William Carrol, A Portrait

praise god welcome to everybody that's visiting with us maybe for the first time or you haven't been here for a while it's great to have you here with us today and i think more and more as the days unfold you and i are beginning to realize how much we need each other and thank god for pastor william carroll for our life that was so well lived in christ and through the power of christ and it's a great privilege for me this morning to take a few moments to talk about my friend talk about a man i came to know and deeply admire and love a genuine man of god william carroll is and was and it's a great great privilege to take a moment i have a message that the lord's put on my heart a sharing it's just simply called william carroll a portrait father i thank you god for the touch of heaven this morning in this sanctuary and i thank you lord for just the knowledge that pastor william is at your throne seeing with his own eyes what we here today have to receive mostly by faith thank you god that you don't fail anyone who puts their trust in you and so today we ask god that you would do something in each of our lives as we look into your word as we look into the portrait of a life that was well lived in you god help us strengthen us bring us forward oh god as your people give us courage and confidence in our day and lord we thank you and we give you praise and glory in jesus name if you'll turn with me in your bibles to first corinthians chapter 15 and i want to speak about william carroll a portrait first corinthians chapter 15 beginning at verse 45 right through to verse 49. we'll start there the word of god says and so it is written the first man adam became a living being the last adam became a life-giving spirit however the spiritual is not first but the natural and afterward the spiritual the first man was of the earth made of dust the second man is the lord from heaven as was the man of dust so also are those who are made of dust and as is the heavenly man so also are those who are heavenly and as we have borne the image of the men of dust we also shall bear the image of the heavenly man this is the beauty i think of of the reality of of jesus christ indwelling the life of anyone who opens their heart to him in honesty sincerity and truth the hand of god begins to paint a brand new picture on a brand new canvas the word of god tells us that if anyone is in christ if any man be in christ he's a new creation the old things in his or her life are passed away and behold all things are become new so picture with me if you will an artist the artist being god himself and there's an old canvas that image of the old man that image of dust that image of of humanity without the empowerment or the forgiveness of god being active in its life and suddenly the hand of god comes down and removes the old canvas that's what happens when you come to christ the old canvas and everything that's been painted on that maybe sorrow here and anger over here and hopelessness over here and self-ambition over here all of this thing is taken away in a brand new blank canvas is put there and the hand of god begins to paint a brand new image now in second corinthians chapter 3 just let me read this to you verses 17 and 18. the scripture says now this the lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the lord is there is liberty now another word for this word liberty is generosity in other words there's this this generosity of god through christ is given to us by the spirit of god when he rose from the dead he took our captivity captive and he gave gifts unto men and suddenly all things become new suddenly the the old ways don't have the power to lead guide suppress or destroy us anymore we're giving we're given a new life source and when we begin to read the promises of god we see this incredible generosity of god that is in the in the word of god for each of us he promises us life love joy peace long suffering goodness gentleness meekness temperance faith all of these things actually belong to the new testament believer in christ if we are an actual believer in christ if if we are willing to to look into what he purchased for us on the cross and say god by the grace of god by your grace given to me your favor that's come on my life these things now belong to me so begin to paint them paint your image on this canvas of my life so that you might be seen this is what paul goes on to say now he says where the spirit of the lord is there is liberty or generosity but we all with unveiled face beholding as in the mirror the glory of the lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the spirit of the lord so this picture begins to be painted not the old you but the new you created in the image of christ empowered by the spirit of god led by the promises of god unfolding by the will of god we actually become a brand new person one time i had the opportunity to i i don't know if i'd call it an opportunity the misfortune of actually finding a picture of what i looked like before i came to christ i'm thankful that our house burned down one day and we lost all of those pictures but somebody had kept one and uh showed it to me that's when i was a police officer and i looked in and that man was scary and i looked at that picture and i i remember the words i uttered i said thank god that man is gone thank god that that canvas has been moved away and a new canvas has been painted because i wouldn't want to be around that man let alone be that man and it was the former image of myself and so in christ what picture did god painted himself through william carroll now i'm not an art critic so i i don't notice all the little nuances that maybe an art critic would but there were some things on pastor william carroll's canvas that were they were