Restoring Your Passion for Christ - Part 6 — Carter Conlon

A Calling to Represent Christ in a Spiritually Dead Generation

I'm going to bring you a word today that is something that's burning deep in my heart. I know it's in the heart of every man and woman of God here who is in touch, I believe, with what the Lord wants to do in our generation.

And Father, I thank you for the anointing. I thank you for the touch of your Spirit. I thank you for your breath breathing on me and through me. Holy Spirit, if you don't animate me, I stand here in vain.

I stand here for nothing. It would be a room full of words, but there'd be no change, there'd be no light. I ask you, Holy Spirit, for your power. I ask you for your quickening, not just for my mind and physical body, but for the ears and hearts of the hearers.

The men and women of God that you have gathered from around the world to this city, this day, this hour. God, you are speaking something to our hearts. Give us the power to hear it, and more so give us the power to obey.

Give us the power to become what you have called us to be in our generation. Lord, you've called us to represent you. And Jesus, give us an understanding of the awesomeness of what that really means. I ask, oh God, that you make this real and quicken it to my heart, every heart that's here.

God, give me the grace to speak this. Give me the grace to represent you, to represent your heart. Give me an expanded mind and understanding that I may speak simply. Help me, Holy Spirit, and help us all to hear.

Ask it in Jesus' name. If you have a Bible, you can turn with me to the Old Testament, to 1 Kings, we'll begin with chapter 17. In chapter 17, we're introduced to a man called Elijah, and he's a man who's raised up by the Spirit of God to confront a system of worship and a system of religion among the people that threatened the very existence of the true worship of God in Israel.

And the very first time that God touched Elijah's life, his life was to be a contrast. And the word that God was going to put into Elijah was to turn the people from that which had its source in death to that which had its source of life in God.

We are also called just as Elijah was called. Every one of us, whether or not we understand it, have an Elijah calling on our lives. Not everyone, obviously, will touch a nation. There are some that God calls to do that.

Others are called to touch a community, a city. Some are called to touch their workplace. Ultimately, we're all called to be the voice of God, the life of Christ in our own home, among our own kin, our own family.

Peter said it this way, you're a chosen generation, you're a royal priesthood, you are a peculiar people that you should show forth the praises of him that called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

We are brought into a marvelous presence of God. Actually, the Greek word for light means brought into that which cannot be quenched by darkness. We've been touched by something. We are now living and moving and we have our being, as the Apostle Paul says in the book of Acts, in the very life of Christ that now is alive within us.

And we are called to represent that life in our generation. That is an incredible calling. The more I become aware of it, the more it causes me to tremble, to even stand behind a pulpit and profess to speak on God's behalf.

My God, I think of the days that await those that have stood behind pulpits from the day of Calvary till the day that Christ comes and have professed to speak in the name of Christ and have not been sent by him, have not heard from him, and have stood as a supposed representation of Jesus Christ and they've never touched heaven, they've never touched divine life.

There's no power of God within them, there's no animation of God as it is leading them. There's nothing flowing through them that brings life. Peter said, you were not a people of God in times past, but now you are the people of God.

You had not obtained mercy, but now you have mercy. And I do thank God for his mercy. I do thank God that mercy is new every morning. I think the psalmist said it the best, he said, oh God, if you marked iniquities, who could stand?

Lord, if you took account of the wrong things that we have done, that is why if you are a righteous man or woman of God today, you cannot be condemned with what I'm about to speak. Your heart will rejoice.

You will sing in your heart and you'll say, God, thank you for showing this to me. Thank you, Lord, for opening up your word and God, lead me there now by mercy. I can't get there by human effort. It's got to be mercy.

It started by grace, it has to progress by grace, it has to finish by grace. And when the whole work is done, just as the prophet cried to those that had come back out of Babylon, you're going to put the capstone on the entire work and shout grace to it.

Because it all was grace from beginning to end. The people of Elijah's day have done, had done what generation upon generation have always done. The children of Israel did it from the time that they left Egypt into the wilderness and they've done it throughout history and countries have done it.

Revival, Spiritual Decline, and the Worship of Prosperity

I'm dumbfounded. I remember when I was a young Christian, I picked up a book on the Welsh revival and it began with the words, it was 1904 and all of Wales was aflame. There was no multimedia, no high profile ministry.

