Anoint Our Eyes Again — Carter Conlon

This message title is anoint our eyes again. Now, Father, I thank you, Lord God, with all my heart for this moment in history. I thank you for the touch of heaven in the sanctuary. I thank you for the empowerment of your spirit to speak this word and to hear it.

Thank you, Lord, that everything that you speak comes from a heart of love. You even said that if we are loved, Lord, you would chasten us if we're going astray in any way. And you said that the fruit of that chastening produces a peaceableness and a righteousness.

God, I thank you for it with all my heart. I pray God for an anointing from heaven. It will take the anointing, Lord, to break the yoke of this generation. You have to give us a fresh vision of who we are, of where we need to go, and what you are willing to do for us.

Beginning with my own heart, I surrender my frail body to you, Lord, and I ask you, God, to overpower me with your strength, your wisdom, and the touch of heaven. Lord Jesus Christ, we're not here to play games.

We're not here just to get a good feeling in our emotions. We want to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of who you are. So give us the grace to hear. We thank you for it in Jesus' name. Anoint our eyes again.

Christ’s Message to the Lukewarm Church

Revelation chapter three, verse 14 to 22. But I want to remind you, this is a church that Jesus loved. And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans, write, these things says the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. Because you say, I'm rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing.

And do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy for me gold refined in the fire that you may be rich, and white garments that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed.

And anoint your eyes with eye salve that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten, therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with me.

To him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Now this is a church, or perhaps we could say it was representative of a church age that Jesus still loved.

You know, when you and I read this passage of scripture, this church had strayed considerably away from their initial understanding of who really even they were on the earth and the calling of God that was upon their lives.

But Jesus still loved them. I think it's so important. If we don't understand the depth of his love, then it makes it very, very difficult to receive anything of correction from the heart or the hand of God.

But when you understand that, when you understand that you're secure in the love of God, then it opens the heart to say, Lord, what would you have me to do? Speak to me, oh God. And if I've strayed, as the psalmist David once prayed, God, search me and try me.

If there's something in me that you described as a way of wickedness, then Lord, show it to me that I could turn from it and I can turn to that which is true and represents you. He loved this church enough to still speak to it, though admittedly, not everyone was probably willing to hear his voice.

He said in verse 19 and 20, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten, therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with me.

Verse 18, he says, anoint your eyes with eye salve that you may see. So the question arises, what is it that this church age, this church needed to see? What did they lost sight of? I think it's twofold.

Recovering the Church’s Calling

Number one, their calling. They were oblivious to their calling. Their eyes had begun to focus on things that are not eternal. They have no lasting value for eternity. Obviously, gold was part of it. Whenever the people's hearts turned away from God, gold always comes into the picture.

You'll see it all the way through scripture in all different kinds of forms. That's why he said to them, I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire. Buy from me, purchase from me that which has been proven to be of value, lasting value, eternal worth.

It's already here. The certificate is already printed out. I counsel you to buy this of me. This church had lost their calling. There was no real passion left in their heart for the true work of God, which is the saving of the lost.

Bringing multitudes who are headed into an eternity in a place called hell out of that place by faith in the finished sacrifice of Christ on the cross into a place of eternity with God that is called heaven.

The cross stands between the two. Christ left us here to be a witness of the fact that he died and paid the price for the sins of mankind. Whoever would turn to Christ, their sins could be forgiven. And not only that, but whoever believes in him would be quickened by the spirit of God.

As Christ was raised from the dead, we in our mortal bodies would be quickened. That means brought to life. We're saying about it today, born again by the spirit, we would be made into new creations. We would be brought into a place that only God could bring us into.

And this is what they had lost sight of. And of course, secondly, they lost sight of their condition. You are neither hot nor cold. You go to church and obviously they're meeting. He calls them his church.

He wouldn't call them his church if they weren't his church. They're gathering, they're fellowshipping together, but they're completely unaware of what they were becoming and what they were looking at, what was important to them.

