Let Jesus Come to Your Graveyard — Carter Conlon

Welcome tonight, all of our visitors here at our Bible School in Grantville, Pennsylvania, and to those that are with us online this evening. We're going to be having communion together at the end of this short sharing of God's Word this evening.

And so if you have some bread or juice at home and you turn to Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, you're welcome to partake of this remembrance of this great, great victory that Jesus won for you on the cross when he died for your sins 2 ,000 years ago.

Tonight, I have something on my heart. I want to speak to one man. His name is Sigmund. Sigmund, I hope you're with us tonight. He's from Oslo, Norway, and his prayer request says, "'Please pray for me.

"'My soul is in pain. "'I don't want to live anymore. "'Father, I thank you, God, for the touch of heaven "'on this service this evening. "'I thank you for the abiding presence "'of your Holy Spirit in this sanctuary.

"'I thank you, God, for all that you're about to do. "'God, that will bring honor and glory to your own name. "'Thank you, Lord, that you're going to bring freedom "'to those who don't believe that they can ever be free.

"'Thank you, Jesus, for creating a medium "'called the internet in this last generation "'that is allowing the gospel to be preached "'in all the world before you come. "'Thank you so much for those that are online tonight "'and the thousands that will listen to this service "'before the morning comes in their time zones.

"'Thank you, God, thank you, God, thank you, God. "'Now, we're not interested in empty prayer. "'Lord, we believe that you're going to heal. "'We believe you're going to release, set free, "'give sight to the blind, heal the wounded in heart, "'open the prison doors to those that are bound, "'and set free those that are oppressed.

"'We believe that the poor will have the treasure "'of Christ revealed to them. "'God, because we're walking in unison with your heart. "'We didn't die for them, Jesus, you did. "'Lord, you cared for them first, "'and you've allowed us to share a portion of your heart.

"'So, Lord, thank you for the ability "'to walk with you tonight "'into the places that you desire to go. "'Thank you for the ability to speak on your behalf. "'Lord, our voices don't need to be heard.

"'It's your voice through us that needs to be heard. "'Your voice is the one that has power. "'Lord Jesus Christ, we ask you to glorify "'your own name and satisfy your own heart tonight. "'Do what you came to do.

"'When you went to the cross, it wasn't for a religion, "'it was for a relationship. "'You came to bring freedom. "'So, Lord, we claim that rightful promise tonight, "'not for ourselves, but for others.

"'Others that are coming in tonight, "'people from afar that are looking for help and hope, "'and you are their only hope that they have left. "'God, thank you for what you're gonna do this evening, "'and we give you praise in Jesus' name.'".

Sigmund from Oslo, Norway. Please pray for me, my soul is in pain. I don't want to live anymore. The message that I have tonight is entitled Let Jesus Come to Your Graveyard. It's a situation in the Gospel of Mark, chapter four, that begins in verse 35, in a time of evening.

Jesus Crosses the Sea to Reach the Hopeless

And he said to them, let's go to the other side. And they left a multitude, and they took him along on the boat as he was, and other little boats were with him. So, there's a multitude they have gathered, and sometimes we think that Jesus Christ is just about the crowds, but he heard something that only God can hear.

There was a cry on the other side of the sea. They call it a sea at this time. It might have been a grand lake, but they call it a sea. And he heard a cry that nobody but God can hear. And he said, let's leave the multitudes, and let's go there.

That's how much Jesus Christ cares for you. That's how much he loves you. Somebody that's listening online, Sigmund, or others like Sigmund, in other parts of the world, the Lord has given us a vehicle to be able to come to where you are, to your house, into your graveyard, may I put it that way, because that's exactly what happened here.

Now, to get where they were going, they had to go through a storm. I want to tell you tonight, Sigmund, and others like you, we've had to go through a storm to get to you tonight. It has been a long, long journey.

More than 10 years this prayer meeting has been in effect, and we had to fight through the prognosticators at the beginning that said it'll never get off the ground. We had to fight through the voices that said it's pointless, God doesn't answer prayer.

We had to fight through COVID. We had to fight through police officers showing up in the sanctuary saying, we're gonna find you next week if we find more than 10 people here. We had 11, by the way. And we were threatened that we'd be fined if we didn't get down to 10.

