The Signs of Active Faith — Carter Conlon

This message is one of the Times Square Church pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing World Challenge, P .O. Box 260, Lindell, Texas 75771, or calling 903 -963 -8626.

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The Commission and Signs of Active Faith

If you'll turn to Mark chapter 16 in the New Testament, I'm going to speak this morning on the signs of active faith. Signs of active faith. Let's pray together. Now, Father, I thank you, God, for the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

I thank you, Lord, that your kingdom has come. Jesus, you are here. Your truth is here to set every man free. God, I thank you for what you're going to accomplish this day. I ask you, Lord, for a quickening of my mind and spirit, my heart.

Lord, that I may stand strictly as an oracle of God. I ask for the grace to be removed out of the way of this message. Lord, that you would infuse me with your life. And, God, that you would speak through me.

And I would ask for grace on all the hearers to hear this word as coming from the very heart of God. Father, you gave it to me. I give it back to you. All I ask is that your kingdom advance in the hearts of your people.

Jesus Christ, be glorified. Be king and Lord of all. Let your will be done this day. I ask it, believing in your mighty name. Mark chapter 16, beginning at verse 15. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

And he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. But he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues.

They shall take up serpents. And if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God.

And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, confirming the word with signs following. Amen. Now, Mark ascribes these words as the direct words of Jesus Christ. Their red letter in my Bible, they should be in yours as well.

It means that Christ himself spoke these words. The scripture tells us that Jesus Christ went back to heaven after he had died and satisfied the wrath of God on all who have sinned against the righteousness of God.

And that those who would trust in Christ could be assured now of a place in heaven, could be assured of their salvation. Jesus went back to heaven and sat down at the right hand of all authority and all power.

The work was finished. He said it conclusively on the cross on Calvary when he said it is finished it means the reign of terror and sin and evil is over. It is finished. Everyone who wants to come to Christ can be free.

I have now a church that are going to go out into all the world. I'm going to be with this church. He said in the gospel of Matthew, I've always said I'm with you always. All power is given unto me and I'm with you always, even unto the end of the world.

And he said you're going to go and you're going to, in effect, go into all the world. And my life is going to be infused into my own creation. Those that have been created in the image of God and who trust in Jesus Christ, who believe that he died for their sins, who are baptized.

Of course, that's a typology in a sense of those who identify with the death of Christ as saying as Christ died to the acclaims and the claims and the accolades of this world. He died to everything that the devil and the flesh had to offer him and subsequently obeyed the will of his father.

And on the third day he was raised up in newness of life. And those that are baptized are making this identification with Christ. I am dead to the things of the world like the apostle Paul said. The things that the world has to offer have nothing in me and I have nothing in them.

Their hearts are now attached to another kingdom. There's another set of rules that begin to guide their lives, another source and infusion of God's life in them that begins to guide them and to make them into new creations in Christ Jesus.

And Jesus said these signs are going to follow. Those that believe. Now, beloved, most assuredly, some people over the centuries have taken all or portions of these scriptures in Mark chapter 16 and moved with them into deep errors of faith and practice.

Peter says in 2 Peter 3 .16, he said they take things which are hard to be understood and which they that are unlearned and unstable rest. Or in other words, they make them so distorted as they do the other scriptures unto their own destruction.

And we have seen and even have in existence today searches claiming to be filled with the fullness of Christ to have literal snakes in their services. And they pick them up and they play with snakes and think that this is a sign that they're walking in the power of God.

But it's nothing more than an absolute deep and very terrifying delusion. A spiritual delusion has come on them. There are others who reportedly over the years have come and made concoctions of deadly things and tried to drink them as some kind of an evidence that they have the supernatural life within them only to become sick and in some cases obviously have died.

And others who are sheltered in the confines of hidden religious practice to the exclusion mostly to those who need it. They focus on casting devils out of each other. There are churches in the charismatic Pentecostal realm and other realms in the kingdom of Christ today who come in and spend their whole time just casting devils out of one another.

