Hear Him! by Carter Conlon

few moments so if you're with us at home tonight i would encourage you to get some crackers some juice and any kind of juice any kind of bread or cracker and uh we'll partake of communion together after they have an opportunity to look into the word of god and tonight i'm going to continue along the lines of what pastor tim dalina our senior pastor at times square church spoke on sunday morning he spoke on a new season god's kingdom is always moving forward always uh heading the easiest way i can explain it to you from the time that the the first church came out of that upper room on the day of pentecost and moved into the marketplace we have been moving as a people constantly moving and ultimately culminating with christ coming to bring us home to be with him again forever and along the journey he is leading us he is speaking to our hearts and we are gathering a harvest for him as god's people this is what the church is this is who the church is this is what we're called to do his voice is the only voice that should be leading his people should be leading you and should be leading me so i'm going to share a message tonight just simply called hear him now it's about prayer so we're going to finish with prayer at the end but it's called hear him matthew chapter 17. if you have a bible or device that you can follow along that would be much appreciated so father thank you god tonight for this opportunity one more time to open your word before your people father in jesus name give us ears to hear lord we have been led by so many voices especially in this nation called america for so many years god much of what has purported to be your kingdom has come from the minds and the thoughts of men not from the mind of god help us lord to abandon these old ways of doing things help us my god to hear you give us the grace to come to nothing so that you could become everything guide us guard us lead us have mercy on your church lord jesus father i'm reading tonight prayer requests from around the world and your bride is bruised and beaten and mocked and tormented god almighty it's heartbreaking lord i know as a man i would not stand by and watch somebody beat my wife on the street corner and how much more lord will you rise to defend your church how much more god will you rise and give healing in our homes to our teenagers to our marriages to our families god to the pulpits across the nation we appeal to you lord jesus christ we appeal to you from the very center of our heart tonight bring healing to your church bring healing to your body help us lord again not to lean on our own ways but in all ways to acknowledge you and you promised that you would direct our paths so direct us thank you god for giving us a pastor at times square church that seeks you thank you lord that he wants to hear your voice and is being guided by your holy spirit lord jesus we are eternally grateful for you providing us with a man of god like this we give you the praise and the glory tonight lord god almighty stretch out your hand and heal stretch out your hand god heal sick in minds and bodies and homes and marriages and families give people tonight a reason to live i think of angel tonight who wrote and texted and said i have no reason anymore to be good or to live god have mercy on this young lady god have mercy on the family whose teenage boy hung himself in new york this week have mercy lord on the marriages that are falling apart pastors that are substance addicted have mercy on your church lord give us the ears to hear and the grace to follow and we ask it in jesus name matthew chapter 17 beginning at verse 1. now after six days jesus took peter james and john his brother and led them up to a high mountain by themselves and he was transfigured before them his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light and behold moses and elijah appeared to them talking with him now we're looking at a spiritual experience probably unparalleled in a sense to anybody of their generation then peter answered and said to jesus lord it is good for us to be here if you wish let us make here three tabernacles one for you one for moses and one for elijah while he was still speaking behold a bright cloud overshadowed them and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud saying this is my beloved son in whom i'm well pleased hear him and when the disciples heard it they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid here you see humanness and divinity meeting together on a mountain where god's about to do something that is absolutely powerful it's phenomenal and peter in his humanness it's true it's true in our humanness we'll always gravitate to present or past experience for our sense of comfort and well-being he's peter was the kind of a man that said hey it just doesn't get any better than this i mean this is awesome we have the son of god here we have moses we have elijah representing of course the law and the prophets being fulfilled in one sense in christ we have the presence of god the transfiguration uh we're alone with god we're on a mountaintop we don't have to deal with the people that are all around us this is a great place to just camp and let's stay here forever that is the human condition that's what we you and i always want to do we always want to first of all we want to declare something to be good uh as equal or better than the best in other words you remember in genesis chapter 3 verse 5 the temptation of satan was that you can be as god as or as as judges it says the original king james and you can be the arbiters in the sense of what is good and what is evil and so we have this propensity when god's trying to show us something to jump in and make a declaration of something that we think is good and in our humanness we always want to camp in a certain place