Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. That's why so many people who get to this point just absolutely look forward to death. It's better to dwell in a graveyard than to dwell among the living. But it doesn't matter. Here's the point: the scripture shows us the incredible power of the Son of God.
It took a lifetime to ruin your life. But just one word from Jesus is all it takes. To be free. The CS and worship Jesus in your mess. We're so glad you've joined us for a call to the nation with Carter Conlon.
In Mark chapter 5, we find the story of a demon-possessed man who lived in the tombs. No chains could bind him, and no man could subdue him. Night and day this man would cry out and cut himself with stones. One day, he ran and fell at Jesus' feet and asked Jesus, What do you want with me? And with one word spoken from Jesus, this man was set free.
Let's join Carter now as he explains what this situation was all about. Yeah. Mark chapter 5. Beginning at verse 1, just say yes. and worship in your mess.
Then came they to the other side of the sea, the country of the Gadarenes and when he had come out of the boat, there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs, and no one could bind him. Not even with chains. Because he had often been bound with jackals and chains, and the chains had been pulled apart by him. and the shackles broken in pieces. and neither could any one tame him.
And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from afar. He ran and worshipped him. And he cried out with a loud voice and said, What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore you by God that you do not torment me.
We said to him, Come out of the men. Unclean spirit. Then he asked him, What is your name? and he answered, saying, My name is Legion, for we are many. and he begged him earnestly that he would not send them out of the country.
Now a large herd of swine was feeding there near the mountains.
So all the demons begged him, saying, Send us to the swine, the pigs, in other words, that we may enter therein. And at once Jesus gave them permission. Then the unclean spirits went out and entered into the swine. There were about two thousand. And the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea and drowned in the sea.
So that those who fed the swine fled and told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that had happened. Then they came to Jesus and saw the one who had been demon-possessed and had the legion sitting and clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who saw it told them how it happened to him who had been demon-possessed and about the swine. Then they began to plead with him to depart from their region.
and when he got into the boat he who had been demon-possessed begged him that he might be with him.
However, Jesus did not permit him, but said to him, Go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you. and how he has had compassion on you. And he departed and began to proclaim in Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him and all. marveled.
Now, if ever there was a passage of Scripture that clearly shows us the compassion of Jesus. It would be this one. He's willing to be compassionate towards all those that will come towards him. Verses 6 to 8 tells us that he saw Jesus only far away. But when he saw him, he ran and he worshipped him.
Now, this poor man had heard the voice of God commending his freedom, but inside of him, Now, you have to understand in this passage of Scripture you have a mixture of humanity that has fallen and the demonic. This man had opened his heart to something, opened his life to something, and the voices now that were inside of him were beginning to multiply. You'll notice in all of the violent crimes that have been committed in the country in the last several years that many of those who commit these crimes say that they're hearing voices inside telling them to do these things. There's a mixture of that human person. and also the voices of what oppression they have opened their heart to and is beginning to manifest through them.
And so you have this duplicity here. You have this man who sees Jesus and runs to worship him.
Now, he's not a saved man. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. This man is outside of the kingdom of God. He's heard something. There's some kind of knowledge in him about who it is that is coming near to him, that is approaching him.
It causes him in an act of desperation to run and begin to worship. But inside of him, there's such demonic activity that there's a strange mixture of his plea for freedom, may I call it that, and the demonic plea not to be sent into an unclean place or a place which they described as outside of the country.
So I want you to see this story in this duplicity. There's a mixture of somebody who's opened themselves up to demonic power. That person is still very much there, but the things that they've opened their lives up to are also there, intermingled, intertwining as it is, in their personality, and beginning to speak through them. Many of you You remember the days before you came to Christ when you opened your heart to things and you began to speak words you never thought you would speak. Do you recall that?
You began to say things you never thought you'd find yourself saying. You lashed out to vehemently hurt people, even those that were close to you, and you would walk away and say, Why did I do that? Why did I say that? What is it that I've opened my heart to that's producing this kind of uncleanness that's coming out of my lips? And this man runs when he sees Jesus.
He's far away, just like the prodigal son was far away. He's made a mess of his life. He's opened his heart to things. He thought he could handle it. And there's so many people in this generation now that are, you know, they're in the same situation this man was in measure.
Cutting is becoming a terrible problem among our young people today. The marking of people marking their flesh and piercing their bodies, and all of these things that are going on now, and the excessiveness of much of this, it just speaks of an inner loathing. A desire to mar this physical body which God created in His own image. That's really what's at the root of most of this stuff. And today We're in a society largely captivated now.