There were just a few seekers of God, one in particular that perhaps was singled out among others. But God began to blow with his presence as it is upon the nation of Wales and the reporters were coming even from as far away as China because the word had spread throughout the world of this great visitation of God.

People would come to church, there was nobody really leading. They had a theme in the meetings. No one is invited to preach, everyone is welcome to speak. Anyone who stood up to speak and the spirit of God was not on them, their face would twist and they would have to sit down.

You'd have to be really sure that the Holy Spirit is animating you to stand and speak in these meetings. Meetings were characterized by worship, incredible worship of God. And when worship would subside, men, women would stand, begin to confess their sins.

Begin to confess things that we would consider trivial today but in that generation were considered serious. And I remember meeting a person when I was a young Christian, I would say 1978, so it was only a few years after that I met somebody and they happened to say, I'm from Wales.

And I thought, oh it must be exciting to come from such a place where there was such a move of God. And the person looked at me and said, what are you talking about? Happened in 1904, the turn of the century to around 19, the early 1904, 1905 and this was now about 1982, another generation had arisen and they began to describe to me the Welsh society, how corrupt and materialistic, hard to believe that less than 100 years before a mighty revival of God had swept through most of the known nation.

They say tens and tens if not hundreds of thousands of people were swept into the kingdom of God with no organization but the Holy Spirit moving through the nation. But again the people turned away from God and in Israel's day they turned to a God called Baal.

Now Baal is a type of something that society will always move to. I'll give you Unger's Bible dictionary definition for simplicity's sake that Baal is a farm God that gave increase to family and fields, flocks and herds.

He was identified with the storm God Hadad whose voice could be heard in the reverberating thunder that accompanied rain so necessary for the success of the crops. So Baal was in essence prosperity and the people of that generation as in every other one when they begin to turn from God they begin to worship prosperity, begin to worship crops and increase and begin to turn from trusting in God to trusting in as it is what's in the barn or what's in the cupboard.

And of course rain was necessary for the crops to grow so Baal had to have an associate. You see false gods always need associate gods, have you ever noticed that? You study the Old Testament when you find one God you always find associate gods.

Thank God that Jesus Christ didn't need an associate God to redeem us. One God manifested in three persons. And so in 1 Kings 17 .1 Elijah stood and by the grace and power of Almighty God he stood to challenge a backslidden nation, a backslidden king, a backslidden generation, a backslidden people that had left off the true seeking of God and had settled for the pursuit of material wealth and whatever would offer them personal comfort.

James the New Testament writer chapter 5 verse 17 tells us that he prayed earnestly that he might not rain. Incredible, Elijah was a man who stood in the presence of God for when he confronted Ahab the king he talked about as the Lord lives before whom I stand there shall be no rain for three years according to my word.

Elijah prayed an incredible prayer. He was so concerned that the nation be turned back to God. He was so concerned that worship be brought back to the focus of truth that he prayed stop the rain. That's like all of us in this sanctuary today getting together and with a real sincerity saying God bankrupt the economies of the world.

Bring down false trust. Bring down all false security. That people may be loosed from this false form of worship and brought into the eternal life that can only be bought for them through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

So concerned for the honor of God. So concerned that people in his generation be taken out of false comfort, be taken out of that which had enveloped, it was all around them, it was in their mind, their spirit, it was gripping them.

But this man Elijah was gripped by something else than the society around him. And folks the church can't be the church until we are gripped by the heart of God for fallen humanity around us. So we are gripped by the need of a generation who are going to perish for eternity.

They're going to spend an eternity in hell without God. We're not called to pursue comfort. We're not called to trust in the gods of our society and become so isolated and insulated and self-seeking that we forget the mission of Christ and we cease to become the church.

There's no burden in us anymore. The word is hardly the word. Now no doubt he was aware of the personal discomfort that he might face as God answered his prayer. Yet it was more important that God be honored among his people.

That was the highest goal and the highest pursuit of Elijah's life. And Elijah found favor with God. And he went and he began to pray. Now we don't have to pray God bankrupt the nation, but God will do that if it's necessary.

