The Way to True Spiritual Awakening — Carter Conlon

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John Chapter 1, I'm going to speak about the way to true spiritual awakening. There is a way, folks. And if you'll open your heart to it tonight, I believe that in whatever area of your heart and mind you may not be awakened yet to the things of God.

If this applies to you, God will do everything he's promised he's going to do this evening. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Oh, Holy Spirit, I ask you to quicken me.

I ask you to quicken my mind. God, I have a sense of what you want to do in my heart, but you've got to take me deeper in you than I've ever known. You've got to give me abilities that I don't have. Lord, I hear you calling, and I ask you for the grace to run after you.

Lord, I pray, God, tonight I may stand in this pulpit and speak as an oracle of God. Lord, only your word has the power to create and recreate. Everything else is just flattery and human effort. It has no power.

God, help me to speak your mind. Holy Spirit, walk closely with me. Overshadow my frailty. Overshadow my weakness. God, be my strength. Lord, I desire with all my heart to see your church quickened. I desire, Lord, to see a multitude of people come to the saving knowledge of Christ.

God Almighty, push back the power of darkness. Let the glorious freedom of Jesus Christ be shouted in the streets of this city. God, do something so beyond us, so beyond our ability to do. Lord, do something that would cause all of the world to take notice.

Lord, that you are here, you are alive. I thank you for it with all my heart. I believe, Lord, you're the God of the miraculous. I believe it, Lord. In Jesus' name. John chapter 1, the way to true spiritual awakening, verse 1.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men. Now, it's interesting. This is John's report of Jesus Christ. John, who walked with Jesus, who knew Jesus, he was close to him. He described himself as the disciple that Jesus loved.

His heart was open to the love of God, and that openness that he had to the love that God had for him opened his spirit and his mind to something about God that very few in any generation really begin to understand.

He saw that in Jesus Christ was the totality of God. And it's interesting that in the beginning of his report he says,. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word in the Greek New Testament is logos, and it means simply intelligent speech.

In the beginning was intelligent speech. Don't you wish it had stayed that way? I think of the airwaves today, and the talk radio, and all the rest of it, and all of the piles of unintelligent speech that is going on in the airwaves, even this very moment throughout our world.

Not only intelligent speech, not only possessing all knowledge, but in verse 3 it says,. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. He had not only intelligent speech, but God had the power to create anything.

Creation, Faith, and the Unresisting Word of God

Hebrews 11 .3 says,. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Really, what is spiritual awakening?

Spiritual awakening is when God speaks, and he has free course, and there is no resistance to his voice. It's an amazing thing. In the beginning, if we go to Genesis, we're not going to turn there now, but we see that there was nothing.

It was just an empty void. And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters, and God began to speak, and that which existed at that time didn't resist him. And as he began to speak, light was created, and light was divided from darkness, and dry land was divided from the waters, and living things were commanded to come to life, and they began to live, fowls and birds and creatures, and then ultimately God spoke right into the dust and breathed with his own breath into dust of the earth, and created a man in his own image.

There was nothing that could resist the voice of God. Nothing was resisting the voice of God. There was an awakening that happened in a time that we don't fully understand other than it was dark. There was darkness on the face of everything until God began to speak.

And out of nothing, the writer of Hebrews says, things began to be formed. There was no resistance. Would you be surprised to know today that's the way that God still works? When his word is spoken, when he finds a heart that is open to him and is without doubt and unbelief and resistance, chooses to believe God rather than the circumstance, chooses to believe what God's book says rather than what they see in the mirror or what their ancestors have reported of them or what people have told them, when God finds a heart that does not resist his spoken word, the miraculous begins to happen.

Things begin to be created. Life comes where there was only death. In the Garden of Eden we find the introduction of unintelligent speech. Now, unintelligent speech came from Satan himself. And it's the speech of a creation that ultimately was transferred to men who were created in the image of God.

It's the speech of a creature that was created by God who exalted himself above the knowledge of God, in a sense began to resist what God had spoken. Has God said? Does God really mean this? Is God really the last authority?

Is there not another way? Is there not a better way? Can we not be as God is through some alternative route that we might take? I'm paraphrasing obviously, but this was really the intent of Satan. He showed it in the heart of Adam and subsequently unintelligent speech became part of humankind.

And today there's no limit to unintelligent speech that's going on in our society. The Bible says the last days are going to be characterized by fleshly wise, but spiritually unintelligent speech. The scriptures bear witness to it very, very clearly.

