A Guiding Voice in the Storm — Carter Conlon

A Guiding Voice in the Storm

Acts, chapter 27, please, if you'll turn there, in the New Testament, book of Acts, chapter 27. My message title is, A Guiding Voice in the Storm. A Guiding Voice in the Storm. Now, this is not just a message for Times Square Church, but I believe that God has spoken to my heart that this is a message for the church body at large in this country.

And so for those that are listening online, for those that are visiting or have the capability, I rarely have asked this, I think maybe once or twice before at the very most, to post this message on websites, get it out to as many people as you can.

I believe this is a word from the Lord, and the Holy Spirit will bear witness to it, if it is. If I bear witness to myself alone, then my witness is not true. The Holy Spirit has to bear witness to what he has given.

I personally believe this to be a pivotal word for this country, for the church, age that we're living in right now. And I don't say this lightly, I've weighed making such a statement before making it, but I believe it in my heart, and I'm prepared for whatever comes because of that.

Prayer for Direction and Spiritual Readiness

Now, Father, I thank you, God, with all my heart. Lord, you'll never leave us without direction. You'll never leave us without a word in any season we're living in. No matter what we've done, you'll speak to us.

It has been your pattern throughout history. It's the way you always deal with your own people and with nations. Now, God Almighty, I dare not even attempt this without the anointing of your Holy Spirit.

I'm asking you, Lord, to come and put a weight on this word that cannot be explained but by the presence of God. I'm asking you for clarity of thought and courage of heart that is deeper than what I have.

I ask you, God Almighty, speak to your house and to your church and help us to have ears to hear. Give us the grace not to turn away at this time. Help us as a people here and help those who will hear this message in the days ahead.

And I thank you. I yield my body to you, and I ask you, Lord, to use me as a vessel. Do great good for this country and for your church. I ask this in Jesus' name. Acts chapter 27, beginning at verse 21, a guiding voice in the storm.

But after long abstinence, Paul stood forth in the midst of them and said, Sirs, you should have hearkened to me and not have loosed from Crete and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you but of the ship.

For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar, and, lo, God has given thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer, for I believe, God, that it shall be even as it was told me, howbeit we must be cast upon a certain island.

A Nation Caught in a Spiritual Storm

Now you and I are living at a season in this nation where it is becoming quickly evident that a national spiritual awakening is our only lasting hope for the future. We look around us and we see that we have embarked on a journey, as many societies have before us, and we've gotten ourselves into a storm.

We're being driven by the winds now. We're attempting to keep ourselves together. But it is obvious that we've lost our moral and our directional compass as a nation. We were given great favor from God in America, and we're given an understanding of his ways of dealing with those who have come before us.

But just like the last king of Babylon did, we have ignored the warnings and pursued the course of our own downfall. Let me read it to you. Daniel stood before this last Babylonian king, and here's the words that he said to him.

O thou most high, O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and a majesty, and glory, and honor. And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him.

Whom he would, he slew, and whom he would, he kept alive. And whom he would, he set up, and whom he would, he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him.

And he was driven from the sons of men. And his heart was made like the beast's, and his dwelling was with the wild asses. They fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointed over it whomsoever he will.

And this, and thou his son, O Belshazzar, has not humbled thy heart, though thou knewest all this, but has lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven. And they brought the vessels of his house before thee.

And thou, and thy lords, thy wives, thy concubines, have drunk wine in them, and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, and brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know. And the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified?

Then was the part of the hand sent from him, and this writing was written. This is the interpretation, verse 26, of the thing. God has numbered thy kingdom and finished it. Just like in Acts chapter 27, we ignored the warnings of God and proceeded on a journey that was led by our own senses and by our own reasonings.

And now, we're in a place where we're being driven by circumstances that are now beyond our control. It says in verse 15 of Acts 27, when the ship was caught and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive.

We had the testimony in the history. We're not a nation that was ignorant of scriptural truth. We know how God has dealt with nations and individuals and circumstances that have come before us. We had the study of the scriptures.

