How Many Christians Weep on Sunday Night? — Carter Conlon

Numbers chapter 13, please, if you'll go there. I've entitled this message, How Many Christians Weep on Sunday Night? How many Christians weep? I think of the numbers of people who come to the house of God this morning, looking for help, looking for hope, looking for strength, only to go home tonight to feel defeated.

I wanna share with you why that happens and how we can overcome that. So Father, I thank you, Lord, for the anointing of your Holy Spirit. God Almighty, you are the only one that can make this word live inside of our hearts and cause us to embrace it and believe it.

You are the only one that can make it a reality by the power of your Holy Spirit within us. But Lord, you're willing to do that. So God, I'm asking you to overshadow my frailty this morning and the frailty of all of the people that you brought together to hear this word.

Give us the grace and the strength, Lord, to go into the future, trusting you, Lord, for the strength that we will need to face the days we will face. And Father, we thank you for it with all of our heart today, in Jesus' name.

Numbers chapter 13, beginning at verse one, how many Christians weep on Sunday night? And the Lord spake to Moses, saying, send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I'm giving to the children of Israel.

From each tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, every one a leader among them. So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the children of Israel.

Now go to verse 25. And they returned from spying out the land after 40 days. Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh.

And they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him and said, we went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.

Nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land are strong. The cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak. These were people who were giants in that day. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south.

The Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites dwell in the mountains. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan. Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and take possession for we are well able to overcome it.

But the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we. And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land. The original King James has an evil report of the land, which they had spied out saying, the land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants.

And all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants, the descendants of Anak came from the giants. And we were like grasshoppers in our own sight. And so we were in their sight.

So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried and the people wept that night. How many Christians weep on Sunday night? Now there were 10 of the 12 who were sent to search out the place which God had promised to his people.

They were just as Joshua and Caleb were, they were leaders. They were men who had risen to reputation among their peers, leaders. They were not selected randomly. They were selected because somehow they, and you have to understand, we talking about a lot of people now that are traveling through the wilderness.

A lot of people have come out of Egypt. And these 12 men were men who had risen in a sense to the top. They were recognized perhaps for their ability to lead people. They were recognized for skills and giftings, which they had.

They were recognized maybe for natural strength, for various reasons, whatever it was, that they rose up to the top of the chain as it is. And the apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians, chapter three, in verses one and two, says these words.

Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified just as it is with you. In other words, Paul says, pray that the word that we bring would find quickly its mark in the hearts of those who we are sent to speak it to.

And the word of God will bring God himself to glory in the people. In other words, God will do in the people what only God can do. It can't be done by any amount of natural strength or wisdom or such like.

It's only by the spirit of God and by the promises of God. Pray, he said, pray that the word of God finds its place and swiftly does the work that God sent it to do. In verse two, he says of chapter three in 2 Thessalonians, and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, for not all have faith.

In other words, not everyone who preaches the word of God believes that God is still able today to do what he has always done. That's what Paul is saying. Pray that we could be delivered from unreasonable people whose theological focus is all in the natural.

It's all about what we can accomplish in our own strength, and they have lost and left off the supernatural working of God. Jude says in verse 16, they speak great swelling words and they flatter people to gain advantage.

In verse 19, he talks about others. He said, they're sensual. In other words, they move forward by their own natural reasoning and strength, and they do not have the spirit. They're not divinely led, nor are they enabled by the spirit of God.

Again, Jude says, we need to be delivered from this kind of messenger. Because the writer of Hebrews chapter 11, verse six says, without faith, it's impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is.

You must believe that he is with you and that he's a rewarder. In other words, he's willing to do for you what only he can to those who diligently seek him. You must believe, if you come to God, you must believe that God is with you and he's willing to do for you, through you, in you, what only he can do.

As you begin to seek him, it is impossible to please God apart from faith. Go to church every day. It's a good thing, but you will not please God by that. Pray six hours a day. It's a good thing, but you will not please God by any of these things.

Do good deeds, but you will not please God, because without faith, it's impossible to please him. He who comes to God must believe that God is with him. You must believe that in your heart. My brother, my sister, listen to me carefully today.

You must believe that God is with you. You must believe that God is more than willing to impart to you a strength that is not your own, a life that only he can live through. You must believe that now with all of your heart.

It's so important that you are now listening to the right voices, because we're living in a day of sorrows. We're living when we're going to see this world spiral down into deeper confusion, distress, division, hatred, war, we're going to see, you and I are most likely going to live to see these things in our generation.

We are called of God to be a supernatural testimony of who God is on the earth. We are called to stand with a strength that only God can give. Sing a song that could only be produced by the spirit. We're called to have wisdom that can only come from God.

