Standing In An Evil Time — Carter Conlon

Standing Firm Through Right Choices

Now, I'm going to speak to people in the sanctuary tonight and people who are online in a bit of a different way. My message is called Standing in an Evil Time. So for those that are home and you're addicted and afflicted and depressed and struggling and with different trials in your life, I'm speaking to you tonight, I'm speaking to the person that you will be in the future, not the person you are today.

So I want you to get that deep into your spirit because I see something in my heart that God's about to do in our generation and it involves you. It's not a message for the strong. It's a message for the obedient.

It's a message for the hungry heart. It's a message for the person that just says, God, what have I got to lose? I'm going to get up and I'm going to walk with you. Young men and young women, like the young man we saw tonight, Micah, who got up and shared his story, I can see something ahead for this young man.

God's going to use his life in a powerful and a significant way because he's making right choices today. The choices you make today will determine what kind of a person you will be in the future. And not only the kind of a person, but it will determine your strength or lack thereof.

If you make wrong choices in a time when there is no persecution, may I put it that way, then you're going to make the same wrong choices when the day of persecution comes. You're not going to be able to stand.

You won't have any strength. This message is about standing in an evil time, folks, because we're in an evil time today and it's going to get worse. I wish I could tell you it's going to get better, but I can't.

I feel in my heart I'm maybe two years down the road from where we are right now spiritually seeing something that's coming our way. And we're going to have to learn to stand in an evil time. Even as I speak tonight, laws in the Western world are being passed, making it hate speech and a jailable offense to have a contrary opinion to the public thought of our present societies.

It's a very, very perilous day. Just as Paul said, perilous times are coming in the last days. But you can stand and you will stand if you will hear this message tonight. God will do something in your life that will give you and I the ability to stand and face the storms that are coming all of our way.

You know, at the beginning, I think it was the beginning of this year, I had an opportunity to share with some of the students and I told them, I said, we are preparing, you're a generation that are going to have to stand in the fire and we're preparing you to stand in the fire.

The choices you make, the way you seek God now will determine what kind of an impact you will be able to have on our society that's just ahead of us. And it's an amazing thing to see God opening the doors that God is opening.

It's phenomenal that he will take us here at Summit and send us off to some of the Ivy League schools around the country. Not that they're ahead of anybody here. Actually, I believe that you're ahead of the people in Ivy League schools because you are now where they need to be.

They need to be seeking the strength of God. They need to be born again by the spirit of God. They need to be cleansed by the blood of Christ. They need to be studying the word of God because there's no secular degree that's going to get anybody through the days that we're about to face.

Only the spirit of God will give us the strength that we need. So Father, I thank you tonight that your entrance of your word gives life and it gives light. I thank you, God. You don't take us because we're strong and use us.

You take us when we're weak and your strength becomes manifest through us. So God, would you help those tonight who need to make some right choices? Would you help us here in the sanctuary and those that are online, whether the right choice is putting away drugs, whether it's forgiving an enemy, whatever it is, that you would give us today the power to make right choices so we can stand tomorrow.

God Almighty, we recognize that there is a scriptural precedent for this. Help me to explain it tonight. Help us to see it and help us to lay hold of it. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Ephesians chapter 6, beginning at verse 10, Paul the Apostle said these words.

The Strength of the Lord and the Whole Armor of God

Now, he's the one who warned us in the last days that perilous times are going to come, and I believe that perilous times are here. They're not coming. They're already here. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

He doesn't say be strong in yourself, be strong in your own confidence, be strong in your own abilities. No, be strong in the Lord and the power of his might. In other words, that which God is willing to do in an obedient life and through an obedient heart and not to the naturally strongest among us.

It's the person, you'd be amazed who's going to stand in the coming days. A lot of people who we thought were going to stand are going to cave. They're going to bend. They're going to bow. They're going to compromise.