People who thought they could handle what they were toying with. Little bit of flirtation in the office. Extra drink, perhaps, on the way home. A little bit of pornography when nobody was around and looking to see what you were looking at. And you thought you could handle all of this stuff.
And suddenly You feel that you're being overpowered by it. Beginning to control your life, it's controlling your thinking, it's ruining your life. That little bit of Coke that somebody at the workplace just told you you should just partake of a bit of it, it'll give you a bit of relief of stress at the end of the day. And you thought you could handle it, and then suddenly it's opening your heart, it's opening your life. You're on a spiral of things that you never believed were possible.
There are many, many people like this man. It says, when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and he worshipped him. It's like somebody here today saying, Jesus, I'm so far away. I'm so dead and I'm so hopeless. And if your words turn out to be unable to help me, just has been the efforts of others.
They had bound him, they had counseled him, they had probably done intervention, as they would call it in their day. They'd done everything they knew to do. But this man could not be tamed. He had an inner passion. He had given himself to something of evil that was, as Paul says in the book of Romans, I know what to do.
I know what is right. I even have a delight in the inner man to do what is right. But how to find the strength to do that which I know is right, I don't know. And suddenly, his life is spiraling down and down and down. It's like people have been counseled, they've tried everything to get free, to change, and they finally see Jesus in some measure, even though he's far off, and they approach him as this man did, and they fall on their knees and they begin to worship.
And it's like a person who says, If you turn out to be powerless, or if you condemn me, if I feel your displeasure, it would be the last straw. Be the last nail in the coffin of my life. Please don't promise me freedom if it's not to be mine. And that's a legitimate cry. You see that in the hearts of many people throughout history.
Oh God. Oh God, don't promise me freedom. If it's not mine. I wanted to tell you The good news of the gospel is The freedom is yours. Jesus.
Stood in that temple, opened the book of Isaiah. and said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. For this reason. The gospel might be preached to the poor, in other words, those who don't have strength. They don't have means, they can't get out of their bondage in their own abilities.
Those that are imprisoned. Whether it's a physical prison or a spiritual prison, they're in a place of imprisonment. I came to open the doors and let them out. I came to heal those that have been wounded and bruised in their heart. and don't see a way of freedom.
I came to tell you that this is the acceptable year of the Lord.
Now is the time to call out to God for this freedom. And I'll tell you one thing, I know in my heart, Jesus Christ is not a man who can lie. When he speaks, it is the truth. And if he said he came to give us freedom, he came to give us freedom. You don't have to settle for anything less than Jesus bought for you on that cross 2,000 years ago.
In my heart, I know that every drop of blood that hit that ground, it may not have been heard by the human ear, but it was like one of those big drums. Being hit with a huge drumstick, every time a drop of blood hit that ground, all hell must have trembled. They knew what was happening. They knew their cords were being broken. They knew their power.
Was going down. They knew that prison doors were going to open, blinded eyes were going to see, deafened ears were going to hear, the weak were going to be made strong, the gospel was going to be preached, and an hour of incredible liberty had come to all of humanity who were willing to hear and willing to believe. This man found himself living in a society that seemed to be able to tolerate his condition as long as their commerce was intact and their livelihoods were secure. You remember when this man was set free? They weren't overly concerned about his freedom, but they were concerned about the loss of their pigs.
And I believe it was because of the pigs that drowned that they begged this man to leave their coasts. A society that's more concerned about its commerce than the freedom of its people is doomed for failure. It's much like New York City is today, a city where one in four young people, and this is a government statistic, not a church one. Have either thought about or attempted suicide. That's right here in New York City, where cutting is becoming an epidemic, it's abounding.
Traffic is bumper to bumper for the commerce of Monday to Friday. It's thick for the entertainment of Saturday. But roads are virtually empty when it comes to prayer and worship on Sunday. This is a society very much like the society of this men's state, more concerned about commerce and entertainment than the freedom of people, more concerned about these things than our children in our streets who are contemplating or attempting suicide. God forgive us for this abominable ignorance that we have propagated on this generation.
We spend all kinds of time analyzing the distress of this hopeless situation and generation, but we refuse to deal with the true source of the problem. And it seems that the downward spiral is irreversible. In Psalm 88, listen to what the psalmist says: Oh Lord God of my salvation, I've cried out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you and incline your ear to my cry. My soul is full of trouble.