that's why churches that have known revival generally died you know that i mean are you even aware of that you look out through history great great revivals have happened i i'm talking about real revival not not a lot of the stuff that's gone on maybe in some places over the years but real revival where people are coming in they're turning to god they're repenting the glory of the lord is is in the actual physical build building and you go back there uh a few years later and you you have the same people trying to relive the same experiences uh of three years ago five years ago ten years ago i i had the privilege of of preaching in wales uh in one of the buildings that uh was uh significant in the in the welsh revival in 1904 and and i remember like people are still sitting there waiting for the welsh revival to happen again uh you know over two over a hundred years later and and they've not moved and the church there's a dullness there because they've not really moved on with god where god is moving it's a danger that we all face times where church has had a great history for example we've had 33 years of a marvelous history i mean a prophetic voice was raised up of god to uh to found the church the church was founded on a word that is uh that was given to david wilkerson that's that's rarely heard uh in many generations a prophetic word and and incidences that actually came true that were spoken to his heart and it the glory of the lord i've been there for 26 years i know the of the 33 years the the glory of the lord has has been there i remember one service i before i came to new york city david wilkerson told me the glory of the lord came so strongly into that sanctuary that people were on their faces on the platform they they couldn't they couldn't stand up in the presence of god now that's amazing that's wonderful but that happened yesterday we are now living in today and thank god for those experiences and and what it should do is it should spur us on to say lord where wherever you are going because you you do pass through at moments but wherever you're going i'm going with you we're going with you because that's where life is we can't camp on the mountain of past experience because god's not going to stay there you could you could just imagine peter james and john would have been left on a mountain with their own tents that's about all that would have happened then jesus would be long gone because he was on a mission and we can choose to camp on our past experiences and quite often that's that's what we do our tendency is to jump in and declare something to be good and say we're going to camp here we're going to stay here we're going to revel in this this is going to become our identity from this day forward and while peter is speaking it says in verse 5 while he was still speaking so here is here is peter representing humanity making declarations about what is good and this is god is here and everything he's seeing actually is good but it's not it's not complete it's not where god is leading it's not what god is speaking while he was still speaking a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud saying this is my beloved son in whom i'm well pleased hear him now this is not being said for the benefit of moses or elijah or jesus this is being said for the benefit of peter james and john may i put it bluntly god is telling these men stop speaking and start listening to the son of god he is going to lead you somewhere your opinions in the kingdom of god don't matter your opinions don't produce life your opinions don't lead into the supernatural your opinions don't bring about deliverance to people who are hurting at the base of this mountain for example your opinions are worth nothing and all you can build is something that will ultimately become irrelevant if you're not willing to walk with the son of god that's why many churches that have known great movings of god in the past are now irrelevant today go to new york city you'll find great stone buildings all over the place that are now just museums they're empty and when you walk into them you say surely something must have been here at some time because people put a lot of time energy money into the building of these buildings yet there's nobody left here anymore what happened to these people i want to suggest that they to you that they camped in their building i want to suggest to you they camped on their past experience and talked about back in 18 so and so when brothers so and so preached here in some of these places charles finney preached i'm so thankful for that but he's dead he's gone now there's new the voice of god is still alive charles finney is dead and we've got to move with the voice of god not with what somebody spoke uh hundreds of years ago in the past it's time for us to stop listening to our own voices and listen to the one who's been sent to lead us now christ came to seek and say that which was lost and he calls you and i to follow him and not to spend our full time seeking personal revelation comfort and spiritual experience there's a whole segment of the church today folks that's all they do they just run from place to place to place to place just seeking revelation seek ultimately seeking personal comfort and seeking some new experience and just run around talking about you know the tinglies that they had in the last meeting they attended in the last country they went to and the whole pursuit is is amount of transfiguration they want to camp there they want to stay there they want that to be their whole per spiritual experience but you see the revelation of who jesus christ is begins to lead us to what he does you see there's a two parts to this the transfiguration was there they spoke of his decease it tells us in other places that he was about to accomplish in jerusalem that through