Churches that we thought were strong churches are going to be heading off into the same debauchery as the society around us. You'd be surprised who's going to stand. You'd be surprised who's going to take over pulpits in our generation.

The guy with the broom at the back who really did trust in God, suddenly when there's nobody in the pulpit, perhaps that's the person that God will call. What does it matter as long as it's somebody who has a trust in God and is willing to stand and face the opposition that we're going to all have to face?

Put on the whole armor of God. Say it with me, the whole armor of God. Not half of the armor, not part of the armor, not the selective parts that we like. You see, the devil doesn't need much more than just one part of your character to get a hold of you.

That's why Paul says, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, not a half of it, not part of it, not selective things. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, the schemes.

You see, I'm 70 years old and there's not too many, if any, older than me here. There might be one or two, I guess, but I'm not looking at anybody right now, so please don't take offense. I'm trying to put on horse blindness so I don't look at anybody in case I get this wrong and somebody gets really offended.

But the devil's been around a lot longer than us and he's had a long time to formulate his plans against you. The schemes, the devices, the whispers, the thoughts, the foxes that run through the vines of your mind, the demonic whispers, the fears he will try to put into your heart.

It's only in the armor of God that we can stand against these things, not in anybody's natural strength. Peter the apostle thought he could stand because he was probably the naturally strongest of all the apostles.

I think people were actually afraid of him before he started to follow Christ. And he had a natural strength and he believed he could stand in that natural strength only to find out that it failed him.

And it's not the strongest. It's not, you look in the book of 1 Corinthians, it's not the mighty, it's not the noble, it's the weak, it's the nobodies, it's the nothings, it's people who despise what they are even or used to be, that God takes and puts his spirit upon us and makes us into something more than we could ever hope to be in our own strength.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. We're not fighting against people.

Now we realize that people are the instruments sometimes who come under the influence of demonic powers, but they are not the real fight. They're just hopless victims being used in a sense by darkness to bring an agenda of hell into this world that is against Christ and against his truth and against his church.

And we can't even see these powers, let alone fight against them, apart from the power of Christ in each of our lives. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand.

In other words, take up the whole armor of God that you can stand in the midst of this onslaught of hell that's now coming over the whole world. Seemingly in the last just couple of years, it's getting worse almost every day now.

And having done all to stand. So that's the promise from God's word that we're not going to be blown over by adversity. We're building our lives on the truth of God's word. And when the rains come and the winds blow and the seas rage, we will stand.

That's the promise of the word of God. We will withstand this onslaught. As a matter of fact, I have a picture in my mind of not just standing still and trusting that we're not going to get knocked over, but actually advancing against this darkness.

Actually moving into this darkness and making a difference in our generation. We're not called just to stand. We're called to withstand. That means we're pushing back against these gates of hell that are trying to prevail and destroy an entire generation.

And we're doing it in the strength of our God. And the promise of God, if we put on the whole armor of God, is that when it's all over, we're still standing. Thank God. When our day is done, when the battle has been finished, when we're called home to be with God, or right up to that final moment, we are still standing in the strength of our God.

Truth, Righteousness, and the Gospel of Peace

Therefore, having girded your waist with truth, put on the breastplate of righteousness. In other words, learn truth. As Paul said to Timothy, study. Study the word of God. Know the word of God. But also, there's a psalmist who said, thy word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you.

The word of God has to go from your head to your heart. It's got to become part of the fabric of your being. There's got to be something in me that says, God, this is true. It doesn't matter what I think.

It doesn't matter what other people say. It doesn't matter what the rest of society is doing. It doesn't even matter what the backslidden church is doing. This is true. And this is what I'm going to base my life on.

I'm going to study this. I'm going to put it around my middle parts as it is. I'm going to embrace. I'm going to imbibe. I'm going to love your word. It's going to change my character. It's going to change my life.

It's going to change my future. It's going to change the source of my strength. When I was first a believer, I remember I was a police officer and I used to work radar. They called it back then. And thankfully, the thing didn't work when it rained.

