Having Mercy in the Coming Storm — Carter Conlon

I wanna just greet everybody this evening and Pastor Dan, thank you for the burden that you carry for a spiritual awakening in America. I know it's the burden of my heart, the burden that you and many others that are listening tonight, many that are in the ministry, many that are really just godly people who are really concerned about the day that we're now living in.

You are here on this conference, this solemn assembly, willing to pray, to hear the word of God, to seek God, to seek the face of God, for the sake of a nation that's so deeply backslidden that only the mercy of God can touch it now.

Paul's Storm as a Pattern for a Nation in Crisis

And I wanna speak about that with you tonight a little bit. I'm gonna go to the book of Acts chapter 27. If you have your Bible with you, I'd love you to follow along with me because several years ago, the Lord spoke to me about this journey that Paul was about to undertake that was gonna end up in a storm and a shipwreck and some other things were going to happen.

And God began to speak to me that it was a pattern of what America was going to experience in the future. Now, keep in mind, this is about seven to 10 years now that the Lord's put this on my heart. And I've been so convinced that this is the direction that America was going to go in that I had an artist actually paint a picture for me of the apostle Paul on the deck of a sinking ship, breaking bread and giving thanks to God for the great privilege of serving Christ and for the great mercy that he was about to experience, not just for his own life, but for the 276 people that were traveling with him on that ship.

We'll get into that in just a moment. Now, before we do, I would just love to pray, take a moment just to pray that the anointing of the Holy Spirit would transcend the weakness of my physical body and the limitations of my natural mind and begin to speak to every heart.

And especially those of us who are of influence in the culture, those of us whom God has given a voice, whether it's in your own home, it's in your community, it's in your neighborhood, that could be in you're leading a church, you're leading a group of people.

It's so important now that the voice that animates us comes from the very heart of God. And that's what I'm gonna talk about when we get to the end of where we're leading. And then we're gonna spend a time in prayer together.

Now, I'm not coming to you from New York City, I'm in our North Jersey campus because Times Square Church, the larger facility is actually shut down. It's too dangerous for our staff to try to get in to the church on public transportation.

So we've been broadcasting here from our campus church in North Jersey. And so here's where I am tonight. So God bless you. Let's take a moment to pray before we begin. So Father, I thank you Lord, that your word tells us that the entrance of your words gives light.

It shows us a path. Lord God, I know that my words have no power, but yours can create a universe. So I'm asking Lord Jesus Christ for the grace tonight to be hidden behind your cross. I'm asking for the frailty of my thoughts to be put away.

And Lord, that you by your Holy Spirit would begin to speak to our hearts as we just look at the pattern of what happened in the life of the Apostle Paul and how his life affected the small group and the small society around him and his generation.

So Lord, thank you God for giving us the grace and the ability to take a look at your word tonight and to learn from it. Give me the power, my God, to speak for you. Help me Lord Jesus Christ, God Almighty, so that our hearts might be gladdened, that we might be all strengthened by your spirit and by the might that you are willing to give us.

Give us your heart, Lord God, for this generation. Our hearts will fail us. Our patience is limited. Our love does not have an inexhaustible supply, but yours does. So help us tonight to recognize not just our frailty, but your greatness and your willingness to show mercy when perhaps we wouldn't.

So thank you for this, Lord, with all my heart tonight, minister, speak to every heart in Jesus' name, amen. So I wanna use Acts chapter 27 as a pattern. As I said earlier, of what I feel the Lord's been speaking to me, and I have actually been preaching a lot of this at Times Square Church for several years now, from this passage of scripture.

So I'm quite familiar with it, familiar with what God has been speaking to my heart. And it has materialized actually exactly the way he has spoken to me. And I do believe that when we get to the final part of this, it will also materialize the way that God has spoken to my heart as well.

So we're looking at Acts 27. It's a historical narrative, but it's a pattern in the sense of where we're going today and what our present situation and future situation will be. Acts 27, beginning at verse nine, says, "'Now when much time had been spent and sailing "'was now dangerous because the fast was already over, "'Paul advised them, saying, "'Men, I perceive that this voyage will end with disaster.'".

