The Right Cry at the Right Throne

Carter Conlin from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. It's time now. It's time for you and I to begin to cry out to God. It is time to cry out for our children. It's time to cry out for our families.

Yes, it's time that we start crying the right cry at the right throne. In Exodus chapter 5, we find Moses and Aaron standing at the throne of Pharaoh in Egypt. Although the two Israelite leaders have the covenant promises of God with them, they also have, even more, the mighty power of God that has continually proven to be with them, and they have direct access to speak to God.

But they instead look to Pharaoh for help in their time of need, asking for more straw. Let's continue as Carter presents a message titled The Right Cry at the Right Throne. I really prayed about this coming to this meeting and as always I just say, God, give me a word. Just give me a word.

That's all I ask for. For the people that are going to be here, those that are listening to us online. And so I'm bringing this word from my heart to yours and I've given it a title.

It's just called The Right Cry at the Right Throne. I'm going to start in Exodus chapter 5. Anybody have a Bible here?

Awesome. I love that. So Father, I just want to thank you, God, that every time we look into your word, we should be changed by the power of our God. The Scripture says that the entrance of your words brings light. So God, bring light into our hearts, our minds. Put courage in our heart, put direction in our steps, fervency in our prayers.

And God Almighty, let each of our lives make a difference in this generation we're now living in. So Father, we thank you, God, and we praise you and bless you in Jesus' name. I'm going to start in Exodus chapter 5, verse 15. It says, then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried out to Pharaoh, saying, why are you dealing thus with your servants?

There is no straw given to your servants. Now this is an incredible moment in the history of the people of God of that particular time. These are the descendants of Abraham.

You remember in Genesis chapter 12, the Lord said to Abram, get out of your country from your family, 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. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Now talk about an incredible opportunity for these people. This is a promise made to Abraham. These are the descendants of Abraham. So they would know that this is their promise. This is their history. Matter of fact, Abraham, their spiritual and physical father in a sense, he had had an encounter with the pre-incarnate Christ, just on the outskirts of Sodom. They would have known a lot of this.

They would have known we have access to God. This is the heritage of these people. But here are their leaders in a season of hardship coming before, at least those persons in charge of this part of leadership, coming before the throne of Pharaoh and crying out for straw.

It's an amazing thing. You know, we as the people of God can end up living so far beneath our calling, and we're not even aware of it. They had access to the throne of God. They had a promise that I'll bless those who bless you, and I'll curse those who curse you. They had a promise that in you, all the families of the earth are going to be blessed. They had literally had access to God. They had access to the promises of God and the power of God. And yet the leaders at this particular time chose to appear before the throne of Pharaoh. And instead of crying out to God, they're crying out to Pharaoh. Instead of the promises of protection and provision and all of the things that God had promised to give them, they're asking for straw. And the worst of it all is, had they succeeded in getting some straw, they probably would have come back to the people with a praise report.

For real, straw. You wonder sometimes when we realize the power of prayer, because Jesus told us, whatever you ask for what you shall receive, ask you shall receive. Everyone who asks receives.

Seek you shall find. Knock it shall be opened. Can you imagine if we just believed that verse of scripture? The prayer meeting in the house of God would be jam-packed.

People would be presenting their petitions before God and expecting God to answer because he did say, everyone who asks receives. Now, the people of God of this particular time had taken a journey from the place that they were into the nation of Egypt because of difficulty and famine. As a matter of fact, they left the place that they were in Genesis, chapter 45, verses 17 and onward.

This was their history. Pharaoh said to Joseph, say to your brothers, do this, load your animals and depart and go to the land of Canaan. Bring your father, bring your households and come to me and I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you will eat the fat of the land.

I find it interesting in the context of, it was 402 years ago today that the Mayflower left England and headed for America. As the people of God of this particular time left their own shore, as you may call it that, their own land at that point, because of hardship, the people on the Mayflower left because many of them were experiencing forms of hardship, including religious persecution. And they came to a new land and Pharaoh said, don't be concerned about your goods for the best of the land of Egypt is yours.

In chapter 47 it says, Pharaoh spoke to Joseph and said, the land of Egypt is before you. Have your father and your brothers dwell in the best of the land. Let them dwell in the land of Goshen.

And if you know any competent men among them, make them chief herdsmen over my livestock. So this was their history. They had come into the land and the land had opened its arms to them, the land had blessed them. The land recognized their giftings and their calling.

And of course, they had been a tremendous blessing to the nation. Keep in mind that without Joseph, the nation of Egypt may have largely starved to death. It was because of Joseph that the people were spared and the vision of God was unfolded and produce was brought to keep the people alive in a time of famine. And also there would be many chief herdsmen who brought great blessing. You think of America, the number of Christian people that built universities and hospitals and made inventions.

