The Last Day Battle for Kindness — Carter Conlon

God's Gracious Character Revealed in Psalm 145

I want to talk to you this morning from Psalm 145, please, if you'll go there. Psalm 145, that's where we're going to begin. A message that the Lord's put on my heart called The Last Day Battle for Kindness.

Now many of you know exactly what that's all about because you're already in it. The Last Day Battle for Kindness, Psalm 145. Let's pray together. Now, Lord Jesus, I thank you for your manifested glory in this sanctuary.

I thank you, God, that you've made the choice to come down to earth and partner together with frail humanity in the greatest work of all time. Oh, God, I give you praise with all my heart. I thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Jesus, that it is all about you. Everything we have has come from your hand. All that we are is what you will choose to make us. I ask you, God Almighty, to overpower the frailty of this human vessel.

I ask you, Holy Spirit, to animate me, animate the passions of my heart, the intonations of my voice. Everything, God, everything, Lord, let it be you and let it bring glory to you. I ask for the grace to disappear that you may appear.

Give us hearts to hear your word today. I thank you for this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. The Last Day Battle for Kindness, Psalm 145, beginning at verse 8. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great mercy.

The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord, and thy saints shall bless thee. They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom and talk of thy power, to make known to the sons of men his mighty acts and the glorious majesty of his kingdom.

Now, this particular passage in the Psalms talks about the character of God, talks about the mercy of God, the fact that God is gracious. He's full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy. He's good to all.

The Scripture says conclusively that he's kind to the unthankful and to the unholy. Many here today, you could say, well, that was me. And his love, the Bible says, was manifested towards you and I in that while we were not even seeking him, he came and died for us.

And when heaven finally reveals it to all of us, when we stand before the throne of God one day, many of us will come to the understanding that we were not seeking God, he was seeking us. We did not find him, he revealed himself to us.

It was all mercy that drew us into his presence in the first place and opened our hearts to this wonderful message of salvation given so freely by God through his son, Jesus Christ. And he says, all his works will praise thee, O Lord, and your saints will bless you, and they will speak of this glory.

The word glory speaks of a weightiness. It speaks of the richness, the majesty, the character of God. In other words, God will always have a people in the earth whose lives are a direct expression of his kindness.

He will have a people that don't just talk about him, but there's an expression of God in them. There's something of this character of God that is manifested in his church, and especially in this generation.

The Law of Kindness Written in the Heart

I love Psalm 31, or Proverbs 31 rather, because it talks about a virtuous woman. And if you read that in the context of the bride of Christ, now it's a type, but if you read it in the context of the church of Jesus Christ, you'll see the things that are of great value to the heart of God.

And verse 26 says, she opens her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Now, it's not just momentary kindness or the odd word of kindness, but there's an inward law. It's not just an occasional word or deed.

It's something etched. It's something written deep in the heart and character of this bride. It flows from her. It's not altered. Now, it may struggle from time to time, but it's not altered. It's not fundamentally altered by circumstance or opinion.

It's like the law of gravity. You can put helium in a balloon and seemingly defeat it for a moment, but there is a law that's been written into effect by the governing hand of God. And in spite of circumstances around it, this law has been written into being by God.

And therefore, it will always take precedent over whatever attempts come against it. And I thank God for that. You and I can quickly be condemned when we're talking about kindness and immediately this Rolodex unfolds in your mind of all the unkind things that you have said or thought, and I have said or thought in the last week or two weeks, or perhaps even this day on the way to church.

And you say, Oh God, I've tried so hard to be kind. I've wanted to be kind. I've wanted to be an expression of your goodness, but I find it so difficult, especially even more so in this time that I'm living in.

God said through Jeremiah in chapter 31 of Jeremiah, verse 33. Now speaking about Israel, he said, this is the covenant that I'll make with the house of Israel. After those days says the Lord, I will put my law into their inward parts and I will write it in their hearts and they, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

I thank God for this knowledge. The Lord says, it's not within you to be kind. It's not within me. I don't have in my natural being the capability of expressing the kindness of God. All of my kindness is conditional and so is yours.