One night, there was only three of us left, but we still persisted in the storm, even though it looked for a season like our boat was gonna go down. And that's exactly what happened to them as they were heading over.

They started to fill with water, and they're thinking, where are we going? Why are we going there? What is this all about? We've had to fight. It's been a long, long, long journey for me to get to your living room tonight.

Wherever it is that you're sitting right now, it's been a long journey for me to get to where you are. I've lost two houses. I've suffered physically for seven years. I've been threatened. I can tell you all this.

I could get you crying if I talked to you tonight about all the stuff that I've been through in the last 40-something years to get to you tonight in your house. But thank God that God himself puts that in our heart, not to give up, not to quit, not to stop rowing, no matter how fierce the storms are.

You know, there would have been a temptation maybe in some people's lives to turn back and say, hey, the storm's too big, let's go back. It was nice on the other side. There was lots of free bread there.

Everybody loved us. Let's just go back there. And why should we persist in this storm? Well, we've persisted, many of us that are here tonight, to be here to pray for you because we believe, as God does, that you are worth everything to God.

No matter what anybody else has said about you or how you feel about yourself, you are worth going through a storm to get to. When they got to the other side of the country, it's Mark chapter five now, and when they come out of the boat, there met him a man of the tombs that had an unclean spirit, who dwelt among the tombs, and no one could bind him, not even with chains.

The Man Among the Tombs and the Bondage of the Past

He'd often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains were pulled apart by him, and the shackles were broken in pieces. Nor could anyone tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones.

And that's where people are, some of you online, that's where you are tonight. You're in a place of death. You know, the Bible says the wages of sin is death, but there's another kind of death, too, as well.

There's the death of memories. You know, what do you find in a graveyard? Everything in a graveyard is in the past. There's nothing of the future, and the future in a graveyard is rather bleak, if that's where you're looking forward to going one day.

All there are is names and places and dates and times, and everywhere you would go, or he would go in that place, and you think about what you find in a graveyard. You find names that weren't there when they should have been.

Names of people that you trusted and betrayed you. Names of loves that you thought you had and you lost. Names of people that said things to you that never should be said. Names of people you said things to that you shouldn't have said, or things that you did that you shouldn't have done, and underneath those names are dates and times, and so you can see this man.

He's living in this place of memories, and it's gnawing away, and people are trying to counsel him. So they tried to bind him with shackles and chains, and so you've gone to counselors, and you've turned to friends, and they've given you advice, and doctors even gave you pills.

They tried everything they could to assuage the grief and the self-destruction that's in your life, but as he did, you've pulled it apart, broken them in pieces, thrown them to the ground, and nobody can tame him.

Nobody can tame you either. Nobody can answer the deep cry of your heart. How many people have tried, and you're all alone now, and maybe everyone else has given up on you, and maybe you've given up almost on yourself, but I'll tell you, there's one who hasn't given up on you.

He loves you, he created you, he died for you to bring you home and set you free, and give you a divine purpose, not just a promise of heaven when you die, but a divine purpose for your life while you live here on the earth.

And so here's this man crying out and cutting himself with stones, and you think if we're living in a generation where there's almost an epidemic of young people cutting themselves now, wanting to inflict some kind of pain because the pain within is so deep, the cutting at least distracts from the depths of that pain.

And the scripture says when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped him. Now, what he did was not worship like you and I might be doing tonight. He's not singing the songs like we sang. His kind of worship is almost like he recognized, and the power that was driving him recognized that something greater than anything he'd ever known or experienced had come into view, and he ran and worshiped.

It's a type of you tonight, Sigmund, coming into this prayer meeting, or tomorrow, I know you're going to listen to this. It's a type of you coming into this prayer meeting, and it might be a last resort, but you're running, and the worship is almost like just acknowledging that God maybe can help me when nobody else can.

Jesus Confronts the Unclean Spirit

And he cried out with a loud voice and said, what have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore you by God that you do not torment me. Now, there's a strange mixture in this voice.

He's got demonic influence working in his life. He's got the pain of past failure and memory on top of that, and then he's got his own personality, so there's this strange mixture coming out of his mouth.

He still has the capability of speech, but his speech is influenced by the evil that's surrounding him and has occupied his heart and occupied his life, and I see it this way, in part, at least. It's the type of man like you, Sigmund, tonight that says, oh, God, if you reject me, you see, don't torment me.

