Carter Conlin from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. You're going to see a church coming out of dry places, coming out of a wilderness place, leaning on Jesus Christ, a victorious church, a worshiping church, a church with life and joy, a church with a message, a church with an empowerment of the Holy Spirit to do things that can only be done by the Spirit of God. We're glad you've joined us for a call to the nation with Carter Conlin. The wilderness is the place between where we used to be and where God has called us to go.
Some remain there, never stepping into the fullness of what God has promised. But in today's message, Carter Comlin reminds us that God is calling His church out of dry places to seek Jesus wholeheartedly, lean fully on Him. And be empowered by the Holy Spirit to make a difference in this world. Let's join Carter now with his message titled "The Last Days Wilderness Church." I want to speak to you this morning from the Song of Solomon. I'm going to begin in chapter eight and verse five about the last days wilderness church.
I happen to believe with all of my heart that in the last days before Christ returns. In the last days before judgment starts to fall on this nation and other nations like it that have vacated in a sense truth and embraced perversion and embraced lies and such like, mercy still triumphs over judgment. It doesn't mean judgment doesn't come. It means mercy still triumphs. In essence, anybody who wants to come to Christ is able to do so.
Anybody who desires to be free can be free. And I personally believe that there is going to be a church in this last day that's going to be a victorious church, a God-filled people, a people with a mind that is similar to that which Christ would have them to have, a people on a mission to bring to redemption, which is the only mission of Christ in the earth, is the redemption of the lost, the saving of the lost, and the discipling of those who are new to Christ. That is the mission of the church. The mission of the church is not to be personally comfortable. It's not to gather wealth to ourselves.
It's not to dig some bunkers somewhere and fill it with cans of beans so we can survive the coming days. Do you understand? The church's mission is to be empowered by the Spirit of God and to go into this world and make a difference in this world. And by the grace of God, this last days we'll have a church. In the Song of Solomon, the writer writes these words in chapter eight, verse five: "Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved?" The writer saw something.
He saw a bride coming out of a dry place, a wilderness place, leaning on the bridegroom. And this is a pictorial type of what we're going to see in these last days. We're going to see a church coming out of dry places. Coming out of a wilderness place, leaning on Jesus Christ, a victorious church, a worshiping church, a church with life and joy, a church with a message, a church with an empowerment of the Holy Spirit to do things that can only be done by the Spirit of God. I am speaking prophetically today.
Do you understand that? I know when the Holy Spirit is upon me. I know when God's Spirit is flowing through me and speaking a message to His people.
Now, not everybody, not everyone who goes to church is going to be part of the awakening that we're about to experience. But those who belong to Christ will see it and know it.
Now, the wilderness is a place in between where we used to be and where we're called to be. That's where Israel, for a season, for a long season, actually they weren't they weren't supposed to be there for a long season, but ended up there for a long season. They were set free by the sovereign power of God from that which was determined to hold them captive and make them slaves to its power, and that's for many of you. Say that here today. I I was a slave to alcohol.
I was a slave to lust. I was a slave to I don't know fear. Whatever it was in your life, but you know that God sovereignly came and touched your life and set you free, and it was because of the blood. Of Jesus Christ, it wasn't by any work of righteousness that you or I have done. It's the blood and the mercy of God that brought us out of where we used to be.
And now, what's supposed to be a short season ended up forty years for a whole generation at that time, because they would not go in to the place that was promised them.
Now you and I are promised life. We're promised eternal life. We're promised an abundant life. We're promised a reason to live. We're promised that our lives are supposed to bring glory to God.
How? By God indwelling us by His Holy Spirit, giving us His Word, taking us where we can't go, making us into what we could never be, and giving us what we could never naturally possess. That people look at us and they see the reality of God—not an argument about God, but the actual reality of God's willingness to show mercy in every generation. The wilderness is that place that's between our past and our promised future. Our past, thank God.
One time, somebody gave me a picture of what I used to look like before I got saved. People are always happy to do that sometimes for you. I had lost all of those pictures, and when our house burned down, somebody had one, and they were just kind enough to hand it to me. And I looked into the eyes of that man, and the first thing out of my mouth is, I said, "God, thank you that that man died and another man was born." I don't like what what I saw in those eyes, but I I was given a promised future. I had no ability to achieve it.
