Voices in the Graveyard of Your Mind

Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. Now I'm speaking to everybody that can hear my voice now. I'm speaking to you the exact words that Jesus once spoke. Did I not say to you that if you would believe that you would see the glory of God, that you would see that done which only God can do?

Welcome to A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon. In John chapter 11, we discover many voices were heard. Jesus heard the voices of Mary and Martha when they told him that Lazarus was sick. The people heard Jesus' voice when he asked for the stone to be removed from the entrance to the grave. And as Carter points out in today's message, there's another voice that not only must be heard, it must be responded to. The title of today's message is The Voice of the Graveyard of Your Mind.

Let's join Carter right now as he explains. I believe in my heart that the Lord is raising up a testimony of the miraculous again in this generation. Only the miraculous power of God is going to touch this generation. We're out of arguments and we're out of our strategies and all the rest of the things that so many have tried to incorporate into the kingdom of God. All of these things have come to an end, and we're now at the place where we need God more than we ever have in our lifetime. There's so many people that have lost heart.

They've lost hope for their families, for their children, for themselves. I'm reading prayer requests to those who are just saying, I can't go on like this anymore. My life is coming to an end. I can't live under this torment any longer.

I can't live in this marriage situation. I can't go on with the sorrow in my heart about my children or my grandchildren or whatever the case is. And there's those who are sick in body, and we understand that I can take a deep toll on you spiritually and mentally as well.

And so we're going to lift you up in our prayers and we're going to believe God for great, great miracles in your life. I want to take a moment and talk to you about voices in the graveyard of your mind, voices in the graveyard of your mind. Now, when I talk about the graveyard of your mind, I'm talking about places in your life where you've just given up hope. You buried your hope. You buried your hope of ever being healed from your past. You buried your hope maybe of your marriage ever being restored, maybe of your children ever walking with God, of ever feeling sound again in body or in mind.

You buried your hope of ever perhaps amounting to anything in the kingdom of God or maybe making a difference in people's lives or perhaps being an influence even in your own home, your own family, your own society, your own city, your own town, whatever it is that you're part of. And that's what the gospel of John chapter 11 is all about. In this particular chapter of Scripture, a man died. The Scripture says he was a man that Jesus loved, and I have no doubt that he loved Jesus. He could boast that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had spent time at his home, at his table with his family.

And it was a true boast, as many of us can. We say, I did invite the Son of God into my life. I invited him into my home, my family, and he has sat down with me as he promises he would do in the Scripture, and he's supped with me.

That's what it says in the King James. He sat at my table. We've talked together. He's fed me from his word. One day, this same man, his name was Lazarus. He got sick, and a word was sent to Jesus that he was sick, and I can just imagine he's telling all his friends and everybody that's coming in to see him, no need to worry. Jesus is my friend. He loves me.

I love him, and he's going to come, and he's going to help me. And every day, he just seemed to get sicker and sicker. He seemed to get more distant. His hope seemed to go farther and farther away until one day, he died. And he was placed in a graveyard, and all around him were these voices. The Scripture tells us there were voices of weeping. There were voices of comfort, as best as humanity can comfort without the presence of God in their midst.

There were all kinds. There were voices of doubt and unbelief. There were voices of accusation, actually, against the faithfulness of God.

And then there were others who were quoting Scripture and hardly believed a word of it. Voices everywhere. And when you're struggling, anytime you find yourself struggling, you're going to find these voices all around. Voices telling you why it's too late. Imagine if this poor man was able to hear their voices. There'd be people around talking about trying to comfort one another at such a tragic loss that he'll never come back, and it's too bad we'll never hear the sound of his voice again, and he'll never sit at our family functions, and he'll never amount to all of the dreams and aspirations he once told us he had.

None of it will ever amount to anything. And some that are online, you've actually heard those voices about you spoken. You've heard them in your mind. You've heard them in your own heart. And sad to say, some of you have actually heard them with your natural ear, as people around you have tried, maybe, to bring comfort to one another, talking about your hopeless situation and the reality that you will never amount to anything in your life and never fulfill, perhaps, even what God's called you to be.

There are voices that are accusing God that will come into your mind in a struggle, in a battle, and say, where were you when I needed you? Yeah, now you show up, but you weren't here when I needed you. Now it's too late. Now it's too far gone. I'm too far down. I'm too deep into this dark place.