But what we have to pray is God take away the false sense of security. Create an awareness in the people that they're lost. And God whatever way you have to do that, do that. Whatever way you have to speak, speak.

Whatever you have to shake, shake. Whatever you have to change, change. And God answered Elijah's prayer and Elijah in chapter 17 went into hiding. The Lord told him go into hiding beside a brook and I'll sovereignly feed you by my hand.

That will be your source of supply and the ravens will come and give you your food. You see the very first lesson we need to learn sometimes in the Christian life is that we're not to place our trust in anything but the provision of God.

As we seek him first in his kingdom, he has told us he will provide for us. We're not to be, Christ said, as the people around who don't know God saying, what shall we wear? Where shall we live? What shall we be clothed with?

Yes, these are things that we think about, but these are not to be the preoccupation of the Christian church. We are to be preoccupied with the business of the master. The business of our master was the saving of all who could hear his voice calling to them.

We are to be the continuation of that voice in our generation. We're to represent him among fallen humanity all around us. Now God eventually dried up the brook and sent him to another place where he began to confront the very source of the problem.

You see a shifted focus away from God ultimately results in a complete loss of hope when calamity comes. We saw that recently here in New York City. One hour, the Bible says your judgment comes. One hour, you read it in the prophet Isaiah.

The Church in Crisis Must Stand in Faith

One hour, it's almost as if the whole trust of an entire society came crashing to the ground. People fleeing in the streets. I remember walking into the church and coming into the prayer room and many of the Christian people were on the floor weeping and crying.

We walked in, some of the leadership, and clapped our hands and said, get up. This is not the time to be crying and weeping. This is the time to get up and be the church of Jesus Christ. We've been called for this hour.

Now we didn't do that harshly. Please don't misunderstand. We were sensitive to the needs of those that were genuinely terrified. But for those who could hear, said now it's time to get out. Start buying water.

Start getting sandwiches. Get your hands on every bit of food you can get your hands on. Terrified people are coming down the road. We are the church of Jesus Christ. We're not to be found without oil.

We're not to be found panicking in a generation that has their security carpet pulled out from under them. We're to be found with oil. We're to be found standing as Paul did in the ship in the midst of the storm in the face of all adversity.

We're to be standing not in some kind of dogged determination, but we're standing in the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We're standing in the midst of difficult times because we're not ignorant to the times that are upon us.

We're aware of our times, but we're more aware of our God. We're aware of our keeping power, his keeping power in our lives. First Kings 17 .2, you hear the pitiful testimony of a society that, 17 .12 rather, that has left off trust in the genuine God of this world, and he's sent to this widow.

Now the Lord dried up the brook because he was sending him somewhere else, and folks, when one thing dries up in your life as a Christian, don't go rebuking the devil forever. Sometimes God dries it up.

He's trying to move you on to something, trying to take you somewhere. You get fired from your job and go home and beg and plead with God and resist the devil and do all these things, and God says, will you just seek me and find out what I have for you?

I've got something for your life. I'm sending you somewhere. Life is more than food and clothing. Life is more than just having oil and bread in your cupboard. And so he goes to this widow woman, and she was going out to gathering some sticks, and he called to her and he said, fetch me, I pray thee, a little water and a vessel that I may drink.

Now keep in mind God had sent him there, and the Holy Spirit said that this woman is going to provide for your needs. Now that's a very humbling thing. There's got to be humility in the people of God.

Imagine Elijah, the man of God, the man who stands in the presence of God having to go to a widow who has a son, and she has no tangible means of provision, and to walk into her house and say, provide for me, there has to be a humility in the man, just to obey God.

And she said, as the Lord God lives, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal or corn as it is in a barrel, a little oil and a vessel or cruise, as they call it here in the King James. Behold, I'm gathering two sticks that I may go in and dress it for me and my son that we may eat it and die.

There's the testimony of a generation in calamity that has forsaken the living God. I'm gathering two sticks, we're going to go in and eat and die. That's it. What a pitiful testimony of the generation after those that were delivered by the hand of God out of Egypt.

Can you imagine that? The whole history is there. The whole power is there. The stories are there, the Red Sea is there, the story of Moses and Aaron is there, everything is there. And all she has is this pitiful testimony of gathering little sticks and going home to eat and die.

