My Preaching Is Good for Nothing — Carter Conlon

My preaching is good for nothing. Finally a message that we can all agree on. Praise God. First Corinthians chapter 2 now my Intention today is to draw you into agreement with the title of this message.

I Want you to leave here and I want when you go to work on Monday morning I want you to tell people that your pastor's preaching is good for nothing at Times Square Church. I'm serious about this. If you meet me on the street Point at me and say pastor your preaching is good for nothing.

You all sound nervous. I'm serious about this. You'll understand as we get through this first Corinthians chapter 2 father. I pray God. Oh, I thank you for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit of you weren't here.

What a waste of time this would be but because you are here. There's hope there's life. There's strength Lord there's the supernatural is here because you are here God Almighty. I Pray open every prison door give sight to all eyes that are blind.

I ask you father in Jesus name to give strength to those that are weary and weak. Lift up those that are cast down. I ask you Lord to do the miraculous in this sanctuary today place. Giftings were into people's lives where there has been nothing but emptiness.

I pray God you do something. So beyond our natural understanding that all we can do is clap our hands. All we can do is dance and praise your holy name. Oh God, bring your church Lord into this victory.

That was won for us by Jesus Christ now father I thank you for it anoint me touch me Holy Spirit. Touch my mind touch my body God Almighty. I don't want any part of my own Understanding in this message.

I want it to come from heaven alone and Oh God when we come to this altar today I pray for an outbreak of joy and song. I ask you Lord God to do something. Let this day be marked as a day. Oh God where you came you visited your people Lord.

You did something supernatural in such a dark and confusing generation father. I thank you for this. I praise you in Jesus mighty name. By the way, it's afternoon three o 'clock and six o 'clock this evening brother Pete Spackman is with us and A man who saved in prison, I believe is that correct in prison?

He has been used to the Lord in the last 12 years in particular and has brought over 300 schools of the Bible into Prisons in Russia in Europe and here in the United States and in South America locks himself in and some of the worst prisons and preaches the gospel and Thousands of men and women are coming to Christ.

He's truly truly a man called of God as an evangelist in our generation. He's going to be speaking at three o 'clock and then at six o 'clock I want you to get a hold of every scallywag you can find in New York City and Bring him out here because they're going to hear a message 25 minute evangelistic message there are very few prisoners that can resist the Spirit of God that comes on this man and The message is compelling.

The Spirit’s Power over Human Wisdom

I mean that bring them out here. Praise God. 1st Corinthians chapter 2 verses 1 to 10. Paul says I brethren when I came to you I came not with the excellency of speech or wisdom Declaring unto you the testimony of God.

For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified and I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling and My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom But in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. How be it we speak wisdom among them that are perfect yet. Not the wisdom of this world nor of the princes of this world that come to nothing or not.

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery even the hidden wisdom Which God ordained before the world unto our glory. Which none of the princes of this world knew for had they known that they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

But said but as it is written I has not seen nor ear heard neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that Love him, but God has revealed them to us by his Spirit for the Spirit searches all things.

Yea, the deep things of God. Now Paul made a statement to the church of Corinth now, you know that Corinth was a church that was largely influenced by the society around it and this influence that had Not fully been broken yet in this particular church was in danger of Bringing it into powerlessness really when when the church begins to be led By the thoughts that produce only from the hearts of men.

Then the church is in grave danger of losing the supernatural and beginning to walk in the natural. This is called to be a supernatural walk with God. Paul says in verse 5. Your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

In other words there you and I should not be able to figure everything out. We should not have methodologies because it's not through methodology that the life of Christ is born in us. It's through faith and what God has spoken.

Paul said in verse 7 we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. It's hidden wisdom Which God ordained before the world unto our glory. It's it's hidden. It's it's it's not hidden to us who know Christ or at least it shouldn't be but it's hidden to those who walk outside of this realm of God's Life in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

It's hidden wisdom and it's ordained by God before the world. God was thinking about you before the world was formed. He was speaking things about you. He was speaking things about your life what you were going to be not because of yourself.