My life draws near to the grave. I'm countered with those who go down to the pit. I'm like a man who has no strength. I'm adrift among the dead. Like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, and are cut off from your hand.
This is the cry of many, many, many in our generation. There's an inner cry of hopelessness, and some of you know what that's all about. For you may, if you are not crying it today, you cried it out at one point in the past. A hopeless feeling. My life is never going to change.
The scripture tells us this. Man lived among the tombs. He felt more at home with the dead. than being among the living. He lived in a place of dreams lost.
Every one of those graves. would have a memory in it. A story, but as a story is gone. Hopes have vanished. He lived in a place where he felt like his future was hopeless.
And so many of our young people feel that way today. He lived in a place of pain and betrayal. Every tombstone would have a name. And many of you know what that's all about. There are names in your past.
And you even hate the mention of that name. And when that name even comes to your mind, you feel like cutting yourself. Just so that you can divert yourself from the thought of it and perhaps feel some other kind of pain than that deep inner anguish that came from the betrayal. His place would speak about abandonment. about innocence lost.
Dreams it once were. Childlikeness that suddenly vanished in a moment of time because of something that happened. A place of self-loathing. A place of anger and frustration. and an inability to escape to a better life.
And so many understand this. I'm speaking to people today who know what this is because you're living this right now. You're living in this place. You don't see a way out. You thought you could handle what came your way, and now you're finding out what came your way is handling you.
You can't escape the anger. You can't get out of the bitterness. You can't get away from the addiction. You can't walk away from the mental torment. You can't get out of the sense of hopelessness, and you've lost your future.
It seems like everything around you is lost. It's a place of unspeakable anguish. Yet, in this place, even though he had been, no doubt, not just an innocent victim, but he had been a partaker of the things that had allowed. These tormenting thoughts to gain access in his heart and in his mind. But yet even in this condition, When he saw Jesus afar off, he ran to him and he worshipped him.
He did what you and I need to do. He did what every person, every born, needs to do. We don't have to get our act together to come to God. We come to God just as we are and we worship Him in the place that we're living. In effect, he said yes, and he began to worship the Lord, and he was in a mess.
Because nobody in that society would debate it. He probably was one of the worst people in the whole area. His mess was deep, it was dark, it was heavy, he couldn't get out of it in his own strength. But when he said yes And he began to worship. I see it as a last ditch effort for freedom.
The place he should have come to in the beginning, he ends up in at the end, but better late than never. Then Jesus begins to speak to him. And he says, What is your name, or what are you called? I see this man, it's a type of a man who says, where do I start? What am I called?
There's so much is wrong inside of me. It seems like there's a thousand things in me that want to destroy me and have gotten a hold of me. If I were to ask you Did they there's some people here? What is What is your problem? You would say as I once did, have you got a couple of hours?
I don't know where to start. I don't know how to tell you how much I hate what I've become. I thought I could handle this, but I'm finding out I can't. It's starting to alter my view of my life. It's altering my view of my future.
It's altering my interaction with other people. It's changing me into a person that I never thought I would ever become. I hate what I'm becoming. I feel like a dead man, yet I'm living under the curse of still being alive. And you begin to cut yourself.
It's a sign of a deep, deep inner loathing that's in the heart. I hate what I have become. I hate what I'm doing to my family. I hate how I'm destroying my marriage. I hate the kind of employee I've become in the workplace.
I just absolutely loathe the selfishness that's at the center core of my heart, my own inability to even care. I've become numb. They're everything around me. I despise, is this what life is about? Is this what life is supposed to be?
Is this my future? Is this all it's going to be? Is it just going to be this point and downward from here on in? That's why so many people who get to this point just absolutely look forward to death. It's better to dwell in a graveyard than to dwell among the living.
The scripture tells us and shows us now. The incredible power. He said, actually. That would spoke through him and said, My name is Legion, where we're many.
Now Legion is a thousand.
Now you know if that's the devil speaking he can't tell the truth. Because as I read this, there were 2,000 pigs that ran squealing into the river.
So there was at least twice what the devil said was in this man. But it doesn't matter. Here's the point: the scripture shows us the incredible power of the Son of God. It took a lifetime to ruin your life. But just one word from Jesus is all it takes.
To be free. Just a word. Goal! You have to understand the power that's in the voice of God. The power in God's speech, the power that created the universe, the power that spoke into dust and created Adam as a living soul, the power that stood on a hilltop and called Lazarus out of the grave.