And folks, that's all some people have. They have the history and go to church every Sunday and all they get is another history lesson on what happened back years ago, but there's nothing in them to sustain them.

Now Elijah comes with a word that you could say gains him entrance as it is into the life and the home of the widow and her son. And Elijah said to her, fear not, go and do as thou hast said, but make me thereof a little cake first and bring it to me and after, make it for thee and for thy son.

So this is almost like, this is the gospel to her at this moment. The gospel was give what you have, trust in God and he will provide. That's the introductory gospel I think to many people's lives and there's nothing wrong with that.

You sometimes turn on the television or perhaps you hear a tape somewhere or somebody, you go to a church and somebody gets up and says, take the little you have and bring it and give it to God and trust in him and he will bring the increase and he will give you the provision, he will provide for you.

And that's a wonderful truth, it's a marvelous truth, it's an introductory truth as it is to the goodness of God. And she receives that. It's a type, she's a type of the Christian who receives this introductory message to Christ into their heart, their home.

And with the message comes the messenger, it comes as it is Elijah and he begins to dwell in her house. And because she has received the message of God, she begins to live in a time of genuine miraculous provision, incredible.

Every day going to the cupboard, no matter how much you pour out. The vessel is still full. No matter how much you scoop out and put into the bowls, you look in and it's still full right to the top. Now I've lived that and I know that's true.

I've lived and seen the provision of God. We experience one time in our home, we call it the miracle of the pasta and the sauce. Remember one time I had a ministry of hospitality. I like to call it that.

It's just that I invited everybody home when I was a young pastor. We had little money. Of course, my wife was the one that had to do all the hospitality. I simply did the inviting. I remember one time, she tells it better than I do, when we came home and had a little package of hamburger.

It was unbelievable. And a little wee bit of spaghetti. And all these people started pouring in that I had invited from church into our home for dinner. And then my brother with a friend that was doing a cross country tour on a motorcycle happens to show up.

And another man with, I think, four or five children shows up who was jobless and penniless and he shows up and all his family are half starved. We have a house full of people, incredible house full of people and a little wee bit of hamburger and a whole little wee bit of spaghetti.

My wife just, in faith, put it all in the pot and cooked it and we fed everybody. To this day, we still don't know how that happened. But she just kept scooping it out and just kept putting it on and it just never ran out.

That's all we can say to you. Seeing the provision of God, that's a simple illustration, but the provision of God has been there. I've never doubted the provision of God. God has been so good to us. As we have given to Him, He has given to us and I can say it with authority, if you will trust Him, He will provide for your every need.

You will never go without if you are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. He said all these things. I remember coming home one time from preaching an evangelistic crusade in eastern Canada to find my house burned to the ground.

I remember having to live at a friend's house for a season, walking out one morning to go for a jog and I said, well Jesus, the only thing I've got now is Matthew chapter 6 and verse 33. I'm seeking You with all my heart.

God, You said You're going to provide for me. Within just a couple of months we had a brand new home. It's a long story. God, everything was paid for. I had absolutely no debt. The Lord provided for me in miraculous ways.

He has always kept our family. He has never failed us and He will never fail you if you are a genuine seeker of God. He will never fail you in times of famine. In the difficult days that are coming, He will not fail you.

The oil will not fail, the food will not run out because it is no testimony to a loving father to have starving children in his house. He will provide for you. It is so important for you and I to settle the issue and move on because there's something more.

Moving Beyond Provision to Resurrection Life

There's something more than living from the cupboard in the closet in the Christian life. You see, there was an unanswered question. This woman is living in miraculous provision, but in her heart, there's an unanswered question.

Because in verse 24, chapter 17, after a long dealing, I'm going to the end and I'm going to go back to the beginning. But she says to Elijah, now I know that you are a man of God and the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.

Now I know. So that indicates to me that even though the cupboard was full and the oil never ran out and the messenger of God lives in the house, there was a doubt in her heart about the truth that she was hearing.

Now the Hebrew word is Shaya for truth. It means to live, to enjoy life, to live anew, to quicken, to rebuild. At the end of the journey as it is for her, she says to Elijah, now I know that the word that you brought to me can cause me to live.