And much loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives. And I just think about our nation of America, how when we began to take this distant voyage from God, from the heart of God, when we began to call evil good, and we began to call good evil, the warnings of God were there.

Voices like Billy Graham, for example, David Wilkerson and others, many others were raised up to warn the nation, as Paul once warned this group of people don't undertake this journey, because if you do, it will bring us to a place of incredible loss and not just our substance, the cargo in a sense, that which we consider to be valuable, that's which we're carrying with us on this journey, that which is going to give us a prosperous future.

This is of course why they're taking the journey in the first place. It's all about commerce. It's all about prosperity. It's all about a glorious future as they saw it apart from the presence and the kingdom and the warnings of God.

And Paul said, not just that, but our lives are going to be in jeopardy. And so we now live in a generation where I think the reality of this is coming home very clearly to every heart. Many people's lives are now in jeopardy.

It is causing a turning, thank God. We ourselves have had over 300 people turn to Christ and decide to give their lives to him and accept his offer of salvation just in the last three weeks alone of just being on the internet and just broadcasting.

So we thank God for that. So the word of God was there. It's not like America embarked on a journey without any caution. The word of God was there, but there was this pushing away of the word of God. And you know that, and I know that.

This is why our society is in the mess that it's in today. We were blessed of God. We were founded by God. We were given a promise of God in 1620 that men, women, and children could worship Christ freely and according to conscience.

And from that place of weakness in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where the pilgrims prayed, when they had no resource, they had no strength, they had no army, they had no plan, they were surrounded by enemies.

Half of them died the first year, and the 53 or so that were left of them, all they had was a promise in the presence of God. But you see, that's all they needed. And the Lord blessed and gave them a nation which they never could have even perceived in their minds that he would ever give them.

And that nation, of course, we and others before us inherited. A nation that was greatly blessed by God, given giftings in intelligence of God that everyone with any kind of sound thinking has to recognize that only God could have done this.

Technology, abilities. In just a few hundred years, God gave all of this to America, but as Israel once did throughout their history, actually several times, when the blessing came, we forgot who gave us the blessing.

And we began to walk away from him and walk in our own sense of reasoning and our own sense of righteousness. And we actually did everything the Bible warns us not to do. And we pushed away the consequences that are in the word of God.

It's clear in the word of God. If you turn, if we turn as a nation, as a people from God, this is exactly what is going to happen. And Paul, of course, in his day, there was gonna be disaster. There was gonna be loss.

There was going to be the cargo that they trusted in was gonna be washed into the sea. And there was a grave danger that there would be an unprecedented loss of life. Nevertheless, it says in verse 11 of Acts 27, the centurion was more persuaded by the helmsman and the owner of the ship than the things spoken by Paul.

And because the harbor was not suitable to winter and the majority advised to set sail from there also. And so that's exactly what they did. To achieve their objectives, they denied and pushed away the word of God.

They were clearly warned and they said, no, we don't believe. We don't believe that this warning of God is going to have any consequence for us. We believe we can chart our own course. We can make our own journey.

We can sail our own way and there won't be a consequence to it. This abject ignorance has repeated itself all throughout history. Places that have known God. I mean, it's just incredible when you realize that we are on the same trajectory that so many before us have already taken.

In verse 13 says, when the wind blew softly, supposing that obtained their desire, putting out to sea, they sailed close by Crete. So in the beginnings of this departure, it looked like, wow, everything is just gonna go well.

There's a soft wind blowing. In other words, everything seems to be going smooth because the judgments of God don't come immediately. People's hearts become hardened and they start to think, well, it must be well with us.

It must be well as a nation. We're gonna achieve our objective. And there's a lot of voices saying, you can hear the voices on this ship saying, it's going to be well. It's going to be well. We're not going to suffer.

Don't listen to this man, Paul, who says he speaks for God. Don't listen. Let's take this journey. There are things to be sold. There's places we wanna go. There's things that we believe that we want to do.

And so when the wind blew softly, when there was not this violent opposition against their direction, away they went. And in America, not only did the wind blow softly, but we crafted a doctrine to actually enhance this journey away from God.

It's just amazing. This soft preaching without any demand for righteousness, without any demand for holy living. It offered a cross without the blessing, the forgiveness, without the cost, without the pathway of the cross.