We knew that you couldn't play games with the holy God. Scripture after scripture, lesson after lesson, verse after verse, time after time, yet still in the midst of this knowledge, the nation itself cast off moral restraint, threw away the revealed knowledge of Almighty God, and began to honestly praise the gods of silver and gold and wood and stone and things that come from the minds of men.

And if that were not tragedy enough, it seemed that the church attached to the value system of this country followed through with her. And now we have theological perspectives that have weakened this nation tremendously about coming to Christ is all about wealth.

It's all about health. It's all about prosperity. It's all about success. The very, very same value system, the worshipping of gold and silver and stone and brick and things that come from the minds and the efforts of men.

And because of this loss of vision, this loss of the revelation of God, the nation headed out onto a course of its own choosing its own direction, even though the word of God clearly warned us and societies before us that if you head in this direction, like the Titanic did in 1912, you're going to hit an iceberg.

And in spite of how much you sing and how much you try to prop yourself up, your nation is going to go down. We're in a place now where we have arrogantly set our course against the ways of God as a people, as a nation.

And now we're being driven by the wind. Now there's a lack of leadership. Now we're in a situation where there seems to be no directional and no moral compass anymore in the nation. We've done our best to hold this country together.

Casting Biblical Standards Overboard

And in desperation, we're beginning to cast overboard the tackling of the ship. Verses 17 to 19 says in the book of Acts, and when they had taken up, they used helps undergirding the ship. And fearing lest they should fall into quicksands, they straked sail and were so driven.

And being exceedingly tossed with the tempest, the next day they lightened the ship. And the third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship. The tackling of the ship represents those things that have been standards all throughout our history in helping us to get to this point on our journey.

Certain standards, that were bedrock in this nation, such as the sacred right of children to live who are yet unborn in the womb. That was a standard. That was a given. That was not negotiable. Now I'm not a doctor and I'm not suggesting there may not be circumstances that need to be considered.

But what I am telling you is that when we begin to murder our unborn children in the womb for convenience sake, we have cast out all standards of what is right. We've lost the sanctity of life and we've crossed a line, folks, that is terrifying in the least.

We've thrown out the sanctity of marriage as defined by God from the very beginning of time as we know it. Where God designed one man and one woman to be in a home to raise children. It's a very bedrock of stability of our society and we've thrown it overboard.

We've thrown away biblical morality and now everything goes. It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter if the Bible calls it evil. We're now calling it good. We've now succumbed to the Adamic nature.

When Adam bit into that theological fruit of Satan in the Garden of Eden, Satan's logic that he presented to Adam and Eve was that you don't have to be under the dominion of God. You can be as God and you can choose what is good and you can choose what is evil.

And that's what we've let govern us now as a people. We're throwing overboard biblical morality. Tragic. Very soon we might even have to deal with the throwing overboard of the right of free speech and self-government.

This may also come into the hands of those who would cast it aside for a new morality, a new generation, a new direction. You see, in a storm people are willing to consider and do things that they wouldn't do under normal circumstances.

Under normal circumstances they would never throw overboard the tackling. But because of the storm, because of the ferocity of the storm, when people have lost their spiritual moorings and they begin to be afraid, they'll throw almost anything overboard for what they believe is safety and security.

The Church as a Guiding Voice

This is why the role of the church is so pivotal at this juncture in history. Just like the apostle Paul did, we now have a window of opportunity coming our way to be a guiding voice in the storm. Now keep in mind that this window will only be open for a short season, but Paul was ready when the call came.

Paul had been in the belly of a ship. Paul had fought through his own struggles, his own belly of hell as it is. Paul knew he was being carried on this journey by the spiritual ignorance of those who would no longer listen to the Word of God.

Paul was suffering hardship. Paul was counted among those who had been taken prisoner. Paul's voice was discounted. Paul was marginalized. Paul was looked upon as some kind of a religious nut. I have no doubt about that in the beginning when he said, listen, you should not take this journey because it has always resulted in destruction throughout history.

He probably went to the captain and said, listen, you know the history of people who have sailed in this season. You know the currents. You know the winds. Why are you doing this? And the captain discounted him.