Another disillusion of disobedience. They played search with the gift of tongues. Now, before I even attempt to move into these scriptures I want to tell you that I am in agreement with the traditional teachings of the Pentecostal church about these issues.

I'm not going to reiterate them. I do believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I do believe in speaking with other tongues as the Spirit gives utterance. But by the grace of God, I would like today to take these signs just a little bit deeper than sometimes what they seem to be on the surface.

Misusing Spiritual Gifts Outside the Great Commission

And churches today, they play with the gift of tongues. There's a reason why spiritual giftings are given to the body of Jesus Christ. But they come in and their whole focus is on manifestations as they see it.

And again, to the exclusion of where it is really needed and the intent that it was given to the church in the first place. And there are other places where they lay hands on the sick in their midst and follow this by accusing people of having no faith or hidden sin because most of them are not healed.

And there are churches like that all over the world. And I know there are people in this sanctuary today and even involved in ministry have had such experiences. Gone in where they focus on these issues.

And they're simply powerless. And ultimately, in most places, decide after long practice to discontinue even preaching on these scriptures and say they're controversial. And others, because they can't explain them, say, well, they don't really belong in the Bible.

They shouldn't have been and weren't in the original manuscripts. They were added later. And all such like confusion because they fail to understand what these signs are. What do they truly mean? What is the depth of them?

Why were they given to the church? And what is the context in which they are supposed to be lived and this power of Christ is to be manifested through and among his people? Now, you cannot preach this.

You cannot preach Mark chapter 16 verses 17 and 18 outside of the context of verse 15. And it starts with the words, go into all the world. Here is the very reason why these signs were given. Now, these signs are just an evidence of Christ being in his church.

He's called me and he's called you to go. And, beloved, disobedience always brings delusion, at least to our bedfellows. And I find in a great deal of the church world that I have at least experienced in the years that I've known Christ, there is no desire to go.

It's not even in the collective consciousness in some fellowships anymore. It's all about what God can do for me, how God can better my life, how he can cause me to achieve my destiny of greatness as I have come to view myself.

And they come into the house of God and are in absolute disobedience. There's nothing in the heart that would ever want these people to go into all the world. And you cannot preach these gifts or signs out of this context.

These things are really not for those who are disobedient to God. These signs that follow are for those who are yielded to the commission of Christ. And, yes, they may not all head off onto the foreign mission field, but every time they walk out of the house of God, they consider themselves commissioned to the loss, to dying, and the hurting of this world, who are without God.

They consider it a holy commission. Every time they walk out the doors, I'm now going into all the world. I'm now obeying Christ. I'm going to do what God told me to do. I'm going to ask for the Holy Spirit to make me spiritually sensitive to needs that are all around me.

I'm going to ask God to touch people through my life. I'm going to ask him for his kingdom to come every day. I'm going to say, Oh God, lead me, guide me, use me, glorify yourself through my life. And I'm not putting up barriers.

I'm not putting limitations between where I am today and where God could potentially want me to be. My prayer has to be, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in me as it is in heaven. Lord, I'm here now, and I'm going to be used of you now, where I live, where I am, to the fullest extent of how you lead me and guide me.

But in the future, should you send me somewhere throughout the world, no matter where it is, God, I will obey you. And I ask for great grace to hear your voice, and great grace to begin to follow you.

And the Lord says, when you begin to do this, these signs are going to follow those who believe. Who believe? It's so key. Who believe that I'm able to keep them? Who believe that there's a higher calling than living for oneself?

Who believe that those who are true disciples of Christ have taken up their cross, and they're taking it up daily, and they're beginning to follow the will of God as He is beginning to outline that pattern and pathway that He has for each one of them.

God Calls the Weak to His Mission

These signs. Now, beloved, when God calls us to go, He calls us in weakness. And He intends that by His strength, we are going to be successful. He doesn't call us because we know a specific culture. He doesn't call us because we have specific talents in the natural man.

I'm talking apart from that which God gives to us. He doesn't call us for any of these reasons. The Apostle Paul makes it very conclusive. When he says to the Corinthian church, he says, Consider now your calling.