And so there's this soft doctrine came along that actually cradled this journey where the society itself was walking away from God at quite a rapid pace, might I suggest too as well. You know, there's in the American constitution, we have these inalienable rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And what happened is the constitution of the society got into the church and the theological perspective of much, not all, not all, thank God, but much of the Christian church became about my life, my liberty and the pursuit of my happiness.

Let everyone else perish in their sin. The thought of sacrifice or suffering or giving or being yielded or living for the sake of other people just left. It was like it was blown out the door of much of God's house by the soft wind that came in that aided America on this journey away from God.

I mean, it's not even debatable. If the church had been what we should be, this would not have happened. Our nation would not be in the condition it's in. If preachers were preaching the word of God, multitudes, multitudes would have come to Christ by now and would be living righteous lives.

And they would be in a position to influence the culture instead of the culture influencing and diminishing the power of the church of Jesus Christ. But I wanted you to show you in verse 14, it talks about not long after a tempestuous headwind arose called Ural-Clyden.

And when the ship was caught and could not head into the wind, we let her drive. It's the mercy of God that sends the storm. You and I need to understand this. When the people of Israel were turning away from God and starting to worship the God of their cupboards and their fields and their provision called Baal, God sent a famine.

He stopped the rain for three and a half years. If he had not done that, the people would not have responded and come to the top of Mount Carmel, where Elijah was to confront the prophets of Baal over the reality of who is God.

And all through history, all through scriptural history, we see that God will send a famine. God will send the trial to cause his people to consider their ways one more time. And yes, it is the precursor to judgment.

I don't deny that. But the Bible also tells me that mercy triumphs over judgment. With the beginnings of the judgment of God comes this cry of mercy, this call of wisdom in the street. As the book of Proverbs says, wisdom cries without.

How long, you scorners, will you delight in your scorning? And how long will you live in your simplicity? And when will you hear and respond to the voice of God? He says in the book of Proverbs, turn at my reproof, I will make known my words to you and I will pour out my spirit upon you.

These words have been cried out in the book of Proverbs at a time when society apparently is unwilling to listen anymore. Verse 16, it says, running under the shelter of an island called Clauda, we secured the skiff with difficulty.

And when they had taken it on board, they used cables to undergird the ship and fearing that they should run aground on the Sardis sands, they struck sail and were so driven. Aren't we living in a moment like that in our country right now?

We're living in a moment of fear. We're living in a moment when we're driven by winds, when we're putting these ropes called bailouts or whatever you wanna call them around the ship and we're tying them, we're trying to hold it together because of the ferocity of the storm that we're now in.

National Decline, Abortion, and the Storm of Judgment

And verse 18 says, because they were exceedingly tempest-tossed, the next day they lightened the ship. And on the third day, we threw the ship's tackle overboard with our own hands. And here we are right now, we are throwing overboard those proven things, the tackle as it is, those things that have enabled us for hundreds of years to get to the destination perhaps of righteous living and living in God, those things that have became foundational to the very cornerstone of this country called America, things like the right of religious association, the right to worship God according to conscience.

We're now seeing in this present day, these things being literally thrown overboard, all under the guise of trying to preserve ourselves and preserve our society. I don't know how many people really can see what is going on.

God has brought us into this place. We're at a crisis moment now in the nation. In my lifetime, I never thought I'd live to see a day like this. God spoke it to my heart, but I didn't know for sure that I'd ever live to see a day when we are throwing overboard the very rights and privileges, the foundation, the things that were actually given of God to this country through those who prayed 400 years ago for the inception and founding of this nation.

In our arrogance, we thought we could undertake a journey and defy the warnings of God. In 1973, we legalized killing children in the womb for convenience sake. Just we wanted to sin as a nation, but we didn't want to bear the consequences of our sin.

So abortion became something that was largely, I know not in every case, but largely just a matter of convenience. I wanna sin, but I don't want to bear any responsibility for any consequence in my sin.

Now we're having the discussion about murdering children outside the womb after they're born. Unthinkable, unconscionable in America's history that we would even think of doing these things. We began to allow those that are godless to educate our children in this country.