Jesus is not an ordinary man. His speech is not simply counsel to those that are lost. No, his words have power. He can raise the dead. He can create things out of nothing.
He can set people free. He can heal the wounded in heart. He can give sight to the spiritually blind. He can open up your heart to the incredible resources of what he bought for you and I when he defeated sin and death on the cross of Calvary 2,000 years ago. Victory is ours.
Life is ours. Freedom is ours. We don't have to settle for the graveyard. We don't have to settle for being ground into the ground with memories of the past. We can leave behind those things that need to be left behind, and we have the power to press forward to the call of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 4:8 says, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Not only does he set us free, he creates us anew. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. The old things within are dead, and behold, all things are made new. Jesus called it being born again.
Born by the Spirit of God. Given a new heart, given a new mind, given a new life, given new freedom, given a new nature, new desires, new future, new heart, new eyes, new hands, new voice, a new path, new courage, new compassion, and a new song. Hallelujah, on top of it all. Behold, I make all things new. Glory to the name of Jesus.
You and I don't have to die in our sin. You and I don't have to sing the blues. You and I don't have to live in the place of death. We have been promised life in Jesus Christ. Amen.
The freedom that I'm speaking about today will come at a time. When the commerce of the nation is thrown into the sea, I believe that with all my heart. I believe that the pigs are about to drown in America. I believe that our commerce is, our economy is going to suffer quite a severe downturn. It's going to bring hardship into the nation.
But in the midst of all of this In a nation that's urging Christ to leave its borders. In the midst of it all, God in His mercy Is coming to a people to call us. a generation to himself in spite of our condition or what has called it. And we might be far away from God as a people and as a nation. But I'm telling you with all my heart, I believe that I've heard from God, that He is coming to this society.
And he's coming with a call, and it's not for the strong in themselves, it's not for the most noble, it's not for the most righteous, it's not for it's not for those that have it all together or the movers and shakers of society, it's for the nobodies, it's for the nothings, it's for the drug addict, it's for the prostitute, it's for the those that are captivated, it's those that are living in death and they can't get out. I believe from this young generation who are out on the streets cutting themselves, we're going to see some powerful evangelists raised up in our time. I believe that with all my heart. Jesus is coming. To call a nation in the midst of our calamity and turmoil, in the midst of our downturn, his power again is going to be made known to the least among us.
And I thank God for that with all my heart. I can't escape this message. It's the one that the Lord has given me. It's what he's planted deep inside of my heart. It's why he's called me to preach the gospel and the specific message he's given me to speak at this time.
It's why he's allowing my voice to go across the nation on radio to call this nation, to call this country back into the house of God, back into the pyramid. Call all men, all women, all persuasions of life. all places in society, young, all, rich and poor, the influential, the uninfluential. Every knee must bend and every tongue must confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Nicole in my heart.
Is don't wait to get it all together, just come. Just say yes. And worship God in your mass. Just say yes wherever you are. Just run to Jesus.
Just run to him. No matter how deep or dark your struggle is, no matter how captivating your iron bars seem to be. If you can still hear his voice, don't harden your heart. If you could hear his voice. You get up from where you are and you come to God.
You get up and you take him in his word that Lord, you're not going to torment me. You're not going to promise me freedom and leave me bound. But tell him one thing, though, I want to say to you. When you get up, determine in your heart you're going to walk with him. Determine in your heart you're going to follow him.
It says the demon-possessed man begged him that he might be with him. Jesus did not permit him, but said, You go home and you tell your friends what great things the Lord has done for you and how he has had compassion on you. And the scripture tells us he went and began to proclaim in Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him, and everybody marveled. and what Jesus had done. God is going to touch those who long for him in this generation.
He's not going to do it for our sakes, for we don't deserve it for that reason, but for his own holy name's sake, he's going to come and he's going to cleanse us, wash us again in pure water, give us his Holy Spirit, make us into new creations, and there will be a testimony. There will be a testimony of God in this earth in spite of all hell breaking out on the face of the earth, in spite of wars, disasters, diseases, all the rest of this is coming, just as it was foretold. It was going to come. In spite of it all, one more thing was foretold. In the last day, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.
Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. In other words, I'm going to give the young of this generation an ability to speak the word of God with power, to be able to see into the future and make declarations of who God is and what God is willing to do.
So what do I do? The CS. and worship Jesus in your mess. Don't wait till it's all together. Come as you are.
That's always been the call of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So yes. Oh god. Please say yes. 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.