Look around you. Not many mighty, not many noble, not many wise, not many strong among you. But God has called the foolish of the world, and God has called the weak, and the off-scouring, and those things that are nothing to bring to naught, or to nothing those things that are, those things, in other words, that attempt to exist independent of the wisdom and life of God.

God says, Here's how I work. I take the nobodies and nothings of this world, who are rich in faith. I take those who are poor, perhaps in the earth's resources, or poor because of their heritage. Whatever they were infused with as they were being raised, in whatever context or society.

And I take them, and it doesn't matter where they come from. It doesn't matter what they have or don't have. God says, I take the willing heart. I take those who believe that I am God, and I'm able to change them.

And I begin to infuse them with life. I begin to call them, and they begin to follow me. And through them I am glorified. No flesh is glorified in the presence of fallen man. They stand and they know who they are.

They know where they've come from. They know what they have been without God. You see, Scripture is interpreted by Scripture. Whenever we read Scripture, it's really good to know the whole Bible. God never comes out and just says something that's right out of left field and has no precedent in the Scripture.

Moses as a Pattern of Weakness and Calling

I want to look just for a moment this morning at Moses. As a type of man who is called to go. He's called in his weakness, just like you and I are. Remember, the commission is go into all the world. Preach the gospel.

Now, he didn't say go into the world and make a nuisance of yourself. He didn't say go into the world and just stand on a street corner and blather into the universe of spiritual things. No, he said, you're to go and you are to find a people who are on bondage.

And you are to proclaim the kingdom of God as you know it, as it's been revealed in your heart. As you have believed, as you have followed, you're to proclaim this kingdom. And the Lord says, I'll be with you.

And these signs are going to follow the preaching of the Word of God. I'm going to do certain things in the lives of those that you preach to. Oh, beloved, I'm more convinced of this than I've ever been in my life.

I'm more convinced now of the spiritual authority that God wants to give those who are truly yielded to Him. An authority to cast down imaginations and powers of darkness and to see people by the thousands released out of prisons of all types of bondage and foolishness.

Exodus chapter 4, please, if you'll go there with me. Exodus chapter 4. Now, God calls Moses. And remember one of the signs that Jesus said in Mark. He said, they're going to speak with new tongues. He calls them in weakness.

And He says, I'm sending you to a people who are crying out to Me. This is always the call of the church. If it were not so, beloved, then God would be well advised to take us all home to heaven today.

But there are people crying out all over the world. It may not be an audible cry on the street corner, but it's an issue of the heart. They're crying out. They're looking for meaning. They're looking for the reason of life.

They're looking for, why am I created? What is it about? Surely, God, there's got to be more than this that's in my life. How do I get out of here? How do I escape all of this captivity now that sin and the devil and the world has inflicted on me?

And the Lord heard the cry. And when He heard the cry, He commissioned a man. And that's what it's about. That's what the church is about. That's what my life is about. I'm commissioned of God because people are crying for truth.

I'm commissioned as a Christian, let alone leave pastoring a church out of it. Just as a Christian, I'm commissioned of God to be sensitive, to hear the cry. And as He leads me to begin to move, and He promises me that His kingdom will come with me.

In Exodus 4, verse 10, Moses said to the Lord, Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent. Neither heretofore, that means before, nor since, thou hast spoken unto thy servant, but I'm slow of speech and of a slow tongue.

And the Lord said to him, Now, you understand the context. Moses said, I don't have the tongue that is necessary to do this work. You're calling me to stand before people, you're calling me to stand before kings, and I don't have the tongue.

I didn't have it before, and I don't have it now. I've heard your voice, but, oh God, I haven't got the ability. And the Lord said to him, verse 11, Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the dumb? Or the deaf?

Or the seeing? Or the blind? Have not I the Lord? Now, therefore, go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. One of the signs that will follow those who believe, He says, I will be with your mouth.

You will speak with new tongues. The word new in the Greek New Testament means a renewed tongue or a consecrated tongue. A consecrated tongue means a tongue that is set apart for the purposes of God. That means there cannot be mixture in your life, and there's got to be a desire.