But because of him what was going to happen to you and it was ordained. Paul says before the world if you and I can catch this before you were formed in your mother's womb and and Irrespective of what that circumstance was it didn't hinder God.

You he was thinking things about you. He was speaking about you before the world was even formed and he was thinking and speaking things. For our glory and the word glory in the Greek. It really means that God may be brought to reputation through us.

So God was thinking about you and he was already speaking things that you can't hear with the natural air but you can hear it when the Holy Spirit comes into your life, and he was Thinking about how he would take you what he would make you into.

Where you would go and how his name would be brought to glory through your life. Praise be to God first Corinthians chapter 3 verse 19 listen. Paul says that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God as Wise as this world can get it's still foolishness.

It still falls short of the glory of God. We cannot reason ourselves into this life that God has bought for us through Christ. The worldly wise Paul says are taken in their own craftiness that means duped that means sold something of significantly inferior quality.

You ever seen a tourist come to New York City and buy a watch from somebody on the corner with one of those tables. They walk away, and they brag how they got this watch for $25. We all know you can get them for eight.

If you hang around long enough you can get them for six. If you've been in New York City for a number of years. You know they pay three dollars and fifty cents for them. And they turn your wrist green and they might last a month if you're lucky.

But here are the worldly wise walking down the street with their $25 watch talking about how what a great deal. They've got how smart they really are and that's what Paul says. Those who at least come into the kingdom of God and they bring this worldly mindset with them.

They're duped by their own craftiness. They're walking away with a with a fraudulent product they're walking out of the house of God with all these steps that have been formulated in their own minds of how to live a godly life and how to Do this and how to do that.

And they bought something of inferior quality because they were not willing to surrender their Thinking and let the Holy Spirit begin to guide them first. Corinthians chapter 4 verses 19 and 20. This is what Paul says.

I Will come to you shortly if the Lord will and will know not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God verse 20 of 1st Corinthians 4 is not in word, but in power. Paul saying that true wisdom does not come with puffed up powerless speech.

But with power and the word in the Greek means divine enablement. There's a divine enablement that comes if God is speaking through me this morning if if If you are hearing something from God if faith is arising in your heart as impossible as it may seem.

If it is God that is speaking. There is a divine enablement when we agree with God in other words We are made into something by God's grace and power that we could never hope to be in ourselves. We're taking places we could never hope to go.

We are brought into something that we we didn't buy we can't purchase it. We don't have the resources to do this to figure it out it. Paul said no. It's not in fine speech. The Corinthian church was falling prey to very charismatic Very gifted speakers.

But their words were empty and all they could do is lead people into a deeper naturalness in a sense a deeper Pathway of human reasoning which Paul knew was powerless. Paul said I'd rather come to you in weakness.

God chose me not because I'm an eloquent speaker. But God chose me because I stand before you in weakness and fear and trembling. And Paul said but you're you are our epistle when you know that. When I spoke to you something divine was engraved on your hearts.

Paul said I don't need letters of commendation as others need. You know that when I came to you. And when I began to speak there was something supernatural happening in your heart the pen of God as it is was.

Engraving things in your heart that became part of your character. And Paul said that's the only reference I need is that your life has been transformed by the glorious power of Almighty God. The kingdom of God in verse 20 said is not in word.

The Living Bible says just means just endless talking. The kingdom of God is not in word. But in this power this divine enablement of God. Later on in Corinthians in chapter 15 1st Corinthians 15 12 Paul said how does some say among you that?

There is no resurrection of the dead. How did this happen? Who's speaking these things? Why are they being spoken and it really shows the depth of the problem that was happening in Corinth? You see when the natural mind begins to lead the church.

There's a resulting powerlessness in the present which leads to a hopelessness for the future. That's exactly what where this theology was coming from because they were not living in resurrected life.

There's a loss of hope for the future because it's like if I've got to figure it out now I'm gonna figure it out in the days ahead and this. That's why Paul says in verse 22 in Adam that is in man all die, but in Christ all shall be made alive.

