The Basis of Faith Is Trust — Carter Conlon

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A Prayer for an Open Heart and the Transforming Word

Pray with me tonight. God, you've got to open my heart. You've got to open my mind. He promises a new mind. He promises a new heart. I remember the prayer of Jabez that a lot of people have studied lately in the last couple of years, and he just said, Oh God, that you would bless me, that you would expand my borders, that you would help me not to be a source of pain to other people.

And I believe that should be the prayer of every honest Christian. God, would you please just expand my mind and my heart? Give me the ability to understand and to believe your word. And let your word begin to live in me.

I'm going to speak a little bit about the word of God tonight again, and I'm trusting with all my heart that we're going to advance in our knowledge of Jesus Christ. Now, Father, I stand before you as a man who needs a touch of the Holy Spirit.

Lord, none of us can stand, none of us can speak, none of us can even understand if you don't give us the ability. And so I'm the first tonight to bend my knee and confess with my tongue that I need you.

Lord, you have to give me the gifts that I need. You have to give me the power and ability to open this word, or God, it will be profitless in this house tonight. I yield to you and I trust you as the God who does not fail those who come to you with an honest heart.

You have never failed me. Lord, you've never called me and caused me to stand in the pulpit alone. I've always known your presence because you're good and your mercy endures forever. I thank you tonight that you're going to open your word tomorrow night, the night after.

You're going to open your word in an unprecedented way in this congregation. You're going to give us a heart that can embrace truth that we have heard, we've learned, we've known, we've understood. God, you're going to do something that only you can do.

Father, I'm asking you for an anointing to make these truths very simple but very profound, to have a deep and elastic impact on every heart of every hearer who's coming to this house tonight. Jesus, we need you.

We need you, Lord. This is a very, very dark hour. It's time for you to work, Lord. We need you to come and glorify your name through your people once again. We need you to do a supernatural, a sovereign, and a miraculous work in each one of our lives that the world around us, beginning with our own families, may have to stand up and take notice that Jesus Christ is alive from the dead and seated at the right hand of all authority and all power.

God, do your work. Do your work, Holy Spirit. Come and glorify Christ. Do this tonight, O God. I pray for an explosion of faith in our hearts. I pray, God, that you give us an eye salve and take away from our eyes every filth and phlegm of this world that is blocking us to the reality of our Christ, the living Jesus, who rules and reigns not just through time but for all of eternity.

God, every knee is going to bow. Every tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. God, help us tonight to understand these truths. Help us, Lord, to embrace it. Help us to move into it, O God.

I pray for the miraculous, O God. I pray for faith to arise. I pray for preachers of the gospel to be born in the sanctuary tonight. I pray for giftings of the Holy Ghost to be imparted. I pray for supernatural vision, supernatural eyes, O God.

I pray for new hearts of faith and compassion to be imparted by the Holy Ghost for our generation. Jesus, you planted a church in the middle of Times Square, and now I'm asking you to plant a church in New York City, in every borough, O God.

Let your name be glorified. Let your name be glorified. Let your name be glorified, O God. Father, I thank you with all my heart. In Jesus' name. Psalm 119, one verse, verse 68. I'm going to speak a message.

I gave it a title, The Basis of Faith is Trust. Psalm 119, verse 68. Thou art good, and doest good. Teach me thy statutes. This is what the psalmist is saying. God, you are good, and you do good. So teach me your word.

Trusting God's Goodness in Hard Times

It's the basis of a trust in God, the belief that God is good. And many, many people don't even get beyond that. They never are fully convinced that God is good. They feel that God is good if they are blessed, if they have a big bank account, if they feel healthy and happy and whole.

But when trouble comes and trial comes, the very first thing they do is shake their fist at God and accuse Him somehow of some misdeed or wrongdoing in their lives. Not understanding that even the hard times come for the purposes of God.

If God is sending you through hard times, it's because He's putting in you an investment of His own life. And later on, when you come through the other side of your trial, He's going to withdraw that investment.

And you're going to have power in your speech that people of never known trial don't have. He's going to take you through. Folks, He had to put three Hebrew boys in a furnace so that a king could see that there is a God who keeps in the midst of a fiery trial.

So that laws in a heathen nation could be changed. He had to put Daniel in a lion's den to prove to a heathen king that God is able to shut the mouths of lions and deliver like no other God can deliver.

There are times, there are seasons that you and I go through hard times. But the very essence of faith is the trust that God is good. No matter what is in my life, no matter where I am or what I'm going through, God is good.