It can cause me to enjoy life. It can give me life brand new. It can quicken me. It can change me. It can rebuild me. Now I know. You see, she was a widow, the Bible tells us, and she had certainly experienced death.

You can't be a widow unless you have lost your husband. She had the pain. She had the sense of loss and the familiarity of it all. Her question might be, Elijah, can this word stop the death in my house?

Can it stop it? Verse 18, you see, the Bible tells us that her son, verse 17, fell sick and he died. There was no breath left in him. He died. And then she said in verse 18 to Elijah, what have I to do with you, O man of God?

Are you come to me to call my sin to remembrance and to slay my son? Is it, it is possible, I suppose, that her son was the result of some sin, some past sin. I really don't know that for a fact. But she was very conscious of sin in her life and very conscious that death was in her house.

She had now lost her son as well as her husband. And she was saying, Elijah, all right, the word you brought me, it can fill my cupboard. I have no doubt about that. It can feed my body with cereal, but can it stop the rain of death in my house?

You see, the boy dies, verse 17, and just as death in a spiritual sense is raining in so many homes today, I see a generation that are starving spiritually in a sense. They have food in their cupboard.

They have clothes in their closet. They have money in the bank, but they have dead children in their home. And death is raining. And there's this impending sense of sin around them. Something is wrong.

I feel like I'm not in the right relationship with God. And this is not a time to point to the cupboard. The truth of the gospel has to go beyond the basics to the deepest fears and issues of humanity today.

Oh, folks, I see in my spirit people that are grasping. We're living in a generation where our young people are shooting each other now in our schools. They are listening in the name of freedom. And I understand we have to protect freedom, but they're listening to unspeakable evil disguised as music, indescribable violence, a rain of death.

It's like Satan has a blanket policy to put whatever he wants into our homes, even in Christian homes now. And I see the widows, and I see the despairing. I see them going to the television, the radio, and turning it on.

And there are the preachers of today going, oil, meal, give to God, and God will fill your cupboard, and God will fill your oil vessel. Well, folks, there's a time we got to move beyond oil and cereal.

There's a time that that just doesn't touch the needs of our generation. It's a wonderful introductory gospel, but it doesn't deal with the issue of sin. Cereal doesn't separate from God. Sin does. Elijah did something.

Verse 19, he said, give me your son. He took him out of her bosom and carried him up into a loft and where he abode, and he laid him on his own bed. That's a very incredible thing. He took this dead boy.

He could have left him in the living room. He could have walked out and said, I'll send you a brochure on dealing with bereavement. Now he took the dead boy into his own room and laid him on his own bed.

That speaks to me of his place of comfort. Did that room represent the escape? I think of preachers, for example, like myself. There's something in all of us that just wants to get away from it all. We want a place.

I'm not talking about a place where we would necessarily go just to seek God, but we just want to get away from the need around us. We want to rest and relax. It's just part of human nature to do so. Or maybe it represented a place of laziness.

I really don't know. The battles of life, because the Bible tells us in James that Elijah was a man of like passions just like we are. I don't think he wanted to pay the cost any more than any of us do here.

He was a man of like passions. Things that I'd like to do, places I'd like to go, things I'd like to be. But there's a higher calling than all of this. And into his own place of ease and comfort, he brings a dead child and lays him down on the bed.

It's as if he were saying there would be no rest. There would be no self-seeking. Until this situation remains or is resolved. Scripture says he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord and said, oh Lord my God, I pray thee let this child's soul come into him again.

Now that represents to me a man who says, I'm coming to you God. And I'm not going to stop coming to you until you produce such life in me that your life begins to flow through me and brings to life a dead generation around me.

He stretched himself on the child, nothing happens, walks away and prays again. It speaks to me of the man who comes to the pulpit and he wants God and he preaches and nothing happens. He just doesn't give up.

He goes back and says, God, I'm not stopping until your life starts flowing through me. I'm going to press in, either I get your life or I stop preaching. Either you touch me so that I can, through my life you can touch my generation or I'm not, I'm just not going to preach sermons anymore.

This child is dead and nothing is going to change it but the power of God. There is a generation that nothing but the power of God can touch. Elijah was the protégé, as it is, the associate of Elijah and he learned the same lesson.