I remember praying for rain the year I got saved because I couldn't do anything if it rained. So I'd park behind a building, open the Bible, and it was truth. All the things that I'd heard for so many years that had started to try to form my character, my worldview, and none of it was really that good.

And suddenly you're reading truth. And that's why it says, gird your waist with truth. Devour this truth. Eat this truth. Taste this truth. And then put on that breastplate. Take it from your head and put it near your heart.

Oh, how I love that word, the psalmist says. How I love your word, oh God. How I love it when I open your word and it's my guide. It's, in a sense, your love letter to me. It's your way of making sure I have strength to stand in the evil day.

Stand there, it says, having girded your waist with truth and putting on the breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. In other words, your feet shod means that you're dressed to go.

You're dressed to fight. You're dressed to bring. You're dressed to make a difference. You're not standing still with shoes on. You know, when you put your shoes on, you're generally going somewhere. Unless you're my age, it's just because your feet are cold.

But other than that, generally speaking, you're going somewhere when you put your shoes on. So when he says put on the shoes of the preparation of the gospel, in other words, you're preparing for a journey that God has uniquely for your life.

Listen to me online tonight. God didn't design you to be sitting depressed on your couch tonight or taking drugs or smoking weed or drinking alcohol, whatever it is you're doing, or hating your neighbor or thinking about that person that did you wrong and all this other stuff.

You weren't designed for that. You were designed for a journey that brings glory to his name. You're designed to be a breath of fresh air in a world that's starting to stink. You're designed to bring the fragrance of Christ with you everywhere you go.

Put on these shoes and start moving into what God has for your life. And take the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. In other words, you have to know who you are in Christ and know that there's going to be a fight.

When you're putting on a steel helmet, for example, and you're carrying a shield and you've got a sword, you know you're in for a fight. Now, it's such an erroneous thought to think that Christian life is just some kind of never-ending bliss.

It will be one day. Oh, yeah. We'll be in heaven. There's going to be no liars going to be there. No, I promise you, no liars are going to be in that place. No backstabbers are going to be there. My goodness sakes, there's not going to be any tears.

There's no sighing in heaven. Can you imagine? You can't sigh. I sigh a lot throughout my day. And I often think of that. I'm not going to be able to do this. I might as well get it all in now. I'm not going to be able to sigh when I get to heaven.

And that day is coming, but till that day, this is a fight. It's a fight the devil's not just about to give up the students at Yale or Cornell or some of these other universities that are asking for permittees.

There's going to be a fight. There's going to be a mental fight. That's why I need that helmet of salvation on my head. I need to know who I am in Christ and what I'm called to do. There's going to be darts flying our way, darts coming from darkness and darts coming from people who are gripped with darkness or influenced by darkness.

Things will be said. You have to have the word of God in your hand. You've got to fight with the weaponry that God's given us. We're not called to be an argument. We're called to be a demonstration of the power of God.

Our words are to sit on people like a lead weight. If God's in them, if the power of the Holy Spirit is behind them, there's a weight that comes behind our speech. And lastly, he says, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, which is staying in communication with God, staying dependent on God.

Prayer, Dependence, and Mutual Spiritual Care

Don't lean on your own understanding, the scripture says. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. Just talk to him constantly, be in prayer, be dependent on, never get to the place where you and I are independent of God in what we do.

And it's interesting and it says, and watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. I never saw that till today. Do you know that part of the spiritual armor is watching out for you and you watching out for me, isn't that something?

That's part of the whole armor. It's not living for me. It's not living a selfish life. It's not just being focused on me, myself and my ministry and all the rest of that stuff. It's being concerned about you and what's happening in your life and watching for you, the scripture says.

You see, because one person can be defeated, but the book of Proverbs tells us that a threefold cord is not easily broken. I want to look at a textbook example of what I'm talking about way back in the book of Daniel, a season where three young men were given the power, or four actually, but I want to focus on just three, were given the power to stand in an evil time.