And now we have people who hate God. Now we have people who are immoral, highly immoral, leaving our children even in nursery school and daycare and kindergarten and such like things. We have this deliberate gender confusing of our children actually in the curriculum and going on in our grade schools today.

In our high schools, we are mocking young people who try to pray and telling them there is no God. And in our colleges, we're radicalizing our young people against both their God and their country. This is probably the most critical moment in the history of this country.

This is the moment where the tackling is being thrown overboard. We're being driven by winds and we're lightening the ship. And America is about to fall apart. I have no doubt about it in my heart. This country as we've known it is about to disintegrate into something that is so foreign to our understanding that it would be terrifying I think if we could fully see it or understand it.

Verse 20 of Acts 27, Paul says these words. Now when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and no small tempest beat on us, all hope that we would be saved was finally given up. This is where we're going in the not too distant future.

I personally believe that we're going to see a great distress come upon this world's economy. It's going to touch us, it's going to touch other countries in the world. People's hearts are going to begin to fail them for fear for the things that are coming on this earth.

We're doing everything we can to keep it together. But in the not too distant future, there are going to be events arise in this nation and throughout the world that are going to finally convince us that it's hopeless trying to save ourselves.

Prayer, Repentance, and the Church's Calling

Verse 21 is where it begins to turn. And this is really what I wanna talk about. I want to lay a foundation as many of you have, I'm sure online. I wanna talk about where we are, but now I wanna talk about where we're going.

And what is the role of the church of Jesus Christ? You see, as this society of Paul's time, I wanna speak about the 276 on this ship as a society. As they were undertaking this journey of their spiritual ignorance, this ignorance and arrogance against Almighty God, this defying of the Word of God, trying to save themselves at any cost, they were taking with them this man of God called Paul, who's most likely as a prisoner in the belly of the ship.

And that's the way some of us feel in America today, that this whole society is heading into destruction. And we, as the church of Jesus Christ, seem to be powerless to stem the tide. We are going with it as it is.

Many feel captivated by the moment. What kind of a difference can I make? What can my life do? How can I change this situation? Now, Paul is a prisoner. He has no authority. He's been disregarded as the church has largely in our generation.

His word's not been listened to. He's down in the belly of the ship. But the Bible tells us that Paul was in prayer. And this is where you and I need to go now. And Paul was seeking God for his own life.

He was seeking God for his own future, even though it looked bleak, even though it must have seemed to him like this ship is gonna go down, I'm gonna go down with it. These people have undertaken this ignorant journey.

They're not listening to the Word of God. Now, I'm relegated to a prisoner and I'm being treated like a slave. And you can just imagine, this ship is in a storm. You can imagine what was sloshing around in the belly of that ship.

You can just imagine the smell. You can just imagine the horror of that moment, of thinking he's gonna go down. And it would be so easy to get bitter. It would be so easy to despise this society. It would be so easy to wish for vengeance and judgment on the soldiers and the shipmen above who disregarded the Word of God and were so mistreating this wonderful servant of God.

But instead of this, Paul the apostle was in prayer. And this is exactly where you and I need to go in our generation. He was down in the belly of that ship and he was interceding for the glory of God, for the purpose of God in his own life.

And I have no doubt he's asking for mercy on the 276 people that are traveling on this journey with him. Now, many of them were enemies of God. Many of them were enemies of Paul in their own minds. They had harmed him, they discounted him.

They threw him down into the belly of the ship and heaven knows how they treated him down there. But he was in prayer. And this is where you and I need to be right now. We need to be in prayer. We need to be saying, as Paul did, God, what is my future?

What are you gonna do through my life? How are you going to use me for your glory? And as Paul began to pray, God began to speak to him about not just his future. He had to go to Rome. He had to give testimony before the leadership there.

But God began to speak to Paul also about the 276 people on that ship, that God was going to show them a moment of mercy. And he was doing it because there was a man of God in prayer on the journey with them.

It's amazing. It's not that they deserved it. It's because God was willing to be merciful because there was a man of God in the belly of that ship who was in prayer. And the scripture says in verse 21, after long abstinence from food, then Paul stood in the midst of them.

I don't know how it happened. I have a feeling in my heart that suddenly the captain of the ship said, where is that man? Where's that man who said we shouldn't undertake this journey? Where's that man that told us that this journey was going to end in disaster and loss of the cargo and also our lives?