glaringly obvious to anybody even with an untrained eye who was able to look and say what has jesus christ done in this man's life to prove that his relationship with god is not just a religion it's an actual relationship the life of christ is actually in him and as he beholds jesus christ as paul says the hand of god is painting this brand new image of christ through his life you see it's not it's not us that are being put forward it's christ in us as paul says which is our hope of glory now first of all when we looked at pastor william's life we saw the faithfulness of god isn't that amazing he's not offended by our questions pastor william carroll in his youth was exposed to some form of religion in his own particular community that he experienced and he came to the conclusion that what he saw was not real it wasn't genuine and he it he had a brilliant mind he had a naturally brilliant mind and so looking at what he saw he said these people don't actually believe what they're preaching they don't believe the word of god and i can't i can't become part of this kind of a system you see he had an honest heart remember jeremiah chapter 29 verse 13 says you will search for me and you you will find me when you search for me with all your heart so pastor william carroll ended up on the street for three and a half years in new york city living uh sleeping on park benches or in the subway wherever he could um for a season he became a uh what he called courier and i used to tease him i said was that same day service uh your courier career because if you walk with pastor william down the street you know how slow he walked and i said to him one day i said you really were a courier i said why do you walk so slow now and he said because everyone in new york city walks so fast that i feel the necessity of creating a counterbalance to this this uh spirit in this city by walking slower than everybody else does and he was firmly set in that pattern you couldn't get him out of it one thing about pastor when he got set in something there was no moving it there was it was like a mountain that wouldn't move no matter how much you prayed you couldn't move him if he was fully fully said he searched with all his heart he searched he wanted to know the real god he wanted to serve the real god he didn't want to serve this religion that purported to be of god but was at its very foundation at least efficient in his sight and one day he came into times square church and as i was told yet and i i've not verified this but as i was told that the maintenance department would let him come in on sunday morning and he would go downstairs and maybe wash up a little bit and he didn't sit down in the sanctuary but he stood at the back of the sanctuary many years ago and listened to david wilkerson preach and he told me for the first time in my life he said i i heard a man who believed what he preached who lived what he preached and he said i finally found what my heart had been looking for for so many years and he left that altar rail when the altar call was given and came forward to the altar of god and we see in pastor william carroll god painting the picture of his own faithfulness god's faithfulness he's not offended when we're on an honest search i've had this discussion with many young people who've come to times square church over the years who've doubted even the reality of god and i've told them this one thing yes you may doubt his reality but if your search is honest he will reveal himself to you and then your choice will be whether or not you choose to follow him once you know he is real and so i thank god for that faithfulness so i see in pastor william's portrait the faithfulness of god god can be trusted god is true god is patient god is kind god is love god is unoffended by our struggles and unoffended by our trials and difficulties and questions and you might be having some of those today and i want to tell you god is not offended by your struggles and your trials and by the deep deep questions in your mind about him or about his kingdom or about how it it relates to your life we saw in pastor william carroll's life the a great part of the canvas of his life was about forgiveness you see i'm canadian in background and i grew up in a small mining town in northwestern quebec canada where racism was not an issue matter of fact there were no black people in my town so it really wasn't an issue in my culture where i grew up and so when i came to new york city i realized obviously that there is a huge racial issue and divide in the history in the country so i turned to pastor william and i said from your perspective i said i i would like you to tell me about racism what does it feel like from your perspective i i know a little bit of the history but just talk to me and we we talked at length about these things and some of the things that he shared with me were horrific some of the things caused me to in a sense to say how could how could a nation be as ignorant as this nation has been in its history even doing what it did in some measure in the name of god he shared about what it felt like growing up in a in a culture where at least from his perspective it it failure was almost like an embedded value and how difficult it was to get out of that that sense but the one thing that overrode all the information and and is the fact that there was no bitterness in him you know he he was forgiven he knew he had been forgiven the great debt and as the scripture says you know he took that forgiveness and he extended it to others the more he shared with me the more i felt like not forgiving people but yet he was the one who was telling me that all of these things with not a seed not an ounce of unforgiveness you would know it right away and it made it easy to listen to because