Oh, beloved, would be to God that everyone in this house would turn their television off once and for all. Would be to God we would put down the counsel of the foolish and stop listening to the scorners and all the idiocy of a society that is spiraling into darkness.

Would be to God, as His people, we would become separate to the purposes of God and consecrate our hearts and our lives and our tongues to God's purpose. God says, I'll be with the mouth of those who have a consecrated tongue.

That when they speak, it's not for self-glory. When they speak, they have no secondary agenda. Their agenda is Jesus, Your Kingdom, come! Your will be done! Jesus, come and speak through me! Come, oh God, and do what You've called Your church to do through my life.

It means not only consecrated, but renewed. It means given life, quickened, enlivened by the presence of God. The word tongues in the Greek New Testament means a foreign or strange language which one has not learned, but yet is enabled to speak as a result of the supernatural intervention of the Holy Spirit.

It's a language. A language I've not learned, but I'm enabled to speak it by the supernatural intervention of the Holy Spirit. Now, in the book of Acts chapter 2, the Bible says this fearful and confused, many of them people, gathered in an upper room in obedience to God, and the Spirit of God came upon them.

And they came out into the open. And as they walked out into the open, the Bible says that there were Parthians and Medes and people from Mesopotamia and other parts throughout the world who were gathered in Jerusalem for religious purposes at that particular time.

And they said, we hear these people speaking in our languages the wonderful works of God. We hear them speaking. Now, they were not aware these are not languages they had learned, but they were languages that were known to that generation.

And they were speaking in those languages. And so people from other parts of the world heard them speaking, and heard them speaking a specific thing. The word is megalios in the Greek. It means great works or miracles that are contemplated as outcomings of the greatness of God's power and glory.

Amazing. Here are 120 fearful people now empowered by the Spirit of God. They're standing out in the public forum as it is, and they are speaking of great things that God is going to do. Perhaps not only in themselves, but in others that they're about to preach the Gospel to.

There's a prophetic flow as it is. An understanding, a supernatural understanding perhaps in that very moment of the things that they have learned, that have been taught to them. There's nothing that is not already been revealed in the Scriptures, but now they're speaking with authority.

They're standing out in the public marketplace, and they're making this declaration. They're empowered. They're enabled. They're speaking with new tongues. David the psalmist in Psalm 40 verse 3 called it a new song.

He said, I waited patiently for the Lord, and I cried to Him, and He heard my voice. He lifted me up out of a horrible pit and set me on a rock and established my goings, and He has put a new song in my mouth.

And He said, many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord. A new song. They shall speak with new tongues. David said, He took me out of a horrible pit and put a new song. A song of praise to my God.

A song of trust in everything God has ever spoken to me. And He said, people will see me speaking with this new song, and they will look and they will say, only by the power of God could this man be standing.

Only by the power of God could he be singing this song in such a difficult time. And many shall see it, and they shall fear, and they shall trust in the Lord. I think of the mighty men that came out of that cave as they saw this man who should be bitter and confused, who had been betrayed.

But he's speaking in another voice than all of society around him. He's speaking in a different, he's singing a different song, and men begin to hear it. And they fear and they trust in God. And they come out of that cave to break through the ranks of the enemy to get a drink of water out of a well in Bethlehem.

Another comes out and holds the sword, becomes a mighty man with the sword, and fights for so long that his hand has to be pried off of that sword. Mighty, mighty men of God came out of that place when they heard a man who was empowered with a new song, a different voice.

He was able to speak with new tongues. He was given a new heart. The scripture says in Ezekiel that I will give those that are called, I will give them a new mind and a new heart. And beloved, we know conclusively from the scripture that the heart and the mind are inherently, as it is, connected to what we speak.

As a man thinks in his heart, that's what he is. His speech will betray him. He may profess to be a Christian, but in his heart, his mixture, his speech will give him away eventually. And he says there's a new tongue that is given.