Had no ability to attain it. Only a heart to desire it. God, whatever you have for me, that's what I want for my future. The wilderness is the place in between self-focus and an other's focus. We we we all come to to Christ, and we were focused on ourselves before we came to Christ through salvation, and for a short season, we're still self-focused after.
But that's a point of of immaturity in a sense. When we come to maturity in Christ, everything inside shifts, and we move into that place of promise, which is about others. The whole reason we live is about other people. It's that place in between poverty and provision. When we lived in spiritual poverty and we had no abilities to do anything, but God.
Brings us out and gives us the provision to become all that He's called us to be. The wilderness is the place that we live in between fear and faith, between things old and things new, between human effort and divine enablement. I don't know about you, I am hungrier for God than I have been in a long, long, long time. I want everything that God has for my life. I want the full pathway that He has set for my feet, and I don't care what I have to give up to get there.
It makes no difference. I prayed even this morning. I said, "God, you can have anything you want. I just want You. I want Your will.
I want Your way. I want Your pathway. I want Your power. I want power in my speech. I don't want to be just an argument about Your Your existence.
I want You to be able to prove Your existence." In spite of age, in spite of the fact that my own abilities are limited, but yours are not.
Now it's unfortunate, but many people choose to die in the wilderness. They they come out of captivity, and they end up in this this in between place, which is very can can become very dry. After a while, you know, you start coming to church, and and it's a great thing to come to church, and you you sing the songs, and you get momentarily stirred. But there's a dryness that is now part of your life, especially those that have been saved for any amount of time, and you've not moved from the wilderness into the fullness of what God has for your life. In chapter five of Joshua, in verse four, it says, "And this is the reason." Why Joshua circumcised?
This is the reason why Joshua took those born in the wilderness and marked them, in a sense, to be set apart for God. All the people who came out of Egypt who were males, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way when they'd come out of Egypt.
Now, I think I'm going to be bold in saying this, but I think the majority—not all, thank God—but the majority of people in America in the last two, three decades. In some measure, died in the wilderness. Started coming to church and and just kind of stayed there in church and never never really moved into what God had for them. And because of that, the evidence is all around us. Because of that, we or morality abounds.
Because of that, confusion is in society at almost every level. We we we abdicated in a sense. The role that God had given to us as the body of Christ—to to to be that voice, to be that living testimony in the marketplace, in the workplace, on the job, everywhere we go—we were supposed to be salt and light in this world. But many chose to die in the wilderness. They lived there, and they died there.
But God found another generation. This is my hope now. This is what he showed me 44 years ago. This is who you are. Many of you weren't even born when the Lord spoke to me about you, and what God was going to do in this time that we're now living in.
This is why God is putting this word, as Pastor Tim has been preaching it in this church, setting you apart now for something that God has called you to. It's not just the fact that Pastor Tim has a passion for the lost and has a wonderful word that he's giving from God. This is this is another Joshua moment. This is another moment where people are going to come out of the wilderness and go into the place of promise, but have to be prepared. There's got to be a mark on you.
May I put it that way? That separates you and I from the people of this world. Separates us from the pursuits of the people who choose to live in. Only what this world has provided them, and God puts a mark in Ezekiel, in the Old Testament, in chapter nine, in verse four. The society in Ezekiel's day was coming under judgment, and make no mistake about it.
I'm going to say this straight out: America is under the judgment of God right now, and we we've abdicated. God gave this nation an incredible freedom to to worship according to the word of God, to walk in truth. No, we haven't always walked in truth as a nation. That's a fact. But there's always been an ability to reason with the populace.
I don't think that ability is there anymore. I think the society has tipped into godlessness.
Now, when that society of Ezekiel's day was about to be judged. God sent an angel, and he said to him, "Go through the midst of the city. That's Ezekiel chapter nine, verse four. And put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it. Put a mark on those who are not part of this present apostasy.
Put a mark on the forehead, which which represents the mind of the man of the woman." That walks through the day sighing, "Oh God, the news, the things that they see, the things that we hear. I can't be part of it." And you know why you can't be part of it? Maybe you feel powerless against it at the moment, but you can't be part of it because the mark of God is upon you. The touch of God has come into your life. If, if you can be part of this, if you can be part of the immorality, if you can be part of the apostasy, God help you.