No, you're just some kind of a religious nut who just simply wants to have his way. So put him where the prisoners are in the belly of the ship. And Paul had been there, and Paul had struggled there, and Paul had suffered there.

Just like many who are here today, you're in your own personal crisis. You're in your own personal time of need and want and difficulty, and you need deliverance as much as anybody else does. But even in this place, Paul had been in prayer, and he had a certain word given him about the course of his own life, the future of the ship, and the safety of all those who would listen.

And when Paul's moment came and he was called to the deck of that ship, his life was a compelling testimony. Verse 35 and 36 says, when he had thus spoken, he took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all.

And when he had broken it, he began to eat. Then were all they of good cheer, and they took on some meat. So suddenly in the midst of all of this difficulty, a window opens. Now imagine if Paul hadn't been ready.

Imagine if Paul was down there grumbling with the rest of the prisoners, if his whole focus was on himself and his own security. If Paul had not been in prayer, if Paul had not gotten a word from God, when that window opened, he would have stood on the deck, perhaps called by the captain, I really don't know.

But he would have stood there and he would have had no more hope or encouragement than anybody else around. He would have had some ideas maybe, but he would not have had the mind nor the word of God. But he was a man who prayed, and he prayed through his own struggle.

And that's what you and I have to do now. We've got to pray through our own little personal or big personal battles. Those darkened places, those voices that say this is hopeless, your life is not going to amount to anything.

How do you think, Paul, that you're ever going to affect this journey and this generation? Do you think the 276 above you are going to listen to you? The devil would have been right over Paul's shoulder.

Get bitter, Paul, like everybody else. Get divide. Join those who are part of a bitter divide. Join those who are rebellious at heart. Join those who want vengeance on those that have caused this ignorance of this journey.

No, Paul shunned it all, and Paul went to prayer, and God gave him a word. It wasn't a pleasant word either, might I add. The word that God gave to Paul is, he said, don't be afraid. You must be brought before Caesar.

In other words, Paul, you're on a collision course, but not with a sand dune or a barrier reef or a 30-foot wave. You're on a collision course with Caesar. You're going to be brought before Caesar in chains, and you're going to be taken there as a testimony of the power of God.

You're going to stand before this man who thinks he is God, and you're going to tell him he's not God. There is a God in heaven, and there is a God in the earth. And God said, Paul, the Lord has given you all them that sail with you.

It's not just you, but because of you, many people are going to be saved. He was in prayer. He had a course. He had a word. In other words, Paul, you're going to finish your course, and your course is going to matter.

Surrendering Personal Plans to God's Will

And that's why you and I have to be in prayer now. We've got to get a word from God. We have to know, and God will speak if we will listen. If we'll put away our thoughts about what we think our future should be.

If we'll put away our own desires that we bring into the prayer closet and say, Lord, here's where I think my life should go. Would you be kind enough to bless it? Imagine if Paul had done that in the belly of the ship.

Lord, I would much rather be on a Caribbean cruise than be here right now. And of course, I am your servant, and the Bible does say you bless your servants. So Lord, I'm just going to say, bless me now and take me on a Caribbean cruise.

And I'd like a nice house in Athens. I hear it's nice this time of year there. So imagine if that was Paul's focus. No, Paul went to the Lord and God said, no, you're going to stay in chains. You're going to go through the storm.

You're going to be a night and a day in the deep. You're going to make it safe to land. You're going to stay a captive. You're going to appear before Caesar. And some wonderful things are still going to happen through your life.

And that was the word. And God said, and besides this, because you are a man of prayer, because you are a man of vision and faith, I'm going to bring through the 276 people that are with you on this journey.

When Paul stood on the deck of that ship, his life was a compelling testimony of the keeping power of God, the inner strength that was supernatural, vision and direction for the future and the joy, the absolute joy of being surrendered to Jesus Christ.

This life of this man, Paul moved that particular portion of the society around him to consider the ways and the word of God. We don't know what they did after they came to land, but we do know that no man can easily push this experience from his conscience from that day forward.