There's a huge stone rolled across this entranceway to where I now am. And I'm at the point now I don't want to be disturbed. Don't bother me. I trusted in you once. You didn't come. You didn't show up.

And so I'm just not interested in your help. There are voices accusing God of his unfaithfulness or voices saying, if you didn't show up then, I'm not going to trust you now. There are voices quoting Scripture. I remember when Jesus came, finally, to where this man was laying in the graveyard, the Scripture tells us that he was trying to tell them, your brother will rise again.

And his sister Martha said, I know he'll rise again in the resurrection at the last day. So in other words, they're putting away the immediacy of God. And there's a grave danger in that. You can get into a struggle in your life. And you can so make peace with failure and defeat and death and darkness, that you say you still believe in him, but it's not for now. Not now. I believe for another day. There's a day coming. There's a day when I'm going to be free. There's a day when I'm going to...

But it's all way, way in the future. It's not going to be in this life. It's going to be after this life is over. I know that in the resurrection, in the last day, he's going to rise again. Jesus looked at her and said, I am the resurrection in the life. And he who believes in me, though he may die, yet he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? And so the sister of this man responds and says, Yes, Lord, I believe that you're the Christ, the Son of God has come into the world. It's amazing. So just quote Scripture back at the Son of God.

He's trying to tell her, I am here. I'm well able to bring life out of death. I can bring strength out of weakness. I can bring joy out of sorrow. I can bring purpose out of aimlessness. I can do things that only can be done by the hand and the voice of God. And I'm here.

I've come. I've waited until you have no possible strength of doing this in yourself. And I'm here because your death as it is and your weakness was preordained for the glory of God. God doesn't take us when we're strong. God doesn't do as great as miracles when we can give him a hand. When we still have one leg that works and we can kind of try to get ourselves up and our testimony will be me and Jesus did this. Now the glory of God is most wonderfully revealed when we have come to a place where there is no chance of going forward.

There is no chance of victory. We're never going to get out of this prison when our character is never going to change. The struggles in our mind are never going to go away.

The entanglements in our lives are never going to come untangled. Our hope for the future, there's never going to be a hope without the intervention of God. And it's at this time, most often, that he comes so that he gets the glory. So that our testimony in our generation is not about look what me and Jesus have done. It's look what he has done for me. Look what God did for me. I was dead and now I live. I was blind and now I see. I was a little leper and now I'm healed.

I was in prison and he set me free. This is the testimony of God. And this is an awesome moment in history because he has come one more time. Yes, he has waited for a season. He's waited until we exhausted all of our strategies to advance his kingdom in our own strength. He's waited until we've run out of gas. He's waited until the darkness is so thick that our little feeble lights don't shine anymore.

It's going to take a light a whole lot greater than anything we can produce. He's waited until we've run out of thoughts and reasons and such like, even to try to advance his kingdom in our generation. You see, the good news, my friend, is that he's come again. He's passing by in this generation. I know this in my heart.

I'm not guessing at this and I'm not just trying to hope it happens. He is here and he is passing by. He's waiting for the sound of your voice, or may I put it this way, he's waiting for you to hear the sound of his voice calling you. I believe you're the Christ, the Son of God, who's come into the world.

And then Jesus said to her, where have you laid him? And then the next thing comes up and says, well, he's been there so long. Why don't we just leave him there and move on to something else? You know, we can get that way in our lives sometimes. Let's not deal with this. Let's move on and deal with this. I'm relegated to the fact that this will always be part of my character.

This depression will always be in my mind or whatever it is that we're fighting with. And we kind of just say, okay, let's just leave that where it is. Let's roll a stone over that. Let's go over here and let's deal with something else because, you see, this is impossible.

So let's deal with what our natural minds can lay hold of and think still is possible. And he said, where have you laid him? And all he could get from the crowd or from those there, well, surely God, by now there's a stance.

He's been there for four days. Jesus, you don't understand. This has been in my life a long time.

You don't understand. I've been a long way like this. And, oh, I believed you 10 years ago maybe for victory or five or four or three or two or even up to a month ago. But I've given up. There's a stone across it and the voices all around me and even in my own heart and head are just telling me it's hopeless. The whole thing just stinks as far as I'm concerned.

