Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. It's time for the Church of Jesus Christ to rise up. It's time for the people of God to fight back. It's time for us to begin to pray. It's time for teachers to speak.
It's time. It's time for the people of God. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Mm. That's Pastor Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City.
The Apostle Paul warns us that there will be wolves that will come. In fact, there are already packs of them in our generation, and they come to devour the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the promise of new life. Let's join Carter now to find out more in today's important message. Yeah. The wolf is at the door.
Isaiah chapter 53. Prophet Isaiah says these words: Who has believed our report? Beginning at verse 1. And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For you shall grow up before him as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised. and we did not esteem him.
Surely he's borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities and the chastisement of our peace was upon him. And by his stripes we are healed.
All, we like sheep, have gone astray and we've turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. You know, it's so important before we even begin to look at this passage of scripture to understand that it was a religious system that crucified Christ. You know, we understand that the Roman authorities were the instruments of his death, but it was the religious order of the day. Created by God's own people that put the Son of God on a cross.
There were leaders in that generation, and they had used their position over the people to garner titles for themselves. They had adorned themselves in righteous robes, as they saw it, and they loved to parade among the people, as Jesus said, and be called master, teacher, teacher, teacher in the marketplace. But Jesus himself came. In a form that he did not take on this form of grandeur that men give to themselves. And also too, they created A system of salvation that was much wider and much more inclusive than the one that God had.
given to us. Matter of fact, it was so narrow. That Jesus said, I'm the way. The truth and the life of no one. can come to the Father except through me.
They were so offended when he challenged their religious system because they had created this wide door into eternal life and eternal bliss with God that doesn't exist. All kinds of people were coming into the temple. Defiled and going out defiled. They were living in manners and ways that the Bible clearly indicated. Would leave them excluded from the kingdom of God forever.
And so in comes this man, he's not interested in their system, he's not trying to garner one of their titles, he's not doing things their way. The Bible says there was no beauty in him that we should desire him. He's not dressed in righteous robes. He's not got boxes on his forehead. He's not walking around with tassels on his arms.
He's not parading like some. Rooster before the people. Talking about how close to God he actually is. They despised him and rejected him because he challenged their religious system. They had created a system of redemption that did not exist.
Do you understand? And that's the propensity of humankind. The original sin in the Garden of Eden is that we can be as God is. Remember, we can become judges of what's good and what's evil. And if you take that to its logical extension, we can start declaring things that God forgives when He doesn't.
We can start declaring behaviors righteous when they're not. We can start telling people they're going to heaven when they aren't. That is the grave, grave danger. Of religion, when humankind in its sin nature is allowed to take it. and so twist it and so pervert it that it becomes something that God never intended it to be.
Can you imagine sitting in a place as a professed or supposed believer in Christ only to end up at the throne of God one day to find out you've been outside the whole thing all along? What a tragedy that's... going to be for so many. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. There was a heaviness in the heart of the Son of God as he looked on the people as sheep.
without a shepherd. But we hid our faces from him. He was despised. And we did not esteem him. And we are, of course.
Reliving. This scripture again, in great measure. In our day. In many, many places, even where God's people are gathering, the Word of God is despised. And we are now gravitating to fancy preachers.
Who have opened the door real wide to people who are not going to heaven, given them false peace when they're not at peace with God. The Apostle Paul said In 1 Corinthians 5, 17. If anyone is in Christ. Yeah. is a new creation.
The old things are what passed away. And behold, all things are become new, if we are in Christ. If Christ is in us. That means a new value system. It means a new heart.
It means a new mind. It means a new way of speaking, thinking, living. It means that what God says is good is good, and what God says is evil is evil. We don't try to change that. We accept that from the Word of God.
Now, this message is given to shepherds. To bring us Not only to the knowledge of our salvation, but to the freedom which Christ bought for us. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. And by his beating, as it is, that he took on the cross, we are healed.
The old things don't have power over us anymore unless we choose to let them. The old ways of living, speaking, thinking, doing. are broken. and we become new creations in Christ. We are able to look back and say, thank God, I'm not what I used to be.
I'm not everything that I hope to be, but thank God I'm not what I used to be, and thank God I'm going to be one day what Christ is calling me to be.
So there's this constant moving forward in the life of a genuine believer, leaving. An old way of thinking, an old way of living, an old way of speaking and moving to truth, even when it's painful. The book of Proverbs says, A righteous person swears to their own hurt and doesn't change. In other words, I say I'm going to do this, and I do it because God's word says I should, even if it causes me pain. And I don't turn.
from it.
Now, Paul was this kind of a shepherd. He didn't hold back, as I said earlier. This is what he said in Acts chapter 20. Verses 26 to 31. He said, Therefore, I testify to you this day I'm innocent of the blood of all men.
In other words, and this is the cry of my heart. If anyone here today, hearing my voice ends up in hell, let it not be my fault. Let it never be because I didn't declare to you the whole counsel of God, or I didn't warn you of something that had the power to drag you down into eternal darkness. For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. Therefore, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.
to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. Paul says, For this I know, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore, watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone, he said, day and night. With Tears.