They were cold and hot, neither cold nor hot at the same time. They were just kind of, yeah, I agree that people should be saved. I agree there's a heaven, a hell, but they were not given to either walking away from the truth altogether or embracing the truth that they were being taught and knew was real.

They were kind of stuck in the middle. They weren't going in either direction. Now today, you and I know that we're facing a similar dilemma. According to the United Nations, this a UN survey as of the year 2008, I want you to hear me on this.

6 ,775 people per day are dying in America. That's right now. Sometimes we forget that, we lose sight of it because we're not attending 6 ,775 funerals every day. But if we were, we would be keenly aware of the reality that people are dying in their sin, probably the majority, and going into a Christless eternity.

Now to put it in total perspective, that's 2 ,423 ,018 people are dying every year in America. The 2015 US census tells us that only 10 cities in this country have a population of one million persons or more.

Now to put that into perspective, we are essentially burying the equivalent of the population of Chicago or Houston or the combined populations of Dallas and San Diego every year in America. That's stunning.

It's shocking when you begin to realize how many people are dying, how many are going into eternity, how many have not been reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now in contrast to this, Larry Tomczak, who's an author and a writer for Charisma News, last week in an article that he wrote, he cites statistics indicating that in this country, in the United States of America, 200 churches a week are closing now.

That's 10 ,400 churches a year are presently in this nation closing their doors. Have we lost our focus as the people of God? What happened to us with the population literally of Chicago or Houston going into the ground every year, dying many of these people unsaved, unforgiven, going into eternal darkness?

While all that's happening on one side, on the other side, 10 ,400 churches a year are closing their doors in America. Would you agree with me? Something is wrong. We've lost our focus. We've lost our identity.

We forgot our calling. We forgot who we are. We started to focus as the people of God, perhaps in the good times. We started looking at the gold. We started looking at all of the things that this world's got to offer, the finery, the garments, the good life.

And we've lost our vision. We lost our purpose. We lost our calling. And now it's imperative that you and I get back to an understanding of why we are left on this earth, especially now in this day in which we're living it.

Folks, you recognize the peril of this moment. You recognize that things are starting to unravel on a global scale now. And we've got to rediscover. We've got to say, God, would you anoint my eyes with ISAB because I can't do it for myself.

If I anoint myself, I will come out smelling like a rose every time. You've got to touch my eyes. Lord, you've got to show me what I am or where I need to go. And you will do it all under the banner of your love because you still love me and you want my life to count for your glory.

The Church’s Lost Focus on Eternal Values

In many cases, it can be rightly said that people are just giving up because of a lack of focus. It's just getting too hard to go on because the focus has been wrong for quite some time. And people are starting to more or less gather.

They say, well, I got some gold. That means I got a retirement plan for the future. I got some silver. I got some money for today. I've got some goods. Isn't that what Laodicea said? We're rich, we're wealthy, and we have need of nothing.

They had everything as they sought that the world has got to offer them. And they erroneously thought that's what the gospel was all about. It was just all about personal wealth and accumulation and feeling good and adding Jesus to an already established agenda.

And now because of this lack of focus, it's getting hard to go to church. Christianity is starting to become mocked in our generation. Right is becoming wrong and wrong is becoming right. You can't even have an opinion now.

You're in danger of losing your job if you have an opinion about something that's of a biblical worldview. And because people's eyes have not been on what is a really eternal value, they're starting to walk away from the house of God.

And 10 ,400 churches a year are closing their doors when 2 ,423 ,018 people are going into the ground and into eternity, the majority of whom without God. I know your works, he said in verse 15. I know your works.

They had an appearance of Christianity, but little inner passion for the actual work of God. And it was all just on the outside. The speech was right. A few things were transformed in their lives. I know your works.

I see it. I walk with you. There's nothing hidden. I know the thoughts of your mind. God does. He knows what we're thinking. No matter, we can put on our nice clothes on Sunday, but he knows what we're thinking the rest of the week.

He knows what's occupying our minds. He knows what our value system is attached to. He knows, he sees it. And can you imagine we're walking through the workplace and through our neighborhoods, and he knows the thoughts of other hearts.