I give a new heart. I give a new spirit. And with that new heart and new spirit comes the ability to speak with another tongue. Now I'm not in disagreement with the traditional teaching of ecstatic utterance or speaking in unknown languages.

As I said in the beginning, I'm believing that God by His grace will help us to take this just a little step deeper. You may come from an area in New York City where to say I forgive is a foreign language.

You may come from a background where to say I love you has been unheard. You've never learned it. And all of a sudden, God comes into your life. You come home. I saw on Friday night an altar full of young people so desperate for God, so desperate for truth, so disadvantaged by all of society that has imposed on them and all of life has given them.

But I see a young people touched by the Spirit of God. There were many, many tears at this altar going home and saying I forgive. I forgive is a foreign language in some of your homes where you've come from, among your families where deep roots of vengeance and desire for retribution are common.

Nobody forgives. Everybody holds a grudge. And all of a sudden, you walk in the house and just like on the day of Pentecost, you walk in and say, Mom, Dad, my brother, my sister, husband, wife, children, I forgive you!

Everything that you've ever done to me, every wrong you've ever done to my heart, I forgive you. And the people look just like they did on the day of Pentecost and they're dumbfounded. They say this is a wonderful work.

How could this have happened? He's never learned this. This has to be supernatural intervention. And beloved, it has to be supernatural intervention that allows you and I to say the words I forgive or I love when all we've ever known is hate or all we've ever been raised under is criticism and antagonism and negativity and words that are sent to discourage and crush.

And so many are living this kind of a life and to be able to come home into your community and say I love you now because the love of God is in me. It is a foreign language, as foreign as the languages were on the day of Pentecost.

To go to those who are falling and to those who are disadvantaged and to be able to see something of God and to say I see God's hand on your life is a foreign language to so many. Not just to be a recipient of God's grace but to become a channel of that grace in our generation.

To walk out to the downtrodden, the oppressed, to be sensitive to the spirit and when we see that flicker of hope, that flicker of longing for God to be able to say conclusively to that person I see God's touch on your life.

I see something in the future. I see God doing something. I never now, I ask God for the grace to never judge a man anymore by his present circumstance. Especially someone who professes Christ. If I see somebody struggling, my prayer now is God, I want to see the end of that man's life.

I don't want to see where he is now. I want to see where you're taking him. And I'm going to agree with you. I'm not going to agree with him. I'm not going to agree with anybody around him. You're going to speak to my heart and I'm going to confess it the way you say it's going to end.

I'm going to talk the way you talk. I'm going to speak a new language. I'm not going to walk around with my head hanging down, worried about all my struggles and failures and all my trials and difficulties in my life.

God! You're going to tell me the end and I'm going to speak the end as you do. A new language. A new language. Hallelujah. I thank God for it. It's a language of faith. It's a language that will allow you to walk through the most difficult trial of your life and say it is well with my soul.

It is well. It is well. How are things going? Fine. It is well. I know the end from the beginning. Before I even start, I know the end. Hallelujah. These signs will follow those that believe. Jesus says in Mark, they will take up serpents.

Faith Confronting Fear and Spiritual Bondage

When Moses was called in chapter 4 and verse 1, Moses answered and said, but behold, they'll not believe me. They'll not hearken to my voice, for they will say, the Lord has not appeared to thee. And the Lord said to him, what is it in your hand?

And he said, a rod. He said, cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground and it became a serpent. And Moses fled from before it. And the Lord said to Moses, put forth now thy hand and take it by the tail.

And he put forth his hand and caught it and it became a rod in his hand. You see, I believe what the scripture is saying in the gospel of Mark. When you look at Moses' call and Moses was fearful and the Lord says, well, what have you got in your hand?

He says, I've got a rod. A type, a symbol. It became a symbol of faith in the promises of God and the keeping power of God. Later on, you remember when the Israelites are being pursued by the Egyptians and they came to that place of impossibility.

God said to Moses, lift up the rod that is in your hand. Don't look to me. Lift up the rod. Don't bellyache. Don't cry out to me. I've given you a word and you hold up that rod as a type of faith. But before it could become a type of faith, God had to show him something.

