The Beginning of a Mercy Moment

Carter Conlon from the historic Time Square Church in New York City. Mercy triumphs over judgment. God's mercy caused us to have to reconsider our ways. God's mercy had to cause us to pray again and say, Lord, how would you have us to reach this generation? How can we glorify your name one more time? That is called a mercy moment.

Thank you for joining us this week with Carter Conlon on A Call to the Nation. We're starting to see a phenomenon across the nation. Many people are sick of sin.

They're sick of the darkness, the lying, the perversion. They're turning to God for help. It's now when the mercy moment begins. But Carter reminds you, God's moments of mercy comes His way, not our way.

Let's join Carter now. Now I want to talk to you about a former mercy moment in history and how it all began. In Exodus chapter 3, this is where Moses has been in the backside of the desert for 40 years. He's a man who was called, but in his mind he lost his calling. He was young and he was impulsive, took things into his own hands and did things he shouldn't have done. And because of it, was found himself driven into a wilderness.

It was after 40 years of being nothing, may I put it that way, that suddenly the Lord appears to him with a mandate that's so big it can only be God. I mean, it's not possible. He no longer has access to Pharaoh's court. He doesn't have an army. He doesn't have political access.

He has no money. He's just a shepherd now. But it's at this point of his weakness that the Lord initiates a mercy moment for the nation of the people of God at that time. In chapter 3 verse 7 says, the Lord said, I've surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt and I've heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I've come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. Now therefore behold the cry of the children of Israel has come to me.

I've also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?

Who am I? Is the cry of a man or woman. I believe in that and in this generation that God will use for his glory. The person who doesn't have a plan, the person who doesn't have any confidence left in themselves, the person who is not a mover and shaker in society, the person who feels like a failure, feels captivated by the circumstances or the decisions they made in the past. And suddenly the voice of God comes to such a man and says, I have a plan and I've chosen you to initiate that plan.

And that plan is going to send an innumerable number of people out of captivity and into freedom. And the immediate response, you'll find it all through scripture, you'll find it with Gideon, you'll find it in other places. Who am I? Even David, the king, he said, when I consider the heavens and the works of thy hands, who is man or that you should be mindful of him? In other words, who are we that your focus should be upon us and somehow you should choose us to bring glory to your name in the earth. In Matthew chapter 13, verse 22, Jesus is talking about different types of people in different moments, I guess, in society where the word of God is spoken marginally, at least received, but something comes in and chokes it out. And he says, now he who received seed among the thorns, that's the word of God among thorns, is he who hears the word and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word and he becomes unfruitful. So he's talking about a time where the word of God is or has been spoken and the people actually received it when it was spoken.

And the word of God should have led them into a place where they would have brought glory to the name of God and would have been a demonstration, in a sense, by the power of God, of who God is in the earth. But something else crept in, it kind of surrounds, surrounds, it's like a plant that you plant and you don't weed the garden and weeds come in and they begin to choke it out. It's a stranglehold. It's something that prevents growth and affects the intended purpose and it becomes unfruitful. And this is what Jesus said, the deceitfulness of riches, the cares of this world, they come in and they begin to choke this plant that was planted by the hand of God and it doesn't reach its intended journey. It doesn't become what God intended it to be.

And ultimately Jesus said it actually becomes unfruitful. Now the people of Moses' time would or should at least have known what God's intended purpose for them on the earth was. Now, right way back in Genesis chapter 12, the Lord appears to their father, technically, there, obviously there's other lineages and time has gone on, but Abraham was the father of this nation. In Genesis 12, one, the scripture says, the Lord said to Abraham, get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation.

I will bless you and make your name great. And you shall be a blessing. Now, he's not just talking to Abraham, he's talking to all his descendants and the descendants of Abraham by faith actually lead right through to the people that we are today as the church of Jesus Christ.

That's what actually God was speaking to Abraham about. There's going to be a people in the earth that are going to bring glory to God. Through them, God will become known in the earth. And he goes on and he says, you will be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you.