Where is that man who said he heard from God, I want to hear from him again. And I can see somebody going in my mind's eye, going into the belly of that ship. And if he had chains on, opening his chains and say, Paul, the captain of the ship has called for you.

And suddenly Paul is standing on the deck of a perishing ship. Suddenly everyone's ears are now listening. They're listening because there's no hope. They're listening because there was a word they knew came from God, but they didn't listen to it.

They're listening because there's something about this man who's been in prayer that tells them they should listen. And so this is a moment like I just pictured in my mind's eye where Paul is standing there and he starts to speak.

All ears are now open. There's a roaring going on of the waves. They're so big, they're going to smash that ship to pieces shortly. They're being driven, their sails are in tatters. Their food supply has been thrown to largely over the side.

Their tackling is gone. They absolutely know there's no hope for their future. And it's at this point, they call for the man of God. I believe that if you and I will be in prayer, this day is coming our way.

I believe there's a day coming when people are gonna flood the house of God. But my question to you is, are we going to speak for God when they finally do come? Those who have discounted his word, those who have been consumed with commerce, those who have called evil good and good evil, those who have been backslidden, those who would not stand up for truth when the situation presented itself.

Paul stood, verse 21. I want you to follow in your Bibles now with me on this. And he said, men, you should have listened to me and you should not have sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster and loss.

And now I urge you to take heart for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. So here's where Paul starts. You should have listened and you didn't. Now repent of your ways, repent of your arrogance, repent of trying to live your own way, live by your own thoughts and do your own thing.

And you'll notice he starts with repentance, but he doesn't stay there long. The people are already destroyed by the circumstance. He moves immediately into that place of faith and says, now you should have listened, you didn't.

Now I urge you to take heart. I urge you in a sense to have confidence in the words that I'm about to speak to you because I'm speaking about a mercy moment that God is willing to bring your way. There will be no loss of life among you, only the ship.

In other words, that vessel that has carried you, carried the cargo, that thing that's been, that you took on this journey is going to be destroyed. The place where you're standing is going to be completely different in the days ahead.

I believe we're gonna land on the shores of an America we've never known. I think there's gonna be a considerable difference in the days ahead from the America that's been America for 400 years. I want to encourage those who preach the gospel.

I want you to be careful that in this moment of mercy, that you don't strike the rock as Moses once did. You see, it cost him the promised land. The people were complaining in the book of Numbers 20, as they always did.

They couldn't seem to lay hold of faith. They couldn't walk with God no matter how much of the word or how many signs they saw. It's just the frailty of the human heart. They were prone to backsliding, prone to complaining.

And one day they complained and they said, we don't have any water. And in chapter 20 of Numbers, verse seven, it says, the Lord spoke to Moses and told him, take the rod, you and your brother Aaron, gather the congregations and speak to the rock before their eyes and it will yield its water.

Thus you shall bring water for them out of the rock and give drink to the congregation and to their animals. Now, Paul says in the New Testament, the rock that followed them was Christ. So it's a type, obviously.

It's Christ who's following. It's Christ who's giving the water. It's Christ who's showing mercy. Now, Christ was smitten once at the cross. He was smitten. And after that, we are to come to him in prayer.

We're to go to the throne of grace to find help in our time of need. We're to ask him for what we need. We're not to smite the rock again the second time. And be careful, be careful, my friend, be careful those pastors out there that you don't start speaking to those that Christ has washed in his blood as if somehow they need to come back and the rock has to be smitten again.

But somehow the sacrifice that was paid for their sin was not enough. Somehow there's more they have to do, more they have to perform. There's something other than the sacrifice of Christ that has to be given to them.

You see, Moses had an anger problem. It cost him going into the wilderness for 40 years when he was 40 years old. And now it was about to cost him again in his 80s. And you and I have to be careful because our anger at the failure of God's people can start to try to manifest itself as righteous anger when it's not.

It's just our anger. There's no other way to explain it. And it can cost us the fullness of what God could have done through our lives. It can cost us the fullness of what Christ could have been in us and through us.