False Teachers, Religious Self, and the Lordship of Christ

In 2 Peter 2, I'll just paraphrase it for you if you don't mind it, verses 1 to 3, here's what it says. There were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

There are going to be teachers. There have been throughout history. There are in our generation who cast off the absolute right of Christ to complete ownership of those who are rightfully His. In other words, they will deny the Lord that bought them.

Oh, they might profess His name, but they will deny His Lordship. They will deny the fact that Jesus Christ has the sole authority to speak into my life and into your life. He has the right to govern us.

He has the right to guide us. He has the right to lead us. If we are truly His, we have truly given ourselves to Him. We don't resist what He speaks into our hearts, but we embrace it as the highest way of life.

We embrace it as that voice that brings us into places where within us will be created things of God that make us far more than we could ever be of ourselves, that begin to create within us the life that only God can give to us.

But there will be teachers in the last days who will deny this right of Christ to ownership of those who come to Him. Verse 2, he says,. And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

Now, it doesn't mean they will be speaking evil overtly of Jesus Christ. It really means that they will emphasize another way, as Satan did, above the ways of God. Another way to be godly. Another way to achieve what only God can bring into a person's life.

Another way to find happiness. Another way to be healthy. Another way to be holy. Another way to be accepted among the beloved in heaven, other than the way prescribed through the word of God and by the mouth of Jesus Christ Himself.

Verse 3 says,. And through covetousness shall they with feigned, or that means imagined words, make merchandise of you, whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

In the last days, people will be captivated by empty words of those who want their money and their admiration. The Bible clearly says that under their influence, people will become servants of their own inner corruption, according to 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 19.

And they will take on a form of lifeless outer religiousness that has no true interchanging power, according to 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 5. A religion of self will be the religion of the last day, in the name of Christ.

It will not be the voice of God. It will be unintelligent speech. Paul says,. They'll be turned from truth and be turned to fables, stories, words, as it is, of no profit. They have no power. And all these words can do is cause the outer man to try to form himself into something that looks like God.

But there'll be no power. Because where God is, there is a creative and a recreative power going on in that life. That's why the apostle Paul says,. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. There's a new life that has come within his life.

The old things in him are dying off. They're passing away virtually by the hour and by the minute and by the day. And a new life is beginning to be formed within him. Darkness is passing away and light is coming.

There's a division between things that used to be gray and foggy. Now he clearly understands what is God and what is not God. He begins to know the voice of God. Jesus himself said, My sheep know my voice.

And they will follow me. And no man will be able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. Now, John chapter 1 again in verse 4 says,. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The word life is zoe, which means the highest and best which Christ is.

Christ’s Authority to Bring Life, Deliverance, and Freedom

In him is everything that you will ever aspire to. Everything that your heart has ever secretly longed for. Everything that brings you to this house tonight. Is not found in religion. It's not found in self-effort.

It's not found in trying to prop yourself up to be a better person. Everything you've ever longed for is found in Jesus Christ. He is the one who is in the beginning with God. He was with God. And nothing that was made was made without him.

He was involved in the creation, the scripture says, of all things. John, the beloved apostle, saw that the words of Jesus Christ had the power to stop certain action. In Mark chapter 4, the disciples were in a boat.

They got into a terrible storm. Jesus was asleep in the boat. They cried out to him and said, Master, don't you care that we're perishing? The scripture tells us that he rose up. He stood in the face of that storm.

He said three words according to the scripture. Peace. Be still. Amazing. The wind stopped. The waves got calm. And the scripture says the disciples greatly feared. And they said, what manner of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?

What kind of a man is this who has authority over the elements? You see, nature, ironically, it's only man that is created with the will to resist God. Nature can't resist God when he speaks. The wind had to be quiet.

The waves had to be still at the voice of God. He had the power to stop certain action. And he had the power to start other things into motion. Think for a moment as John stood on the hillside and witnessed or was told of John 11, 43, when Jesus arrives at the tomb of Lazarus.

And he stands on the mountainside in spite of all the human condition of unbelief that's going on around him. The only one that couldn't resist his voice was a dead man. Isn't that ironic? Everyone else is doubting and full of unbelief.

And there's a dead man, and he's the only one that can hear him at that moment. And Jesus stands on the mountainside, as it is, and cries out, Lazarus, come forth. And John saw this, and John knew this.

So this man who was in the beginning, this man who is the one of intelligent speech, could stop the wind, could stop the waves, and could start something back to life again that was dead. He is a God of the impossible.