And in this country, for example, there's a great heritage of Christianity and many godly Christian people were used in powerful ways to bring great good to the nation. But again, in Exodus chapter one, a new season and a new reality arose. It says there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. It doesn't mean he didn't know about him, but he had no longer an appreciation for what Joseph had brought to the nation or Joseph's family had contributed to the nation.

He had crafted an alternate worldview, I guess, may I put it that way, in his mind. Ironically, he knew something about the people of God that they didn't know about themselves. He said, look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we are.

Now, I think that went through for a moment. The people of the children of Israel didn't have an army. They didn't have much in the way of weaponry as Egypt had at this time, but he knew instinctively because of the history and because of the giftings of God and the things that had been accomplished that these people had a might that perhaps the people of Egypt knew nothing about. He said, come, let us deal shrewdly with them lest they multiply, and it happened in the event of war that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land. Therefore, they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They began to oppress the people of God, maybe marginalize and ridicule, create laws, convince them that they were, the taskmaster's task, in a sense, was to convince the people of God that they were less than they are.

Sound familiar, doesn't it? In the time that we're now living in, and then it went even a step further. Frau said, if you see every son who's born, you shall cast into the river.

Initially, he told them, he said, when you're doing the office of a duty of a midwife, and if you see them on the birth stools, if it's a son, then you shall kill them. This is their sudden and new reality. They're being oppressed by taskmasters, and their children are being thrown into the river. Similar to today, when we see our children being thrown into the river of confusion, from the ages of kindergarten, from gender confusion to confusion about God in middle school, to the forbidding of prayer in high school, to the radicalization of our young people and our colleges and universities.

Nothing really ever changes. History always just repeats itself. The big problem here wasn't necessarily Pharaoh, although that was a problem. The big problem we see in our opening text, where the leader, some of the leadership of the people of God of that time, are at the throne of Pharaoh, and they're negotiating with that which has been sent to captivate them. The point being, you can't negotiate with that which has been sent to captivate you.

It must be overthrown by the power of God. That's the reality that they were facing. That's the reality, perhaps, that many are facing today. It's like the alcoholic trying to negotiate with alcohol and say, well, I'll just drink a little less, then you won't destroy my family, or my mind, or my home, or my future.

I'll just consume a little bit less. It's a negotiation tactic with that which has been sent to captivate you. You can't negotiate with captivity. You call it to God, and he has to overthrow it. And so the question is, how was this captivity overthrown? Now we have foremen, as it is, of the children of Israel crying out to Pharaoh for straw.

But there's another group of people, rank and file people, maybe just like you and I. It's grandmas, it's grandpas, it's mums, it's dads, it's brothers, it's sisters, there's people who are concerned maybe forced and foremost about the honor of God. Where's God in all of this?

What happened to us? Why are we allowing ourselves to be so marginalized and be pushed to the sidelines and be under afflictions, laws and taskmasters when we are the people of God, when we have access to the throne of God? We have promises from God that we are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us. And the Lord said to Moses, I've surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt, and I have 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. And here was the cry, it was another cry.

It wasn't public, it was most likely in private. It was the cry of the mom at night. Didn't know how she's gonna save her children. It was the cry of the persons who were concerned as we ought to be in our generation of the drug addiction in our communities, the violence as we heard about in Chicago and such like, the hopelessness of a whole generation being raised without God. The confusion of our young children that are being confused on every conceivable level in the places that are supposed to be educating them. And suddenly, the people that had enough of it, you see, that's why pray is at the top of pray, vote, and stand, the people that had enough. And people began to do what they were called to do in the beginning, and they began to cry out to God, not to Pharaoh, not for straw, but for freedom. They began to cry out for their heritage. It's time now, it's time for you and I to begin to cry out to God, it's time.

Yes, it's time. You know, we're prone to wait till we have the last five cents in our pocket and we've spent it, then we start crying out to God. It's funny the way we are, we exhaust our own resources and it's only in exhaustion in the sense that common sense finally settles in. It says, wait a minute, aren't we the people of God? Aren't we supposed to be more than conquerors through Christ who loves us?

Didn't Jesus say, have faith in God, for verily I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be thou removed and be cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart, but believes that the things he says he shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatsoever you ask in prayer, believing you shall receive. It is time to cry out for our children. It's time to cry out for our families. It's time to cry out for the opiate addicted in our society.

The grandmas and the grandpas who don't see a future and they don't know the way out and they don't know the way forward. It's time to let our hair down. It's time that we start crying the right cry at the right throne and say, God almighty have mercy.

It's time to drop our pride and not be concerned about what people around us think. It's time that we go to our knees besides our bed at night and for our grandchildren and our children and our cousins and our brothers and our sisters and our towns and our communities because we are circling the drain as a nation right now. It is only the cry at the throne of God that is going to make a difference. We need a spiritual awakening in America now.

