Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. Isaiah can rightly say Everything I am, everything I thought I could add in my own strength to God's kingdom has suddenly fallen into ruin. What have I got to give to this kingdom? His life is a mess and he knows it. He's weak and he's aware of it.
Now he's about to be given the greatest revelation of all. Thanks for joining us today for the weekly program A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon. In 2 Corinthians 12, 9, God reveals, My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made in perfect weakness. That's what Carter will emphasize today.
God's favor and divine help is all you need, especially when you feel weak and can't seem to handle your overwhelming trial. Let's join Carter with his message titled, Why is God's Strength Made Perfect in Weakness? 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Verse 26 to 31. For you see your calling, brethren.
How that not many wise men after the flesh Not many mighty. Not many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. and base things of the world and things which are despised Hath God chosen, yea, and things that are not, to bring to naught things that are.
that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus. who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. that according as it is written, He that glories Let him glory. In the Lord.
Hallelujah. Turn to the person beside you and say, according to the word of God, you are foolish, weak, and base. Hallelujah. Now the weak are happy and the proud are upset right at this very moment. But why is God's strength made perfect?
in our weakness.
Now Paul The apostle didn't write this just because he was looking for things to write in the Word of God. He had a personal revelation of this. He was brought According to the words of his own mouth, into the place that he referred to as the third heaven. He was brought into the place, in a sense, where God dwells. And in that place he saw things.
That he said are not. Allowed to be spoken. I can't, Paul was basically saying I can't repeat it. And the Lord had shown him that it wasn't even lawful to write it down what he had seen. He had seen something so divine.
So incredible, so holy. that it could not be put down in writing on on paper. And having come back from that kind of a revelation, Paul dealing with the same condition that you and I deal with, because remember the inherent sin of man in the Garden of Eden is this desire to be as God, and knowledge will puff up. Knowledge can bring us to a place where We actually become The teachers who are in ourselves unteachable. We can actually come to the place through study where we no longer even represent God.
Unless that should happen to Paul because of the abundance of the revelation, He tells us there was given to him a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan that was sent to buffet him. And it it's so It so troubled him in his In his body and in his mind, that he went to the Lord three times and said, God, would you please take this away from me? Perhaps Paul argued with the Lord and said, I don't see the reason for this. You know I'm going to serve you, you know I'm going to walk with you. But the Lord made a profound statement to Paul, and he said, My grace is sufficient for you.
My ability to carry you and to sustain you is all that you need for my strength. is made perfect in weakness. My strength. is made perfect, In weakness. really is in measure the reason why Those who are wise in the flesh, and those who are mighty in themselves, those who feel more noble than other people in humanity.
Those who believe that they are Superior or stronger To other people, most often, even with study, live outside of the power of God. They increase in knowledge, but it never brings them to an understanding. Of who God is and what God really is desiring and able to do through all of fallen humanity. around them.
Now to understand Why God had to make Paul Weak. Let's go to Isaiah chapter 6 for a moment, please, if you will. Go in the back to Psalms, Proverbs, and then very shortly after that, you'll find the book of Isaiah. Chapter 6.
Now, this is another story of a young man who's about to be brought into ministry. In the year it says that King Uzziah died.
Now you remember Uzziah? is a king who died in in pride. In the disease of his mind. He thought he could be as God. He thought he could do anything he wanted to.
He walked into the temple. and began to offer incense on the altar of incense. when it was strictly forbidden him. And in a sense, his base nature had taken over him. And he had become what Satan sowed into Adam in the Garden of Eden, and Eve.
That he himself could be as God, chart his own course, do what he wanted to do, even in the name of God, and suffer no consequence for it. There you go. You see, in the year that King Uzziah dies, that's when we're brought into the, in the year that pride dies. In the year that we begin to realize that, and you and I realize that we are base, we are small. We don't have any strength in ourselves.
We would never get through this life and certainly never get into heaven without the mercy of God. In the year that Uzziah dies, in the year that that our natural tendency to to do our own thing. even in the name of God, dies. In the year that we finally come to an understanding that we don't make the rules, God does. That we don't have the right to chart our own course in life.