He said, cast it on the ground and it became a serpent, which represents to me everything that Moses was afraid of. Because the Bible says he began to flee before it. You see, the Lord will give courage to those who are his.

There will be an absence of fear. The Bible says perfect love casts out fear. The love of God will cause us to go where no one else can go, who doesn't know God. And the serpent will be there. The fear of physical harm or lack of provision or any other type of failure.

And Moses fled from before the serpent. But the Lord spoke these words to Moses. He said, now reach down, pick it up by the tail. You see, when God speaks, it's interesting. If I read it correctly, a serpent does not flee from anybody.

A serpent stands and fights. But as God has spoken, the devil is already heading the other way. He's already trying to get away because God's hand is on this man. God's hand is on you. If God is speaking to you, his hand is on you.

You don't have to be afraid. You don't have to be afraid of your lack. You don't have to be afraid of provision for the future. You don't have to be afraid that God will not be with you or he sends you to go.

You don't have to be afraid because if God has spoken into your life, the moment you turn to face your fear, you're going to find it's already going in the other direction. God says to Moses, reach down and pick it up by the tail because it's already fleeing.

Grab the devil before he can get away from you and come back again. He grabs the serpent by the tail and it becomes a staff of faith in his hand. Hallelujah! The devil's going to come against you with everything he's got.

When Moses came at later time into the court of Pharaoh, Pharaoh called together all his wise men, his astrologers, all his sorcerers, all his magicians. And the scripture says every man cast down his staff and they all became serpents.

And this is the devil trying to infuse you with fear and cause you to believe from every side that you'll never be successful in the commission that God has placed on your life. But by faith in God, Moses had Aaron throw that rod down.

It became a serpent and it's swollen up, faith in God, swollen up all the lies of the devil. Swollen them up. There's no weapon formed against you that can prosper. There's no angel. There's no devil.

There's nothing can come against you and stop the will of God for your life. Nothing can stop what God is doing. Scripture says they will cast out devils in Mark chapter 16. Exodus chapter 6 verse 6. He says, Wherefore say to the children of Israel, I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the burden of the Egyptians.

I will rid you out of their bondage. I'll redeem you with a stretched out arm and with great judgment. And I will take you to me for a people and I will be to you a God. You shall know that I'm the Lord, your God, which brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

And I will bring you into the land concerning the witch. I did swear to give it to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob. And I will give it you for a heritage. I am the Lord. They shall cast out devils. The word in the original text for devils means deities.

It means devils and it also means false gods. I will cast out those who have reigned over you. I will cast them out. I will draw them down from their seat of power and from their seat of authority. Paul says to the Corinthian church, let me just read it to you.

2nd Corinthians chapter 10 verses 4 and 5. 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 and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

As you go, as we go throughout the world, Jesus himself says through the apostle Paul, I will use your life. There will be a sign that follows your ministry. You will have the power to cast down imaginations.

The word is logismos in the Greek and it means considerations or intentions which are hostile to the gospel. I'll give you a weaponry. I will give you a wisdom that your enemies cannot resist. I will put words in your mouth.

As a matter of fact, part of his discipleship, he said, they're going to draw you before kings and rulers. Don't worry what you're going to say. I'm going to give you the words at the very moment that you need them.

I'm going to put the words in your mouth and you're going to have the authority to cast down these imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Jesus said in Mark, they shall drink any deadly thing and it shall not hurt them.

The Cross Guards Against False Theology

Exodus again with me chapter 15 as the children of Israel progressed through their wilderness journey to the promised land. In Exodus chapter 15 verses 25, the people came to a place where the water was bitter and they couldn't drink it and they murmured against Moses and said, what shall we drink?

Now the bitterness has an inclusive meaning of also it can be poisonous. And he cried to the Lord in verse 25, this is Moses and the Lord showed him a tree which when he had cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet and he made for them a statute and an ordinance and there he proved them.

And he said if thou will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God and will do that which is right in his sight and will give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I brought upon the Egyptians for I am the Lord that healeth thee.