Daniel's Example: Refusing the King's Defilement

I want to look in Daniel chapter one where it all began. These young men are born in a hostile environment really to the things of God. It's a foreign country. And it says in verse five of chapter one, the king appointed for them a daily provision of his delicacies and of the wine which he drank.

And so that the end of that time they might serve before the king. So the king of this world, may I call it that way, Nebuchadnezzar, he appoints a certain provision and a bit of wine, or maybe a whole lot of wine, which he drank so that they might serve him.

Think that one through. You think today of what the prince of darkness of this world is feeding into people. You think of the little compromises that people make. Oh, what a little wine, what's it going to hurt?

You ever wonder why wine is such an issue in this modern day church? I know in the Pentecostal churches, the big doctrinal debate is, should we drink alcohol or should we not drink alcohol? For heaven's sakes, man, the whole world is perishing.

And that's the theology that people are arguing about. I want to suggest the king of this world is planting that. I want to suggest that there's a lot of compromise going on here. And people think that they can make these compromises and somehow it's not going to have an effect.

The little compromises that you and I make today will determine whether or not we can stand in the evil time. And these young men made a choice. They purposed in their hearts not to defile themselves with the portion of the king's delicacies nor of the intoxicant in the sense that he drank.

In other words, the people around us may feel they can be Christians and be bitter, but we're not going to imbibe that. They may feel that they can fool around a little bit here or there. They can break the rules, they can do, but we're not going to do that.

And here are four young men that are going to change history. All four of them are going to be involved in changing history and bringing the knowledge of God back into their societies. Does anybody know the names of any of those who ate the king's meat and drank the king's wine?

No, we don't know their names because they were just a non-issue in what was about to happen in that society. But we know the names of the four who made a choice and said, I'm going to do it God's way.

Now you can just hear their friends, oh, come on, lighten up a little bit. You're too extreme, all about the rules and all about not defiling yourself and all about not sneaking out here and not going there and not drinking this, not doing that.

Come on, lighten up a little bit. Life is, you know, you can just hear them. Come on guys, we're in captivity. What's wrong with a bottle of wine? It's going to make us feel good. But these guys said, no, we have a set of rules or laws that God has given us and we're making a choice to do it God's way.

And so they made that choice and the source of their strength came from knowing and embracing. Remember he said, put on this truth around your waist and the breastplate of righteousness over your heart.

So they knew truth, but they embraced truth even when it was in a convenient time. And if they had compromised a bit, who was even going to care or see it except for you and I tonight? Thousands of years later, they had no idea we're going to be reading their names.

They had no idea we're going to be talking about their story. They had no idea that their lives were going to influence countless, hundreds of millions of people throughout the world for ages to come by making the choice in a sense to put away these, the steak, I guess, I don't know what it is that was offered them or pork, whatever was offered to them and a bit of wine or a lot of wine, whatever it was.

They made the choice to embrace what they knew was truth. There's no such a thing in the Christian world as your truth and my truth, you understand? There's only truth. We're living in a world now that the whole concept is your, well, that's your truth, but my truth is there is no such a thing.

That's an absurdity. This is truth. There's only truth. And there's only one truth. I am the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me. Now God gifted them because of this choice they made.

Nebuchadnezzar's Image and the Demand to Bow

Then this leader of this particular part of the world got it in his heart, as leaders do, that he was going to recreate the image of what should be worshiped. And of course, it was going to look a lot like him.

It was going to look like his value system. It probably had the image of his face on, I don't know, but he erected this and built this huge statue and everybody was involved, the administrators, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates, and all of the officials of the provinces gathered together.

We're talking hundreds of thousands of people at the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And he told everybody, the herald cried aloud, to you it is commanded, O peoples. It sounds so much like our time, doesn't it?