We're called to be made more than we are, be taken farther than we could ever go and be made into what we could never hope to be by the strength of our God. That is the inheritance of the church of Jesus Christ.

That is who God is. That is who you are. That's what God determines to do through each of our lives. Now, leaders, I'm going to call them the faithless 10. They read their Bibles. In verse 25, it says, they return from spying out the land after 40 days.

They can make a great display of how long they've been. Now, they can stand up and say, I've been in the place of promise. I've been in this book. I've spent 40 days preparing this message for you. I've studied it.

I know it inside out. I know the borders of it. They can stand with their own natural reasoning and intellect. They can talk about how long they have been in the promised land. And they could share these things.

They can claim to possess the fruit that is promised there. In verse 23, it says, they came to the Valley of Israel and there they cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes and they carried it between two of them on a pole.

And they also brought some of the pomegranates and some of the figs. They can lay claim to the fruit of the promised land. They can talk about having been there. They can talk about having seen it. They can talk about the cross.

They can talk about so many things. And in verse 26 and 27, tells us they can lay the fruit of the land before the people. Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh.

And they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. And then they told them and said, we went to the land where you sent us and it truly flows with milk and honey and this is the fruit of it.

And so they can lay the fruit out. They can study the word of God. They can claim to have knowledge of what is there in this place of promise that's given us through Jesus Christ. And they can actually lay it out before the people.

They can talk about it. They can talk about the promises of God, the goodness of God, the wonderfulness of God, the history of God. But here's where the problem comes in. In verse 28, nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land are strong and the cities are fortified and very large.

And we saw the descendants of Anak or the giants there. The Amalekites are in the south, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites dwell in the mountains, the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.

And they gave the children of Israel an evil report of the land, which they spied out saying, the land through which we have gone is a land that devours its inhabitants. And all the people whom we saw are men of great stature.

There we saw the giants, the descendants of Anak. And we were like grasshoppers in our own sight. And so we were in their sight. And so all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried and the people wept all night.

You see, here's the problem with these 10. They can lay it all out. They can study it. They can know it. They can claim that they have it, but they cannot cause the people to believe that in spite of our littleness, God is able and willing to give us all that he has promised.

It is so important today, my brother, my sister, that you are listening to the right voices. If you are listening to something that is not stirring your heart to believe God, you need to get out of that place.

You need to stop listening to that message. As brilliant as the report might be, the Bible calls it evil. If it's not leading you to faith, if it's not leading you to a deepening trust in the supernatural power of God in your life, if it's all it is is an exercise in intellect, if all it is is a searching out and a discovering and rediscovering of the fruit, but there's nothing in it that leads you to believe that it can be yours, there's nothing in it that leads you to believe that the giants can't stand in front of you, if there's nothing in it to cause you to believe that the strongholds in your life are already defeated by Christ, it's an evil report.

I'm sure that these 10 spies, when they came back, they did not consider the report evil. Now, I want you to hear me on this. They considered it analytical, measured, and reasonable. They were there, they saw what, you see, but here's my point.

You must never be under the ministry of somebody who has gotten there by natural means. That's how they got into leadership. They got into leadership by natural means. The supernatural power of God was all around them.

They were there, they saw the plagues come down upon the nation of Egypt. They were there, they saw the miracles. They knew what God was able to do in the natural, but they were never partakers of it.

It was just a history lesson. It was just something they saw, but they themselves were not walking in the supernatural. They were not partakers of what they were searching and what they were laying before the people.

They were not partakers. And folks, you can't lead people as a leader any farther than you've gone yourself. You can't, it's not possible. You can't reproduce what is not there. A sterile vessel is not going to have children.

And the children that are born into the kingdom of God are born supernaturally into the kingdom of God. They are supernaturally empowered by the spirit of God. They are supernaturally made into new creations by the spirit of God.

They are cleansed by the spirit of God. They are given a new heart, a new mind, a new spirit, a new direction, a new life. They are called out of weakness to stand as lights in the world, to bring glory to the one who himself is the only one who could have done these things in their lives.

You don't want to be under the ministry of people who have, because of their natural ability, because of their speaking ability, because of their intellect, because of their some other advantage, they found themselves in a position of leadership.

This is not the time to be listening to voices that try to tell us the power of God is in the past. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God called their report, and I'm sure they were surprised when their report was called evil.

The word evil in the original text means it was a slander and defamation against the character of God himself. It was a slander. Anybody who says, yes, this is the fruit of the land, but not for you, not for us, not for now, not for this time, you're gonna have to learn another way.