The unconditional kindness of God has to be something that God comes down and with the very pen of his own character through the Holy Spirit begins to write it anew in our minds and our hearts until it becomes part of our being, not by human effort, but by the supernatural infusion of the life of God through Christ Jesus.

We are given by God the ability to be kind. We are given an ability that far transcends any of our natural desires or our best wishful thinking to do good to people or to respond. The scripture says about Christ when he was reviled, he reviled not again.

Now that's, that's a lovely scripture, but how many of us without God in us can put it into practice? How many here can have somebody say something nasty to you and not return it in like kind? The scripture says he did not revile in return when he was reviled.

It was this law of kindness. It was written in Christ and my hope today and your hope today is that the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead is promised to me and promised that God will come in the Holy Spirit and quicken this frail body, this mortal body, this body that is alien as it is to the things of God, but God in his spirit will come and quicken this body and will give me the power and take me into a dimension of the life of God that only God can choose to give to me.

Kindness as Strength Rather Than Weakness

Folks, it's not weakness to be kind. A lot of, especially in this generation, everybody's fighting for their rights. It's my right for this. It's my right for that. And everybody is more or less holding their square foot of terra firma that's underneath them and God help anybody that tries to get, that interferes with that.

But it's not weakness to be kind. Actually it takes strength of character to be kind. It takes something of God in us to be kind. It only takes weakness to be given to anger and a desire for retribution.

It's a weak man who becomes quickly angry. The weak woman who becomes quickly angry snaps back with a spirit that is not God. Proverbs 25, 28 says he that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.

It takes strength to be kind and only God can give this kind of strength. Second Chronicles chapter 10, Solomon's son Rehoboam was given the kingdom. He was handed something that was intact. He was handed a kingdom that should have had a future by his father Solomon.

The people of the northern part of that kingdom came to him under their quasi leader Jeroboam at that time. And they said to Rehoboam, they said, listen, your father gave us rules of labor and taxation that we find very hard.

It's become very burdensome to us. If you'll be kind to us and you'll just release us of some of these obligations, we will be your servants. Now Rehoboam wasn't sure what to do. And so he called before him the older men in the kingdom at that time who had served with his father Solomon.

And he said, what do you advise? And they said, if you be kind to this people and if you speak good words to them, they will be your servants forever. But the scripture tells us that Rehoboam then went to younger men for counsel who didn't have the strength of character yet that God produces in those who have walked for a season in this world.

And the younger men said, no, strike them with an iron fist. Speak hardly to them and bring them under, don't be kind to them. In other words, bring them under submission to your supposed authority. Answer them roughly.

And that's what he did. He spoke roughly to them. And because of his rough speaking, 10 of the tribes of Israel left and became what was then called the northern kingdom. You see an unkind spirit will separate you from the fullness of what your life and testimony could have been and leave you only a portion of what Christ had desired to do through you.

In him is this law of kindness. And if you and I can have all the right theology, we can rightfully be in the throne. We can rightfully be ruling and reigning. We can rightfully lay claim. Rehoboam could say, I am the king.

I am the son of Solomon. I do reign. I do have authority. I do have power. But this law of kindness was not written in him. And now he ends up with 2 out of 12 tribes to rule. He ends up ruling over a divided kingdom.

His life and authority are diminished. And you and I today, looking back at the testimony of his life, we don't see a strong man. We just see a weak man. We don't see a man who took the counsel of God.

He rejected the counsel of God. And he set out to establish his own kingdom as it is, or his own rights and his own strength. And because of it, he was marginalized, pushed to the side of history when there could have been much more that happened through his life, but it was diminished because of an unkind spirit.

Loving Enemies According to Christ

Jesus told us clearly, Luke 6, 35, love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again. And your reward shall be great, and you shall be the children of the highest. For he's kind to the unthankful and to the evil.

That's an incredible thing that we're given to do. Folks, it's a hard thing to do. I've become aware of this lately. I've had a few experiences that have prompted me not to be kind. In fact, to fight personally, this rising of something in the heart that is unlike Christ.