That's all I can say. But if you are sighing and crying as I do, I can't walk down the street without sighing and crying anymore. When you look and you just see the debauchery at every level, I can't read the news without sighing and crying. Any longer, oh God! And my my sigh and my cry is not God.
Get me out of here, God. Use me to make a difference. God, use my life for Your glory, Jesus Christ. I want Your name to be glorified again. I'm tired of hearing Your name as a a curse word, even in G-rated movies.
Now His name, the standard mark of Hollywood, is to curse the name of Christ at least once in every movie. God help us as a nation. God help us, Lord. You've got to raise your church. You've got to lift your people up again.
You've got to empower us with the Holy Spirit. The mark that's set upon the people who are despairing about the degeneracy of their generation is a mark of those who are longing to see God glorified again. They're longing to see a spiritual awakening in their time.
Now the song of Solomon again. We're going to go back where we started in chapter five, in verses two, four, and six. It's the mark of those who aren't content any longer with just an infrequent or casual relationship with Jesus. It's the mark of people who are saying, "I'm tired of just being stirred in church." I want more. Were you stirred today?
Oh yes, I'm sure you were. If you weren't, you're probably dead. But if you're not dead, if you can still hear, you can still think, you can still breathe. You were stirred by something. You were stirred by the worship.
You were stirred by the presence of God. But the mark that comes upon those in a time such as we're living in, Ezekiel's pattern is a type. It's the type of person that says, "I don't want to just feel this way in church. I don't want to leave the stirring of God at the doorway at Fifty First and Broadway and have to go through my week the same way." That I have for years on end. I want the stirring of God that I have felt in my heart in this church to walk with me Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
The bride says in Song of Solomon chapter five, says, "I sleep, but my heart is awake." It's the voice of my beloved. Yes, I agree in measure. I'm spiritually asleep compared to where I need to be. But my heart has woken up, and I hear him calling me. I hear his voice.
He knocks and saying, "Open for me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one." Verse four: My beloved put his hand by the latch of the door, and my heart yearned for him. Verse six: I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and was gone. Oh God. I don't want to just hear your voice and feel your presence, just little bits here and little bits there, because you said you came to abide with me. You told me that if I abide in you, my life will bear fruit for your kingdom's sake and for your glory.
God, I am not content just to go to church and hear about you and just experience you and just be stirred about you just on Sunday or Tuesday. Or Wednesday noon prayer, God, I want you in my apartment on Thursday. I want you in my heart when I am sitting at my kitchen table on Friday. I want you when I am brushing my teeth on Saturday. I want your presence with me, God.
I am not satisfied living without you. The mark that God puts on those in Song of Solomon chapter three. Verses one to four—it's the mark of those who want more. As a matter of fact, they want all that he has for them, and they start searching everywhere for it. It doesn't leave you.
That's why this is happening to you now. That's why you've got this groaning in your heart. Many, many here—you know what I'm talking about. Say, why? What is this?
Why am I perpetually discontent? Why do I go about groaning all day? I'm. I'm not supposed to be happy. I'm not supposed to be at rest.
Why am I not at rest? Why is this stirring? Because that's what happens when God's about to bring His church out of the wilderness. That's what happens before a spiritual awakening comes into a nation. Do you understand?
He will awaken His people first. Then He will awaken the nation. By night, the writer says in chapter three, verse one. On my bed, I sought the one I love. I sought him, but did not find him.
I will rise now, I said, and go about the city and the streets and in the squares. I will seek the one I love. I sought him, but I did not find him. The watchmen who go about the city found me. I said, Have you seen the one I love?
Scarcely had I passed by them when I found the one I love. I hailed him, and I would not let him go. It's the mark, the mark of God, on a people He's about to bring into something of a deeper fullness of Himself. It's the mark of I cannot cease to seek You until You give me everything You have for me, until I know that I have You. And you see, this particular bride, it starts at home.
It starts with a yearning. It starts with a groaning. It starts with an understanding. I've been seeking him, but I have not found him yet. The way he wants me to find him, she gets up and goes around about the city, in the streets, the squares.