Why don't you just join us? Instead of believing that God can sovereignly heal the wounded and bruised in heart, why don't you join a self-help group in our church? Instead of believing that God can open the prison doors and give you new life, instead of believing that God can give you vision for the future, why don't you consider doing it this way with us?

It's an evil report to suggest that the power of God is not available for the church of Jesus Christ today. I believe that with all my heart. I make no apology whatsoever for that statement. I can't shake the thought of all the Christian people going home Sunday night after having been in church somewhere in this nation, and weeping.

Verse chapter 14, verse one says, all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. People going home, not seeing hope, not seeing a way, not seeing a future. No faith to believe that God's able to save their families.

No ability to believe that God's able to take them out of the despair they're in and give them joy, and a new voice, and a new purpose, and a new vision. And so they go home Sunday night, just like the men on the road to Emmaus saying, oh, one more time, I had hoped that God would meet me today.

I had hoped that God would speak to me. And they go home and they cry in their beds on Sunday night because Monday morning is coming, and all things remain just as they always have been. No, we should not be weeping in our beds on Sunday night.

As the church of Jesus Christ, we should be shouting for joy. We should be shouting for joy for the supernatural victory that God is going to give us. In this church, if I preach to you, listen to me on this.

If I preach to you and faith is not in your hearts, when you go home, now get rid of me and get another pastor in this pulpit. I'm gonna provoke you. I'm gonna challenge you to believe God. I'm gonna stir you to believe God.

By the grace of Almighty God, I'm gonna challenge the unbelief in your heart. I'm gonna challenge it every time I step in this pulpit. I'm gonna challenge you to surrender your own efforts to the supernatural power of God in your life and start to believe that God is who he says he is.

For you see your calling brethren, not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame those things that stand in their own reasoning.

God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty and the base things of the world and things which are despised. God has chosen and things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

But of him, you are in Christ Jesus who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that as it is written, he who glories let him glory in the Lord. And I brethren, when I came to you, I did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God.

For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear and in much trembling. In my speech, Paul says in my preaching, we're not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and the power that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Paul the apostle was anything other than a weak man in the natural. He was a leader among leaders. He was strong among the strong. He declared that concerning the works of the law, that he was flawless.

He had lived according to the law. He was enraged when somebody came along and suggested that there is a better way and another way to eternal life than what he had accomplished through his own natural abilities and his own natural reasonings.

He was able to convince governors and kings to give him letters of authority to haul people out of their houses and torture them and command them and try to blaspheme the name of God. No, Paul was not weak.

But when he came to Christ, he said, I consider everything that I've done, everything I've gained, I consider it rubbish. I put it away that I may know the excellency of the power of God resting upon my life.

That everything I have might be Christ in me, the hope of glory. Paul was saying, I don't want any more of Paul. I want everything of Christ. I don't want anything left of natural wisdom that I had or natural strength.

I would rather stand in weakness and trembling that the power of Christ may rest upon me. That the people that I speak to would not be looking to man, but be looking to Christ inside of me as not only my hope, but as their hope as well.

That their faith should not rest in the cleverness of my speech, but their faith should rest in the power of God. The willingness of God, the glory of God that he's willing to impart to the hearts of any of us who recognize our weakness without him.

But we open our hearts to him. And we say, Christ Jesus, I invite you to come into my life and glorify your name in whatever way you choose. Lead me on the path that you have for my life and give me strength that I don't naturally possess.

Give me victories I could never hope to win and take me to places I could never go. All for the express purpose that others around me might ask for a reason for the hope that is in me in the days in which I'm living.

Praise be to God. Praise be to God. Paul the apostle was saying to that early church, I am an example to you of what God can do through weakness. I am an example to you of what God can do through weakness.

I'll tell you something. I wouldn't want to buy a car from a salesman who doesn't drive the car he's trying to sell me. I wouldn't want to listen to a preacher who has no personal testimony of the miraculous power of God at work in his or her life.

I wouldn't want to listen to somebody who just rose up through the ranks and managed to go from committee to committee and line to line and hustle to hustle and got somehow into the pulpit because they're clever.

I would not want to listen to that kind of a man. I'd rather listen to somebody like Paul who stands with fear and weakness and trembling. And you look at that man or you look at that woman and you say, God, there's a power touching my heart that I know doesn't come from this.

It can't come from this physical vessel. It has to come from something that's at work inside of this man speaking to me. Oh God, let that be my portion in the days ahead for my life. Paul was saying to the church, I'm not just laying the fruit of the kingdom before you, but I'm showing you what God will do if you're willing to partake of it.