God has the right. In the year that Uzziah dies, Isaiah said, I saw the Lord. I saw him in the year that pride died. And Uzar does represent pride. Remember, and very often, many young people, especially, or any of us who are going to be called into the ministry.
Are you going to have to have this vision of God? Ezekiel had a similar vision. Daniel had a somewhat similar experience in the presence of God. To be called into the work of God, there's a requirement. We have to come to the understanding that His strength.
is not made perfect through our strength. His strength is perfected in our weakness. Isaiah was about to be brought into ministry.
Now, it seems that Isaiah was already. At least Marginally, a prophet at this point. He was already probably from a priestly family, familiar with the temple, familiar with the religion of his day. Might have been a gifted young man. Maybe some of the elders in the temple.
Saw him, picked him out. Saw something of nobility or strength in him. And perhaps he was already being more or less promoted. as people would see it in the religious side of things on the earth. And the kingdom of God.
But God was about to commission him. And I have a feeling in my heart that the Lord is about to commission us.
Now I'm not just saying this because of this message. It's something that's so very deep. We're going into revival, folks, in New York City. And God is about to commission us to represent Him in the city. And yet many and say, oh God.
I've walked so long with you, but I'm so weak. And I I I learned so much, but so little of it seems to be applied to my life. And I don't have any degrees. And I'm not as smart as other people. And I don't have nobility in the background.
I don't have an army behind me. I don't have a budget. I don't have anything. But Lord. I somehow strangely feel That you want to use me for your glory in the days ahead.
But how are you going to use me and why? And how does this whole relationship Between you and I work. I thought I had to be strong for you. Don't I have to have it all together? Don't I have to understand the Scripture?
Don't I have to be able to quote at least 300 verses of Scripture to be effective? God, my prayer life. Hardly has life its own resuscitation.
Now, just being honest, I'm not talking about myself right now, but that's the. That's the cry of many hearts. I've been there. I know what that's all about.
Well, you almost need two paddles on your chest to pray in the morning. And in our weakness, there have been times through my life. as even in ministry that I wondered how could God use me. I don't have the pedigree of others, and I don't have a Christian background. And when I got into ministry, I didn't even know how the thing worked.
I just know that I used to get things from God, and I'd speak to them, and people would get saved. In the year the King Uzziah died, he said, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up.
Now, Paul says in Colossians 1:16. By him were all things created in heaven and in earth. Visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him and for Him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Number one, he is above everything.
Every name that is named, every kingdom that ever will be. Every Power, every principality, every circumstance, every situation, every trouble, every trial, every mountain, every valley. He's above it all. And everything was created for him and by him for a divine purpose. Everything that we see, everything that we know.
Everything that we experience, everything that we have to go through, He stands above all of it. Nothing will ever take the Son of God by surprise. Nothing escapes his attention, nothing is allowed to happen without his permission. Why do the heathen rage? David said, and imagine a vain thing.
He who sits that they can cast off the Lord and cast off his anointed. He said, he who sits in heaven shall laugh and have them in derision. He stands above it all, and how foolish for any of humankind to think they can cast off the presence or government of God. How utterly foolish. He's high and lifted up.
So no matter where you are today, he is above your situation. And if you are in Him, that means that He is able to take you out. He's able to make you and I into everything that He's ever promised us He would. And his train, that means the border of his garment, filled the temple.
Now, think about this for a moment. In Matthew chapter 9, verses 20 and 21, they were saying a lady who had a sickness in her body. And she said to herself, if I can just touch the hem of his garment, I will be whole. And so she had to more or less perhaps climb a bit of a hill. She had to press through a crowd that everybody wanted to get close to him, and it must have been difficult.
She had to press through, and then finally made her way through the crowd with a lot of effort and touched the hem of his garment, and immediately the Problem she had in her body was healed. His garment was only on one physical body. The man Jesus Christ, it was confined to probably a three-foot radius at that point. Wherever he was, where he walked, to touch the hem of his garment, you had to travel miles, you had to go through crowds. To get there, But Isaiah said, I saw him.