O nations and languages, whenever you hear the sound of the horn, the flute, the harp, the lyre, the psaltery, and symphony with all kinds of music, you shall fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

It is now going to be a jailable offense to have an alternate opinion to the king's opinion about what should be worshiped, what marriage should look like, what certain things are and are not in society, no matter what God's word has said.

And whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning, fiery furnace. But you see, these three boys, they'd already made a decision long ago to do it God's way.

That's why young people in this Bible school, it makes a difference the way you choose to do it now. You can embrace little compromises, but it will bring a big weakness into your life in the future. Or you can choose to do it God's way.

This is what God's word says. This is what God's word says. It doesn't matter what I say or how I think things should be done. This is what God's word says. And so accusers came, which you will all have to face accusers.

Everyone in this room, everyone online, as you stand up to walk with God, the accusers are coming your way. I prophesy to you within the next couple of years that we're gonna so radically change. I hope you keep this message so you can listen to it so you can find the strength that you're going to need.

But certain of the people came forward and accused these three boys, the young men. They said, they do not serve the gods or worship the golden image which you have set up. And the king was furious and called them in to hold account and he said, I told you that you either bow down to this new order.

You either bow down to this new image of man that I'm bringing into this society. If you refuse to bow down, there's going to be a punishment for you. It's going to get very, very hot for you. And then he makes this statement in Daniel 3 .15.

And who is the God that will deliver you from my hands? You tell me who's gonna deliver you. I have more power than you do. I've got an army behind me. I've got a whole society. I've got governors, administrators, judges.

I've got everybody on my side. Everybody is singing the same song. Everybody's bowing to the same image that I've set up. And who do you think you are that you can withstand all of this power coming against you?

And who is your God that you think he's going to deliver you with all this power behind what I'm doing? And you choose as he saw it in your mediocrity to refuse to bow down. Who exactly do you think you are?

And you will have to face that accusation in this generation. Just exactly what do you think you are? And they answered and they said, if that's the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace.

Faithfulness in the Fiery Furnace

And he will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the golden image which you have set up. The choices they made in their youth determine how strong they were going to be when the storm came their way.

If they had eaten of the king's table and drank of the king's wine, I think I'm on safe ground to say they would have bowed down like everybody else bowed down. Everybody else said, oh, what's the big deal?

God knows my heart. Why should I stand up? The king was furious and he commanded the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than it normally was. It was actually so hot that it killed the people who threw them into the furnace.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 3 .24 was astonished. He rose in haste and spoke and said to his counselors, did we not cast three men bounded to the midst of the fire? And they answered and said, yes, true king.

He said, look, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire. Remember, put on your shoes. They're not standing still, they're walking. They're moving around. You know what they're doing? They're praying.

I believe that. They're walking, there are four of them and they're in the midst of the fire. I don't know about you, but I'd be praying if I was there and the fire's all around me and I'm not burnt yet, I'd be praying.

God, thank you. Thank you for preserving us. Thank you for keeping us. I think they're looking out for each other. I think it's part of the whole armor of God. How are you doing Shadrach? How are you doing Meshach?

Hold on, let's not give up our confidence in God. And they're walking in the midst of the fire and they're praying. I don't know if they saw the fourth man. Do you understand? There's no evidence in scripture they did, but I know Nebuchadnezzar saw the fourth man in the fire.

I don't know if they saw the manifestation of Christ in their midst, but I tell you that when you and I make a choice to stand in the midst of the days that we're about to face, when we are given a supernatural ability to stand, other people see Christ with us.

Other people see the Son of God. Hallelujah. We're called to be a demonstration. We're called to bring the presence of God into our present society because he is more powerful than all the governors and judges and magistrates and musicians and kings and everything else that was bowing down and backslidden followers of Jehovah God of that time.

He's more powerful than all of that. And all he needs is three young men. Come on now. Three young men. When the king saw it, he said, there's no God that can deliver like this God. He promoted them and he made a decree which they always would do because he saw that their God was God.