I don't want to hear when I go anywhere to hear the word. I don't want to hear from the mind of a man or woman. I don't want to hear from the natural man. I don't want people's opinions about God. I couldn't care less about people's opinions about God.

I want to hear what God is saying in the Holy Spirit. Because in Adam all die. When if what I'm listening to is emanating from a natural wisdom that every man most every man is given if if that's what I'm Listening to I will die spiritually.

I'll not be able to finish this journey. I'll lose heart in the present. I'll lose hope for the future. But in Christ all shall be made alive and it implies that there has to be a life of another that has lived in me.

It's it's got to be some one other than who I am. There's got to be something other than what I possess that takes me on this journey. Proverbs 319 tells us that the Lord by wisdom has founded the earth.

There's a wisdom. Remember Paul said we preach this hidden wisdom. For ordained as it is before the foundation of the world for our glory. Paul says the Lord founded the earth by wisdom. Proverbs 9 1 he says wisdom has built her house and she is hewn out her seven pillars.

Typically what the writer Proverbs is saying is that this house of wisdom stands upon seven pillars now. Seven in the Bible. I don't have time to go into the depth of it, but it speaks about the completeness of God.

There are seven churches and revelations. Seven days the world was created on the seventh day God rested from all of his labors the writer of Hebrews says try seek as it is to enter into that rest that seventh day.

Rest and finish from your own works as God did from his stop striving in the flesh. Stop trying to make things happen. Stop trying to figure everything out. God has completed the work. It is a finished work.

Wisdom has built a house. It rests on the seven pillars of the completion of the work of Christ on Calvary. In Genesis chapter 1 if you'll go there with me in your Bibles, please I I'm not asking you to turn to too many scriptures because it would take us too long to get through this morning.

Genesis chapter 1 Tells us in verse 1. This is the very first book in your Bible if you're new to the Lord says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and The earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep.

Now that darkness in The Hebrew means a falsehood ignorance blindness. It's as if the world was under judgment or in the grave. That's actually what it means all these things darkness was upon the face.

It's it's it's it's a type of man without God the human life that's being lived without Surrendering to this wisdom of God in Christ and then the Spirit of God Moved upon the face of the waters and God said let there be light and there was light.

Praise be to God. A complete I finished work was done by Christ on Calvary. In spite of how dark you are today in spite of how difficult it may be you may feel like you're under judgment. You may feel like your life is already in the grave.

All that remains is for somebody to close the lid and put the earth on top of you. But if you will let the Spirit of God come upon you if you let the Holy Spirit touch if you let God begin to speak To you everything begins to change.

The Spirit of God moved on the face of this falsehood this ignorance this blindness this Judgment as if it was already in the grave the Spirit of God moved upon it and God said let there be light. And folks out of nothing light came.

God Creates from Nothing and Transforms the Empty Life

God doesn't need anything to make something. All he needs to make something is nothing. He just needs nothing. Praise God. Our problem is that we are something we think we're something we think we have something to hold on to.

We think we have something to bring to God. We think we have something good, you know said we're not willing to let go and because we're unwilling to admit. We're nothing without God. We sell ourselves short of what God wants to do in our lives.

God needs nothing to work with. Praise be to God. There are so many people who are stuck in the thought that there's something in this Generation that the power of God is hindered now in the house of the Lord.

We've lost touch with the supernatural. We're now walking in the natural all over the world in the kingdom of God not everywhere. Thank God, but in many places so many are walking in the natural because everybody is so focused on being something.

When God says I can't work with something. I need nothing to work with. Romans 4 17. Paul talking about Abraham said Abraham Believed God who quickens the dead and who calls those things which be not as though they were.

God had given this man a promise and says your life is going to come from you. But he was passed and his wife was were both past childbearing age, but Paul says he believed God. He he believed that God was able to perform what God had spoken and he didn't even consider his own body.

Which the scripture says which he which was now dead. But he believed in the God who calls things that are not as if they are. Praise be to God. Think of Genesis 2 7 where the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.