I was lifted up. And his garment, the hem of his garment, filled the temple. There was nowhere in the temple.
Well, you couldn't touch him and be healed.
Now, listen to me. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament church. Do you understand? The presence of Christ is within us. And what Isaiah saw is a reality in the actual body of a New Testament believer: that the hem of his garment fills the temple.
There's no area of your mind, no area of your past, no area of your present or future or body that he can't touch or that you can't touch. That you can't reach out and literally touch. In other words, the healing of Jesus is in every part of you. There's nowhere where you can't be healed. There's nothing he can't touch.
Actually, there's nowhere where you can't touch him. and be healed. And above all of this, verse 2, stood the seraphims. Each one had six wings, and with two he covered his face, with two his feet, and with two he covered his face. He did Fly.
Now that's incredible. When you think of it.
Now, these are created beings at the throne of God.
Now, Isaiah is standing there looking at this. They have six wings. And I'm assuming that the top two says they cover their face. And with the bottom two, they're covered their feet. and with the middle two they're flying.
And so Looking at this, Isaiah would have to draw a conclusion, as I would if I was there, that they're not looking where they're going. They're covering their face with the top two wings. And the secondly, they're not traveling where they're going in any amount of natural strength. They're covering their feet. They're flying by divine power.
They're moving by divine power. I wonder how many of them there were. When you and I get to heaven, this is going to, Paul, I believe Paul saw this. It's incredible. And there's perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands of these created beings around about.
When you read Ezekiel, you seem to get the impression that they can move literally at the speed of light. And yet they never crash into one another. In other words, everything is in divine order. Where God is, there's order. Everything that is created and in subjection to Him knows.
Its course in life knows where it's to go, knows what it's to be doing. Flies or moves together. Paul said in the book of Acts: In him we live. And we move And we have our being. We're not crashing into things we know where we're going because he's the one who's leading us.
We're not walking by sight nor by power, but by the Spirit of Almighty God. We don't have to figure it out with our eyes. We don't have to see it with our eyes. We don't have to achieve it with the strength of our own feet and our own labors. But God, by the Holy Spirit, has promised to carry us and to make us into everything that He's ever promised us to be.
Praise be to God. And they cried one to another and said, Holy, holy! Holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. Holy It's the only word they knew and what it really means in the Hebrew is separate from all sin, separate from death, separate from idolatry, without any equal anywhere and completely perfect.
free from moral imperfections and all the failures of humanity. And it also means he's absolutely faithful to every one of his promises. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. Now How could the earth be full of his glory?
You walk out of this church today into the streets of Manhattan. You travel through the boroughs of New York City. You read the newspaper. You say, Lord, does Am I missing something here?
Now I know the heavens declare the glory of God. The order that's in nature declares the glory of God.
So there's a partial fulfillment in that. But how is the earth filled with your glory?
Well, you see, it's simply this: that the Church of Jesus Christ, you and I are still here. The glory of God abides in this temple. And all over there's a church of Jesus all over the earth. That's why the earth is filled with his glory. I think the problem that we face As people is we don't know.
Who we are in Christ. We don't understand who's inside of us. We live so much of our time trying to be. Trying to be what only God can make us. Trying to do or go where only He can lead us.
Holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth. is full Of his glory. It's so important that we know this when we pray. They were coming to a throne above every other throne.
We're coming to a place of absolute and complete divine order. We're coming to a place where healing flows everywhere where he is. We're coming to a place where he is absolutely above anything we could ever hope to be, and completely faithful to all of his. Promises. When we come to him in prayer, we have to realize that he has commissioned us to be his representatives on the earth.
Until the day he takes his church home to be with him forever. And when we pray, it says, the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was. filled with smoke. The posts of the door moved.
Now, I've searched that out in so many different places, and the best I can understand it. Is that from The threshold of the door to the sides of every opening in the temple. From simply just waving from side to side or heaving from top to bottom to moving to a A completely different place. The door! The doors moved.