We might be driving people to the cross and as Moses not even get there ourselves, not even be able to appreciate or experience the fullness of what God has for our lives and our ministries on this side of eternity.

God said, speak to the rock and it will give its water to the people, not just for them, but for their animals. In other words, I know what the people are, God says to Moses, but I'm willing to show mercy to them.

Just speak to the rock. So Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he had commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock and he said to them, hear now you rebels, must we bring water for you out of this rock?

And Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod and water came out abundantly and the congregation and their animals drank. Then the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron, because you did not believe me to hollow me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.

You didn't believe that I would be merciful. You didn't set me apart as a merciful God. You portrayed me as a God of anger before the people. You know, I was sitting with a minister one time several years ago and we were just sitting in launchers outside of his house and he was bitter at that time and he was telling me the church is this and the church is that and the church is this.

All the failures of the church, the church doesn't do this and the church doesn't do that. And I was sitting there listening to him for a little while and then I looked at him and I said, you know, I said, your wife, she doesn't keep her hair very well.

I've noticed that like she doesn't do a very good job with her hair and I said, her clothing. I said, surely after all these years she should be able to dress better than that. And I said, and their house.

I said, I mean, there's dust in every corner. I just never seen a house quite like this. And on top of that, her cooking. I mean, don't invite me for dinner. I don't really wanna eat here, her cooking is terrible.

And he suddenly looked at me with a flash of anger in his eyes. And I looked back at him and I said, if I spoke about your wife that way, even if it were true, how long would I be welcome in your presence?

And he looked at me and said, you wouldn't be welcome in my presence. And I said, so what makes you think you can beat on the bride of Christ at your discretion anytime you want and somehow still think you're going to be living in this proximity to God?

Be careful, be careful about how you speak about the bride of Christ. Remember, the church is the bride of Christ. Be careful that you don't beat on the bride of Christ. Lead the bride of Christ into the place where she needs to be.

But be careful that you don't try to mask your anger as the righteousness of God. It's a trap that ministers fall into. Moses fell into it and it cost him his place in the place of God's promise to him and to his people.

Mercy Instead of Condemnation

Now Paul says in verse 22, he said, verse 21, you should have listened. You should have not sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster in this loss. But now I urge you to take heart. There shall be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship.

For there stood by me this night, an angel of God to whom I belong and whom I serve, saying, do not be afraid, Paul, you must be brought before Caesar. And indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you.

This is the great heritage of those of us who are willing to pray, those of us who are willing to say, Lord, God have mercy on me and have mercy on the people. I ask you, Lord, that my life might be a representation of you who went to a cross and said, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they do. Lord God, don't let me turn into a hardness of heart and start condemning the righteous. For it says in the book of Proverbs that he who justifies the wicked and condemns the righteous, both are an abomination in the sight of God.

Lord, don't let me start to condemn the righteous. Paul says, therefore take heart, men. It's the second time. One time he tells them you should have listened. And when he saw that their hearts were broken, when he saw that they saw no way forward without the word and the mercy of God, he immediately turns and says, take heart.

Take heart, men. There will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. And in verse 25, he says again, take heart, for I believe it will be just as God has told me. However, we must run aground on a certain island.

I can't overstress, especially to the ministers that are listening tonight. Don't condemn the bride of Christ. Lead the bride of Christ. Don't condemn a man when he's already broken. You see, if you stay on the ground of turn and repent and turn and repent and turn and repent, that message is set like a hammer to break down the wall of those who live in self-righteousness.

But once the work is done, move to the mercy of God. Move to that which Christ accomplished on the cross. Move to the hope of eternal life and the hope of a purposeful life here on this side of eternity.

Lead the people. I had a dream. I was, I don't listen. I don't govern my life by dreams, okay? So I'm not one of those guys. So don't take this wrong. But I had a dream one time. I was preaching at a convention.

I think it was in Iowa. And I had a dream and it was so vivid. It just wouldn't go away. I couldn't shake it. I woke up in the morning and in the dream I had, there was a fire. Fires had broken out everywhere.

I was on a street and on both sides of the street, houses were on fire. And there were people trying to make it to high ground. And I looked up and at the high ground, there was the cross. It represented the Christ and the cross was on the high ground.