christ everything that was prefigured through the law and the prophets was about to be fulfilled at the cross a church was going to be born this church was going to go in into all of the world and this wonderful message of salvation through jesus christ was going to be preached to everyone who had the ears to hear now he was leading them somewhere but they were so engrossed in their own ideas of what spiritual experience leads to that they couldn't hear him yet and it's like god had to override the whole thing quiet peter down and say to peter basically and james and john this is my son hear him hear him your voices don't matter your plans will come to nothing your strategies will not build this kingdom that you can't even see with your natural eye hear him he is the captain of the lord's army he is the one who appeared to joshua and told him take off your shoes in other words i don't want your plans i don't want your strength i don't need your ideas i need your obedience and even if my plan to you seems to be ridiculous follow it and you watch what will happen i mean you talk about a ridiculous military strategy march around a walled city seven days and just say nothing i mean it's just i love it in the in the reality of it is it's it's a it's a a prefiguring of what happened here on the mount of transfiguration where god is saying don't talk because the moment you do you will destroy the plan of god the plan of god is for you to just walk around in confidence blow the trumpets and when i tell you shout and when you shout you're going to see what god can do he was leading them to a place but they couldn't fully hear it yet now the question arises why couldn't they fully hear him and what is that that causes you or me to not be able to fully hear the voice of god i don't know about you i really i hope you're as i am but i want to hear his voice more every day i i want him to lead me it's easy to come up with ideas and the more experience you have the more ideas you have and but the kingdom of god is not built by men's ideas it never has been and it never will be tabernacles will be erected tents will be made and people will talk about what happens somewhere sometime to somebody and it will always be about the past never about the fre the future never i don't know if you've ever noticed that but have you ever traveled to places where the church literally died and the people may still come into the building but their whole conversation is going to be about yesterday what god did yesterday and through whom he did something yesterday they have absolutely no vision for the future because they're no longer listening to the voice of the son of god that's why the father said this is my son hear him hear him he all through the book of revelation every church you'll notice he says he who has his ears to hear let him hear what the spirit speaks to the churches i want hearing ears i want god to lead my life i've had a wonderful past i really have it's been a miraculous journey if if you've ever got a copy of the book it's time to pray you'll see that it's been an amazing journey in my life but and i don't know how long i've got left on this earth but i want to live it for him and god is not interested in my i have a lot of ideas obviously after years of experience and walking with god you have a lot of ideas but the one thing i have learned is that if he's not leading there's no power in it what god does not initiate he does not sustain it's sim it's quite it's it's simple if he's leading the supernatural will always follow it if he's not leading if it's just a good idea then we're on our own with our own little tabernacle on the top of the mountain talking about our past spiritual experiences we can't often hear him they couldn't hear him and we can't hear him yet because in peter's case and the disciples they were still leaning on their own strength and their own understanding jesus was trying to speak to peter but peter was not listening yet you remember in the scriptures he told peter where i'm going you can't follow me now what was peter's response oh yes i will follow you oh yes and and if you go to jerusalem to die i'm going to die with you and these others here they may not have the courage to go but i will not turn back and i will not do this and i will not do that he's just full of himself he's full of his own ideas he's full of his own strength jesus is trying to speak to him and say to him peter before the rooster crows you're going to three times deny that you even know me now he can't hear it because he's still relying on his own strength and he doesn't understand that where christ is leading we can't follow without his strength there's a lot we can do without the strength of god but where he's leading we can't go without his strength i've been around long enough to know this this truth there's a wonderful truth that i've espoused a few times over the years and it's just simply said in a simple statement the end of ourselves is the beginning of god god had to bring peter to an end of himself he had to bring him to a place where he had nothing left to say he had denied all he could do is weep bitterly because he had all his ideas came to nothing all his his trust in himself came to nothing all of his boasting and bragging of all the things he was going to do and accomplished and how loyal he was going to be to the kingdom of god and all the ability he said he had that he doesn't possess finally it came to an end and what came to an end he could start to hear now the voice of the son of god this is my word to you many who are out there and you're struggling and you're suffering and and you've come to the end of your testimony would be tonight i've come to the end of myself well the good news for you is the end of you is the beginning of god now now your ideas have come to nothing