Welcome, and thank you so very much for joining Carter Conlon for this year's Easter special, Believing is Seeing. It's our prayer that you are encouraged by this timely message and reminded of God's great love and care for you. Let's join Carter in studio now.
This is Carter Conlon. Welcome to the Easter special this year. I want to share a message with you today from my heart called Believing is Seeing. Now we know the world has an expression saying seeing is believing. But you ever thought or stopped to consider that God's kingdom is the other way around? In God's kingdom, actually believing comes first and seeing comes second. Let me read to you from Hebrews chapter 11 verses 1 to 3. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. In other words, the writer of Hebrews is saying faith is that evidence that we believe that what we're asking God for we will see because we understand that God is able to make something out of nothing.
That's actually what he did when he created the universe. It was by his word and not made of anything which was present or visible. Just his word was sufficient.
How long has it been since you and I were in a place like that and say, God, I don't have to see anything to believe you. God, I believe because you promised me, for example, you promised me that I would not only have eternal life, but I would have an abundant life here on this earth. So God, maybe I'm not living it now, but God, I believe it.
And because I believe it, I believe that I will see the purpose for my life and you will bring me to that place where I need to be. Now God has the power, in other words, to do what he says no matter how resource absent or poor the situation in my life may seem. The persistent failing of even God's own people is the inability to believe his promises. When we elect to not see how what he says can be done, that's the reality.
It just plagues humanity when we just feel like we have to see something before we can believe it. The exasperation in God's heart must be intense. For example, in Numbers chapter 14, verse 11, then the Lord said to Moses, how long will these people reject me and how long will they not believe me with all the signs that I have performed among them? You know, you think about biblical history.
You think about the things that we know, the testimonies that we've heard. Are we in that situation that they were in back there where God says, how long will it be? How much more do I have to do? What more kinds of miracles do I have to show? How many more lives do I have to transform?
How many more promises do I have to be faithful to until people will actually believe that I meant what I said and I will do what I said I will do? Of the people of Israel of that time, in Psalm 78, verse 19, the psalmist says they spoke against God. And they said, can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
It's a type of looking into the mirror, and all we see is bankruptcy in ourselves. And we say about God, can God do anything with my life? Can God make a difference through me? Can God actually take me in my emptiness, my desert condition?
May I call it that? And can He really do something? Now, it was not a legitimate question. It was actually an accusation against God. They actually came to the conclusion that God can't do anything in this place. Psalm 78, verse 41, it says, again and again, they tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel.
Now, I personally believe the children of Israel back in the Old Testament did a lot of things. They made a golden calf. They murmured. They complained. They rebelled.
They did all kinds of stuff. But the one thing I think which was the greatest sin of all is that they limited the Holy One of Israel. They limited God. They basically said, well, God can do that, but He can't do this.
God did that in the past, but He can't do the same thing for my life in the future. And this was the great, great sin of the people of God of that time. Now, this is not only an Old Testament problem. For example, in the New Testament, after Jesus clearly told His disciples that He would be killed and raised from the dead in three days, listen to what happened in the Gospel of Luke in chapter 24, verses 6 to 11. Now, the women went to the tomb, and as they approached the tomb, they saw the stone rolled away. And they saw two men standing by them in shining garments.
And here's what they said to them. He's not here, but is risen. Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, verse 7, the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and the third day rise again. So keep in mind that He had already clearly, clearly described what the future events were going to be, that He was going to be delivered, He was going to be crucified, and on the third day He was going to rise. And they remembered, that being the women, His words. Then they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles. Now, look at verse 11, and it's a sad verse. And their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them.
Isn't that amazing? They had been told by the Lord Himself, this is what the future is going to hold. I will be delivered, I will be crucified, on the third day I will rise. And when people who had actually been to the Garden Tomb returned to His own disciples, the words that they spoke, that He has risen, seemed like idle tales, and they did not believe them. I think of how many people today that when people are given the opportunity for life, they just don't believe that God can do it. And again, in John chapter 20, verses 24 to 29, Thomas walked with Jesus Christ for three years.