In other words, To the church of Philadelphia, he said, you have a little strength. And you have not denied my name. He said, Behold, I set before you an open door, and no man can shut it. When you and I know who God is, when we come into the prayer closet realizing who it is that we're serving. When we finally understand that nothing is impossible to him, And we begin to cry out, Holy, Holy, Holy, oh God Almighty.
And we begin to say, Lord, you are faithful to your promises, and anything you want to do with my life, you're well able to do it. Then suddenly A door can appear before you. What was impossible becomes possible. Where the enemy planted a wall and said, This far and no farther. God says, No, I set before you an open door, and no man can close it.
I didn't call you because you're strong. I called you because you're weak. I didn't call you because you're smart. I called you because you're foolish. I didn't call you because you're noble.
I called you because you're nothing. I called you to represent my kingdom, and here's where it gets to be interesting. When Isaiah saw this in verse 5, he says, Woe is me, I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
I am undone. Everything I thought I was, everywhere I thought I was going, how I thought I was so wonderfully representing the kingdom of God or not representing the kingdom of God. All of our boast you have to understand, he comes from perhaps the most religious people on the face of the earth, and they legitimately laid claim at that time to being exclusively the people of God. On the earth. And there was just a myriad of religious exercise going on.
Potential study of the word of God and practical exercises in the temple. And Isaiah said, It's unclean, it's all unclean. It's, we claim to know God, but we don't know anything about God. We claim to be smart, but we're ignorant. We claim to be strong, but we're weak.
We claim to have it all and we claim to be holier than thou, but mine eyes have seen the King, mine eyes have seen the Lord of hosts, and I know that all of my boasting and all of my promises to God are worthless. The things I've stood and said, the times that I've said, this is what God looks like, this is how God feels, this is what God thinks, he said, it's all short because mine eyes have finally seen his glory. And the whole of the nation is said is unclean, and our speech is unclean. Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. We fall so short of his divine order.
Isaiah could rightly say Everything I am, everything I thought I could add in my own strength to God's kingdom has suddenly fallen into ruin. What have I got to give to this kingdom? What can I do to help this? He's the worst off in the whole place. His life is a mess and he knows it.
He's weak and he's aware of it.
He's the strength And it's become completely filled with the understanding that there's nothing I can do here to add to this. This is so far beyond me. This place is holy. This place operates in divine order. There's absolute truth and perfection here.
How in the world can I ever be part of this? In my condition.
Now he's about to be given the greatest revelation of all. It says, Then flew verse 6, one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand. which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth and said, Lo, this has touched thy lips. And then iniquity is taken away.
And thy sin is parched. And that coal speaks to me of the cross of Jesus Christ. I've come and I've touched you, and you don't have to make any promises to me anymore. You can't fulfill your promises to me. The kingdom of God will not advance in you and through you because of anything you promise to be or to do for me.
It's not about your promises to me, it's about my promises to you. Yes, judgment is coming and Isaiah knew it, but he had a clear vision that the ministry of the church on the earth is mercy. Mercy! That's my message. That's your message when you leave this place today and somebody asks you for a reason for the hope.
Mercy! Mercy! Not because I've memorized things. It's not just because I go to church. It's not because I read my Bible X number of minutes or hours a day.
I stand by mercy. The mercy of God. And suddenly you will be an evangelist. Suddenly you can't open your mouth because he has not chosen the strong, not chosen those who are noble in themselves, not chosen those who have it all together, but those who know that I stand by mercy. The mercy of God has given me hope.
The mercy of God has broken my sin. The mercy of God. has made me and can make any person in this city. A brand new creation in Christ Jesus. We're all on level ground, folks.
The proud will form their own religion. And unfortunately we'll take them nowhere. But those who know, those of us who know that we need a Savior, hallelujah to the Lamb of God, we don't need any more than just to say, Jesus, it's mercy. Mercy, my God. You've been merciful to me.
You've touched me, Lord. You set before me an open door. Here am I. Send me. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Mercy. Mercy. It's all About Mercy. Uh You've been listening to Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City.
For more information and resources to help you in your walk in Christ, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. And be sure to be with us next week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.