Wanting, in a sense, rights. Wanting to justify itself. Wanting to say, how dare you do this? How dare you respond in this way? How dare you take acts of kindness and turn them into something they're not?

And he said, but if you love your enemies, and do good, and really are not looking for anything back, just as God does. He's kind to the unthankful. He said, you shall be the children of the highest, for he's kind to the unthankful and to the evil.

Psalm 107 tells us he's kind when people call out for mercy. He's kind to the lonely. He's kind to the hungry. He's kind to the thirsty. He's kind to those who rebelled against his word. He's kind to those who are foolish sinners.

He's kind to those who are blinded by the lust for wealth. If ever there was a need for kindness, or the manifestation of that kindness, talk about it. A timely understanding of God's word. A society that has become blinded because of the lust for wealth.

And we're heading on the path that we're heading in because of all these things. The foolishness of sinning against God, of rebelling against the word of God. It has left so many in our generation lonely, hungry, and thirsty.

And God, when they cry, it says in Psalm 170, hears their cry and brings them out of their distresses. Brings them to the place that their heart has really longed for, yet they have sought it through ignorance in places where God is not found.

Verse 42 says, the righteous shall see it and rejoice. If you're righteous today, you and I come to an understanding of these things, and the rejoicing comes because we embrace it in our hearts. We say, God, if that's what you are, then that's what I want you to be in me.

I want to be an expression in my generation of your kindness. And all iniquity, the psalmist says, shall stop her mouth. Every contrary argument to these things will be put to shame. Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord.

The Last-Day Battle Against Rebellion

Now, I believe that the keeping of this testimony of kindness will be one of the greatest battles of the church in the last days. I want you to hear me on this. We're entering into a season according to 2nd Timothy chapter 3.

Let me read to you the words of Paul. Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, bolsters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural, it means family affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent and unable to retain truth as it is, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof from such turn away.

Don't try to even tell me that it's not going to be a battle to be kind in our generation. Paul's describing an end time lawlessness and rebellion against everything that is good and everything that is God that I believe is being manifested in measure at least in our generation.

I think possibly we've come to the time that Paul spoke about. The casting off of all that is good. The putting away of what is right and the exalting of what is wrong. The calling of evil good and calling good evil.

We've come to that moment in society folks, whether you know it or not, I think more of you are aware of it than I might realize this morning. People are so in love with themselves, so coveted, so proud, so given to blaspheming God and now manifesting a hatred towards anything that represents God.

There's an unthankfulness and unholiness in society. Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God and even the worst of it all is some are these church goers having a form of godliness, but their very existence denies the power of God because they're going to be unable to be kind in this generation.

They're going to be unable to manifest this goodness of God. Folks, there's a day of judgment coming. There's a day of justice coming to the whole world as we know it today, but until that day comes, the kind hand of God is still outstretched to a rebellious society.

The voice of God is still standing on the street corner crying out, how long? You simple ones, will you love simplicity? Turn at my reproof. Behold, I'll pour out my words unto you. I'll make my spirit known to you and I'll make my word known to you.

The call of God is still going out up to the last moment. I believe when the flood came in Noah's day, Noah most likely stood because he was a preacher of righteousness and the kindness of God was being manifested to that generation, but there will come a time when there's no reciprocation of it.

There will come a time in history when only a trickle of people now will be coming out of a mass of humanity that is living in rebellion against a holy God, but it doesn't give us an excuse to become like spirited with the people of the world, folks.

You and I, if ever we had to cling to Christ, it's now. If ever we have to go to the cross, if ever we have to lay hold of God, lay hold of his word, if ever, ever there was a time to say, God, you've got to come and purge my heart from everything in me that is gripping to the things of this world and blinding me to spiritual reality.

You've got to take these things out of my heart because only that which cannot be shaken is going to remain in this generation. 2 Corinthians 12, 15, Paul the apostle says, I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I'd be loved.