The Church as a Compelling Testimony

I happen to believe in my heart that we're going to have a short awakening in America. There's going to be a season where people come back to the house of God to consider their ways again. It will last probably about two years, but I don't know what will happen at the end of it.

I know people will be given an option to consider the ways of God. Some will and some won't. That's always the way it is. Of the 276 miraculously delivered, I'd like to think they all came to Jesus Christ, but I somehow rather doubt that.

The church is supposed to be a compelling testimony to this world. Jesus used a parable in Luke chapter 14. In that parable, he talks about a man who threw a great banquet, a feast and invited those who were supposed to attend.

They all, with one consent, refused. Most historians relate that to Israel. God had this incredible banquet for Israel and Israel refused to come into the invitation as it is that he had set for them in that season.

They will respond eventually. We know that from scripture, but at that season they refused to respond. Then the master said to the servant, go out into the highways and the lanes and he said, bring in the lame, the poor, the blind and the maimed.

Historians say that was the ministry of Jesus Christ when he came. The three years he walked in public ministry on the earth, he was focused on the lame and the poor and the maimed and the blinded and invited them into the house of God, which was actually quite radical because of course in the Old Testament, these would not have access to the holy place.

But through Jesus Christ, that was all changed and an entrance was made for all people to come into the presence of God. And then the servant went and he said, I've done these things and yet there's still room.

And then he said to his servant, the master said, now go out and compel them. Go to the highways and compel them to come in that my house may be filled. And most historians say that's the church age that we're now living in.

And so your life and mine is to be a compelling testimony to this generation. In other words, we're to present to them through the sovereign working and leading of God in our lives, irrefutable evidence of the reality of the living God now living within us, made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Pentecost, Prayer, and the Empowerment of the Spirit

This is exactly what happened in Acts chapter two. Ordinary people like you and I went into the presence of God and they prayed. It was an unpopular time. Jesus had just been crucified. This crowd was not in a Christian type religious mood.

They were in a religious mood, but it was to kill those who were followers of Christ. And the people in that upper room had to have known this. It was dangerous to call yourself a disciple of Christ at that time.

Peter knew it. That's why he denied ever knowing him. He feared for his life at that moment. But they went into that upper room and they went to prayer and God began to unfold them a plan for each of their lives, not their plan, but his plan.

And men and women came out of that upper room, just as Paul came out of the belly of that ship, completely gripped by God, knowing in some cases that it was going to cost them their lives. They had to have known because God would not hide it from those.

He would not send them on a journey thinking all is going to be well in one sense, if it was going to cost them at the end of the journey. And so I know that the Holy Spirit would have spoken to many in that upper room, but he would have also spoken to them about the giftings, the power, the joy, the ability to surrender to the will of God, the great glory that was going to come to his name, the numbers of people that would come into the kingdom of God if they would come out of that upper room embracing the plan of God, go headlong as it is into the midst of the social storm that's around them, and stand supernaturally empowered by the Holy Spirit of Almighty God, their very voices, the intonations of their voices, their lives, their hearts, their speech, their future, the obvious and evident empowerment of the Holy Spirit to go beyond the natural borders of the humanness and to stand in the midst of that society declaring there is a God.

He did come. He did die. He did rise from the dead. He does inhabit a people. He does carry us through the storms that we have to face. He does give us supernatural ability. He is preparing for us a place where we will dwell with him for all time and forever.

He does give supernatural giftings to those who belong to him and who are the called according to his purpose. And they stood there, and people looked. Now, this is a crowd that was anti-Christ. They're standing there.

They're looking. There's at least 3 ,000, probably more, and they're looking at these people who are willing to risk it all to come into the plain view, and they're standing there speaking with such authority about who God is and what God is willing to do and how God has carried them thus far and what God's going to do in the future.

And upon them, there's this initial visible evidence because they're speaking to people they shouldn't be able to speak to in manners they shouldn't be able to speak. They're gripped by the Spirit of Almighty God, and that society that perhaps days before had been crying out, crucify him, are looking at this.