Don't promise me freedom if you can't give it to me. Don't talk to me about a new life if it's not mine. Don't even speak to me if all you're gonna do is add to the torment, because if you reject me, God, then there is no hope for my future.

Everyone else has tried, and I've tried, but the memories are too strong. The demonic power in my life is too deep, but don't you add to the torment, and a lot of people feel that way about God. God knows me.

God knows what I've been doing. God knows how I've been living. Maybe God agrees with what other people have said about me. They've written me off. They've relegated me to this place of death, and they probably say he deserves to be where he is for the things that I've done and the way I live, but oh, God, I implore you, don't add your voice to my torment.

Don't you condemn me as well along with everybody else, but the first thing that came out of Jesus' mouth when he started to draw near to this man is come out of that man. Come out of the man, unclean spirit, and then he said to him, what is your name?

And he answered, my name is Legion, for we're many. I mean, what is my name? Can you imagine if God were to ask you that time, what is my name? My name is sorrow. My name is drugs. My name is depression.

My name is violence. My name is anger. My name is hopelessness. My name is the son that wasn't the son I should have been or the daughter that I shouldn't be. My name is loser. That's what they called me.

My name is addict. My name is alcoholic. My name is nutcase. All the things that people have called, that's my name. You can call me any one of 1 ,000 names and they all fit me. My name is Legion, he said, for we're many.

There are many influences of the demonic in my life now and there are many voices tormenting me. I am just so filled with all of these influences and you ask me what my name is. I don't remember my name.

I don't know. There was a time maybe my mother called me her little boy. That's long gone. There was a time that people in school called me friend. I don't have any more of those. So those names are gone and all that's left are these names.

These unclean names. Names that I don't want to be called by and then something starts to happen. The demonic power in his life starts begging Jesus not to be sent out of the country. I love that. I don't know where that is but they start recognizing that God has come.

They recognize. You know, James said the devils believe in tremble. They recognize that the one who is now looking at this man has the power to cast them into outer darkness on the spot. They recognize he has all authority, all power and they recognize that he loves this man that they have occupied.

Isn't that amazing? They recognize it. I don't know if he knows it yet but the darkness knows it. I want you to know tonight the devil knows that Jesus loves you and he's afraid of what Jesus can do to him when he sets, when Jesus Christ sets you free and so they begin to negotiate.

Jesus Delivers the Man and Restores His Identity

They don't send us too far away. Here's a herd of pigs over here. Send us into the pigs. I'll never fully understand that, folks. There's a lot of theories about it but I just don't understand it and I'm not gonna pretend I understand it and you don't understand it either.

Anybody that says, you don't. And they said, look, send us into the pigs. Send us into this unclean. And Jesus says, okay, go into the pigs. It's interesting. It's like a man that you're about to evict from your house and he says, well, don't send me to another town.

Send me to the house down at the end of the street but Jesus knows that house is on fire and it's gonna burn to the ground within 24 hours. You understand? He says, yeah, sure, go to that house. Go to that house.

So he sends them into the pigs. They go down the slope and they drown in the sea. I just love it and this man suddenly is free. He's free. He's clothed. He's in his right mind. I know what that feels like.

He's free. A lot of you here know that. You know what that feels like. You know what it feels like when you were hopeless. You know what it feels like when you don't understand it fully but you called out to him and he set you free.

How else can you say it? There was no 17 steps to this thing. There was no formula. It was Jesus that commanded this darkness to let you go and you were suddenly clothed and in your right mind and you found a new purpose in life and the people around began to be afraid.

You ever notice how, listen, when I was a cop before I got saved, I was a drunk and I was violent and all this stuff and nobody was afraid of me. When I got saved, everybody's afraid of me all of a sudden.

I'm telling the truth. I'm not drinking anymore. I'm not manhandling or abusing people and suddenly everybody's afraid of me. It doesn't even make sense and they said they were afraid when they saw. They should have been rejoicing.

They should have been dancing and leaping and saying, wow, God just did in this man's life what none of us could do. We tried with all of our counseling and our techniques and our mannerisms but we couldn't bring this man to any form of freedom but yet this man, Jesus, has come through a storm and these people who say they belong to him have come through the storm as well and they've come here just for him because, folks, they didn't stay.