And he sees that kid on the corner that's crying out for reality, not understanding there even is a God. And he hears the cry, but he can't speak to his church, who's so preoccupied with herself, with their own comfort, with their own sense of satisfaction.

How it must grieve the heart of God was, as people are neither cold, they go to church, but they're not hot for the work of God. They're not walking home saying, Lord, speak to me. Tell me what to do.

Let the giftings of your spirit begin to abound. Give me words of knowledge. Give me the courage to speak your name. Give me power to lay hands on the sick and the afflicted and the addicted. Give me authority over devils of hell in my generation.

God, give me these things. How it must grieve the heart of God as he sees his people just walking by, one or perhaps more of the 2 ,400 ,000 every year that are going into eternity and not speaking. The last thing I ever want to happen in my life is have somebody turn to me at the throne of God and say, you knew this?

You knew this? You knew this place existed? Even if I would have rejected you, why didn't you at least tell me that this day was coming? Why didn't you tell me there was a heaven, a hell, and a savior?

Why did you stay silent in the face of even my mockery of what you believed? Verse 16 tells us they close down because Christ can't speak to them anymore and neither can he work through them. Verse 16 says, because you're lukewarm and either cold or hot, I'll vomit you out of my mouth.

Here's what he's saying. I mean, it has a lot of different applications, different levels, but here it is on the initial level. I can't speak to you anymore. I'm not going to. There's nothing, I think, more fearful than being a Christian and God doesn't speak to you anymore.

You open the Bible, it's not speaking. You pray, you hear nothing. There's whole churches now. God's not speaking to them anymore because it's pointless. And so pastor gets up, goes online, borrows something from somebody on the internet, speaks some little thing about the Christian life and everybody goes home half dead, half dry, says, I won't speak to you because I can't speak through you.

You better pray today. And so had I. Oh God, don't ever let me close my heart to your voice. Don't ever let me get to the place where you can't prompt me, you can't urge me, you can't change my direction.

God help me, please. Verse 20, it says, behold, I stand at the door and knock and if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with me. Laodicea was about to be shut down as well.

Opening the Door to Christ’s Correcting Love

Jesus, because he loved them, he comes to the door of every heart. He's knocking today. He's knocking on hearts today. Would you open the door to me? Would you let me come in? Would you let me sit down?

Till he overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne. Can I talk to you? Can I offer you again a place where you can sit with me in victory?

Can I bring you back to a place where you can see things from heaven's perspective? Can I speak to you? Can I challenge you? Can I challenge your direction as he did with the men on the road to Emmaus who had their whole testimony was about we had hoped.

It was all in the past now. He drew near to them and in a sense, he was knocking at the door of their hearts and they opened that door to their lodging that evening. And as he sat at the table breaking bread, their eyes were opened.

They saw something they hadn't seen before. They understood the cross. They understood why the son of God died. They understood perhaps, they understood their part in the ongoing work of the church of Jesus Christ on the earth and it immediately turned them around and they left the direction they were going in and they walked back to the center core of the heart of God with a message.

We've seen him and we know that he's alive. Oh, thank God for that. I counsel you, verse 18, to buy from me gold refined in the fire that you may be rich and white garments that you may be clothed that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed.

He's saying to his church, you've been gathering to yourself that which has no eternal value. Can you imagine one day soon being at the throne of God where people are embracing, crying at the throne of God, people that you shared Christ with somewhere, family members, office workers, people in your neighborhood are coming to you, they're crying, they're hugging, say, oh, thank you.

Oh God, thank you. And you see a group of 10 over here and another group of 15 over there and another group of 25 over there. And everybody's embracing, everybody's crying, everybody's saying, oh, thank you.

I can see my mom and dad in heaven saying to me, oh, thank you, son, that you didn't give up on us. I can see my own father saying, son, the 26 years that I mocked you, the 26 years that I laughed at you, the 26 years that I ridiculed you for your faith in God, you never gave up on me.

You continue to pray for me until you had won me to Christ. I can see that day. What a wonderful time that's going to be. But some are gonna be there and it'd be the first time they realize that they had not focused on what was eternal.