i was listening from the perspective of a man that held no grievance you know there's so many people today that that want the forgiveness of god but won't extend that forgiveness to others and what happens is it's like a canvas that god's painting on and somebody brushes by it maybe hits it with their arm and smudges it and when a person refuses to forgive other people after they've been forgiven it's like the canvas is smeared and people walk by and say oh that must have been a nice picture or it would have been a nice picture except for that smear that's on it and that's what unforgiveness is like it's a smear on the canvas of god don't forget that the whole of the kingdom of god is on the cornerstone of forgiveness and we are ambassadors of a kingdom of forgiveness we are ambassadors of the one who went to a cross and said father forgive them even in his own pain his own betrayal is on being mocked he said father forgive them they know not what they do and we are ambassadors of that kingdom and through you and i god's hand is painting forgiveness it's a great part actually of our portrait and it was a terrific part of pastor williams portrait and i can stand here with confidence and tell you it was unmarred in his portrait he had every reason to be bitter in the natural he had every reason to let that adamic nature as we read about come to the surface that man of dust take over from the spiritual man from the heavenly man as paul says and and say here's all the things that were done and here's why i have a right to bear a grievance and here's here's the list that i've held and here's the things that i feel need to be done but none of that was in pastor william he simply forgave because the word of god told him he had to and he was a sincere follower remember his quest was i want to meet somebody who actually believes and follows what the word of god says and he made the choice to forgive because he had been forgiven the prophet jeremiah also says after he says you'll search for me and you'll find me when you search for me with all of your heart and in chapter 29 and verse 14 of jeremiah says i will be found of you says the lord and i will bring you back from your captivity and so in this canvas that god's hand painted of pat called pastor william carroll we found this incredible grace and promise of god pastor william began his life of service to christ his life of ministry as it is by serving others in a ministry called the upper room where homeless people from the streets as as he had been for a season were brought in given food and and he began preaching to people who he understood because he had lived there he knew that at the heart of every homeless person most every there's a quest there are deep questions that only god can answer there are deep searches i love the fact that you know i often thought about pastor william carroll that standing at the back alder rail in times square church as a homeless man that comes in maybe to maybe wash his face and hands on on sunday morning standing at the homeless at the back rail and i i i had a picture one day of of of god bringing these various animals he created in genesis to adam and saying adam what shall we call this and the scripture says whatever adam chose to call it that's what it was called now if i had been standing on the platform and pastor william had been standing at that rail and the lord said to me carter what should we call this man i would have looked with my natural eye and said well that's a homeless man but the holy spirit says no look deeper don't look with the natural eye look with a spiritual eye that's not a homeless man that's a great teacher of the word of god that's a man who's going to live for me that's a man who's going to preach his messages are going to be recorded it's going to touch people all over the world may god give us spiritual eyes in our generation to not call people by what we see with their natural eye but call them as god sees them as he said you are simon son of jonas but you shall be called peter and i thank god through pastor william carroll i have learned through the years not to call men or women by what i see with my natural eye but i draw back and say lord show me what this is that i'm looking at show me the future of this man this woman this person this child that stands before me and quite often god has done that and he's enabled me to see things in people's lives that he's about to do that they themselves are not even aware of pastor william was given the grace that means the unmerited favor of god and the promise of god of a new life and he he took it and began to teach other people and it came to pastor david wilkerson's attention that this young man had a brilliant mind he did he had a brilliant mind i mean it was amazing the first time i heard him preach i was stunned i mostly don't know this but because of the diabetes in his life when i first met pastor william he had lost his vision and it was really turned out to be cataracts that formed because of diabetes and and he did have surgery and he got his vision back for uh for most most of his uh the rest of his life and i remember he got up to the pulpit and he said would you open your bibles to hebrews chapter 12 i believe it was and uh but and he began to read it he looked down he began to read but he was in the old testament in his bible and i was looking at this and he read the whole chapter of hebrews chapter 12 and but he was in amos or some book like that in the old testament he didn't open it far enough because i could tell by the the thickness of the bible he's not in the book of hebrews and he had a brilliant mind and i asked him after i said how do you do that he said he would listen to tapes and he just had a mind he could remember word for word from the king