As soon as he was free, they got in the boat and they left and they went back to the other side. Isn't that amazing? They didn't stay. They came for one man. They came for one man. You see, we're here tonight.

I don't know how many we're in, maybe 70 people in the sanctuary and we've come for you tonight. Do you understand? I don't know who you are. There's people all over the world that come in online but by tomorrow morning, there'll be probably 10 to 20 ,000 people that will listen to this service tonight and we've come for you.

That's why we're here and I'm telling you, I know some of the people here and we've come through some storms, folks, to get here tonight to your house, into your living room, through the internet. We've stood, we've stayed, we've come to where you are because Jesus Christ wants to set you free.

Hallelujah. And he's sitting there clothed and in his right mind and the people start to plead with Jesus to leave. I never get that as, other than save our pigs. I guess that's it. They thought, well, we're gonna lose all our pigs if people start getting free.

That's probably the reason, folks. They're obviously raising pigs and hundreds of them just got into the sea and they thought, well, if that's only one man, 200 pigs, I mean, they just start doing the math and say, please leave.

We don't wanna lose our pigs. We don't mind people getting set free but do you have to destroy our herds in the process? He left and he went back to the other side and the man who had been set free, he came and he said, he begged him, please let me go with you.

I wanna go with you. You see, all of us, when God touches our lives, we wanna go where he's going. Do you understand? We wanna do something. We wanna be real close. We don't ever wanna be separated. We don't wanna be called to do something that might be a little distant from where he is or at least where we think he is.

And he said, no. He said, go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you and how he's had compassion on you. And so he went about in the area called Decapolis. It's an area of 10 towns or 10 small cities as they used to call it.

Personal Testimony as Evangelism

And he started telling everybody what Jesus had done for him and he had no Bible. Do you understand? He had no Bible. He couldn't quote anything. He didn't have anything to quote. He couldn't quote. I don't know if he could quote Isaiah.

I doubt they had anything there. He just said, hey, I gotta tell you, I ran into this guy Jesus and I was thus and thus and thus and thus and he set me free. It's amazing. A lot of times new Christians win a lot of people to Jesus until they get trained and they win nobody to Jesus.

It's amazing. It's amazing. You ever notice that? When I was a brand new believer in Christ, all I did was tell people, hey, this is what God has done in my life. This is what I used to be. This is what I am now.

And I led about 51 people to Christ just in the first couple of years, just personally. One on one. And then I started pastoring a church. I got my diploma and all the rest of that stuff and one day it dawned on me, I'm not leading anybody to Christ anymore.

I have all this stuff and all this knowledge but I've lost the simplicity of Jesus Christ. Jesus left that man and said, just tell the people what I did for you. And he did that in these 10 cities and later on when Christ came, because of his testimony, they were now ready to receive the Son of God in their cities and receive the work that the Son of God wanted to do in their lives.

Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. So my encouragement to you tonight, online, is let Jesus come to your graveyard. Wherever you are, wherever those memories of the past are that haunt you, wherever you feel you have failed, wherever the sense of hopelessness got a hold of your life, Jesus has heard you.

He's on the other side of the sea, in a sense, physically at this time and he heard that man. He is the Son of God. He heard his cry and he's heard your cry and he's allowed us to come through our storms to get to here tonight.

I mean, I've come through flood, fire, sickness, trial, threatenings, to be here tonight in your graveyard, your house, with Jesus and with you because Jesus wants to set you free. All you have to do is open your heart to him, let him come in as your Savior and let him do the work in you that only God can do.

And when he's done it, just tell other people what he's done for you and watch, go to your friends. Go to all your friends that are just as drunk and drugged as you are and depressed and tell them what Jesus has done for you.

Put your hands on them and pray and watch what God will begin to do. It's amazing what God will do. You will have to get a Bible at some point because you will need a bit of knowledge in doing all of this.

And start to read the Gospel of John and keep it simple though, keep it simple, okay? Don't get complicated. Just keep it real simple. The devil doesn't care about the Hebrew meaning of words, I'll tell you straight out.

But he does fear the name of Jesus. So keep it real simple and start. This is the end time revival, folks. That's what it's gonna look like. It's gonna be rank and file people out there that are just gonna start telling people, they're gonna start getting free and they're gonna start talking to people about who Jesus is, what Jesus has done and what Jesus can do for them.