And I think that's, that's where we're going, folks. The more abundantly we love, the more compassionately we reach out, the less it's going to be responded to as the days ahead of us begin to unfold.

Enduring Rejection Without Retaliation

In all of us, sometimes when kind words and gestures are met with rejection, indifference or scorn, there's something in all of us that wants to withdraw its hands and turn away from the rejection and call for judgment.

There's just something in us that says, enough. I don't have to suffer like this. You loved me when I was a sinner. There are many of you, your families, they loved you when you were addicted on drugs.

You come home now filled with the spirit of God. You've got a Bible under your arm and now all of a sudden there's a problem in your home, in the work environment. Everybody loved you when you were cheating like everybody else was, talking the way they were talking, doing the things they were doing.

Suddenly you come in, there's a Bible in your purse, there's a Bible under your arm. You're speaking truth. Your facts that you're writing down are honest. You're coming in on time. You're working a hard day.

You're leaving when you're supposed to go home and all of a sudden you've got enemies all around you. You're reaching out to people who look to be discouraged and you're offering words of comfort and kindness and advice only to find out that they're talking about you behind your back in the lunchroom, inventing lies about you, speaking evil about you, calling you insane and radically religious and everything else that is all around you.

And you find now your good is being evil spoken of. And it's so hard in the human heart to not want to call down fire on them. You know what I'm talking about. A person stands before you in the workplace, your home, your apartment building, wherever it is that you travel through the week and they trash talk you when you've been doing nothing but good for them.

And you might have a smile on your face, but in your heart you're hoping they're going to burn in hell and not too long from now. Luke chapter nine, Jesus was heading for Jerusalem and he sent witnesses into a village of the Samaritans.

The scripture says to make ready for him, but they didn't receive him. He sent witnesses in and the witnesses would have gone into this Samaritan village, which the Jewish people considered to be a mixed race people or mixed culture people.

And they, they went into this place and they, Jesus is coming. They must've been excited. Jesus is coming. We're here to tell you Jesus is coming. We're here to tell you that he wants to dwell among you.

He's doing miracles. Prison doors open. Blinded eyes are seeing phenomenal things are happening. Thousands are being fed. Open the doors to your hearts. Open the doors to your homes. Make way. Jesus is coming.

But the people collectively rose up and said, well, that might be good for you, but not for us. We're not interested in this Jesus coming into our town. And so as they passed by the Samaritan village that had rejected his coming, James and John, the two disciples that wanted to sit at the right hand and the left hand of his throne in his kingdom said, master, shall we call down fire on them?

Don't tell me you've never thought that in your heart. Shall we call down fire? And there's a righteousness about it as Elijah did. Remember Lord Elijah called down fire. The captains with their fifties came to get him.

He's sitting on a hill and he called down fire and burnt them all. Master, they've not received you. Let's call down fire on them. In other words, we're in, they're out. So let them go to hell. We're going to heaven.

Let them burn. And Jesus turned and rebuked them. The scripture says, and he said, you don't know what manner of spirit you are of when that is in your heart. He said, the son of man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.

I didn't come. There's a time of destruction coming. There's a judgment coming. Now they knew that they wanted to hasten the day. And he said, but you don't understand till that day, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy.

The mercy of God is here. The mercy of God is flowing. The goodness of God, the kindness of God is being manifested to all men that all may hear, that all may know, that all may come to the saving knowledge of Christ.

And then the scripture tells us from Luke nine, they went to another village. So they passed by this place for this season. Doesn't mean that later on their hearts didn't open, but for this season, they passed by and went to another place.

And the point really is this. When you want to see destruction upon other men, your, your journey of effectiveness for God is coming to a close. When that's what's in the heart. You see, they went on and they went to another village.

And when, when people are unkind, you got to understand that Jesus said, when they speak evil against you, when things are said to you, when, when you called Beelzebub because of the master of the house, he said in one of the gospels, he said, you, you got to rejoice in that day for your reward is you have a great reward ahead of you.

In other words, you are manifesting the love of God. When, when you are able to walk away and you're not walking away in bitterness, but you, you've come to the understanding that Christ is in me, Christ is passing through.