james bible and at that time and it's such a it's such a brilliant mind that he would get up and he would preach without notes and we used to tease him because the pastors of times square church we had a friendship all of us and we could banter about we were just friends we were not ministry associates we were actually friends and we would tease him from time to time and say william you're making the rest of us look like idiots could you at least pretend that you're you're uh preaching from notes so he he with a sneer with a little bit of a sneer he got up the following week and he had an ipad now for the first time and he got up and he he pretended that he was preaching from notes flipping his ipad but he forgot that there was a camera behind him on the platform every once in a while it would shine down in the pulpit and we would see that the letter h or something would be on his screen you know or or maybe a word and uh but he was he just had a brilliant mind and thank god that the lord takes what we have and and and makes it more than it could ever be and takes it farther than it could ever go and gives us more than we could ever possess and and took that mind that led him to a street in a season of turmoil and and he became one of the i i'm convinced one of the greatest bible teachers of art of our time and i don't hesitate to say that because there was an anointing there there was an understanding there i remember my daughter kate would ask me difficult biblical questions all the time when i was a senior pastor at times square church and i would just say go talk to pastor will he knows the answer to that stuff i don't know and the last thing that i want to talk about we saw the faithfulness of god on his canvas we saw the forgiveness of god on his canvas we saw the grace of god we saw the promise of god but we also saw the integrity and the power of god now pastor william carroll had the countenance of a lamb but there was a lion in there and if you wanted to get roared at challenged the integrity of god and his countenance would change and you'd notice every time he preached i can't imitate him i thought i'd give it a try but i can't do it but there was one thing he would say he is a great god he believed it was like a minor down six miles down a mining shaft in the middle of the earth it came down from from down so deep and it's it's like somebody went down underground and found a stream of gold and he's yelling up to everybody on the service i've found it it's just as great as anybody had ever told you it is there's a treasure here you can trust god and he he would be offended if anybody challenged the integrity of god or the power of god because you see when you have when you have walked with god when you have known the power of god there's something in your heart that says how can you possibly challenge the integrity of the one who created the universe the one whose words can be trusted the one who does everything he says he's going to do the one who opens every prison door gives sight to every blind blinded eye heals every bruised heart gives hope to those that are hopeless gives the treasure of heaven to those that have no resource and no way of going forward how how can you possibly doubt the integrity of god you see that's the reality of a life that's been lived in god we've become so entrenched in an understanding of that every word of god can be trusted the words of god have the power to create a universe the words of god have the power to make something out of nothing the words of god can raise the dead the words of god can calm the storm and pastor william knew the greatness of god and every time he spoke of the greatness of god you know what i'm saying it came from so deep that he could never casually say it he knew the power of god because he knew what it was like to live on the street he knew what it was like to grow up in in a in a situation where he was at least the the tendency to lose hope was always gnawing at his heart he knew what it was like to come to the one who forgave him empowered him lifted him up gave him grace gave him promise took his life to where it could never be taken in anything of natural ability or natural strength and he knew that god's word could be trusted that's why he was a teacher of god's word because god cannot lie hallelujah hallelujah he knew the power of god the prophet joel says these words and we saw this in the canvas of pastor william carroll i will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten the crawling locust the consuming locust and the chewing locust my great army which i sent among you and you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the lord your god he knew this was true god had restored into his life everything that the circumstances of this world tried to take away from him every contrary thought to truth had been subdued by the word of god and by the power of god and his life was a testimony of the reality of god thank god who has dealt wondrously with you and my people shall never be put to shame in other words you'll never you'll never get to the point in your life where you say i wish god had meant what he said never he says my people will never be put to shame every promise i make to you is yea and amen it's true i cannot lie and if you trust me it will come to pass then you will know that i am in the midst of israel i am the lord your god and there is no other and my people second time he says shall never be put to shame and it shall come to pass afterwards that i will pour out my spirit on all flesh your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions and on my mate servants and my men servants i will pour out my spirit in those days it shall come to pass thank god thank god for pastor william carroll thank god for a life that was