So can we just move on from this and can we deal with something else? Then Jesus said, did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God? Now I'm speaking to everybody online that can hear my voice now. I'm speaking to you the exact words that Jesus once spoke. Did I not say to you that if you would believe that you would see the glory of God?

That you would see that done which only God can do? And he told them, he said, roll away the stone. And he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth. I've always found it so interesting when I read this passage of scripture that only a dead man could hear him.

Think that one through for a moment. Nobody else. The scripture coders couldn't hear him. The mourners couldn't hear him. The people with all the reasons and excuses why he didn't come at their appointed time couldn't hear him.

All these people with all the religion, and trust me, they were the most religious people on the face of the earth at this time. They couldn't hear him. Only a dead man could hear his voice. Now all these other voices are going on all around at the same time, but suddenly, suddenly, suddenly, this dead man, suddenly this man who knows he can't get up without the strength of God. He can't go forward unless God leads him forward. He can't amount to anything unless God gives him the strength to amount to something. Suddenly this man starts to hear the voice of God. That's why the scripture says today if you can hear his voice, don't harden your heart. If you can hear the voice of the one who created the universe by the word of his mouth, the one who stood up in a boat and commanded the wind and the seas to be still, and they were still immediately, the one who had the power, all power, all authority is given to him.

His name is above every name. Every knee bows. Every tongue confesses that he is Lord. He sits as king over the flood.

He is almighty, everlasting, eternally the one and only God. And if he's speaking to you today, if you can hear his voice, don't harden your heart. If you find that measure of faith, even if it's like a mustard seed, it's just a little wee bit of faith.

Take that faith that God has planted inside your heart. And by the grace of almighty God, get up and start moving towards the sound of his voice. He has come for you. He's come for your family. He's come for your life. He's come for your future. He's come to give you a hope and an end.

This is who God is. I love the fact that the scripture says that Lazarus came forth bound with grave clothes. His face was wrapped with a cloth. He was all wrapped up with everything that everybody had ever said about him, everything he'd ever thought about himself, every, every, everything he'd ever everything he'd ever felt about himself. He was all wrapped up in it. And all he could do probably, if he could even walk, it was just like an inch at a time.

I could just see him coming out so slowly out of that grave all wrapped up. And the very first thing that Jesus tells the people to do is essentially this, unwrap him and let him go. Unwrap him. In other words, take off those clothes of death, that, that old, those old reasonings, those, those old thoughts that bound this man for so long.

And this is what God will do for you. If you can hear his voice, he'll unwrap you and set you free, set your mind. Can you imagine as the, those bandages started coming off and the very first thing is he can see and then he can smell, then he can taste, oh taste and see that the Lord is good. He can start to move his head again.

He starts, he's able to look to, to the future. Can you just imagine as his heart is unwrapped and he reaches down and it's beating again. It was dead, like a dead marriage, like dead hope for your children. Suddenly your heart is beating inside your chest again with hope for the future. Can you imagine as his arms are loosed and he can suddenly raise them up in adoration to Almighty God and start giving thanks in front of all the, the people that just thought it was too late, it was too hopeless and all this guy did was stink and be buried, best to be put away. Can you imagine as, as his loins are, are released and he now has a hope and he has a future and he can have a family that he couldn't have before. Can you imagine as his legs are unwrapped and he can now run the race that God has set before him. Can you imagine as he gets to the finish line and say, only God could have done this.

Only God could have done this. I called out to him in my grave. I heard his voice crying out for me and I called back to him and I walked out of that place of darkness into the most marvelous light in life that could ever be given to anyone in the universe. I heard the voice of God. That will be your testimony in the future. Many who are listening online right now, it won't be, I did this, I read this, I studied this, I tried this.

No, you'll be saying to your friends who ask you, what happened to you? You will say, I heard the voice of God calling me. And in my living room, he was all alone in that grave. There's nobody there to help him, nobody to lean on, nothing to give him strength, but the voice of God. And just look at just like you listening in your living room right now, if you can hear the voice of God, stand up where you are, move towards the voice of God and you watch the miracle that God will begin to do in your life. You will become a testimony of his grace and his glory in your generation.

Your family will be stunned at what God has done in you. People who formerly knew you will say about you, well, he looks like the person we used to know, but he doesn't act like the person we used to know. He doesn't speak, she doesn't speak like the person we used to know. They don't think like the people we once knew.