They are not rejecting me. They're rejecting the Christ in me. They're rejecting the Christ who loves them. And you're able to just keep on moving. You go to the next one. This person rejects you. You just simply go to the next one saying maybe one day, maybe one day that heart will open.

And if that heart ever opens again, God count me in. I'd like to be the one to come and speak kind words into this life and show them the way to eternal life. But then we come to the fundamental question.

Christ's Kindness at the Cross

How, how do we do what Christ did? Think about for a moment when he went to the cross and on that cross, there were thieves reviling him on either side of him. I mean, he is nailed through, he has been beaten, he's been humiliated and whipped and mocked for them and they're reviling him.

And suddenly one of these thieves has a change of heart and he says, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And immediately what comes out of the mouth of Jesus is the law of kindness. This law of kindness that is the heart of God to all men.

And he says, what can you imagine if the scripture said, sorry, I would have taken you to paradise today, but you've been mocking me for the last hour and I've just had enough of your conversation. And so I'm just sorry.

It's all over for you. Can you imagine if the law of kindness had not been in him, but the law of kindness was in him and out of his mouth just came a simple statement. This day said, truly, I tell you, you will be with me in paradise.

The son of man did not come to destroy men's lives. The son of man come that men's lives might be saved. We think about Christ on the cross enduring the scorn of the religiously evil. That's sometimes the hardest scorn to endure.

The scorn of the church goer, the scorn of someone who has a form of God and does anything they want to do, lives any way they want to live, watches whatever they want to watch, speak whatever they want to speak.

Their way seems so broad that's before them and yet yours seems so narrow and they make no shortage of the time of mocking that way, that narrow way you have before you. But Jesus endured this scorn because he did not come to destroy men's lives.

It came to save them as they wagged their heads and reviled him and said, if he'd be the son of God, let him come down from the cross was as they paraded by in all of their Holy robes and everything else that went with their ecclesiastical offices and scorning the very God who gives them breath to breathe and the power to live another minute, looking down at the foot of the cross, seeing those who are gambling for his clothing, mocking his compassion, calling out for his death.

How do we represent this Christ in our generation? The one who said, Father forgive them for they don't know what they do. You know it's not really just wishful thinking that we can actually represent this Christ.

Yielding Ourselves as Living Sacrifices

There are two things we have to do. Number one, yield our lives a living sacrifice, which the Bible says in Romans chapter 12 and verse one is our reasonable service. And simply it means agreeing with God that his ways are right.

That's where it begins. Lord, your ways are higher than my ways. Your ways are right and my ways are wrong. That's where it all starts. It's an agreement with God. No terms, no conditions Lord, your ways, your right.

And I agree with you, God, that there is a law of kindness that is written into those who represent you in the earth. And I agree, Lord, that this should be the testimony of my life. I remember the man who God used to win me to Christ.

He was a police officer, came to my house faithfully every Wednesday for quite a while. I remember him opening the scriptures and I would do everything that I could to shake him down, to prove him a phony, that the things he was telling me about, that he used to be a womanizer and a drunk and a gambler.

And yet I'm looking at a man who's completely other than what he's telling me. I was so intrigued by the testimony, the image of God in this man's life that I, although I could have written off what he said, I could not write off what he was and what I saw in him.

And this man had the law of kindness in his heart because no matter how many foolish arguments I presented to him and I presented a lot and I mocked what he believed and I stood against so vehemently actually what he was telling me that when I finally got saved, he didn't believe it.

Kept coming to my house and I think he was losing heart. It's probably been a couple of months and he shows up one Wednesday and I told him, I said, a couple of days ago I gave my life to Jesus Christ.

He looked at me, I said, I don't believe you. Because I had, I had so mocked him. I had so stood against what he was telling me. But you see the law of kindness was in this man. He never, ever, ever one time responded to me in the same spirit I was speaking to him.