When God commissioned David to build the temple, He gave him a song, a place where he was going to dwell. Solomon built the temple. And when the temple was completed, the trumpeters and singers came in and they sang a simple song, God is good and His mercy endures forever.

The only song in the Bible that God wrote about Himself. This is how I want to be known. God is good and my mercy endures forever. And the trumpeters began to sing in this play and the singers began to sing.

And they began to sing, God is good and His mercy endures forever. And the Bible says the glory of the Lord came down and filled the temple. Folks, the glory comes in this earthly temple when you and I begin to believe that God is good.

And His mercy endures forever. We go through the same floods as everyone else, the same trials, the same difficulties, knock on our doors, our neighbors. They whine and they moan and complain and blame.

But the Christian says God is good. And His mercy endures forever. God has been so good to me. Hallelujah. The psalmist in Psalm 56, verses 3 and 4 says, What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee. In God, verse 4, I will praise His word.

In God, I have put my trust. I will trust in God, no matter what comes my way. David the psalmist said, even if the seas overflow their boundaries, even if the mountains begin to shake and fall, I will still trust in God.

God will still be my refuge. He will still be my high tower in the midst of these difficult times. I believe that God is. Hebrews 11, 6, the author says, Without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.

The God Who Is Present and Active

Now I must believe that He is as a context that I want to share with you tonight. You remember when the Lord heard the cry of His people who were captivated in a foreign land, He called a man named Moses to go in with nothing more than a stick and a confidence in God to deliver His own people.

And when Moses said, Who shall I say has sent me? What is your name? He said, Tell them, I am, sent you. Now if you look at that in its context, God says, I want to be known as a God who is alive, interested, and active in the lives of those who call out to me.

I am here for you. I am not against you. I am for you. This is really what He was saying. This is what I want to be known as. The God who is for those who cry out to Him, not against Him. Not sitting back with His arms folded, tapping His foot, picking apart every little failing in His people.

No, but a God of incredible mercy. A God who can be trusted when His people cry out to Him. A God who is willing to speak words of life into those who have known nothing but darkness and confusion. To bring you out of all captivity and into this incredible abundance of Himself.

Not a physical place, but Himself. This is the abundance that God is always willing to give to those who cry out to Him. So those who come to God must believe that He is. I believe, God, that You are good.

I believe that You do love me. I believe that You do want to deliver me. I believe that You are an active, present God, alive within me, able to change me. You are willing to do the miraculous. You are willing to expand the borders of my mind and my heart and my life.

You are willing to give me gifts that I could never have without You. You are willing, O God, to put within me an investment of Your life, that I may stand and be a declaration in my generation that You are God and there is none else.

I believe that You are. I believe that You are here for me. I believe that You are good. I trust You, God, in spite of anything that comes my way. And that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Those who make an effort to know Him. That's my paraphrase. Those who just make an effort. He's a rewarder. Those who open the book and say, God, I want to know You. You don't have to be a Hebrew scholar.

But just open the Bible. If you can't read King James, then buy a translation you can read. And you just start reading it and you say, God, I want to know You. And this Word, of course, is not dead writing.

This is God's breath. This Word is alive. And the Holy Spirit quickens it and plants it. In the Old Testament, all they had was the Word on stone. It was always way away from them. It was something hard.

It was something you couldn't really lay hold of. And people tried to obey it, but they couldn't. And God says, no, I'm going to change everything. There's a day coming when I'm going to write my laws on people's hearts.

I'm going to lift this Word off of the page. And by the power of the Holy Ghost, it's going to become part of your fabric. This Word is going to live in you. You don't have to memorize it. It's going to be in you.

You're going to know it. There's a lot of difference. It doesn't say you're going to memorize it. You're going to know it. You're going to intimately embrace this Word of God. And it's just going to start flowing out of you like a river of living water.

And I'm a rewarder of those who make the effort to seek Me, who want to know Me. I'll reward you. There'll be no doubt in your mind. There'll be no doubt in anybody's mind that ever knew you. I'll reward you.

I'll change you. I will, line by line, little by little, foot by foot, inch by inch, image by image, glory by glory, I will reward you. I will change you. You will become another person. People will meet you who knew you five years ago and say, what happened to you?

What happened to you? I've told you the story of my old hockey coach that coached me for years. And I was known as not a very gentlemanly hockey player. And I remember he saw my name in the paper that I was preaching the gospel.

I came to a meeting in the town where I was preaching. And when it was over, he came to me and he said, if I hadn't have seen it, I wouldn't have believed it. He said, but now I've seen it and I believe it.