Something has happened to them. Not just born again by the Spirit of God, but raised by the Spirit of God. If the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead be in you, he who raised Christ shall also quicken your mortal body. He will bring you to life.

Now, I'm not talking about back to life. Some of you have never been alive before. You've had life, but you've never had the life that God planned for you, that God can give you.

Today, if you can hear his voice. Now, I was just a young person. I was only 24 years old when I came to Christ as my Savior, and I was bound, really bound, and I began to sit in church, and I felt in my heart I had to push all the voices away, the ones that were the old voices from the past, the present voices in my heart, and even some of the voices around trying to tell me what my life was going to be or not going to be. I had to start pushing them away because I heard another voice calling me, calling me farther than I could go, calling me into more than I could ever be, giving me much more than I could ever possess, and taking me places I could never go. I heard the voice of God. So I'm not bringing to you just a theory.

It's not something I just studied out of a book as wonderful as study is. I've actually lived it. I actually know what it's like to come out of the grave. I know what it's like to be unwrapped by the hand of God. I know what it's like to be given a new heart, a new mind, a new spirit, a new bounce, a new song, a new direction, a new life. I know what it's like.

It's not a theory with me. It's been my experience in life. And this is my prayer for you online today, those that are listening. It's really time to get up. It's time to get up because Jesus is passing by, and He's calling you.

Now He's using my voice today, but His voice is stronger than mine. And so push mine away if you can, and listen to the voice behind mine that's calling you out of your bondage and out of your weakness into this marvelous light and life that can only be given you through Jesus Christ. Praise be to God.

Praise be to God. I'm going to ask everyone who's dealing with death in your life to stand up. Wherever you are, just stand up.

Both in this sanctuary here, young people that I'm speaking to today, and the people online. I'm going to ask you to stand up in your living room. Stand up.

Stand up. A part of your life you've given up on. You say, I'll never be healed. I'll never get rid of this memory. The pain of it will never go away. The hopeless feeling I have about myself will always be a part of my life. I'll always be wrapped up in this area. My heart, well, I'll always have to protect my heart.

I could never be vulnerable before people. I don't believe that God will ever have a journey for me that will be of any effect for His kingdom's sake. You see, the Lord's calling you now. And the first thing He's going to do is unwrap you. He's going to, and you just have to let, Lazarus, what could he do?

This. That's all he could do. He was all wrapped up. All he could do is let the voice of God unwrap him.

And that's what you're going to have to do. You're going to have to let the voice of God just take these cloths of death off of you. And in the next chapter, it says that there was a supper and Lazarus sat at the table with Jesus. And I love the fact that in Psalm 23, the Psalmist David says, you prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. It doesn't mean your enemies will go away. It just means that you're sitting at the table with Jesus and having a great feast in the midst. Let them say what they want to say.

Let them do what they want to do. But your life will become a living testimony of who God is. And so, Father, in Jesus' name, in Jesus' name, in Jesus' name, Lord, we've called your name out so many times today. And we've had a sense in our heart as we call it out that you're a God of incredible love and mercy and power.

We believe that you raise the dead, not just in the future. We believe that you do it now. We believe that you bring freedom. We believe that you do it now as we step towards you. We can feel your hand beginning to unwrap our minds, our hearts, our mouths, our eyes, our hands, our middle sections, and our legs. My God, we can feel you literally unwrapping us and letting us go free. Bring us now to the table, my God, where we can partake of this incredible provision that you won for us on the cross. My God, my God, I'm asking you, Lord, in this sanctuary and online that you would raise up powerful testimonies of who you are, Lord, not who we are, who you are. That your name would be on our lips, your song would be in our hearts, your strength would be in our limbs.

God Almighty would all be about you and not about us. Thank you for freedom. Freedom is our, freedom is the children's bread. Thank you for new life. Thank you, God, for hope for the future. Thank you, God, for there's no prison door can hold us. There's no wound to the past can continue to bind us.

There's no hopelessness that can dictate our future. Thank you. We are brand new in Christ Jesus.

Thank you. We have a hope. We have a future. We have a song. We have a divine purpose. And thank you, Lord. You came to us when we were dead and you raised us in the power of your love.

Thank you in Jesus name. Thank you for joining us this week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City. For more information, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. You can count on a powerful message each week on A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.