John knew it. John saw it. That's why when Jesus stood in Luke chapter 4 and verse 18 in the temple, and this was the beginning where he begins to identify what the Father had sent him to do. He took the book of the prophet Isaiah in chapter 17.

He opened the book. He found the place where it was written. Isn't it amazing? He could have spoken. It's not like he needed to read it out of a book. He had written it himself. But nevertheless, for the sake of those in the temple, he found the place.

And he began to read, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Why? Because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. In other words, I've come to stop certain things which have been set into motion in your life.

Now, there are people here tonight that by the fact that you were born into sin, by the fact that you were born into a certain family, that you have had certain experiences in life, that you have certain perhaps limitations because of various things that have gone on in your life, you are in effect bound by certain conditions.

But Jesus says, no, I've come to nullify these things. And I've come to stop certain things which have been set in motion. In other words, for those who are spiritually poor, I've come to open to you.

I've come to eradicate this spiritual poverty in your life. I've come to take away the poverty out of your thinking. I've come to take you out of a place where you've come to believe that nothing will ever change.

Nothing will ever be any different. You best just sit back and hope for the best and hope to get through it somewhat intact near the end. He said, I've come to put an end to this kind of thinking. I've come to open the treasure of God's life to the spiritually poor.

I've come to heal the brokenhearted. Those who have had some kind of an experience come into your life that has damaged you, that has made you believe that you're going to always be under the influence of this thing, He said, I've come to stop this thing in your life.

I've come to stand up and speak to it and say, peace, be still. And stop the roaring of this thing in your life. And stop these waves of sorrow that are rolling over and over and over in your mind. I've come to put an end to it if you'll just listen to my voice.

I've come to preach deliverance to the captives. Every sexually addicted person. Every drug addict. Every alcoholic. Every immoral person. Everyone captivated by something of the flesh and of the mind.

He said, I've come to preach deliverance. I've come to put a stop to these things that have dominated your life. I've come to give sight to those that are spiritually blind. You couldn't see your way out.

Just like creation before my voice began to speak into this abyss of darkness. There was no life. There was no hope. There was darkness upon the face of the deep. I've come to open your eyes to the reality that God has come.

That His mercy is now yours. That the freedom of Christ can now be attained by faith. That you can be saved from your sin. The chains of hell can be broken from off of your life. You can be a new creation in Christ Jesus.

I've come to set at liberty those that have been bruised. Those who feel that your heart is so deep. It's so dark. It's so far that you'll never climb out of the pit that you find yourself in. He said, I've come to show you a way out.

I've come to stop these things that have governed your life. And to tell you that this is the hour of your freedom and your deliverance. 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 1. Again. Or 2 Peter chapter 1, rather.

Verse 3. Not only to stop certain things, but to start other things. I thank God for that. Not only to stop the wind in the waves, but to bring Lazarus back to life again. 2 Peter chapter 1, verses 3 and 4.

It says, according as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. Through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue. Now, the word glory means to be brought to reputation.

Where the testimony of Christ in you is seen by men. Now, by his power, the scripture says he's given to us all things that we need for life and godliness. Through the knowledge of him, that is Christ, that has called us to glory.

That means to be brought to reputation. God said, I've not called you just to survive. I've called you to be a wonder in your generation. I've called you to have so much of my life. I've called you to change so drastically.

I've called you to be so much other than what you were without me. That men will look at you. And they will have to acknowledge that I am alive. They will know it's not you that's brought about this change.

The change in you has come about by the spirit of almighty God. And he says, I've called you to virtue. And the word virtue means the excellency of God revealed in the work of salvation. It means the force or energy of the Holy Spirit.

Which accompanies the preaching, as it says in the Zodiates, of the glorious gospel. God said, I've called you to moral excellence. I've called you to right standing. I've called you back into divine order.

I've called you to be awakened to the fact that I'm able to call you out of darkness. And into the marvelous light of who I am. I've invited you into my life. I've called you back into divine order. You're not to be confused anymore.

You're not to walk around like the rest of society. Dependent on circumstance. No, you're to be much deeper than that. You know who you are. You know where you come from. You know who bought you with his blood.

You know who God's life is within you. And you know where you're going into eternity. And as well as time. In Ephesians 1, verse 13. The scripture tells us that after you trusted, Paul says, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.