Faith Comes by Hearing God's Word

That's an amazing thing. I've seen it. He couldn't believe that this young man he'd once coached in a hockey team could ever possibly be preaching anything good. Now, Romans 10, 17 says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

Faith doesn't come by doing. Faith comes by hearing. It's what God is speaking into my heart. Now, how many here tonight, you came to Christ and God began to speak impossibilities into your heart? He began to tell you he was going to do things in your life that you knew were humanly impossible for you to do.

Now, you have a choice to make at that point. You can put it away and say, well, this is impossible. It could never happen. I have nothing to bring into this mix. But you see, God doesn't want you to bring anything but faith into the mix.

Faith that the one who promised is going to be faithful to do what he said he's going to do. And faith comes by hearing. And hearing is that that inward heart that says, God, speak to me and don't let me consider anything impossible that you tell me that you're going to do within my life.

And hearing comes by the word of God. Just like Abraham did. The man who moves into the place which God has promised moves into his word. Now, Abraham, Abraham was moved into a promised land as it is.

God said, I'm going to take you out from where you are, leave your family and you're going to head off and you're going to go to another place. And in this place, I'm going to I'm going to increase you.

I'm going to bless you. And through you and through your descendants, I'm going to bless the whole world. Now, that's that's really a big promise. That's a big promise. I mean, there's no television. There's no radio.

There's no fivefold glossy things. There's there's nothing. How do you get the word out? How do you bless the world? I mean, it would it would take half your life even to travel around the world. How do you bless the world?

But Abraham, it says, believe God. It was counted to him for righteousness. Abraham simply believe God. No, it was it was much more impossible to him as it is than it would seem to us today. But yet it was possible because God had spoken it into his heart and Abraham got up and headed into a place that God had promised him.

And I wonder how many tonight are blessed as it is, as Paul says, with faithful Abraham that you've gotten up from wherever it is that you are, whatever kind of family you're in, whatever kind of a lineage you have, whatever whatever kind of an experience has been your experience.

And you've just gotten this word and you're not physically going anywhere. But in your spirit, you've gotten up and you say, God, I'm not staying here. You said that you're going to increase me. So I believe that you said that you're going to give me a generation after me and that's going to be a blessing to other people.

I believe that. And you said that through my life, that the whole world is going to be blessed. I believe that because I'm part of a large body now called the Church of Jesus Christ that is in all the world.

And I believe, God, that you're going to use me in measure as part of that body to be a blessing to my generation. Abraham moved into the word of God. Folks, there's a lot of people today who try to move into experience.

They try to move into emotion. And I don't deny emotion. I'm a fairly emotional person at times, but really emotion doesn't change you. I can move into emotion, but I will not be changed. I can run around all over the country looking for somebody to make me shake and dance, but I will not be changed by that.

I'm changed as I move into the word of God. Now, go with me to Genesis 1, please, if you will. This is the man like Abraham who moves into God's word and says, God, you are good and you do good. I believe this.

You have to believe this tonight. If you don't believe this and everything I'm saying is of no value to you, you have to believe that God is good and everything he does is good. Everywhere he's going to take you is good.

Everything he allows into your life is good. The bitter things and the sweet things are all good. Everything is good that God does. Folks, this is an understanding in my heart that brought me personally through some very difficult times.

I've known what it's like to have my house burned to the ground. I've known what it's like to have my eldest son burned in a fire. I've known what it's like to be sick for a couple of years on end. I've known some hardship over the years.

But I've had this deep inner knowledge that God is good. And every time I've come through the other side, I've understood the purpose of God. Every time I've come through some of these times, I'm not questioning God, not accusing God, but believing that he's allowed these things for a purpose.

At the end of the journey, I've understood the purpose. And today I can say like Solomon and all of those that sang, God is good and his mercy endures forever. Thank God that he's good and his mercy endures forever.

Creation, New Birth, and the Light of God's Word

Now, Genesis, I'm going to look in the Bible at the very first times that God spoke, the very first recording in Scripture of the voice of God, of God actually speaking and saying something. In Genesis 1, 1 says, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. Now, in the original text, here's what it means.

The earth was without form. It means it was confused, empty, desolate, and it was in a state of unreality. The word void means it was empty. It was an undistinguishable ruin. And darkness was on the face of the deep.

And the word darkness means falsehood and ignorance. And I looked at that and said, God, that was me before you spoke into my life. All of this. I was confused, empty, desolate. I lived in a state of unreality.

I was empty. I was an undistinguishable ruin. I lived in falsehood and ignorance was on my face. And, folks, if you don't believe it, go back and look in your photo album at some of your pictures before you came to Christ.