Paul said there's going to be wolves. That are going to come, and they're all already. There's packs of them now. It's not just a few, there's many now in our generation. And they're going to come to devour the sacrifice of Christ.
and the promise of new life. Through him. They're going to promise you liberty, as the scripture says in the New Testament, but they themselves are the slaves to corruption. They're promising something they're not experiencing themselves and they can't deliver it. Listen to what Jude says.
The last. book of the New Testament before the book of the Revelation. Verse 3 says, Behold, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed. Long ago were marked Out for this condemnation, ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
I want to remind you, though you once knew this, That the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities round about them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh. Are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Here's what the wolves do.
They teach that you can live a lifestyle against the Word of God. and still claim heaven as your eternal home. That is the wolf that's now At the door of the Christian church in America. Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians. Chapter 6, verses 9 to 11.
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Be do not be deceived. Neither fornicators That means people who engage in sexual intercourse outside of the bonds of marriage between one man and one woman. Fornicators are not going to inherit the kingdom of God. Settle it, it's in the Word of God.
Don't be deceived into thinking you can live in a moral lifestyle, and heaven will still be your home.
So hard for this generation to hear when you've got preachers standing in pulpits saying, well, God understands your need and God is a God of love and God won't send anybody to hell. No, that's not true. God is a God of love. We know that. But the Bible tells us that fornicators have no inheritance in the kingdom of God.
Nor idolaters, people who have other loves in there, something that is in your life that is your whole obsession. Churches or Christ is just a little part of your life, but there's something else in your life that you're pursuing. nor adulterers. People who engage, who are married, but engage, and you know, today we take words like adultery and we call it an extramarital affair, as if it's a black tie event. You know, you are invited to an extramarital affair next Friday at 5 o'clock.
The Bible calls it adultery. Adultery. Settle it. Deal with it. The sex out of sight of marriage.
We'll keep you outside. of the kingdom of God. And sex outside of the bonds of the person that you are married to, the man or woman you are married to, will also keep you outside of the kingdom of God, unless it's repented of. Nor homosexuals, nor sodomites. In other words, that's it, both, men and women.
Folks listened. I understand the dilemma in a sense that some might face. in same-sex attraction. But I'm telling you, you can't give in to that lifestyle on any level. Because the Bible clearly says it will leave you outside the kingdom of God.
Jesus himself said, some people are eunuchs. For the kingdom of heaven. In other words, some people. Just live their lives without any sexual activity for the kingdom of heaven's sake. And he said: whoever can hear this, let them hear it.
You know, you can You go to a funeral, for example. And you can dress it up with flowers. All around and you can there's a death certificate. And the preacher can get up and say nice words. But the reality is that the corpse is still dead.
You can't make it live. It doesn't matter what you do. But it's the same with homosexual marriage, folks. I've got to say it straight out today. I'm not going to hold back on it.
You can adorn it with flowers. You can get a certificate from City Hall. You can find some Bexton preacher to say nice words about it. But the wages of sin is still death. You can't change that.
Now listen. I'll be called a hater for this message today. I understand that. But I'm not a hater. If I hated you, I'd let you go to hell.
If I hated you, I'd let you die in your sin. If I walk down the street. And your house is on fire. And you're up in your bedroom window, and I don't warn you: am I really a good neighbor? Do I really love you?
Do I really care about your eternal destiny? You can curse me out of your bedroom window all you want, but I will still warn you that your house is on fire for your soul's sake. Nor thieves. Lest we should think that we're just going to focus on one thing, or thieves. That means people to steal.
It's that simple. People who steal, people who steal a little bit, they have a contract maybe and steal a little bit more than they should. Income tax time is coming around, folks. Are you going to pay your taxes? Nor covetous.
Nor drunkards. People who come to church this morning, but you were out of the club last night. You're drinking and dancing, and this foolishness. I'm out there to share the testimony of Christ. Who are you kidding?
If you really are there to do that, stand on the sidewalk with pamphlets in your hand and give it to the drunks coming out of the club. You don't need to be in there with them. Nor revilers. You know, especially in this environment we're now living in, in this country at this time, where reviling has become the speech of the day, where it's fashionable just to curse everybody. around you.
You know, Paul said revilers don't inherit the kingdom of God. We have a different heart. We have a different spirit. We're a different kind of people. Jesus himself said, Blessed are the peacemakers.
Yours is the kingdom of heaven. Nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. I love that. Would be to God that I can honestly say that of everybody here today.
Such were some of you. But you are sanctified. That means you are set apart for the kingdom of God. You are. You honestly repented.
You walked away. You moved away from what God's word says is wrong. You can't make it right. You can't change it. It doesn't matter if a million people say, oh, isn't this wonderful?
If God's word says it's not, it's not. You are sanctified. You walked away. You walked away from this old ways of thinking, these old behaviors, and all of these things. And you set yourself apart for the kingdom of God.
You're justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.
Now, you and I are living in an hour where the wolf is heading to the door of the church, demanding in our generation that we bow down to this new definitions of good and evil. This is where we're living. The days of being able to say Without penalty, what I'm saying today are over. If they're not over, they're very close to over. It's an amazing time that we're now living in.