Your clothes are not gonna be there. Do you understand? Your gold is not gonna be there. Your retirement plan's not gonna be there. Your plans are not gonna be there. The only thing that will be there is men, women, and children that God was able to speak through your life to and bring them to himself, that their sins could be washed away and they could become new creatures, eternal creatures in the kingdom of heaven and of God.

That's why I said, buy from me gold refined in the fire. Buy from me truth that has been proven to be true. Buy from me an understanding of that which has eternal value. Buy from me what others have bought.

They went in to the field. They found the pearl of great price and they not only bought the pearl, but they bought the land that went with it. Not only the cross for redemption, but the pathway the cross of Christ is calling us to and will lead us on.

That the shame of your nakedness may not appear. That half-hearted embrace of the passion of Christ for the lost has and will expose you to an often unjust and inaccurate ridicule. Folks, when you are focused on the lost, you become fearless.

The Bible says the righteous are as bold as a lion, but the wicked flee when no one pursues them. This is not an hour to be exposed to be bankrupt. This is not an hour for 10 ,000 churches to be closing their doors.

This is an hour for 10 ,000 churches to be opening anew and afresh every year. This is an hour. This is an hour for the house of God to be filled with people praying and calling out, not for themselves, but for others.

Calling out for a generation that's going to die in its sin if there is not a divine intervention of God. Calling out for our children that are being killed in the womb, then confused in grade school, then lied to in high school and radicalized in college.

This is a time for you and I to come into the house of God and recognize again that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

This is a time for the church of Jesus Christ to rediscover our identity. This is a time for us to rise up one more time in the power of our Christ and with the heart of our God and saying the devil is not stealing this generation on my watch.

As long as I have breath, as long as God has given me a voice, as long as God is willing to still call me and empower me with his spirit, I am not letting darkness swallow this generation. Praise be to God, my life is going to make a difference.

The Emmaus Road and a Renewed Vision of the Cross

And so Jesus Christ, I open the door to my heart and I invite you to come in and dine with me. You know, we use that verse in evangelism all the time, but that's not a verse that was written as an evangelistic verse.

This is a message to the church. I'm knocking at the door of your heart. If you will open the door, I will come in. I will sit down with you. We will fellowship together. Praise be to God. And I will show you where overcoming strength is.

I will release your gold that's been tried in the fire. I will cover you in a sense with that which truly represents Jesus Christ and his heart and his mission and his message again on the face of the earth.

In Luke chapter 24, Christ has been crucified. He has risen from the dead, but there's very few yet that have seen this or fully understood it. They were confused, the followers of Christ, and they had lost their vision.

They lost their sight. They were excited for the three years that he walked among them, excited to hear his truth, excited to hear his miracles. But he was speaking things to them that they as of yet couldn't hear because there were so many that had their own agenda and were trying to kind of usher Jesus into that agenda.

When it didn't happen their way, they lost their sight, they lost their vision. They're gathering, they're still gathering, but there's a sadness in the people of God at this time. But there was a willingness to let him come.

There was a willingness. There were messengers that came back who had been leaving Jerusalem and they walked in and they said, we saw him, we invited him in. He sat at the table with us and broke bread and our eyes were opened and we understood things we'd never understood before.

And as they were beginning to speak these things to the disciples in the same way that I'm speaking them to you today, suddenly he came into their midst and said, peace to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, the scripture tells us elsewhere.

Let them not be afraid. But they were terrified and frightened. And he said, why are you troubled and why do doubts arise in your hearts? In verse 40 he said, when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

In other words, he revealed to them again the cross, the cross, the cross. He revealed to them, he could have appeared to them with healed hands and healed feet. No, he left the marks in his hands. The marks were still there in his feet because they needed to be brought to an understanding of what the cross was all about, what the mission of the son of God had been and consequently what the mission of the church of Jesus Christ is.