The Holy Spirit came. And the seal of the Holy Spirit, according to the definitions I was reading, is a legal term denoting a summons or a promise. Undertaking to do something. God said, I made promises to you.

That's what Peter says. Whereby I've given to us exceeding great and precious promises. That by these you might be partakers of the divine nature. Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

God says, I've given you promises. I spoke to you. I've got a book for you. Folks, you've got to know this book in this last hour of time. This is not something you open and read just to pass the time or to fulfill some legal obligation.

For 15 minutes in the morning. This is your life. This is the Word of God to you. The words on this book are not just a historical account of God. This is the voice of God speaking to you. Every word in this book by the power of the Holy Spirit is yours.

You have, with the power of Christ within you, the ability to receive these promises and to be changed, the Bible says, into this very divine nature of God that is within you. There's a life that is given you in Christ through the promises that you find in this book.

The Holy Spirit Opens the Word and Reveals Christ’s Victory

And the Holy Spirit is the evidence of God that every promise that's been given to you in this book is going to be made into a reality in your life. Look at John chapter 16, please, with me, if you will.

John chapter 16, verse 13. Here's what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit. I'll be up when he the spirit of truth has come. He will guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak.

And he will show you things to come. Oh, thanks be to God. Folks, I got into this book as a young Christian and bound as most are bound before they come to Christ. And just after so far back, even in understanding.

But I began to read this book and God's Holy Spirit began to show me things to come. I'm not talking about future events for cities and countries and such like, but things to come in me. You see, every promise is a thing to come.

God says, I know it's not in you, but I speak about things that are not as if they are. I can create something out of nothing. But these things are for you. And I began to read it. And, you know, my story, one of the first things to come is God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a power and of love and of a sound mind.

I didn't I had a spirit of fear. I had very little power and my mind wasn't all that sound regarding these things. Now, I have a choice. I can either stay in that condition or I can stop resisting what God has spoken to me.

And I made a choice to believe what God had spoken and started to move in the direction of his voice, just like Lazarus did when he came out of the tomb. A little step at a time. Lazarus didn't come out bounding because he was all wrapped up in that thing that had gripped his body.

But still, he walked out towards the voice that was speaking to him. And I began to walk towards that voice and I began to understand that it's the Holy Spirit's job to open this book. As I read it with an open heart and unresist understanding that this is intelligent speech.

What God speaks has the power to create and recreate life in me and to begin to walk towards it. And the Holy Spirit will show you things to come. In verse 14, he said, he shall glorify me for he shall receive of mine and shall show it to you.

The Holy Spirit will understand everything. I won on Calvary. I've won the resources of heaven. It not only belongs to me, Jesus said, but it belongs to my body, my bride, my church. And the Holy Spirit will come.

He will reside within you. I'll be seated at the right hand. Now, we understand that God is not divided. He's three persons in one God. But for the sake of understanding, Christ sits at the right hand of the Father.

The Holy Spirit comes, indwells the heart of the believer. And everything that Jesus won on that cross, everything that is his where he sits at the right hand of all authority and all power. Having brought back into right order things that were lost because of sin.

Now, the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer makes all of this victory known. And says, it's all yours. Everything in this book is yours. Read it. It's yours. It's yours. It's not for somebody else.

Don't resist what God has spoken. Open this Word. See the promises of God and claim them for your very own. Folks, don't live in spiritual poverty any longer. When you have the riches of Christ's victory living inside of you.

The Scripture says elsewhere, you have the Holy Spirit. And he will teach you all things. He will show you. You don't have to run to somebody for a word. God has given you all of these pages of his Word.

You just get in it. And say, Holy Spirit, make it real to me. Show me, oh God. Awaken me, awaken me, awaken me. Don't let me live in darkness any longer. Don't let me live in poverty. Don't let me live behind prison doors.

God, don't let me live in a place of wounding. Don't let me join groups where we just rehearse our wounds of the past. I want to move beyond it. You're not called to lay in the corner and lick your wounds until Christ returns.

You are called to be a victorious testimony of Calvary. Every once in a while throughout history, God finds a heart that doesn't resist him. God finds somebody that's just foolish enough to believe him.

Say, Lord, I'm just putting away my thoughts about myself. I'm putting away what everyone else has said about me. I'm putting away what the devil is trying to speak into my heart. And just like the universe did when you began to speak, I choose to believe you.

I choose to get out of the way, and I'm not going to resist you. If you say this is what I am, then this is what I am. If you say this is what I can do, this is what I can do. If you say this is where I'm going, this is where I'm going.