And in the midst of their storm and their captivity and their confusion, the Roman Empire has captivated their society. In the midst of it all, they're looking at these men and women who are God-gripped, saying, what must we do to have that kind of a relationship with God?

But this kind of a response does not come to a casual Christianity. We have put coffee makers in the back of our churches. We've done surveys, built bowling alleys and swimming pools, have wine-tasting parties and dances, thinking that this is going to bring people into the kingdom of God when it is the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit alone.

Oh, the foolishness of this church age, the foolishness of this generation. Do we have the courage to look at ourselves in this time? Do we have the courage or will we resist the voice of God? Do we have the humility left to say, my ways may not be God's ways, my thoughts might not be God's thoughts, our plans might not be God's plans?

Do we have the courage like Daniel to open the window and face Jerusalem again and say, Lord, we have done disservice to your testimony in the earth. We've not brought about deliverance because we've dealt casually with the holy things of God.

We've played games with holy vessels. We've failed, Lord, to come into your presence and seek your will and to walk in the holiness that you require of your people. Oh no, it's my desire and it should be yours to present to this generation irrefutable evidence of the reality of Jesus Christ.

My constant prayer is Holy Spirit come upon me again. Expand the borders of my mind and my heart and my life and take me deeper, take me farther. God Almighty, do more than you've done in the past. Thank you for yesterday, but that's gone.

We're talking about today and tomorrow now. Lord, you've got to do more. There was an awakening that came through the life of Paul at this particular moment because he prayed. Jonah chapter 2 verse 2, the prophet Jonah says, out of the belly of hell I cried and you heard my voice.

He prayed and I want to remind you he found victory not from his situation. He found victory in his situation. His situation didn't change, but his heart did, his mind did, his perspective did. He found victory and when he stood on the deck of that ship, he still wasn't changed.

He was still a captive. He was still being led on the journey to stand before Caesar, but he stood in absolute victory. I've written a chapter about it in one of the books I wrote before that in that moment of time, he's no longer a captive.

He's now captain of the ship, only for a short season. We have a season ahead of us as a church age. It's only a short season, but we must get back to the prayer closet. We must pray again for the will of God.

We must get rid of the foolish handling of holy things. We must come in and pray. There has to be a burden saying, God, people are going to die in this generation. People are going to perish if we don't rise to this moment as a church age.

We're going to lose everything that we've ever valued and held dear on the outside, but that which is of God within us cannot be taken away. Paul heard the will of God for his life and he yielded and he believed it.

Courage to Believe God's Word in the Storm

He said, there stood by me this night, the angel of God, whose I am and whom I serve saying, fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar and Lord God has given thee all them that share with thee.

Wherefore, sirs, he said, be of good cheer for I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me. Do you know how strange that must have seemed to the 276 on that ship? Where there's a man who's saying, an angel stood with me and spoke to me and said, Paul, you're going to be taken as a captive before a man that they knew was a lunatic.

Caesar was a lunatic. Most of them believed they were gods by this point. And the soldiers would be looking and saying that this is a good report. What is it that makes this man so happy? What gives him this strength?

It was simply that he had heard a word from God, he yielded to it and he believed it. And he said, be of good cheer. It had to have done something to the hearts of those that were traveling on that vessel with him.

To say this man is in the same mess that we're in and he says he has a relationship with God and God is not delivering him from the mess, but in the midst of it is delivering him. I could see the captain at some moment saying, whatever this man says, listen to him.

Whatever he tells you to do, do that. Amazing. His focus was on glorifying Christ and saving the lost. It says, when he had thus spoken, verse 35, he took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all.

And when he had broken it, he began to eat. And then they were all of good cheer. And they also took some meat. Paul had a singular focus, that Christ be glorified through his life. Now this is a man that God's about to take into a prison cell and he's going to put a pen in his hand and not being able to do anything else, he's going to start writing letters to his friends.

How could he have known that those letters would be put into books and into every language on the face of the earth? And they would be sent and read for thousands of years. How could he have known? There had to be this inner joy that it doesn't make sense to the natural mind.