you've run into the brick wall that all humanity runs into and they try to follow god in their own strength now you're willing and ready to be trained now you're willing and ready to hear and to follow where god is leading you remember it's not in our strength the kingdom of god advances it's in our weakness with his strength manifested through our weakness paul the apostle said it this way when i'm weak then i am strong he understood it the second reason why we find it hard to hear the voice of the son of god is because we are unwilling in many cases to put away old things and to embrace that which is new you remember if anyone was in christ he's a new creation old things are passed away and behold all things are become new so god is not just taking us out of where we used to be but he's bringing us into where you would have us to go the spirit of god comes into our life according to jesus and the gospel of john and he shows us things to come he starts speaking to us about what he has for us not what we have for him there's a huge difference you know in in our humanity we will make promises to god that we can't fulfill and finally when we come to an end of that suddenly god starts making promises to us and it's by these promises that we begin to live and we've become everything that god has called us to be but there's got to be a willingness to put old things away pastor tim spoke about that on sunday morning for example old comforts need to be put away old experiences yes we can remember them but we don't camp there we don't live there in other words we we say goodbye to it it was great it was a wonderful time thank god for that time but it's over we've got to move on now to where god is leading us old friends have to be put away a lot of people want the kingdom of god but they want their old friends at the same time remember the children of israel they came out of egypt and and they they suddenly in the wilderness started remembering the leeks and the garlic can you imagine oh we remember the leaks remember the garlic did they forget the children were being thrown in the river there did they forget that they cried out in their bitter bondage and god heard their cry and sent moses to deliver them and oh we're so prone to say oh was so good back there wasn't it we forget the depression the addiction we forget the brokenness and we're unwilling to make the the break and sometimes we're unwilling to even make the break from our achievements of the past when god's telling us we want to sit in our office and look at all our certificates on the wall and say oh what a wonderful person i am and look at all the wonderful things that i've done and the apostle paul in philippians chapter 3 and pastor tim mentioned this again on sunday morning all what things were gained to me those i counted lost for christ he had a reputation paul he he was schooled among the best he he was a scholar he people would as he walked down the street people would say there goes paul i mean he himself declared that he was blameless concerning the law there were not many if any that could even make that claim paul was saying and i've actually fulfilled the law he was extremely zealous for the things of god and he had garnered no doubt a reputation he had a brilliant mind this man and and no doubt people would notice him everywhere he went but he said those things i counted loss for christ yea indeed i also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of christ jesus my lord for whom i've suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that i may gain christ you see you can't start to hear the voice of the son of god until you and i are willing to walk away from everything that we need to leave behind us it's really that simple you know a lot of people they want to keep those old relationships alive you want to keep that old romance going when the person is not a believer in christ and you know what the word of god says you want to keep that that little that you want that little sip of something that just makes you feel good on saturday night and still want to go to church on sunday and wonder why you can't hear the voice of god there's so many things you want that little peek on the internet at things that you shouldn't be looking at and wondering why you can't see or hear the voice of god no we have to be willing to be led away from even good things remember peter said it's good to be here we have to be willing to be led away from even good things because the things that god has for us are better than our good things or the things we declare to be good now lastly just as jesus did in matthew chapter 17 we must be willing to be led from spiritual experience to spiritual need he could have stayed on the mount of transfiguration he was god he had moses and elijah with him he's got his father speaking from heaven he's got a small entourage at least of followers that he could teach could have stayed there forever they could have just for the rest of their lives they said master master but he had come for a mission he had at the top of the mountain was this wonderful spiritual experience at the bottom of the mountain was a father crying out for a demon-possessed child a child that was being thrown into the fire a child that was being thrown into the water a child that was being virtually destroyed by the powers that had a hold of him and you think about our generation and what's happening to our children the unbridled passion the the unmitigated confusion in all of their lives the the sense of hopelessness and anger that's getting a hold of of this present generation and you and i can live our christian life just talking about old experience or we can follow jesus and go down the mountain to where the human need really is and that's exactly what happened in the book of acts chapter 2. they went from