That your faith should not rest in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. Oh Jesus, would you help us? Would you help your church, Lord, of this generation? Would you help us to lay hold of the power of heaven again?

Would you help us to recognize our need? Would you help us to go back into the upper room and pray again, understanding that you are with us and that you are willing to make us stronger than we could ever hope to be in our own strength.

God, would you help us? Listening to the voices of these 10 men, men of renown, men of report, men who had risen to leadership, listening to their voices, the people ended up in a wilderness and they died there.

If the voices you're listening to are not provoking you to faith, you will die in a spiritual wilderness. You will weep every Sunday night. There will be no joy in your voice on Monday morning. There will be no bounce in your step.

And you will just live through this endless succession of funerals. And that's exactly what they lived through for 40 years. They spent one year in the wilderness for every day, the spies, the evil spies, may I call them that, the evil reporting spies, had spent in the place of promise until finally they had all died and now another generation.

And you know, in Times Square Church, folks, we almost fit this pattern because many here, most here are another generation. Most are new to the faith. I would venture, I guess a lot of folks here today didn't come from Christian homes.

You don't have a huge heritage like others maybe have. You've come to Christ. You're a brand new generation. And that's what happened after this report. They died in the wilderness, but their children rose up and they were given an opportunity to go in to possess what their forefathers had lost through unbelief or carelessness.

A new generation were about to go in and possess this land, which they forfeited because of unbelief. This time though, this time they were to be quiet. This time they were to go in. And I love the instruction that God gives.

In Joshua chapter six, verse two, it says, the Lord said to Joshua, I've given Jericho into your hand. It's king and all the mighty men of valor. Now Joshua commanded the people saying, you shall not shout or make any noise with your voice, nor shall a word proceed out of your mouth until the day I say to you, shout, then you shall shout.

In other words, we're gonna go in and take it, but this time we're gonna be quiet. We don't need to listen to any voices. We don't need any reporters telling us how many giants are in the land. And when they walked in and they surrounded Jericho for seven days, can you just imagine, the walls they say were so thick and so fortified, you could drive a chariot and horses on top of those walls.

They had no battering rams, they had no weaponry. In the natural, they were insufficient for the battle before them, but they chose to simply obey God and be quiet. They chose to, for seven days, there's nobody there that can dispirit them, may I put it that way.

For seven days, they're going round about this stronghold that's in the land of promise. In their heart, like just as Isaiah chapter 30 in verse 15, the Lord said, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.

In quietness and confidence, thinking about the promises of God, remembering the history of who God is, thinking about the completeness of the victory of the cross where Christ triumphed over all the powers of darkness, made an open display of them according to the scriptures and gave gifts unto men.

Thinking about the history of the church, how out of weakness, we were made strong again. Out of nothing, Jesus Christ, one more time, chose to lift up a people and glorify his name. One more time, walking around the city, quiet, confident, until that moment where an inner shout came into the heart.

I think by the time Joshua told them the shout, the people simply couldn't contain it any longer because God had already convinced their hearts. We've got the victory, we've got the victory. Not that they had any, there was nothing in the natural.

There was nothing in the natural to suggest they had the victory. They didn't have the weaponry, they didn't have the horses, they didn't have the chariots, they didn't have the battering rams, they had no strategy and they have very little, if any, weaponry.

They might've had a few holes and rakes in their hands, but they had a confidence in a holy God who is and is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Folks, I wanna challenge you, as you go around about the city, as you begin to think of the things that you're fighting to get through, stop looking for some voice to confirm your opinion of yourself.

Think about the things that God has done. Meditate on his word. If there's anything pure, if there's anything lovely, if there's anything of virtue, if there's anything of a good rapport, think on these things and the God of peace will crush the devil under your feet shortly.

When you go home tonight, I don't want you to lay there in sorrow. I don't want you to lay there weeping. It'd be such a tragedy, having been in the presence of God as we have today and all this week, those have prayed and fasted with us.

It'd be such a tragedy to go home and weep over the same old struggles, the same old strongholds, instead of saying, God, I'm going to trust you. I'm going to trust you. I'm not going to be recorded as the first Christian in this Bible who trusted in you and went down to defeat.

There is no such a record in the word of God. I am going to believe you, God, in my situation. I'm going to believe you for my family. I'm going to believe you to help the wounds of my past. I'm going to believe you for my future.

I'm going to believe you for the strongholds in my life. I'm going to believe you that you're going to take my life in its total nothingness and you're going to raise it up to be something that brings glory to your name.

I am going to believe God. And I'm not letting any stronghold, no sons of the giants. I don't care who dwells where. I don't care what border they dwell in. I don't care how long they've been there. I am going to trust God.