Returning to the First Love and Simple Faith

Let's keep it real simple. I believe we're gonna see an end time spiritual awakening in our time, no superstars, just rank and file people that have let Christ touch their lives and are starting to tell other people about it.

Oh, thank God. I remember when I was, I'll just finish with this. I remember when I was a young cop and I didn't have the knowledge, I just had the boldness. I knew Jesus had done something in my life that only he could do.

He was transforming my life from the inside out. He was changing my heart towards people, towards my marriage, towards my child. I had one son at the time. Towards everything, everything was changing.

And I remember one time I went to a domestic situation where husband and wife are busting the furniture over each other and throwing dishes all over the place. It was just a mess. I came into their apartment and I said to the two of them, I said, sit down, just like that on the couch, both of them.

I said, sit down right now. So they both sat on the couch like this and I said, now listen to me. You need Jesus in your lives. Keep it simple. Keep it simple, folks. And they said, we do. I said, yes, you do need Jesus in your life because you're gonna kill each other if you don't give your lives to Jesus Christ.

Folks, it was really simple. It was really simple. Keep it simple. You know, I'm getting back there as I get older. I'm just getting back to where it all started. Remember he said to Ephesus, you got all this going for you.

You've studied, you've proved, you've done all these works, but something has happened to you and you've left your first love. You've left your first love. You know, I wrote that song then, I Love You, Jesus.

I wrote that song back in those days. I love you, love you, Jesus. I praise your holy name. Sitting in my kitchen with a guitar one day, brand new believer in Christ. I started singing this song on the guitar and it's gone all over the world, folks.

Just one song. I was in Jamaica speaking at a pastor's conference. I said hey, I'd like to teach you a new song and there's hundreds of pastors there and I started singing and they all started singing with me.

They knew the song. Amazing, just absolutely amazing. Sigmund, God loves you. God loves you. And every other Sigmund and every other girl out there, young and old, rich and poor. No matter how you feel about yourself, he created you in his image, the Bible says.

And he created you for a divine purpose. Now, your enemies came to take that away from you. You have spiritual enemies that came to destroy that and implant within you a deep sense of hopelessness. But that's not who you are.

And he's heard your cry and we are in your house in Norway tonight. Isn't that amazing? We've gone all the way across the ocean and we are from this prayer meeting in Pennsylvania, United States, we are actually in your house in Norway.

And we've come through a lot of storms to get to where you are tonight. I'm gonna ask all of us to pray together. Just open your heart tonight and pray these words with me. Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for coming to get me, for hearing my cry, for not condemning me, but for loving me and telling me I'm worthwhile, that I have a future and you're gonna walk with me and I'm gonna tell other people about you.

An Invitation to Receive Christ and Share His Work

I open my heart to you tonight, Jesus. And I believe that as you come into my life, every devil has to flee because you don't share a house with anybody. When you come in, it belongs to you. And so this life belongs to you tonight.

From this day forward, you are my savior, you are my savior, you are my Lord and you are my God. I will follow you, Jesus. And I will go where you tell me and I will tell others what you've done in my life.

I love you, Jesus. I love you, Jesus. I love you, Jesus. Father, thank you, God, for everybody that you are touching in this generation. There are just so many people who don't think they have any hope, but you've heard their cry.

There's so many people in their apartments at night believing that there's no future, but you've heard them. And thank you that you've made a way for us. In the Gospels, there was a boat and tonight it's on the internet.

You made a way for us to get through the storm and through the sea to come to people who are crying out, who have no other helper. God, thank you. Thank you, Jesus, for all that you've done. Thank you for sealing them tonight with the words that they've heard and not letting them go back to their old ways, for escaping the cemetery and going into the city and saying, I got to tell you what Jesus has done for me.

Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. If you prayed that prayer with me tonight, text the word decided to 51 ,000. Decided, 51 ,000. Do it by faith and somebody from Times Square Church will send a video to you and we'll help you get started in your new walk with God.

I'd love it if we could sing that song again. I love you, Jesus. Could we do that? I just, I believe God did that for me tonight. I really do. I really do. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name.

I'll be back in just a moment. We're gonna have communion together.