The Word of God Empowers Impossible Journeys

It's by the word of the Lord that Moses was sent on an impossible journey, that by God's word was made possible. He calls us to an impossible journey. He's not looking to you for the resources to do what he's asked you to do.

He's only looking for an obedient heart. A man or woman who has the courage to say, God, I know I'm not a good speaker. I know I can't do this. But you made my mouth. Your Holy Spirit lives within me.

I have your word, O God. I have you walking with me. God, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's what your word says. That's what I choose to believe. By the word of the Lord, Gideon was brought out of weakness and made a warrior, hiding in his father's backyard as it is, trying to squeak out a little living, which may even have been illegal in that day.

But nevertheless, God's word came to him. And out of weakness he was made strong. But God has to find a heart that won't resist him. Oh, the strength that's in this room. If you could see it, if you could understand it.

The missionaries that are here. The great good that could be done. The volume of people who could come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. If somebody would just believe him. Somebody, somebody would have an open heart and say, God, I refuse to be bound by my image of myself.

You've spoken words into my life. I'm getting back into this book. I'm blowing the dust off my Bible at home. I'm opening the pages. And God, you're going to teach me again. Through the word of the Lord, David, the king was shown how to walk righteously in terribly adverse situations.

The word of God is so powerful that only a whisper of God's word brought Elijah out of thoughts of self-destruction and into a place of continued and fulfilling life. That's how powerful God's word is.

Only a whisper is necessary. Only a sweet promise in the morning as you open this book can change the course of your life. Josiah, the king, discovered the word of the Lord as he set out to repair the house of God.

And the word of God brought blessing and righteousness one more season to the people of God. Peter, the apostle, found the direction he needed to guide him from impulsive spirituality to the rest that truth brings.

The apostle Paul was made into completely another man. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. If I'm going to make a choice, if I had somebody I'd like to follow, it would be Paul. God, make me into another man. Make me into a completely different man.

Make me into a man who at the end of my life, no matter what kind of circumstance I'm in, I can still take a pen in my hand and still write, inspired by the Holy Ghost, words of encouragement and support to others who are coming after me.

By the word of God, the apostle John, at the end of his days when he was in prison, saw hope and where it was to be found in his present time of struggle. He said, I saw heaven open and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true, and in righteousness he does judge and make war.

His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns, and he had a name written that no man knew but himself, and he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God.

John saw where his hope was. His hope was in the Word of God. The Word of God who comes to deliver. The Word of God who is all-powerful. The Word of God who is the only intelligent speech and has the power to shape and reshape a man or woman's life into the very image of the Son of God.

Asking in Jesus’ Name for a Life That Serves Others

In John chapter 16, I want to close with this tonight. In verse 23, now the disciples had been in a time of confusion. Jesus was speaking about going to the Father. He had just finished telling them when the Comforter, the Holy Spirit comes, He's going to show you all things, and He will glorify me.

He will take of mine. He will show it to you. In verse 18, they said, we cannot tell what He says. We don't know. We can't fully understand this. You see, their minds were not yet open to that kind of speech that can bring about this newness of life that Jesus Christ was speaking about.

But then He told them they were going to have sorrow, but in the moment that sorrow was going to be over. In verse 22, He said, now therefore you shall have sorrow, but I will see you again. Your hearts shall rejoice, and your joy no man takes from you.

In that day, verse 23, you shall ask me nothing. In other words, in that day, there will be no more questions. You're going to know who I am. You're going to understand what I've done. And you're going to enter into a life.

Oh God, help us. God, help us. What has the church of this generation become? A self-seeking, gluttonous people who are so far from the heart of God. The heart of God is to reach fallen humanity. That is the work of God.

It's to deal bread to the hungry. It's to give clothing to the naked. It's to go to those that have no helper. It's to reach out with a tender compassion. But it takes a recreation, because man by nature is not giving like that.

It requires a new nature. It has to be a man or woman who is reborn by the Spirit of God. There has to be a new heart. There has to be a new mind. There has to be a new spirit. Otherwise, we will learn, but never realize where that learning is to take us to.

It's to the simplicity of ministering to those who are without God, and the joy of seeing one soul come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. This is the work of God. In my life, it's the work of God in your life.

He says, In that day, you won't have any more questions. You'll ask Me nothing. Verily, I say to you, whatsoever you shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it to you. Now, it's not to consume, James says, upon your lusts.