Never once said to me, then if you want to go to hell, then go to hell. Never once, never once. The law of kindness just kept coming. It was written in his inward parts by the spirit of almighty God. And it was this law of kindness that eventually softened my heart, led me into the scriptures to read about Christ for myself and caused me one day in 1978 to bend my knee to Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

I was not won by an argument folks. It was not an argument that won me to Christ. It was a man who bore in his body the physical image of Jesus Christ and in his mouth was the law of the kindness of God.

Praise be to God. I thank God for that with all my heart. I thank God that's the kind of a man the Lord had to send to lead me to Christ, to himself. And God forbid that I should ever allow my life to become anything else but the same kind of a vessel that God used to bring me into his kingdom.

The Holy Spirit's Supernatural Work

The law of kindness must be written in us, folks. We must call out to God like never before and say, Lord, you've got to write that law in my heart. This generation is becoming so evil. I can't have any measure of the flesh and the natural man governing me in this anymore.

It has to be the power of another life. Firstly, yielding our lives as a living sacrifice to God, which is our reasonable service. That means agreeing with God that his ways are right. And secondly, by yielding our hearts to the writing of a new law within us.

This is a supernatural transaction. There are no seven steps to this, folks. You can't do it. You can't learn it. You can't procure it. There's nothing in the flesh that can do this. We could study scripture from now until we could quote it backwards and in every language available.

But if it's not written in us, it doesn't matter. It's only God that can write his law in us. He writes it in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. The invisible hand of God begins to write in our hearts and in our minds a new law.

The law, the scripture says, of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. I am made free by the power of God within my life. The Holy Spirit quickens me, raises me out of death, gives me, as the scripture says, a new heart, a new spirit, and a new mind.

Enables me to stand not in my own power, but in the supernatural power of God. Folks, the bottom line is Jesus Christ has to live within us. It's got to be his life. It's got to be his love. It's got to be his kindness flowing out through us.

It's the only way you and I can do this is to allow the one who already won the battle for kindness to live through us and in us. There's no other way. It has to be Christ in me that's the hope of glory.

I can't do it in my own strength. Praise be to God. And if you're trying in your own strength, try as you may. A day is soon coming your way when you're going to find the words are no longer in your mouth unless they are supernaturally put there by Almighty God.

There has to be a change of heart. There has to be something of God worked into your life. The beauty of this whole message is that he's willing to do it if we're willing to let him do it. And he's willing to do it sovereignly.

He says, I don't want your works. I don't want your effort. I want your heart. I want you to believe that I will. Praise be to God. Praise be to God. This walk in Christ is to be a miraculous walk. It always was to be a miraculous walk.

God help us. Whenever we try to make it something that man can do in his own strength, then all we're doing is presenting some of the flesh to a fallen world and saying you too can be like this. You too can have a form of godliness with no supernatural power in it.

The Gospel's Attraction to the Broken

Praise be to God. I'm so gladdened in my heart. I now see why when Jesus was preaching in his generation, while the Pharisees are standing there with their arms folded and scratching their little goatees, then all lepers and prostitutes and drug addicts of their day are all coming in, touching the hem of his garment.

They heard something in him. God is good and his mercy endures forever. They heard something that the religious couldn't hear. The ground is level at the cross, praise God, and whosoever will may come, no matter where you're coming from, no matter what your experience in life, no matter what you've done to people or what people have done to you, you can come and all you have to do is agree with God and let his power touch your life and you will never be the same again.

Praise God. Thy loving kindness is better than life. David the psalmist said, thy gentleness hath made me great. Oh, God, help us to be kind now. Help us, Lord, to be the testimony of your mercy that sent you to a cross.

Help us, God, not to respond with anger when we are mistreated. Help us, Lord, when we are reviled, to respond with kindness if we're rejected, just to move to the next place on our journey. God, help us not to harbor a list of grievances in our heart against people who don't know you as Lord and Savior and the religious who are not yet surrendered to you.

Oh, God, God Almighty, I'm asking you in Christ's name to work this law of kindness into our hearts that our words may have some effect, that we may stand and truly represent you in our generation. Lord, do a supernatural work in this church today.