And here's the promise. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now, how are they going to be blessed? They're going to be blessed because I'm going to do something in you and through you that's going to show them the reality of who I am. And they're going to turn. They're going to say, well, whoever your God is, must be God. That's of course, remember that's what happened on the day of Pentecost.

And they're going to bend their knee and turn. And of course the blessing of eternal life would become theirs. The blessing of salvation, the blessing of the abundance and purpose on the earth that God himself spoke to us through his son, Jesus Christ. Now the people would have known. This was their history. This was their purpose.

All the families of the earth are supposed to be blessed through us. So where did they find themselves now? In the book of Exodus, they find themselves captive.

They were oppressed. They're despairing for their children. I mean, their children, their first born sons, their sons when they're born are being thrown into the river to be drowned. I mean, the society has become so evil it's starting to attack their children. They're being given work to do that literally there's no end to it. And it doesn't really produce anything worthwhile.

It's not satisfying. The society itself is rejecting them for the reason that, you know, the scripture tells us that Pharaoh was actually wiser than the people of light were of that time because he said to his advisors, these people are more and mightier than we are. Let's afflict them lest they rise up when our enemies fight us and join our enemies and escape out of our hand. Let's afflict them so they forget who they are. Let's afflict them so they forget that they're the people of God. Let's afflict them so they forget their history.

Let's afflict them so they forget what God has done in them and through them over the years, how he parted the Red Sea and all of these things that God has done to bring people out of captivity. Now they're captivated by a hostile nation at this time, but in Revelation chapter 3 and verse 17, there's another church age that received the gospel in a sense in good times, but they too were choked by cares and concerns and thorns and became unfruitful. There's a church who laid a seal and Jesus said to this church, because you say I'm rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing, but do not know that you're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. So the latest sea in charge as opposed to the church or the people of God in Moses' time, the latest sea in church were captivated by wealth and by ease.

You see this became I think the besetting sin of America. God blessed the nation. God gave us wealth perhaps beyond the wealth of any nation that's ever been known throughout history. He gave us ease. He gave us victory from time to time as victory was needed, but we became captivated by our wealth and our love of ease. And in the book of Ezekiel, it's phenomenal because God speaks through Ezekiel to his own people Jerusalem, and he calls his own people the sisters of Sodom in a sense.

He said in chapter 16 verse 49, he says, look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, an abundance of idleness, and neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. So here's a whole society forgetting its intended purpose, full of pride, saying look what we have done. Look at what we have accomplished.

Look at what our hand and our our hand and our ingenuity has done. Fullness of food, not knowing any famine when perhaps other societies other places had known famines. This particular point in history, this particular people had all the food they needed. They had an abundance of idle time. They could do all kinds of things that maybe other societies were not so blessed to be able to do, and they forgot the poor and needy and became self-focused. And hasn't that been the besetting sin of the American church in the last few decades where we turn from the focus of God and the purpose of God, we started turning inward, and everything became about me, and doctrines became about me, my life, my liberty, the pursuit of my happiness.

In a sense those things entrenched in the American Constitution actually became the doctrinal entrenchment of the Christian church. Everything was about me. It was no longer, and it was about my food. It was about the pride of my achievement. It was about becoming the head and not the tail.

It was about the idleness in a sense. All of the time that we had to do and just didn't put it to good use, and neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. But you see God was talking about a society that forgot its intended purpose and turned to sexual perversion. And the perversion became so intense that God came down himself and said, I have to judge this. I can't let this go on in the world any longer. And does that not speak about America in this generation that we're turning because we've had all of these things, but we forgot our intended purpose, and now we are turning as the book of Romans chapter one warns us.

We are turning to sexual perversion. My heart was broken last week when I opened the news, and I read the news and saw that a teacher was put on leave only I think because parents rose up in revolt after teaching a class of grade one students how to masturbate. This is America. This is American schools.

I tell you there would have been no dismissal of this teacher had the parents of that particular district not risen up. These things are in the curriculum. They're in our schools where we're now teaching six-year-olds how to masturbate. It's wicked. It's evil. There's no other way to describe this. This is where our society is going and society is becoming increasingly perverse.