What did he have to work with nothing really? Dust. He looked down at the ground one day. I I can hardly wait to fully understand this, but it's helped me God. He looked down at the ground and there was just dust.

Any I don't know if he took his hands. I don't know how I did it and he formed a shape and then the scripture says what did he have to work with nothing? Nothing, and he breathed into the nostrils of dust and Man became a living soul.

Praise be to God. Do you realize that this is the God that you and I are talking about today? This is the God that we're meeting. This is the Christ who died on Calvary. He breathed into nothing and this nothingness became a living soul.

Think about the creative power of God. Being manifested so perfectly as he speaks into emptiness. Into this emptiness came the miracle of man who by the power of the reasoning God gave him walked away.

From the very one that God that had given him life. So man is created out of nothing and out of nothing by God's voice. He becomes something and in his somethingness. He starts thinking he's smarter than God.

It's exactly what happened and he walks away from God. What's he been doing for thousands of years? He's been circling the globe and He's been trying to regather what he instinctively knows was lost. If you don't know Christ this morning.

Don't even dream of trying to tell me that you found what you're looking for. If you had you would not be sitting here this morning. You instinctively know you've lost something you come up with every fad you follow everything.

That's out there coming down the pike you pick up every book you embrace. And imbibe every theory that comes your way, but still there is this inherent emptiness in you that doesn't go away. Because you were created in the image of God and for God you can't come back to him until you know that you're nothing without him.

See men gripping tenaciously to a limited and disappointing form of wisdom. Oh, they will hold on to they'll even kill for this false wisdom by which they've been duped into a Fallible goods. Paul says this wisdom stands as foolishness in comparison to that which rests in the mind of God.

Man can only see the circumstance and when the solution is too great for his own reasoning. Concludes that his situation is also beyond the power of God. The natural man doesn't see a way out and so he Convinces himself that God doesn't know how to get him out either.

God’s Power in the Wilderness and in Barrenness

Listen to Psalm 78 verse 19. It says the children of Israel says they spoke against God and they said can God furnish a table in this wilderness? This is the natural man. You'll be somewhere sitting here this morning saying oh, you don't know my life.

You don't know what I've done. You don't know where I'm living. You don't know how I think. You don't know the entrapments I've found myself in but you see you don't know. You see the greatest danger that you'll ever face is not your entrapments and not your imprisonments.

But it's a heart that questions the reality of God's love and God's power towards you. Praise be to God. God can furnish a table in the wilderness. Psalm 78 verse 41 says they turned back and they limited the Holy One of Israel.

They limited him and they said no God can't do this. They got to the shores of an incredible promise. How different history would have been and they came to the shores and they sent spies in and they said yes.

It's everything God said is true. Yes, we believe that but not for us. See, there are Giants there and we don't have the power to go in and defeat them. How foolish and they turned back and they died in a wilderness place.

When I was a young Christian very very young Christian, I had a secret prayer I used to pray. I prayed it all the time and I was very specific about it. I remember saying and now at this time, I am NOT a speaker.

I I have never spoken anywhere. I don't have the I don't have the gifting to stand before anybody and make any kind of a declaration. You know my story many of you I to go through college I had to take your pills to be able to go into a classroom because if I was singled out I would panic and I would Either collapse or run out of the room.

That's not a candidate that should even pray this kind of a prayer but after I came to Christ I began to pray God. I want to win a hundred thousand people to you before I die and and I was very specific in my prayer.

I said now I don't want these just to be people to come to an altar. I want these to be people who are truly converted and who will live for you the rest of their lives. And it it was now I knew that was out of the realm of anything.

I could ever hope to achieve to see this happen. And I remember a few years ago being in Nigeria and in a war zone in Jos, Nigeria and Estimates range from four to seven hundred thousand people gathered.

I really don't know how many people were in those nightly services because It's impossible at least from our vantage point to gauge a crowd that big you couldn't see the end of it in any direction. It was like a sea of people.

I really don't know how many people were there but I remember Speaking an evangelistic message and at the end gave an altar call very definitive altar call. Now you couldn't ask people to come forward.