well lived thank god for a life where where the lord wrote his story and it's not even debatable this this picture belongs in an art museum of history it really does because i see no marring in this picture i see a life that was yielded to god and i see the faithfulness of god's hand painted in william carroll's life but the scripture says it will come to pass afterward that i will pour out my spirit on all flesh and so the decision remains for you and i to say god will i just learn about you or will it let you write your story on the canvas of my life will i let you put your hand will i let you paint your words and your will in those areas in my life where i might be hesitant to even agree with you god would you let it be your will and not mind be done let it be your thoughts and not mine that govern the rest of my life would you paint something in my life and through my life that also belongs in the museum of faith one day god almighty don't let anything of this world or of my own thinking brush up against that canvas and mar that picture don't let it happen god don't let it happen give me your holy spirit give me your promise give me my god the ability to prophesy that means to interpret to see the scriptures to see your hand at work to see and to know your character and know the things that you have done and the things that you will do give me a vision for the future even in my old age that's what it means when it says your old men will dream dreams they will not be bound men and women who grow older in christ will not be bound by talking about the past they will still have a vision for the future hallelujah to the lamb of god hallelujah and your young men shall see visions i will give them a picture of what their life is going to be i'll i'll present them a picture of their canopy and what it will look like at the end of their days i'll show them what i'm about to do your young men will see visions and on my mate servants and men's servants i'll pour out of my spirit in those days in other words there will be no exceptions to this glorious visitation of god which began on the day of pentecost hallelujah to the lamb of god i don't know about you but i'm not going to be left out my picture is not finished yet my picture's not done it's not ready to be framed and hung up god's still painting little corners and still adding a few things and one day he's going to put his signature on it and say well done good and faithful servant well done you've run your race you finished your course and so i say to pastor william carroll you might not be able to hear me but jesus does and he can tell you what i'm saying today well done good and faithful servant well done you ran your race well hallelujah to the lamb of god [Applause] i was sitting with pastor william in september down at rooster's in the cafe and i asked him i said william what's your health situation i said and tell me the truth don't just say fine i want to know the truth and he told me he said well the doctors tell me i have it the most five years and but more practically probably about two to live he said but it doesn't matter to me he said i'm going to take every ounce of strength i have and i'm going to pour it into these young people here at this bible school campus because they are the hope they are the future they are the key to what god is going to do so i will take all the strength that i have and i guess that was the last the last little thing that had to be that had to be written before the signature of god was placed on this canvas is the enduring power that god gives to those who trust in him his body was failing but his heart and his spirit were very much alive and the students know that even in his last few days he's still speaking to you from his living room when he couldn't muster the strength to go to class i do thank god for this wonderful life and it's so wonderful to be able to stand here and say that this is a life that was well lived in the power of god but now every good life every life that's lived every life that is a portrait of christ challenges us it should challenge us should challenge you it should challenge me to go to to yield to god not to do something for god but yield to god and say lord let your hand now paint the rest of my life and if if there's a marred place on the canvas would you just you're an artist you can correct that you can you can repaint that little piece and maybe i i chose not to let you be god in that area of my life yeah i i want to give an altar call this morning you know we haven't done altar call since covid started and i don't know if it's possible i hope it is that we can maintain social distance um but i just want to give an altar call this morning for people like you and people like me that just say god paint the rest of my life and paint a beautiful picture of yourself not of me but you christ in me the hope of glory as i behold you the apostle paul said as i just simply behold who you are behold your victory behold your goodness i begin to be changed into that same image from glory to glory so god let it not be about me let it be about you and as i as i just look into as many things as you choose to show me about yourself let that image become mine and so father i just thank you god i thank you thank you that there are certain people the bible speaks about who being dead yet still speak and pastor william is still speaking to us this morning of a life that is well lived in the greatness of our god so i'm asking for the grace to let you paint the rest of my canvas whatever that means wherever it leads whatever it becomes and thank you for it in jesus name

Channel: Times Square Church

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Length: 32min 25sec (1945 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021