A continuation of that message of a divine forgiveness that only the son of God could give. He revealed themselves and we need a fresh revelation today of the cross. We need a fresh revelation of the passion that was in the heart of God to send his son into a world that had literally mocked him and turned from him to die and to leave a testimony in the earth of a people called the church of Jesus Christ who are here to be living witnesses of the reality of his death and his resurrection.

Verse 42 of Luke 24 says, he asked them in verse 40, he says, do you have, or any verse 41, do you have any food here? Remember, I will stand at the door and knock and if you open the door, I will sit down and I will eat with you and you will eat with me.

So they gave him a piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb and he took it and ate in their presence. I will sit at your table. It's really no more complicated than that. I know we'd like to draw some great big grand spiritual illusion out of it, but really what he's saying is that if you open the door to your heart, I will come home with you.

Won't be just in church you're hearing about me. I'll come home with you. I'll sit at the table with you and it's there I'll begin to speak to you. It's there I'll begin to, you go on in verse 45, it says, and he opened their understanding that they might understand the scriptures.

Open your heart to me and I will open the scriptures to you. I will open a pathway before you. I'll open to you the understanding of the purpose of your life, of why you're here, why you exist as the church of Jesus Christ, part of the body of Christ.

And then verse 49, he says, behold, I send the promise of my father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you're endued with power from on high. Not only does he open the scriptures, not only does he open our understanding, but he led them to a place of power where his purpose for their lives could be fulfilled.

See, when you open the door, a lot of good stuff starts happening. Suddenly you see him, not just in church, see him at home. You see him in the word of God, because you really do want the work of God.

It's not just, you know, that I want sight without work. I want the work of God. The Lord, I wanna know what your plan is for my life. It can be scary. It's sometimes easier to craft a plan and spend the rest of your life asking God to bless it because it's more predictable.

The plan of God, I will admit, is not predictable. I've said it before to some people. If God would have shown me the whole thing, I'm not sure I would have undertaken the journey. Would have been too fearful in the beginning.

So he just, he shows you one line upon one line and the next step and the next step. Sits at the table, the scriptures begin to open. He shows us where the place of power is to fulfill what he's calling us to do and to be.

The Holy Spirit’s Power for the Church’s Mission

That's why in the book of Revelation, Jesus just asks us to get back to basics. Remember when he stood in the pulpit one day and he said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. And one of the reasons why the Holy Spirit was upon the physical man, Jesus, was to give sight to the blind.

That wasn't a physical thing, folks. As much, he did that physically. Why, if it was strictly a physical healing, why would he just single out that? Why not, the spirit of the Lord is upon me to raise the dead and give strength to the lame and cleanse the leper and all this other stuff that happened.

No, the only thing he mentions in that is to give sight to the blind. In other words, to wash and rewash the eyes of those who don't fully understand their purpose on the earth. They don't understand, firstly, the love of God.

They don't understand the salvation of God. And then once they do understand those two things, it's now what is the purpose and power of God for my life in telling others the simple truth that Christ died for them, that they may have eternal life.

I wrote down a simple prayer as I was preparing this this week, and here it is. Lord, anoint my eyes with that which you want me to see. Show me again your purpose for my life. God anoint my eyes for that which you want me to see and show me again.

Show me again. Maybe you were speaking and I haven't heard it. Maybe you were whispering and I just, I wouldn't hear it. But God, show me again your purpose for my life. Because if I'm willing to embrace it, then you will show me your power to accomplish it.

It goes, so many people today in the church of Jesus Christ are running for power without purpose. And so it just leads them to doing strange things in the name of God. No, show me your purpose, Lord.

And then lead me to the power that you have for my life to accomplish it. Give me a heart for your work. Give me a heart, God, for your work. Don't let me deceive myself. Don't let me be neither hot nor cold thinking somehow that's an okay place to be.

Give me a heart for your work. I haven't had it, I haven't done it all right in my life. I wish I could say I had, but I haven't. But I tell you, I've always had one thing that has kept me going forward is I've always had a heart for his work.

Ever since the young days as a new believer, it's God, what do you want to do? And he would whisper things that I felt were preposterous because it was outside of my realm of ability as I saw it or comfort zone of things I even wanted to do.