He had the purest teaching that any one of us could ever hope to have. God Himself speaking into this young man's life. Three years, He saw the miracles, but He could not bring Himself to believe what He could not see.
Could you imagine that? Now Thomas, it says in John 20, verse 24, called the twin, one of the twelve was not with them when Jesus came. So Jesus had appeared to some of His disciples.
He had breathed on them. He had said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. Thomas wasn't there when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to Him, we have seen the Lord.
So He said to them, unless I see in His hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails and put my hand into His side, I will not believe. After eight days, His disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst and said, peace to you. Then He said to Thomas, reach your finger here and look at my hands and reach your hand here and put it into my side.
Do not be unbelieving, but believing. Then Thomas answered and said to Him, my Lord and my God. And Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you've seen me, you've believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
Isn't that amazing? So the question I guess today to you and I, what have you lost and have difficulty believing that it can be regained again? This is what happened with Thomas. In his mind, the Savior was lost. And he didn't believe that the life that had been taken could be revived, could be regained, could come back again. So what have you lost?
It's a legitimate question today. And you have difficulty believing that it can be regained again. And you'll say like Thomas, unless I see it, I won't believe it. In other words, it's got to happen to me first before I'm going to believe it. But yet the kingdom of God is the other way around. Jesus says, believe and you shall receive, not receive and you shall believe.
It doesn't work that way. That's the way it works with people who are outside the kingdom of God. So my question to you today is what did you lose and have difficulty believing that it can be regained again? Did you lose a sense of hope, for example, for the future?
Are your past experiences, has it produced such a hopelessness in your life that you just can't bring yourself to believe? I think of Thomas, for example, probably the depth of despair that kind of came into his heart when his Savior, the one who was going to deliver everyone from the grip of darkness, from the grip of the Roman Empire, is suddenly seemingly conquered, dies and is put into a tomb. And even though he knew the words of Jesus Christ, he had difficulty believing. As a matter of fact, he thought it was impossible to believe that the life, the hope, the things that he had once trusted in could be regained again. How about a sense of purpose?
Have you lost a sense of purpose for your life? Are you in a place now where it's just so difficult to believe that God could ever take your life and use it for something beyond what you see? And don't fall into the trap of saying, well, if God chooses to use me, then I'll believe Him, because that's not the way it works. God's kingdom works is the opposite to this world. God's kingdom is a kingdom where it says, I will speak to you.
I've already given you the words that you need. If you will believe my word that I've spoken to you, you will then see the fulfillment. Now, it's not going to necessarily come the way we think.
I think of all the disciples that all walked with Jesus for so many years. Probably Thomas formed some kind of an opinion in his mind of what this relationship with the Son of God was going to look like, where it was going to lead, how it was going to play out. Man, I say it that way. And it didn't work that way. And when things don't work the way we think they should, when we formed an opinion about how God was supposed to work in our lives and situation and He didn't, then we get to the place where Thomas was.
We just said, I'm just done. I believe. But the problem with Thomas is he believed what he wanted to believe.
He didn't believe what God was actually speaking to him through His Son. That's the problem with many of us. We form a picture. This is where my life is going to go. This is how it's going to work out. These are the relationships I'm going to have. This is the journey I'm going to undertake.
This is what my life is going to look like. And then it doesn't work out that way because in actuality, that really isn't the plan of God. Didn't he say, my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways?
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. It's so difficult if we've allowed a picture to form when it doesn't happen. And what God really intends to do wants to manifest before us, and yet we don't believe it because it just doesn't work the way we thought it should.
And that, I believe, is the common plight of humanity. There's a lot of Thomases around today. There was one back then in the story, but today there are dozens and dozens, if not thousands, of people that say that I'm not going to believe God until I see. You've just told me that He's risen from the dead. I just don't believe it. And until I see it, I'm not going to believe it. And so many people just don't believe that they have a hope for the future until they see it. They don't believe their life has a sense of purpose until they see it. They don't believe that for relationships, perhaps, that were lost, that God might bring new ones into their lives that they didn't see coming.