And they changed the laws. You know, we're living in a perilous time, but for a season, laws can still be changed. The law of sin and death can be pushed back into the midst of the sea. Spiritual awakening can come, but it's going to take people who are willing to stand in an evil time.

Choosing God's Way Before the Storm

And whether or not you stand is going to be determined by the decisions you make today. See, when they decided not to eat the king's meat or drink the king's wine, it was a relatively peaceful moment in their lives.

Things were looking up. They had been selected from countless thousands probably to serve in the king's palace. And so it was the best of a bad situation. May I put it that way. But even then, even then, they said no.

We're going to do it God's way. We've been raised. We've been trained. We know what God's word says to us. We know what we should be putting in our bodies and what we shouldn't be putting there. We know what we should be drinking and what we should not be drinking, and we're going to make a choice.

How did they, could they have known? You know, the choice, the moment in the furnace where the son of God was seen started way back when they were teenagers. They made the right choice. And we still talk about it today.

Three young men that we're going to meet in heaven one day. Did they consider themselves anything? I don't think so. I don't think so. I think they were just, they were gifted like a lot of the young people I see in our Bible school here, but they made a right choice.

You know, I've seen over the years a lot of people make wrong choices that they didn't think were wrong, but go a little bit down the road and it's just, what a train wreck they become. And I've seen others make right choices in the little things.

You go down the road and they're pastoring churches in Europe and they're on the mission field and they're making a difference in the kingdom of God because they chose to do it God's way. They would not embrace the temperature or whatever was going on in the room at the time.

They just simply would not embrace it, but they chose to do it God's way. And so it starts today for people online listening to me, it starts today with the choice you make right now. Yes, it starts now.

Salvation, Repentance, and Choosing Life

Now you have no idea that your life is going to make the difference that it is, but it starts by admitting you need a savior, admitting you can't save yourself, admitting all the efforts you've made to get out of your present situation haven't worked and it's left you where you are today and admitting that I can't save myself and then suddenly turning and saying, God, you came to get me by sending your son to a cross 2 ,000 years ago who paid the price for the wrong that I've done that has separated me from what my life is supposed to be.

There's a sin issue in my life that separates me from God and it was because of mercy that God sent his son to die for me so that I can actually be reconnected with God. And I start by just confessing him with my mouth and saying, Jesus, you're my savior.

And this word now is my guide and Lord, just guide me as I go through the pages of this book. Will you make mistakes? Yes, you will. We all do, but God's word will come to give light to your path and to correct your heart and all I'm asking you to do and all God's asking you to do is, he said it to his own people, Israel, when they're coming out of Egypt, he just said, choose life.

You have a choice before you. Choose right, choose truth, choose life because that's where your strength will be and that's where your life will become a life that can invite the presence of God to be known.

Hallelujah. I don't honestly, now this is just my opinion, you might disagree with me, but I don't honestly think that they saw the fourth man in the fire. Nebuchadnezzar did. They're probably not even aware of it.

Now, they might have been, maybe I'm completely wrong, but I think when we stand, we don't necessarily, I don't physically see Jesus with me on this platform right now, but he is with me. You know, he is.

I don't physically see the Holy Spirit in my life, but he is there, the third person of God does reside in this physical body. But as my life begins to change, as God begins to do what only God can do in us, others see him standing with us, standing in us and standing through us.

It's all about choices. I wish I had the time tonight to tell you some of the choices I've had to make over the years. Some of them are funny and some are serious, but they were all choices. Do I do it my way or do I do it God's way?

Do I do what everybody around me is doing or do I do what God's asking me to do? And I want to thank God that as much as I know, as much as I know, I've made the choice to go God's way. So tonight I'm going to ask you who are online, we're going to pray in just a moment, I'm going to ask you to open your heart to the person, now open your heart to God, but also open your heart to the person that God wants to make you into, even if that even makes sense to you tonight.