We are deliberately gender confusing our children in our schools now. We are in the same place that the children of Israel were in Egypt when their sons were being thrown into the river. Their families were being literally held captive by a society that was hostile to the purpose of God that God had ordained for his people. Pastor Tim Delina said on Sunday morning in his message he said God is reclaiming his church, and I fully agree with him that God has literally pulled the plug on church as it has been in America for a very very good reason because we had largely become ineffective in touching our culture our society while we went on about our endless parade about all the wonderful things that we're doing for God.

The whole nation was plunging into darkness. In God's mercy he pulled the plug. You understand mercy triumphs over judgment. God's mercy caused us to have to reconsider our ways. God's mercy had to cause us to pray again and say Lord how would you have us to reach this generation?

How can we glorify your name one more time in history? God removed the distractions and he brought us to a place where nothing satisfies anymore. It's only the work of God that satisfies the believer in Christ.

Nothing else satisfies. We can build marvelous buildings. We can adorn them with beautiful lights and smoke and we can get the finest musicians, but it doesn't satisfy. It's only the work of God in reaching the lost and discipling them and make them and turning them into disciples. That is the work of God in the earth. It's not to focus on ourselves and it's to focus on ourselves that has brought us into the captivity that we are experiencing today. Our families even in the house of God you see it on the prayer quests are being lost right before our eyes and attacked by enemies and moms and dads don't know what to do when their son or daughter comes home at 11 years old and says I feel like I'm not a boy I'm a girl I feel like I'm not a girl I'm a boy and I want to be called by my whatever it is my preferential pronoun and it becomes illegal for the moms and dads to even try to counsel their children that perhaps this behavior perhaps this this bend is not appropriate in the sight of God and the greatest blessing of all is that this present church aid is being rejected by this society and I thank God with all of my heart when the society in Egypt rejected the people of God and started to oppress the people of God started to physically harm the people of God marginalize and you can imagine everybody trudging out in the morning to get their straw to make their bricks to build monuments to men's egos you can just imagine the the people as the children of God are heading out to do these things completely surrounded completely captivated their children at the mercy of this godless society where's your God now you talk about your God you talk about the power of your God you talk about the plan of your God you talk about your purpose on the earth where is your God now and you can just imagine these voices speaking into the minds and speaking into the heart some of them are audible and some of them are just demonic where is your God now when God now when you need him but the scripture tells us in Psalm 107 that even though this was perhaps one of the worst moments for these people in all of history it says those in verse 10 says those who sat in darkness in the shadow of death being bound in affliction and iron because they rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the most high therefore he brought down their heart with labor they fell down and there was none to help then they cried out to the lord in their trouble and he saved them out of their distresses he brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and broke their chains in pieces oh that men would give thanks to the lord for his goodness and his wonderful works to the children of man for he has broken the gates of bronze and cuts the bars of iron into then they cried remember when God came to Moses in our opening scripture what did he say I have heard the cry of my people and when God hears that cry so I'm talking now to the people in their homes I'm talking to moms and dads and teenagers I'm talking to people who are oppressed addicted afflicted troubled you're in trial you don't know what your future is and all you have left is a cry you don't hardly even have a prayer your cry is just a groan you go to bed at night oh god help me it's that kind of a prayer that God now hears and God came to Moses and said I've heard the cry of my people and I've come down now to set them free this is a mercy moment in history and I'm telling you tonight the cry has begun in America the cry has begun and not everybody who's crying out is even a born-again believer yet but people are just sick of sin they're sick of the darkness they're sick of the lying they're sick of the perversion they're tired they're saying this is not the way life is supposed to be this is not the kind of a life I want to live this is not the kind of a place I want to live in oh god would you help me god would you help my family god would you help my mind would you help my marriage and it's now the mercy moment begins but I want to remind you of something God's moments of mercy come his way not our way oh yes men would do things a certain way we would go and we would pick a certain kind of a person but that's not the way God has traditionally worked throughout history his plan looks so weak on the outside but it's walking with the power of God on the inside he picks an 80 year old man who's been 40 years in the wilderness who says my