And they just don't believe it, and they say, well, I just don't believe I'll ever be happy again until I see it. And if you live that way, unfortunately, your view of what the future should look like will probably never materialize. It's a sad state to be in. It's so much better just to be abandoned to the will of God, to come to the house of God and say, Lord, I've decided to trust You. I've decided to serve You.
I've decided to let You lead me. I've decided to let You bring my life to the place where it will be satisfying and bring glory to Your name. Doesn't the Scripture say that all things work together for good to those that love God and are called—the called—according to His purpose? Not according to our purpose, but called according to His purpose.
And all things do work together. That means the sorrows, the difficulties, the questions, the confusions, the disappointments, they all lead to a place that we experience the calling of God for His purpose. You know, Thomas was going to know His purpose. It is reported through history that he became a missionary to India. Whether that was so or not, we know he went on. We know he saw Christ. We know he believed. But Jesus said to Thomas, as He says to you and to me today, you believe because you've seen, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Blessed are those today who have not seen the fullness of what God has for their lives, but yet believe that the fullness of what God has is on the way before they see it. Remember, in the kingdom of God, believing is seeing. In the world, seeing is believing.
It's completely the opposite. What have we lost that we have difficulty believing that we can regain again? Matthew chapter 28 verse 17, this is the portion of the journey, the resurrected journey of Jesus Christ, where it's probably associated with the other gospels that He was about to ascend into heaven. He brought His disciples to the top of a mountain, and the Scripture says when they saw Him, they worshipped Him, but some doubted.
Isn't that amazing? He's risen from the dead. He's been teaching among them for quite a few days. He has breathed upon them to receive the Holy Spirit.
He's reiterated His previous promises, plus new ones as well, I'm sure. And they saw Him, and they worshipped Him, but some doubted. That to me is an amazing Scripture.
How in the world? You can picture Jesus Christ ascending up into heaven. He's told them, All power is given to you, and all power is mine, and I'm sending you out to be ambassadors of Me. And they're watching this moment. They're listening to the resurrected Christ and still are plagued with doubt. And that's the state of many in the professing church today.
I hope my brother, my sister, that's not you today. They come to church, and they see the Word of God. They see the promises in the Word of God. They see the story of His crucifixion, His death, and His resurrection.
They can actually picture in their minds the women coming to the garden with the angels either standing or sitting, depending on which part you're reading in the Scriptures. And they look at all of this, and they see it. They actually have plays about it at Easter time, but they doubt.
I don't know how that happens. They doubt. They worship, but they doubt.
It says they worshipped Him, but some doubted. So I don't know what they're doing. Are they singing the Psalms? Are they declaring to be Lord?
What are they doing? And how does our worship get intermixed with doubt at the same time? And it speaks of so many today, so many today that God wants to take into a whole new place. He wants to do something through your life that is way beyond your deepest imagining of what your life could be and the deepest picture you've formed in your own heart.
He speaks these incredible promises in His Word of God about what He will do, what your life will look like, how it will play out according to His will. And you come to church, and you worship Him, but you doubt. You doubt that your hope will ever return. You doubt that a sense of purpose will ever be renewed.
You doubt that you'll ever—if you've lost love, you doubt that you'll ever love again. And such like things, you doubt that your life will ever reach its intended goal, and you doubt. And the worst of it all is that you doubt that God will be faithful to you and that He will actually do what He said He will do. In the Old Testament, they said, can God furnish a table in this wilderness? They doubted the ability of God to take a barren place and to do something that is actually a feast in the middle of it.
They doubted Him. My brother, my sister, may we never be part of that crowd, especially now when the world is desperate, desperate for a living witness of the reality of God, which is always coming through His church, through His people. That's your portion in life today, to be a witness of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, not just at Easter time to go to church and declare some truths that you know, but to actually believe that the same Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead will quicken your mortal body. That means give you life.