Jesus said in John chapter 10, I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. But a hireling who is not the shepherd One who does not own the sheep sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care. about the sheep. This is the point.
There's a lot of hirelings and a lot of pulpits in America today. And they don't necessarily leave the people, but they leave biblical truth. They flee the truth when the wolf is at the door. When the wolf says, if you don't bow down, this is our golden statue, this is what this generation is going to look like, this is what you'll preach, these are the truths that you will espouse. They will bow down when the music plays to save themselves because it's always been about themselves, not about the people.
The hireling will flee. And you are seeing and you will see a huge departure from biblical truth in the Christian church in this last hour we're living in. The Bible declares that there's going to be an apostasy, a great falling away in the last days from biblical truth, and the hirelings will lead the people. Not into the narrow way of eternal life, but into that broad way. of destruction.
They flee. Because it's always done about them. It's been about the robes. It's been about the praises of man. It's been about the titles.
It's been about the numbers. It's been about the apparent evidences of success. Then, when Christ comes and challenges them, they hate him. His own system hated him. His own people hated him.
They pushed him away because he declared their definitions of salvation and truth to be bankrupt. He told them they were full of dead men's bones. He said, You go across land and sea to get one convert, and you make him twice the child of hell that you have become. These are the words of Christ. He warned us in the last days there would be a great falling away.
He warned us, he said, you're going to be hated of all nations for my name's sake. You can't escape that. That's a promise in the Word of God. We're going to be hated. It's starting now.
You're seeing it in society. You're seeing it in the workplace. You can't even have an opinion on things anymore in this generation that we're now living in. Let me say it clearly now. Abortion.
For the cause of birth control? Or so that people, I understand there are extenuating circumstances, so please don't misquote me on this. But for the cause of just birth control or for the cause of Having Sexual pleasure and not having to deal with the life that it can create. is sin. In the sight of a holy God.
It's a terrible sin in the sight of a holy God. In America today, The deliberate. Gender confusing of our children in grade school is sin in the sight of a holy God. In our high schools. Forbidding our children to pray and creating this fictitious division between the state and the church, which doesn't exist.
If you really study it, you'll understand it never existed. It was created by the godless. Forbidding our children to pray in our schools is sin in the sight of a holy God. In our colleges, allowing godless professors to rise up and mock God. And radicalize a whole generation against even their own nation that was founded by God for the purpose of being able to worship according to the word of God and freely by conscience is sin in the sight of a holy God.
And the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Praise be to God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
So let this society despise him. Let them consider him ordinary. Let them rebel against his words. But this day, as Joshua once said, if it be hard to follow the Lord, that's your choice. Choose this day.
But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. By the grace of God, we will not bow before the wolf in this generation. By the grace of God, we will stand for the truth of God. By the grace of God, we will pray again. We will pray again as a church age.
By the grace of God, we will stand up unashamed for the truth of Jesus Christ. We stand on the side of victory. We stand on the side. We stand on the side of eternal life in Jesus Christ. Hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah. Glory, glory, glory. Glory, glory. Holy glow. Glory now.
David the king once did. We will stand in this generation against the lion and the bear. And everything that comes in to devour. Our children. and to devour the people of God.
It's time for the Church of Jesus Christ to rise up. It's time for the people of God to fight back. It's time for us to begin to pray. It's time to run for public office. It's time for teachers to speak.
It's time. It's time for the people of God. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Go. Glory, glory.
Glory, glory. The true shepherds of God in this generation are going to care more for the people than for their own safety. more than our own reputation. It's not going to be an easy road. But I don't know about you, but I'm not giving up this generation to darkness.
I'm going to stand because the Word of God stands forever. The opinions of men are like grains of sand on the seashore. They'll fall into nowhere. But the word of God abides forever.
Now here's where I conclude. If you're living. In sin. I plead with you. While there's still time.
Turn. Turn from it. And trust God for the strength. I know there's some sitting here or listening online, or they're in the annex, and they say, You don't know how deep the bondage is, you don't know how. powerful the draw is.
No, I don't, but I know the Spirit of God is more powerful than all of that put together. And I know. The promise of God is that we will have a new life. an eternal life. The days of living in Christian ease is over in America, folks.
It's over. We're about to join our brothers and sisters in China and other places who are being persecuted for what they believe. in Iran who are being jailed and put to death. for believing in Christ. We've lived a very comfortable, very lazy.
Christianity in America, but those days are over. The wolf is now at the door. Pray for those of us who lead. in any capacity that God would give us courage. As I pray for you, that God would give you a cleanness of life and practice and heart.
and give you the courage to speak up in whatever environment you find yourself in. Our children are starving for truth in this generation and they're wide open. There's only a few Goliaths that claim that they have the power to keep us from being the people of God. But they don't.
So I challenge you with all my heart. Turn from sin. Find that new life in Christ. and rise up. and be the person that God's called you to be.
The message today has been brought to you by Carter Conlon, pastor of Times Square Church. For more information, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. Uh Plan to be with us next week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.