People would be killed in the crowd that large. So you just have to ask them to raise their hands and I made it very very restricted said if you have no intention on stopping stealing or beating your wives or Drinking and fornicating and all the things that are so Prevalent in some of that Society I said don't even think of disgracing the name of God by raising your hand.

You're deceiving yourself. But if you want to live for Christ If you want to go to heaven when you die if you want to know the supernatural why you live if you want hope for Tomorrow raise your hand. And there had to be there were at least a hundred thousand hands were raised in that particular service.

I Went back to my hotel room that night Got down beside my bed. And it finally dawned on me. God you answered my prayer that I prayed when I was just in my 20s in one service. You answered a prayer that to me seemed impossible.

If I were to try to reason that it would have taken a lifetime to ever get there. But in one service Lord in one service you answered This prayer or at least I saw a visible a tangible sign. I don't you know heavens the only one that records how many people were saved.

You know, obviously I don't know but God knows I Got down on my knees beside my bed and you know, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said Carter don't limit me. Don't limit what I can do through a surrendered life.

Don't limit me if I can stand here if I can if I can express if I can speak anything to anybody. That's here. Don't limit him. Don't limit what don't don't get to the point of thinking that God can't furnish a table.

Don't do something stupid like Saul did got tired of waiting for what God had promised to show up and took things into his own hands and tried to figure out a way to win a battle that He couldn't see let alone.

He couldn't fight because it was a spiritual battle. Don't do these things in First Samuel, let me just share this with you. Don't turn their chapter one. There's a story of a woman who came up every year to worship in the temple.

She had her name was Hannah. She had no children her womb was empty as a matter of fact she was barren. The scripture says God had closed her womb. There's no life within her. In other words in that society was an incredible disgrace.

It was a different than our time for a woman not to have a child. It was it was like a there would be like a sense of failure like a complete and total lack of accomplishment there was such an emphasis on children and family and.

And she had an adversary that provoked her and was always Pointing at her emptiness. Ha ha empty womb empty womb no life. What do you go to the temple for there's no life in you you have you have no power to bring forth life.

You go week after week and God does it or year after year and God's not answering you and this Adversary provoked her constantly and many of you here today you have an adversary and he's provoking you even this moment as you're hearing my voice.

Trying to tell you this is not for you. No you come you try, but nothing ever happens. There's never a change in your life. You're never going to bear any fruit and She got so provoked by this adversary that she wept and wouldn't eat anymore she got no pleasure out of eating and a weeping came on her spirit and She was so do you realize that if this is happening to you today quite often?

This is a precursor to something that God's about to do in your life. He's producing this weeping in you he's producing in you this inability to be satisfied by all of the things that go on around you and You're among those the company throughout the years that come to the house of God and say God I'm just not satisfied until something is born in my life.

I'm just tired of being empty and the Bible says that she prayed in the bitterness of her soul. And folks some people think that you've got to be happy happy happy when you pray there's it can be no doubt in your heart.

There everything's got to be just right and it's like a formula. You just got to get it all right, and then somehow God's gonna answer. No, the scripture says she came in the bitterness of her soul. And she she was so Grieved she couldn't even speak she could only move her lips in a whisper and she prayed a simple prayer.

She said God if you will put something in this empty life, whatever you give me. I'll give it back to you. That's what the Lord was waiting for. This woman stood there, and she said I'm empty God. I'm empty Lord.

I have no power to bring forth life. This area of my life is hopeless. It's barren, but if you will put life there, I will bring it to you for your service. I will give you glory God Almighty now, you know and I know from scriptural history.

This was the birth of Samuel the prophet. God heard her and gave a great prophet. The supernatural as it is was born again into the kingdom of Israel. A natural kingdom was being run by natural men carnal men.

And God's answer to it was the Supernatural. God's answer to every generation is always the rebirth of the supernatural among his people. He takes the nothings. Paul says he takes the nobodies. Now who was she praying to.

She was a type of dust. She was a type of nothing and she was crying out to a holy and a powerful and a compassionate God. That's what Paul says. God has chosen those who in their own sight. They realize their own nothingness.