Constantly seeking the one she loves, I sought him, but I did not find him. It doesn't go away, Monday to Friday. This yearning, when you sit on the subway, when you sit on a bus, when you go to work or don't go to work, whatever your situation, when you're going for groceries, when you're walking down the street, when you're in the hallway of your apartment building, there's a stirring in your heart. There's a seeking going on there. God, what are you doing in my life, and where are you?
Where are you, Lord?
So she starts going to people, the watchmen who go about the city. Found me, and I said, "Do you have you seen the one I love?" And some people are here today, and that's the question on your heart: Where is Jesus? I can't seem to lay hold of him the way I feel like he wants to lay hold of me. But didn't the prophet Jeremiah, God say through Jeremiah, "You will you'll seek me and you'll find me when you search for me with all of your heart, all of your heart, not part of your heart." When we want all of the will of God, all of the pathway He's laid out before us, all of what our lives are intended to be, then He said, "You will find me." You go. You can go from church to church to church to church.
You can go online, listen to message after message, and the watchmen who seem to know him, they all preach about him, but you can't seem to find him yourself because he's not there. He wants to be found. He wants to be found at the center core of your heart and your affections. Scarcely I had passed by them when I found the one I love. When he suddenly revealed himself before me, I held him, she says, and I would not let him go.
In Matthew chapter thirteen, Jesus speaks about a person like this. He says in verse forty-four again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which when a man has a man found and hid, and for joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, and when he's found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had that he might possess it. You see, up to that point, he's probably going to the synagogue and he's being told, "Don't do this and let go of that and let go." So every week is is some new thing that he's got to get rid of in his life. But when you find the pearl of great price, Then suddenly, there's a desire in the heart.
I don't need this. I don't want this. I don't want this part of my life. He went home and he sold it all, poured it down the drain if necessary. He just got rid of everything that was an encumbrance to him that he might that he might possess that which he had been looking for all of his days and all of his life.
It's the mark of those who let go of everything.
Song of Solomon. Chapter three, in verse four, again, it's the mark of those who let go of everything except Christ and His calling on their lives. Scarcely I had passed by them when I found the one I love. I held him and would not let him go. Revelation chapter three, the end of the Bible.
There's a church that is rich and increased with goods. And had gotten in her heart that she had need of nothing, and wasn't aware of her spiritual condition. And to this particular group of people, he said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. And if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and am sat down with my Father on his throne." He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
This mark that God is putting on this last day's church is the mark in the minds of those who will open the door of their hearts to Jesus Christ. They will overcome their reluctance and their fears. They will move beyond the lukewarmness of any church age that happens to be around them and other people that they know that are not really. Alive in God, and they will open the door. They will.
They will get up and move past. You see, this is the point. This. This is the people that the writer of Song of Solomon saw. I moved past them.
That you. You have to move past certain things, certain times, certain seasons. It's a decision you make. Jesus Christ Himself brought three friends into the Garden of Gethsemane with Him, but the Scripture says He went a little farther. It's it's the heart.
It's the that's the mark. Of those who will be used by God in the last days, the desire to go just a little farther. If other people are not willing to go there, I'm going to go there by the grace of Almighty God. Not because I'm any better than anybody. Not because not because I have a deeper skill set.
Not because of anything. But I hear His voice calling me. I hear His knock on the door.
So I'm going to get up. Everyone else, they might be content. As long as they've got money in the bank, as long as they've got resources, they see it. That's all, and they can sing some beautiful songs. That's all they need.
But I hear him knocking. I hear him knocking on the door of my heart. And it's the man, it's the woman that gets up and opens that door and says, "Jesus, come in and sit down with me in my house." Sit down with me every day of my life. Sit down with me at the breakfast table. Speak to me, O God.
Lead me, guide me, guard me, help me. Use my life for Your glory. You see, he had to overcome. In the book of Revelation, they had to overcome the lukewarmness around them.
Now there is a great deal of lukewarmness in this nation that calls itself by the name of Christ, but thank God it's not all and everywhere. There are people who are hungry, and I can see—I see in my spiritual mind—people getting up.
Now, it's all of the variables are in place now for a spiritual awakening. You've been listening to Carter Conlin from Times Square Church in New York City. For more information and resources to help you in your walk with Christ, log on to tsc dot nyc. That's tsc dot nyc, and be sure to be with us next week for a call to the nation with Carter Conlin.