I have one of those pictures. And if I could put it on the screen tonight, you'd be shouting amen. It's true, pastor. You were confused, empty, desolate, living in a state of unreality, empty, an undistinguishable ruin, living in falsehood and ignorance was on your face.

And that's the reality. That's how all of us live apart from God. That's where man was rejected. God has gone. Man without God is an undistinguishable ruin and living in ignorance and living in falsehood just as the world was until God said, let there be light.

Amazing. I think of the Gospel of John where it says Jesus Christ was that light. It's an amazing thing. Can you remember when God first spoke, when you first heard His voice? Can you remember when you first came to Christ?

I don't know if you can remember. I do. When that night or that afternoon or day when you first received Christ as your Savior and God's voice first came into your life. And just as in creation because everything I believe is a type in the Bible of Jesus Christ.

And God spoke to you and said, let there be light. And it was only just as you open a door in a darkened room and it's not like the room is flooded. It's just a stream as it is of light starts to come into a darkened place.

But you were changed. You woke up and you were not as confused as you've been the day before. You knew in your heart there was a change. The confusion was gone. All of a sudden you didn't know the whole Bible, but you knew something.

You knew instinctively I'm headed for home. I found the one who created me. I know the reason why I'm alive. You're no longer living in this undistinguishable ruin. You're no longer having to live in falsehood.

And there's this inward knowledge that I've heard the voice of the one who created me. And He's calling me to Himself. And this incredible inward joy. My own testimony is the morning after the afternoon that I gave my life to Christ.

When I came to Christ, I wasn't in a service. I was in a car heading for work. I had been reading the Gospel of John. I pulled over on the side of the road. May 12, 1978 at about 2 .50 in the afternoon.

I pulled over on the side of the road and I said, Jesus, if what I'm being told is the truth, if what I see is right in this book, I either have to give my life to you or I'll never call myself a Christian again.

And I invite you to come into my life to be my Lord and my Savior. I put my car back in drive. I went to work. I worked my regular shift. I went home. I didn't hear any bells go off. There was no great emotional experience.

But as sure as God lives, the next morning I woke up. I was sitting on the edge of my bed and I knew I was changed. I knew I was changed. Light had come into this confusion. God, through His Word, had spoken to me.

As much as I could understand in the Gospel of John, He had spoken to me. I knew He was the Son of God. I knew He was my Savior. I knew He had an undeniable right to the reins of my life. I knew that if I was going to go to heaven, it was going to be through Him and through Him alone.

I knew this in my heart. And I heard His voice calling me. And light came into this dark and ruined place. And, folks, the Bible says, And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light day and the darkness He called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And that's the very first thing that begins to happen to us when we come to Christ. The very first thing of a genuine conversion is you start to know the difference between what is right and what is wrong.

There is an instinctive knowledge of the Holy Spirit that comes into the heart. You go back into the lunchroom just like you always have. Somebody starts telling a dirty joke just like they always have done.

And all of a sudden there's this arrow in your heart. You don't have all of the Scripture. You can't even respond to it. But you now know the difference. How do you know this? It's because God has come into your life.

There's a light in you now. There's a dividing between what is Him and what is good and what is evil. You don't have the full context, but you know it because there's light within you. Now, folks, a lot of people never move from this place.

I've known Christians over the years who've come to Christ and they've experienced this euphoric salvation and they spend the rest of their days trying to relive this experience, trying to be there for the winning touchdown as it is over and over and over again.

And they camp there at this place where they were saved. They're 40 years in God, but their testimony is still about back in good old 63 what God did in my life and how He drew me out of sin and how He did this and He did that.

But it's a 40-year-old testimony. What they don't realize is that if you see it in Genesis, God just keeps on. He doesn't just speak and call you out of darkness. He keeps on speaking. Now, folks, He spoke for six consecutive days into this darkened world, and it was only on the seventh day that the world and God came to a position as it is of rest.

And in the Scriptures it says, Mark the perfect man, or mark the man in whom the work of God has been perfected, for the end of that man is peace. If I've allowed God to speak into my life, if He has drawn me to the places where He wants me to go, I'm going to move into the rest of God.

That's why the author of Hebrews says, strive to enter into the rest of God. Almost ironically saying, if you're going to work for something, work for this. Work not for your salvation, but work to enter into the rest of God.

The only way I know that that can happen is I have to let God keep speaking into my life. I've got to open this book, and He has to have open access to my heart. He has to have the ability to challenge me on anything that offends His nature and His character.