all of the places that they had been led by the spirit of god now into the upper room and this this is a marvelous experience i mean this is something that's been prophesied about by the prophets this is they're about to experience something that that the most profound prophets in the old testament only could dream about the spirit of god was about to fill every one of them they were going to be given this explosive ability to communicate with people of other cultures and other languages they could have just stayed in the upper room they could have capped there it was another transfiguration mass say that because they were the ones now being transfigured by the spirit of god they they could have just stayed there and spoke in tongues to one another for the next five years but you see spiritual experience drew them because they're being led by the voice of god to spiritual need just outside of where they were there were thousands of people coming from the temple making making great journeys to get there to to try to worship god in the best way they knew how even though it was deficient and short of redemption through the son of god and they walked out of that spiritual experience and went right into that mountain of spiritual need and that's how the church was born that's how the church was led all the way through the book of acts remember paul the apostle said we wanted to go to asia but the spirit of god said no see he had learned now to hear the voice of god peter learned to hear the voice of god and the best thing that could ever happen to you and to me and to this present generation is that once again we might learn to hear the voice of god it affects the way we pray if we hear the voice of god we suddenly are are coming in and it's not a one-way communication anymore with him it's a two-way communication we are putting our petitions or our concerns before god our ears are now open he begins to speak to us he tells us which way to go why because we've come to the end of ourselves we are willing to walk away from old things that we need to walk away from and we're willing to be led by him into the mountain of spiritual need that is part of our generation i don't know about you but i am unwilling to let this generation die on my watch i am asking god lead me lead me to where i need to go give me what i need to say walk with me o god you never you don't send your servants out powerless help me to hear what you're saying help me to speak with you and for you so that you can move your hand once again as you always have throughout scriptural history and that you can bring glory to your own name give me the grace to abandon my ideas my ideas are worthless give me the grace to abandon them give me the grace to recognize them give me the grace lord jesus christ to be led by you and by you alone because your voice is the only voice that has the power to bring life out of death and light out of darkness and something out of nothing everything else is just a tabernacle and a mountaintop something created by the hand of man i want to close with this when we talk about human need isaiah the prophet god said through isaiah 58 chapter 58 verse 6 and onward is this not the fast that i've chosen to loose the bonds of wickedness to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free is it not to break every yoke to share your bread with the hungry and you bring the poor who are cast out to your house and when you see the naked that you cover him and not hide yourself from your own flesh in other words if if your whole of religion is about yourself you won't be able to hear the voice of god and your prayers will amount to nothing but if you're willing to go with jesus into this mountain of human need as he did when he went down from the mountain of transfiguration and met with this man and his son and set this boy free the promise is then your light will break forth like the morning your healing will spring forth speedily your righteousness will go before you and the glory of the lord will be your rear guard then you will call and the lord will answer you will cry and he will say here i am if you take away the yoke from your midst the pointing of the finger in other words looking to blame somebody for the way things are in society today and speaking wickedness i like the original king james it just says empty talk if you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul then your light shall dawn in the darkness and your darkness shall be as the noonday the lord will guide you continually and satisfy your soul and drought and strengthen your bones you shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail and those from among you shall build the old waste places you shall raise up the foundations of many generations and you shall be called the repairer of the breach and the restorer of streets to dwell in if you are willing to go where jesus is leading you that is the key you have a choice now you can camp on an old experience and die there literally you can go to heaven but you spiritually die in that old experience or you can just leave it and go where god is leading you now and you watch what god will begin to do you watch you'll begin to hear his voice remember his promises if you go into human need and don't hide from your own flesh don't hide from humanity in other words from people created in the image of god if you go to them you will say lord speak to me and he will say here i am promise is to give you light in darkness water in seasons of drought strength when strength is failing all around you he promises to be a supply within you that will not fail and here's a word for you here's a word for times square church if i may say so those that you will raise up in the future will build the old waste places there'll be another generation brought to christ these sons and