That means bring you to a place you could never go in your own strength, give you giftings that are not your own, take you and make you into a vessel that will bring the name of Jesus Christ in our generation to glory one more time. Oh God, this Easter, help us, especially now as we live in a season where so many are starving. They're starving. They can't believe because they're outside the kingdom of God. They've got to see some evidence. And Lord, the evidence you want to show them is in us, your people, your church. If we will believe, then we will see your kingdom advance. Souls come to salvation in Jesus Christ. We will see the deepest needs of our heart and lives fulfilled because the will of God is now being made manifest in us and through us.
I'm perplexed by that statement. They worshiped him, but some doubted. But those who heard and those who believed, they went into an upper room to pray and to wait for his promise. He gave them a promise. He said, wait in Jerusalem and you will be endued with power from on high. I'm going to give you my power. I'm going to send the Holy Spirit to you. I'm going to empower you from the inside out to be the people that I have called you to be and I have destined you to be, not what you think your life is supposed to be, not what you think my kingdom is all about. You know, many of those people had fallen into the trap of thinking the kingdom was coming immediately and Jesus was going to use his power to defeat the Roman Empire. And when he didn't do it, it was perplexing to many. But he said, if you will go into the place I tell you to go, if you will shut away in that place of prayer, you will see my presence. You will see my purpose.
You will see that I'm going to do something that's way beyond your thoughts of what could be done through your life. And they believed. They wouldn't have gone to the upper room if they didn't believe. They believed that what he said he was able to do. They were keenly aware of their own failings, I'm sure. There were no braggers and boasters there.
There were no big people and little people. Everybody knew the fear of their own heart. They knew the inconsistency of their own professions. They knew the cowardice, God, of all of them. But yet they were there because they believed his promise. You see, as it says in Hebrews 1 where we started, their faith was the evidence of things not yet seen. And when we have faith, we will listen to what God says. We will go where he tells us to go. We will pray when he tells us to pray.
And we will believe that he will enable us to do something by his inner power and strength that could only be done through us by God himself. Now the same God who formed the worlds from nothing, Hebrews 1, the same God who formed the worlds from nothing soon touched their lives. And from there he changed the world through them.
Amazing, isn't it? From there he changed the entire known world through them. And it's because of them, it's because of their obedience, it's because of their prayer, that we are today assured that heaven is our home the day that we die. Through faith, through faith, they went into an upper room.
My brother, my sister, I want to challenge you today. Through faith, through faith, go into that room that God has assigned to you. Go into that place that he's assigned to your life. It may not make sense to you, but faith is the substance of things hoped for and faith is the evidence of things not seen. By faith we understand the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
Isn't that amazing? In other words, God will do something through you and in you that when you look in the mirror today, you can't see it because the things of God are not seen. And he says, if you will believe, if you will believe, if you will believe my word, the same God who made the universe by his spoken mouth will transform your life and use you for a purpose deeper and bigger than anything you've ever thought of in your life before. In the kingdom of God, first comes believing and then comes seeing.
So I want to challenge you. Believe God today. Believe his promises to you. Believe his word. Believe that you're a new creation in Jesus Christ. Believe that when you ask in faith, God will speak to your heart and give you what you asked for.
Believe his every promise to you. Father, I thank you, God, for this day. I ask you today that this be an Easter time like none other in the history for many, many people's lives. That they will turn to prayer and believe you that one more time innumerable people can be touched and brought into the kingdom of heaven because of their obedience.
We choose to believe first. And because we believe your promises, we believe that we will live to see your inner working in our lives in a way that we never dreamed was possible. Thank you, Father.
In Jesus name, everyone. Happy Easter. You have been listening to Carter Conlon and his Easter special, Believing is Seeing. As we conclude this year's Easter special, we just wanted to thank you so much for joining us. For more specials like this one, visit www.carterconlon.com. That's www.carterconlon.com. Happy Easter. Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus and to take him at his word just to rest upon his promise and to know thus says the Lord Jesus, Jesus