He has to have the ability to speak into my heart and possibilities that I begin to embrace as possible because the one who created the universe is the one who is speaking it. Verse 6 in Genesis 1, we see the second time God spoke.

And God said, well, Psalm 119 verse 130 says, The entrance of thy words gives light and gives understanding to the simple. When God begins to speak, light begins to come into the heart and into the soul.

And thank God for that light. I don't know how you feel about it tonight, but I say thank God I'm not confused in a darkened generation. I know where I'm going. Verse 6, it says, And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. Now, I'm using these as types in the Christian life of what God does.

He saves us. He calls us out of darkness. He begins to reveal to us who He is. And the next thing God did in the creation of the world is He divided the waters. Waters that were above and waters that were beneath.

And one of the things that He does in the Christian life is He teaches us the difference between worldly knowledge and heavenly knowledge. We begin to discern which is from above and which is from beneath.

Hallelujah. The Word of God is always referred to in the Scriptures as water, living water. Out of His belly shall flow living water. Ezekiel 36, I'll wash you with clean water and you shall be cleansed from all your impurities and from all your sins.

We begin to know if you are in the Word of God, you know instinctively when somebody is speaking from heaven or if they're speaking from the earth. You know the difference. You have to be in the Word of God.

Thank God. I was saved in a Baptist church. I think that's what you'd call it, Associated Gospel in Canada, but it's really Baptist. And I was really grounded for about two years in the Word of God. Studied this text and devoured it.

And I remember the first time, among the first times, I went into some full gospel meetings and preachers got up who were much more slick than the pastor who I'd been discipled by. And I remember they opened their mouths and, oh, they can mesmerize you.

They're brilliant speakers. But I remember I knew the Word of God and I'm thinking, hey, that's not right. That's not what the Word of God says. And you begin to know what's from above and what's from beneath.

Or they would even speak words that seem to be from above, but they're coming from a source that is beneath. They're coming from the heart of a man who wants to be admired, for example. Oh, I tell you, discernment comes in.

When God speaks, discernment comes in. You begin to know who is speaking for God and who is not speaking for God. And God called the firmament heaven. Hallelujah. In other words, He called that which is above heaven.

And the rest, of course, we know what that is. Verse 9, the entrance of thy words, Psalm 119, verse 99, says, The entrance of thy words gives understanding. I begin to know what is God and I begin to know what is not God.

Genesis 1, 9 says,. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and let dry land appear. And it was so. What does Psalm 119, verse 105 say? Thy word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.

God says, I'm going to make land appear. And the type, as I see it, is I'm going to give you a clear path to walk on. You're going to be out of darkness. You're going to know what is my voice and what is not.

And I'm going to set a path before you to walk through this world. And you're going to walk on this path and you're not going to be confused by any contrary arguments. You're going to know where I'm leading you.

Hallelujah. Thank God. I know where I'm going. I don't have to guess. I know where I'm going. Christ is leading me. I know every day as I get up that he said in his word that he's going to order my steps.

Hallelujah. He's already prescribed my day. I don't have to figure it all out. I have to just follow him and love him with all my heart. Open his word and he says, I'm going to cause the water to part and there will be dry land right in front of you.

Just walk on. What did he do for the children of Israel? He parted the water and brought them through on dry land. Everything speaks about Jesus Christ in this Bible. Verse 11 says,. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass and the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind.

And et cetera, et cetera. And as I see it, God says, I'm going to make now provision for you. I'm going to provide for your every need. I'm going to draw you out of darkness. I'm going to give you discernment.

I'm going to set a path before you. And along that path, you're going to find provision. Everything you need for life and godliness, you're going to find it in my word. It's all in Jesus Christ. It's all been provided for you.

You will not want for any good thing. You'll walk through in the midst of a dark and confused generation and you'll be singing, I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. Every day I'm able to go to the table and every day I have bread enough and for my own hunger and much more to spare for those who are around me.

I have enough water so that I have so much to drink that out of my inward parts flows a river of living water for those that are thirsty. And God saw in verse 12, it says,. And God saw that it was good.

Remember, everything that God does is good. Verse 14 says, God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night. Let them be for signs and seasons, days and years.

Let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights, the greater to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. And he made the stars also.

And he set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and to rule over the day and rule over the night and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. The Lord says, Not just do I save you and bring you out of darkness and give you a path and set provision before you.

But I show you the future. You're not among those who have an uncharted course in life. You don't have to try to figure out tomorrow. I'm going to give you clear signs that I'm with you. I'm going to guide you through this darkened world.