But every time I would say yes to God, then he would next lead me to the place of power to accomplish it. It's truly a supernatural and an amazing life to live with God. And when we make mistakes and when we fall short, like with Laodicea, he doesn't write us off because we make mistakes or we do things wrong.

He doubles back and knocks again on our door. Don't you love that? He says, would you let me in again? You've created a little room in your heart that you've locked me out of this place, but I'm knocking now.

He's a true and a pure gentleman, don't you love it? He has the right to kick the door in. He's God, but he doesn't, he knocks. And he says, if you'll open the door, I'll come in to that area of your life and sit down with you and we'll talk again.

And I'll open these scriptures to you and I'll lead you to where your life is supposed to go and I'll give you the power. God, give me a heart for your work. Give me a love for people, a love for people.

The apostle John said, when our hearts are perfected in the love of God, fear is cast out of our lives. If you love somebody, you'll tell them, you'll speak to them. We have to have that love of God in our hearts or we will cower under the weight of this moment.

A Fresh Anointing to Become Soul Winners

Give me a willingness to speak of you to them and to gather and to bring them home for your glory. Let me focus on what really matters now. The hour truly could be short. For us, it is definitely short for them.

And God, give me the anointing to be a soul winner. Give me the anointing to be a soul winner. I want more people to Christ in my young years not because I knew everything in the Bible, I won them because I loved them and they knew it.

They knew it. I remember a police officer said to me one time when I was a police officer, he said, you really care about me, don't you? He said, why? Why do you care? Isn't that amazing? How did he know I did?

It wasn't me, it was Christ in me. Allowing God to be God, allowing us to become a soul winner. My prayer for this church. Now I want you to hear, and this is within the realm of reason, this prayer. I've been praying, God, I want you to anoint everyone in this church to be an evangelist.

No exceptions. Every person, everyone, no exception to be a soul winner, to be an evangelist, to have the eyes to see what is of value, to realize that one day we stand at the throne of God and I don't wanna stand there alone in a crowd with nobody coming up around, nobody saying thank you, nobody coming to embrace and said, you came to me when I was in prison, you fed me when I was hungry, you sought me out when nobody else cared.

I don't wanna be standing alone. I don't think anybody here does. But by God's grace, we will focus on what is of eternal value. And so this would be my altar call this morning. It's so simple. I'm gonna pray that God ordain you.

Ordination comes from God. You can have 800 certificates on your wall and be as dead as a doornail spiritually. Ordination comes from God. It's the person, it's the man, it's the woman here today that says, God, I hear you knocking.

I feel like I've been the only one in this audience today. I feel like everybody else disappeared and you've been speaking just to me. And if you feel that way, that's because that's the way it has been for you.

God has singled you out and he's speaking to your heart. And you can say like anybody who's gone before you, Lord, I, oh God, I'm afraid of what this might mean. And you know my heart, you know my thoughts, but if you're knocking on the door of my heart, I'm inviting you to come in and sit down with me.

If you wanna make me a soul winner, Lord, then that's what I'm going to be. By the grace of almighty God, enough people have died and enough churches have closed in this nation. It's time to bring this whole thing to an end.

By the grace of God, I will be that woman. I'll be that man that you call me to be. Not by might, not by power, but by your spirit, almighty God, I will be. If you have a heart to be a soul winner, if you want your eyes touched with the salve that only God can put on your eyes today, to see men and women walking these streets the way God does, to understand the eternal value of a soul.

And we're gonna stand in a moment in North Jersey at home in our home fellowship groups today in the annex. I'm gonna ask you to stand in the sanctuary. You can come forward to the front of the sanctuary and in the annex, step between the screens.

The same in North Jersey. At home, just stand up in your living room in our home fellowship groups. And even people that are listening to this in other parts of the world today. You can just stand up where you are.

It's time for the church to be the church again. Let's stand. We're gonna worship for a few moments. And as we do, if you want to be prayed for this morning, for that touch of heaven, to be a soul winner, then just come.