time has passed my ministry of over is over my season is finished and God says no it's all just beginning now because you're nothing and I need something that's nothing so that I can do something in the earth I need somebody who won't touch the glory I need somebody who knows the power is all of me and not of them I need somebody who won't build themselves an ivory tower and tell everybody else how it's done and so here comes an old man and his old brother with a stick in their hand into Pharaoh's court with a one-line sermon and Moses is so weak he can't even deliver it he needs his brother to just say thus says the Lord let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness praise be to God I love I love it because it levels the ground for everybody for everybody I'm talking to you who are addicted you are afflicted you are behind prison bars you will feel like you're nothing and you're nobody and you're a failure you're a zero you'd be happy just to be able to get into heaven may I tell you you are God's mercy plan for this generation you are more than you understand you are when the spirit of God gets a hold of you he will turn you into another person he will take you out of weakness and into strength he'll put a song of praise in your heart he'll put clear thinking in your mind he'll put power in your speech he'll put compassion in your heart he'll put direction before your life he'll take you into a place you can't go in your own strength give you what you could never possess and make you into what you could never be in any amount of your own strength that is the mercy plan of God and what do you think your message will be to this generation look at what God has done for me and let me tell you that what God has done for me God will do for you I often think that the people had the courage in a sense in Egypt to get up and get out I mean realistically they were just told to go into the wilderness they knew their provisions would only last so long there was no real promise of manna yet at that point or water coming out of a rock they had to trust God or they would have starved to death in the wilderness I really believe what might have encouraged a lot of the peoples when they saw these two old men and they saw the power of God that was it was animating them they saw that that through them blessing had come I think people took courage and say well if God can sustain these old guys he can do it for me he can carry me that's why I've got hope for my life right now praise be to God you look at me and say if God could give that old guy that kind of fire I want some of that stuff I hope that's your crime good grief man don't let me do this alone would you please get up off your couch and get into the battle after 40 years Moses is refocused on his original calling you know when you when you take a wrong turn the gps I don't know what it says what it says rededicating or recalibrating whatever it is reconfiguring I don't even I don't I hardly ever listen you know men never listen to directions that's why I hardly ever listen to the thing but suddenly Moses is refocused rerouted in a sense to his original calling not in his strength in the strength of God now here's my point this is this is now where you come in you have a purpose that God preordained for your life before you were born God had something in his heart for you that will bring his name to glory in the earth now you might have completely missed it you might have drifted off from the time you were a youth into a whole other plan a whole other pathway and now in in God's mercy and you might feel like Moses you might feel like you're you're you're old and weak and you just blew it and and it's all gone and you'd be happy just to squeak out a living and suddenly this the hand of God says I'm going to reroute you into the place that I I destined you from your birth to glorify my name Moses was destined from his birth to glorify the name of God by bringing others into freedom that was his purpose in life you see you had a purpose God allowed you to be born for a reason now you got into drugs you took up bad relationships you got into things you shouldn't have gotten into and you became a person that you were never intended by God to be and so here you are and Moses stood before a bush that had the the presence and power of God emanating from it it looked like a flame of fire in the bush and so here I am standing before you speaking to you on God's behalf may I put it that way saying there's something more for you than you've anticipated for your life that's why I will always finish as Pastor Tim does on Sunday morning with giving you an opportunity to receive Christ as your Savior and encouraging you to pray for the power of God God has a purpose for you some of you I'm speaking to you are a powerful evangelist you have a plan that God has for your life it's not going to be you who does it it's him who's going to do it through you you're just being recalibrated back to what your life was originally designed by God to be and that is called a mercy moment not just for you but for the people that will come into freedom through your life that's the ultimate purpose of God's people and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed in you you are by faith in Christ of the seed of Abraham so that means the blessing is yours when you receive Christ that all the families of the earth that means everywhere you go and everything you touch there'll be a blessing of God come with you that draws people into a living saving full relationship with the living God 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