The Dead Child and the Test of a Minister's Calling

The same thing happened to him. You see, I fully believe in my heart that before Carmel, you see Elijah was called to touch a nation but before he could touch a nation, there was a dead child that had to be dealt with.

You see folks, there's so many pastors today that just live in a place of one day my ship is coming in. One day there's going to be a big ministry. One day my name's going to be in lights. One day the town's going to know about me.

One day, they live in this forever one day. But folks, I want to tell you something, Elijah could have said, well, I'd love to help you out but I've got a nation and a king to confront. I've been in the presence of God and God's got this great big call on my life.

So, so sorry about what happened to your son, but I really have to go. And many, many people lived there. But folks, I want to tell you something. If there was no resurrection in that house, I personally doubt that there would have ever been a Mount Carmel confrontation.

There would have been no faith in that man to confront the very religious system that had to be confronted. You can't confront it but with the power of God in your life. Otherwise, you're just another voice.

You have to have the spirit of God. There has to be a now word living inside of you. There has to be an intimate awareness of his power. You see, before my life or your life will ever touch a nation or a community, there was a day coming when his life was going to touch many.

But at this point, he had a church to pastor of two people and one was dead. If you were a shepherd and you wanted to hire, you had a large flock and you wanted to hire a shepherd to look after your flock, and you walk by a field one day and here is a man sitting on a rock.

He's got a staff in his hand and he's got 40 sheep and 20 are dead laying in the field and another 12 are sick and there's about eight that have an appearance of life and he doesn't even seem to be aware of it.

Do you suppose you would hire him to look after your flock? Do you suppose that type of man can touch a nation? Do you suppose he can touch his community? Do you suppose he can even touch his own home?

Every man of God, I'm convinced, has to go through this classroom. It's how we deal with the beginnings. It's how we treat the little things. Elisha, the Bible tells us, blessed a woman. She had prepared a place for him to stay, a place of rest.

And he and his servant Gehazi were there and he asked his servant, he said, call this woman and ask her if we can do anything for her because she's made us a room, there's a bed, there's a table, a candlestick, and we can turn in there and rest anytime we want.

Ask her what we can do. Can we speak to the king? Can we talk to the captain, the host for her? What can we do? Gehazi said, well, she doesn't have a son. She's old and she has no child. And so he called the woman and he said, you are going to have a son about this season and you will embrace his son?

And she said, but don't lie to me. And he said, no, this is true. You're going to have a son. And she conceived and she bear a son. Elisha moves on from that place and the Bible tells us the child grew up and one day he went out to the reapers with his father.

He grabbed his head in pain and he died. Father brought her home, put his son on the knees of the same woman, and around noontime he died. And then she took this dead boy and brought him into Elisha's room and put him on his bed and went out.

Same lesson. And so she rode with great haste and headed to meet the man of God. You see, that's a type to me of the person who comes to church and is looking for hope. It's the new face that shows up.

She sits in the back and she might be wringing her hands and saying, God, God, God, my children. Is there any hope? Is there any help? Can I find it here? Could I bring them here? Is there anything about this man that I could bring my family's struggles and bring them into his place of comfort and could he do something?

And Elisha, she comes running to him and he says to her first, he said to his servant Gehazi, he said, Gehazi, go and take my staff and put it on the face of the child. Now that speaks of some different things to my heart.

That's only my personal opinion. But it speaks to me of maybe the formula of preachers. Well, this is the way that, let's see now, how did Moses do this? Oh, yes, Moses sent Aaron with his rod. And Aaron lifted up the rod and things began to happen.

So Gehazi, take the rod. That's how it was done then, so that's got to be how it's done now. Gehazi also we know was greedy. He was covetous. James in the New Testament said, let not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord.

Gehazi was the next in succession. He was to be Elisha's successor. Gehazi goes in and touches the face of the child and nothing happens. The covetous ministry is powerless. Money-focused. Self-focused.

It's all about me and myself and building myself up. And it's powerless. Can't touch a generation. It only gathers the greedy into its house and the gullible. And so Gehazi comes back to Elisha and says, I'm sorry, the child is not awakened.