They realize their need for the miraculous intervention of God. He says in verse 29 of 1st Corinthians 1 that no flesh should glory in his presence. That nobody in his house no person can say. I knew how to do this.

I knew how to arrive at the place where I needed to be by my own power and my own reasoning. Praise be to God. I thank God with all my heart that if you are nothing today Paul would say my preaching is good for you.

My preaching is good for nothing. If you are nothing, my preaching is good for you. Paul would say Praise be to God. Praise be to God if you are something you've got a long way to go. But if you are nothing what you are hearing today can transform your life.

Not just your life, but your family. Not just your family, but your neighborhood. Not just your neighborhood. But your city. Not just your city, but your state. Not just your state, but your country. Not just your country, but your world.

If you know you're nothing if you need God if you're willing to say God put something into my life. And I will bring it back to you for your glory. God Almighty, I'll bring it back to you for your glory.

That has been the constant prayer of my life. It's stirring within my heart again. I want to go deeper. I want to go farther in Christ than I've ever known before You and I must never be content to settle in at any place.

We are at until the whole world has come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. God Almighty you have a wisdom you ordained it before the foundation of the world and it was for me and it was for your Glory.

You were to be glorified through my life. Praise be to God. Praise be to God. Praise be to God. Praise be to God. Listen as we close to Hannah's song. Listen after she bore this life. I want you just to listen to it with me and Hannah prayed first Samuel chapter 2 and said my heart.

Rejoices in the Lord my horn and my status is exalted in the Lord. My mouth is enlarged over my enemies because I rejoiced in thy salvation. There is none as holy as the Lord. There's none besides thee neither.

Is there any rock like our God? Don't talk so exceedingly proudly. She's not speaking to her adversary. Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth. But by the Lord is a God of knowledge and by him actions are weighed.

The bows of the mighty men are broken and they that stumbled are girded with strength. They were full of hired themselves out for bread and they were hungry ceased so that the baron is born seven and she That has many children is waxed feeble.

The Lord kills and makes alive. He brings down to the grave and brings up the Lord makes the poor the and makes rich. He brings low and lifts up. He raises the poor out of the dust and lifts the bigger from the dunghill.

To set them among princes and to make them inherit the throne of glory for the pillars of the earth. Remember those seven pillars are the Lord's and he has set the world upon them. He will keep the feet of his saints and the wicked shall be silent in darkness for by strength shall no man prevail.

The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces. Out of heaven shall he thunder upon them. The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth and he shall give strength to his king And exalt the horn of his anointed.

Praise be to God. He'll give you strength. He'll lift you. He'll make you Into a man or woman that brings glory to his name not by might Nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord on your part in mine.

Coming to Christ as Nothing

What is required is the admission that we are nothing. You see the proud man will never get through this. The person whose whole sense of worth is built on their ministry their position their garments the titles can't hear this.

We'll never hear this. They will carry on writing their books and Espousing their theories about godliness never know the supernatural power of God, but the lame will press through. The blind will cry from the side of the road.

The lepers will appear. The nothings the nobodies of society just bypass all of the religion say I'd like you to. I'd like to see I'd like to behold. I'd like to walk praise God. It's as simple as that folks.

I don't know how else to say it. If we just get to the point where we can't figure it out. Where we don't know what to do, and we're willing to press through the crowd praise God. If the Holy Spirit is speaking to you, and you're nothing and you'd like in that area of your life to be something.

If you're unsaved and you don't know Christ as your Savior he'll receive you and You cleanse you. The Bible says that if you will believe that he died on a cross for you. If you give your heart to him your life to him admit that you need a Savior.

And you begin even at this altar to confess him with your mouth. That he will receive you who will cleanse you of your sin and You will be made brand new. You'll be starting to be the man the woman that God had destined you to be from before the foundation of the world.

You'll have a new life. That's why Jesus called it being born again a new start a brand new life. Living by the power of the promises of God and the Holy Spirit within you. Praise be to God. I want to give an altar call for every nothing in the house.