know the power of the supernatural, but they've been deceived.

They have no discernment. They've walked into the house of a spiritual harlot, and they're now focused on themselves. And folks, that's where Corinth was going. That's why Paul took three trips, that's why Paul wrote letters, that's why Paul was willing to endure scorn and ridicule, that's why Paul wouldn't walk away.

He said, I'm jealous for you, I'm jealous for the testimony of God in you. I have brought you into the kingdom of God, Paul said, and I want to present you as a pure bride to Jesus Christ. But there's something coming in.

You've opened your hearts to this thing, and you're going to lose the anointing. You're going to lose the true sense of what the power of God is all about. And Paul fought so hard for this, but yet so many people refused this, even in our generation.

Hearing Truth Without Obeying It

They will sit and agree. It's amazing. One of the Old Testament prophets, he said, God said, the people come, they listen to you. They say, you've got to go to Times Square Church. You've just got to hear the word that's coming forward.

It's convicting. We have an inner witness that it's true. But this particular prophet, God said, they come, they listen, you're like a sweet song being played on the trumpet, but they will not do it. They will not walk there.

And they know it's truth, and it's almost like, okay, as long as we know where truth is, we can go out and play our games for another week, another two weeks. We can live for ourselves, but if things get really tough, we know where truth is.

We know where we can come back to it. Yeah, we'll get it right. We'll get it right. We know what the truth is. So we'll go out and do this. And Samson played that game, not realizing that eventually it cost him his spiritual vision.

He couldn't get back. Oh, folks, there are so many living in this situation, in previous generations, and in ours again today. But something began to happen, and I speak this prophetically for this generation.

The Restoration of Separation and Spiritual Strength

Something began to happen. People are tired now. They're tired of the conferences. They're tired of the seminars. They're tired of the books. They're tired of trying to hold this whole thing together.

They're tired of going around in circles. They're tired of hearing about the power of God, but never knowing it, never walking in it. They're tired. They're tired of giving all the resources to somebody who just stands and says, Oh, give it all to me.

I'll do it for you. And I'll relieve you of the problem, as it is of serving God. Oh, folks, they're tired. I can feel it in my spirit. I see it with what God is speaking to my heart. People all over, especially in the Western world, they're just tired of the endless circles.

They're tired of the powerlessness. They're tired of the grinding. They're tired of the devil mocking them at every turn. They're tired of reading in the Scriptures of what they should be. And yet, looking in the mirror at what they've become, they're tired of it.

They sit glassy-eyed in some of these places while silver-tongued people talk to them about their incredible destiny. And yet, they're not going anywhere. This destiny is not happening in their lives.

The only one driving the Rolls-Royce is the people who are preaching to them. It's not happening to them, folks. But something began to happen. Samson's eyes were out. And he's grinding in the prison house.

And he's going around in circles. But the Scripture says, the hair of his head began to grow again. In chapter 16 and verse 22 of Judges. I see this happening. I see people who are just... The separation is coming back, folks.

It's just coming back. There are people who are just tired of the grind. They're just tired of going nowhere. They're just tired of this whole Western concept of Christianity. They're tired. And their hair is starting to grow.

The separation is coming back. Praise be to God. I thank God with all my heart. The devil is having a party over Samson's head. He is just enjoying this triumph. He's gathering together all of the hordes that are given to darkness and laughing over the balcony and looking at this that was supposed to be the deliverer with the anointing and bringing the people of God out of captivity and into freedom.

And he's enjoying this. Calls together 3 ,000 people who are of alike spirit. And the Scripture says, in Judges 16 and verse 26, well, actually, earlier, he says, the people saw him. They praised their God, verse 24, and they said, our God's delivered into our hands our enemy, the destroyer of our country, which slew many of us.