daughters that will be set free by the hand of god through a church that is not living on a past experience but moving into what god has for them in the future they will build the old waste places i i foresee young evangelists pastors teachers preachers godly men and women being raised up people who know the devil has lied to them who will turn to god and be and radically begin to obey him radically begin to follow him with all of their heart and you will raise up the foundations of many generations the foundations that have begun to crumble in our time but through the power of god can easily be rebuilt again and you will be called the repairer of the breach in other words the one who repaired the wall is in nehemiah's day where the enemy was able to gain access to the to the society to the culture you will be called the one who repaired that breach the one who restored our streets so that people can dwell in them again this is the promise of god but it all hinges on two words hear him hear him if ever there was a day that we need to hear him it's now now one more time for those that are listening online if you are broken you feel like a failure you're wounded you're bruised you feel destroyed you are the perfect candidate to be used by god get up from where you are and start to walk with him and walk towards not just the healing that you need that'll be that'll be given you but walk towards the healing that somebody else needs you don't have to have it all together to tell somebody else that god is good that jesus died for them you can be dragging a wagon lord of your own troubles behind you you don't have to be perfect because it's not about you it's about him it's about what he did on the cross we run into error when we think we have to be perfect to represent him we don't he perfects us he takes us from where we are to where we need to go by the grace of almighty god he went to a cross that's what this communion is about tonight and on that cross he bled and died and paid the price for our sins so that we can be reunited in a living relationship with god so that god could speak to us god could live in us god could guide us god could manifest his glory through us god could give us abilities to go places we could never go in our own strength and do things we could never hope to do and give us things we could never possess apart from him he makes us into a people the bible says who are wondered at he makes us lights on a hill that cannot be hidden by his grace but oh my brother my sister hear him hear him you've come into this prayer meeting tonight and maybe you're looking for some some dust to fall from heaven to cure your situation where all you have to do is hear the voice he will tell you what to do you are his bride i think the devil has beat on you long enough it's time for you he is he will show you the way to safety he will show you the way to become productive in his kingdom and to actually rule and reign with him one day by the grace of god by the grace of god let this be your day the world needs the church now the world needs the church and you my brother my sister are the bride of christ by the grace of almighty god get up and start walking with him so father thank you tonight thank you for bringing to us to this communion table this evening thank you lord jesus christ that when you died you brought us back into a living relationship with god and you gave us the promise of your holy spirit the ability to be raised out of the power of death as you were and brought into the power of an endless life thank you god that your kingdom now resides with us and in us and through us thank you lord jesus christ for glorifying your name again through even the weakest of us the weakest like peter who walked away and cried bitterly and felt like a complete utter total failure but he became one of the greatest saints of all time oh god would you help us to hear this again would you help us lord to turn away from our own ideas and our own sense even of what we should be and just let us let you make us into what you desire us to be would you lead us in our weakness as the lepers once did in the old testament you just led them back into the city with the good news that they'd found this great provision they were still lepers and they went back to the city and they saved the city god almighty help us to see things help us lord and we ask it in jesus name amen i hope you have your communion ready and we're going to partake together everything that we need is in him and if i may encourage you to do anything tonight hear his voice hear his voice he loves you and everything he does is for your good so don't be afraid to hear his voice let him lead you now for i received to the lord that which i also delivered to you that the lord jesus on the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and said take eat this is my body which is broken for you do this in remembrance of me in the same manner he also took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood you know you know what the covenant is i'm not going to fail you i'm not going to forsake you i'm with you do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me for as often as as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the lord's death until he comes thank you lord what a pleasure it's been to pray with you tonight you know pastor tim i'd like to do something a little different tonight if we can if you wouldn't mind joining me and pastor david as well if you could join with me and i'd like to lay hands on this tablet

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Keywords: Revival, Character Of God, Free Sermons, Video Sermons, Jesus Christ, What Is The Gospel, SermonIndex, What Is The Truth, Carter Conlon

Id: 5DNQiUB3KAM

Length: 40min 19sec (2419 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2020