I am going to trust in God with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Hallelujah. And then one day, one day, one day, when I can't contain it any longer, I'm going to get out of bed and I'm going to shout so that my whole neighborhood hears it.

I have the victory. I have the victory. I don't care how many giants. I don't care how thick the walls are. I don't care. Jesus Christ said, it is finished. Glory, glory, glory. And the scripture tells us that when they shouted, the walls, the defenses of the city fell.

And every man, every person, every woman walked into that city and took the victory. In our case, being a people who trust God in this city, we are going to take with us into God's kingdom a multitude of people of all races, of all kindreds, of all tribes, and of all tongues, a multitude of people, too numerous to count.

And we're going to do it by the power of God, in the power of God, and for the glory of God. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. I don't know about you, but I've got a shout inside of my heart. I've got a shout inside because God is taking me deeper than I can go.

God's opening a door. God is calling. I thank the Lord for it with all my heart. I thank the Lord with everything inside of me that there is no power of hell. There is no wall. There is no valley. There's nothing can stop the testimony of God through his people.

We are a victorious people. We are a conquering people. We are a people that bear within these earthen vessels the treasure of the spirit of almighty God. Hallelujah. It's time to shout. It's time to shout.

God has given us a city. God has given us a city. God has given us a city.

Glory, glory, glory.

Glory to the name of Jesus.

Glory, glory, glory.

Glory to the name of Jesus. Stand in faith, stand in power. Stand with grace, stand with the glory of God embedded deep within your soul. And no matter where you have to go, you walk in that place with a shout in your heart.

You may shout with your mouth. You walk in with a shout in your heart. God is bringing my family home. God has given me my neighborhood. God has given me power to tread on serpents and scorpions. God has given me a new song.

God has given me a new purpose in my life. Oh, glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to the name of Jesus. Glory to the name of Jesus. I'm gonna give you an altar call as we worship today. Lord, I come to you in my weakness.

I come to you in my trembling. I come to you with all my fears, just like Paul did. And from this day forward, I don't want my faith to rest in the wisdom of man. I don't want an evil reporter telling me what I can't do.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I'm not listening to any voice anymore that says you're not smart enough, you're not strong enough, you're not skilled enough, you're not old enough, you're not young enough.

Let these voices be damned because God calls me his beloved. He calls me his church. Let the evil reporters die in the wilderness. I'm going with God. I'm going with God. I'm gonna march around that stronghold and I'm gonna believe God with all my heart.

I'm gonna shout. When God says shout, I'm gonna shout. By the grace of almighty God. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Glory to the name of Jesus. Glory to the name of Jesus. Let's stand together, please.

Bring your weakness, bring your struggles, bring your trials, bring your frailty, bring everything that you think you don't have and bring it to God and watch what he's going to do with your life. Step out wherever you are in the balcony, main sanctuary, education annex, come down to the front of the sanctuary and bring everything you don't have and watch what God will do it because he is with you and he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

Bring your trials, bring your strongholds, bring your struggles, bring your unbelief, bring everything that you've got to God and watch what God is going to do. Praise be to God.

Hallelujah. Let's lift our hands and hearts to the Lord right now. Father, we thank you for your word this morning, which is a lamp to our feet, a light to our path. Lord, it's healing to our bones, God, it's health.

Lord, it's direction, Lord. Lord, it brings a sense of anticipation, God, of what you are doing, what you have done and what you are about to do, God. We thank you for your word this morning and God, our eyes are on you.

Lord, we're not looking at any stronghold. We're not looking, Lord, to any other voice. Lord, we're not even looking at ourselves. We're looking at you, Jesus. We're looking at you. Our eyes are on you.

Our eyes are on you, Jesus. Our eyes are on you, Jesus. Our eyes are on you. Come on, you tell him. My eyes are on you, Lord. My focus is on you. My hope is in you. My song is in you. My life is in you.

God, my future is in your hands. God, and I thank you for the victory this morning. God, we thank you. Lord, you're not a man that you should lie, nor the son of man that you should repent. Lord, what you say, you will do.

What you speak forth will stand fast. And so today, God, we choose to believe the report of the Lord. We choose to agree with God. We say the devil is a liar. Our God is true. Our God has never failed us, and he never will.

The same God whose word holds the universe together holds our lives. And so God, this day and every day, God, we are choosing to look to you, to trust you, to believe you, God. God, we thank you. We thank you for your Holy Spirit.

Spirit of God, well up within us. Rise within us, God, and be glorified. Be glorified. God, let Jesus be glorified. God, we thank you that he will in your precious name. Amen, amen, hallelujah, hallelujah.