But God, if I choose to fulfill your calling for my life, some great good that I may not live to see on this earth is going to come from it. He yielded. He believed. His focus was on glorifying Christ and on the saving of the lost, no matter what it cost him personally.

And that's where it gets hard. We love to come to church to get something. We all do. We get peace. We get deliverance. We get freedom. We get joy. We get relief. But what happens the moment that the Lord says, I want you to embrace my burden for a lost society and I want you to yield your body as a living sacrifice to my plan, even though it may cost you personally.

This is a battle I've had to go through and it's a battle you'll have to go through because none of us want to be inconvenienced. We just want to go out on the road and we want to take a cup of holy water and just throw it on the crowd and suddenly they're all speaking in tongues and that's kind of the extent.

Then go back to church. None of us like the thought of following the journey of Paul, the hardship, the difficulty that may come when we fully choose to embrace Christ. But I want to suggest to you nothing else will make a difference in this generation.

We've had tapes, radio shows, programs, television, and our society is going to hell in a handbasket right now. What we have presented to this country has not worked. As a matter of fact, it's sent this whole generation in another direction.

A Whole-Church Call to Prayer and Unity

It's time to take everything and put it aside and go back to prayer. Go back to the will of God. Go back to the embracing of the will of God. We have a window of opportunity and it will require the whole church, the whole church of every denomination.

No matter what name is on the door, if the bloodline is in the center of it, it requires everyone who has trusted in Christ for their salvation to rise to this moment. I don't believe there's time for any superstar preachers anymore.

It's the whole church now. The whole church. It's finally dawned on us in America that we're on a tipping point as a society right now. I've been told that more than half of this society define themselves as liberal now, and that will soon be, some say, up to 70 when our next generation of young people have been told there is no God in our schools graduate.

We have only a short window. As a church age we have played games with the holy God. We've done foolishly. But the window to Jerusalem as in Daniel's day is still open. The window to God's power, the window to God's provision, the window to God's mercy is still open.

If God can find a people who are willing to get on their knees and turn and say, Lord, whatever it costs, I'm asking you, God, to use my life for your glory. Help me to be a help to others. Help me, God, to walk righteously because you don't answer the prayers of people who regard iniquity in their heart.

Help me to turn from sin and turn to doing what is right. Help me to get out of arguments and positions that are not godly. Help me to get away from these things and to agree with the word of God. Help me, Lord Jesus Christ, to stand in the marketplace not as a coward but as a believer, a man or woman of God filled with your Holy Spirit, standing up and making an open declaration of what is right and what is true.

Help me, God, to walk in the supernatural and not rest upon the natural all the time in my life. Help me to trust that if you open the door and I walk through, you'll walk through with me and you'll glorify your own name through my life.

God Almighty, help me to be a guiding voice in the storm. We have only a short season ahead of us. God is calling his church everywhere to rise to this moment, to this occasion. I have to trust for those who will hear this in the future on tape that you will acknowledge because the Holy Spirit will bear witness to your heart that these words are from the throne of God.

I haven't chosen to do this or to preach this today. This is something the Lord's put on my heart very deeply. We have only a short season. We have to go back to prayer and have to have that willingness to stand no matter who does or doesn't in this day.

Consecration, Mission, and the Hope Within

Here's where it starts. Get the victory now. Paul got the victory before the deck. He got it in the belly of the ship. Get the victory now. The victory that you need to turn from whatever sin is captivating you, get the victory now.

Get the victory over a divided heart. The part of you that says, I want to go all the way with God and the other part that says, I don't. Get that victory and have the courage to go all the way with God.

Be prepared to hear from God and when you do to yield to his plan and believe him for the resource to finish the journey. And ask him for a heart that focuses on glorifying Christ and saving the lost.

That is the work of God in the earth. Ask him for that heart. Say, Lord help me to live a life that brings glory to you and that I might live to see people come to Christ because of your working in my life.

Not because I threw a pamphlet in their face, as good as that may be, but there's something in me they see. They come and ask me for a reason for the hope that is in me. And see, that's what happened with Paul.