We need God's intervention in this situation. In Psalm 107, the scripture says, give thanks to the Lord, he's good and his mercy endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom he's redeemed from the hand of the enemy that gathered out of all lands from the east, the west, the north and from the south. It's time for you and I to remember what God did for us. It's time for us to remember that it was that inner cry of our heart that brought us out of darkness and into light, out of drugs and into sobriety, out of anger and into forgiveness, out of whatever we were into and into light.

It's time to remember that cry. Four types of people in Psalm 107, those who wander in the wilderness in a desolate way, finding no city to dwell and hungry and thirsty, their soul is fainting in them. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them out of their distresses and led them forth by the right way that they might go to a city for a dwelling place so that men would give thanks to the Lord for his goodness and his wonderful works to the children of men for he satisfied the longing soul and fills the hungry soul and goodness.

Then there's people who sit in darkness in the shadow of death bound in affliction and irons because they rebelled against the words of God. We knew the word of God in this nation. We knew what God said. We knew the warnings of God. There were voices raised to caution us as in Acts chapter 27 with the apostle Paul. Don't take this journey.

If you do, it's going to result in the loss of everything and now here we are with the loss of everything, our military, our might, our civility, our economy, our morality, everything is being thrown to the wind. 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 no one to help. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness in the shadow of death and broke their chains in pieces. Now it goes on, verse 17, it says fools because of their transgression and because of their iniquities were afflicted.

Their soul abhorred all manner of food and they drew near to the gates of death. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble. He saved them out of their distresses. He sent his word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions. And lastly, he said people who go down to the sea in ships and do business on great waters, they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. He commands and raises the stormy wind which lifts up the waves of the sea. They mount to the heavens. They go down again to the depths and their soul melts because of trouble. You think in this nation, all of the people who have trusted in money instead of God, trusted in prosperity instead of the promises of God and they're so happy when the stock market is up and so down when it goes down. They're like sailors on the sea.

They're never satisfied. Their soul melts because of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and at their wits end and that, my brother, my sister is coming very, very shortly to this nation. Then they cry out to the Lord in their trouble and he brings them out of their distresses. He calms the storm so that its waves are still and then they're glad because they're quiet and he guides them to their desired haven. By his grace, he guides these people as well to the place they've always longed for which is a living relationship with God himself.

Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for his goodness and his wonderful works to the children of men. And he finishes in Psalm 107 by saying, whoever is wise will observe these things and they will understand the loving kindness of the Lord. So whether or not if we have wandered in this nation and lost our moorings, if we've rebelled against the words of God, if we've been fools because we've drawn near to the gates of death, if we've trusted in money more than God, even in spite of these things, when we cry out to him, the promise is to break the bars of iron and to bring us back home again and to restore us. And is that not what he did for the people of Israel? You know, it's strange because the scene begins with the officers crying out to Pharaoh, but it ends in victory when the people cried out to God.

Rank and file, this is where you and I now come in. It's your cry that God will hear. It's that collective cry. When he came to Moses, I've heard the cry.

I don't know if anybody else heard it. I don't know if it was public or private, but there was a cry and God heard it. And he sent an old man and his brother to set the people of God free. That's the plan of God.

It's always a ridiculous plan in the natural. Did you know you are the ridiculous plan of God for this generation? When you go home, look in the mirror and say, I am God's ridiculous plan for this generation.

I am the, I'm the 80 year old man with the stutter and the stick. He was so weak, he had a one line sermon and needed his brother to deliver it. But it was God's plan to deliver his people. Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. The cry of my heart in this generation is, oh God almighty, will you help us to pray again? Will you give us the sense to pray again? Would you give us an understanding that if we will cry out, you will be God one more time? And the things you have done in the past, you will do today and you will do in the future.

For Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. So your part and mine is to cry out to God. If ever there was a time to cry out to God, it's now. You know, I see a lot of gray hair here, including mine tonight. I see others who are like Paul, they say, I die daily.

That's why your hair is not gray. But it's up to you and I now. You know, there's a Psalmist, the aged Psalmist, he said, Lord, don't take your hand off of me until I have shown your power to this generation that is to come. See, this is the mandate given to us now to show the next generation the power of God.

Not just talk about it, but show them. That when we go to the throne of God, God will hear us. God will answer. God will save. Christ will deliver.

We will one more time. I believe that we are going to see a mercy moment in America. I don't know what the future's gonna hold.

I don't know what the nation's gonna look like when this is all over, but I do know that God's mercy is from age to age and from everlasting to everlasting. So I'm gonna ask you if we can close by standing up and maybe, just maybe you could grab the hand of the person beside you, whether you're comfortable doing that or not. If you're not comfortable, then don't. But if you are, I'm gonna ask Pastor Tony if you'd come and join me. And we're gonna pray and want to ask you to lift your voice unashamedly.

You must know some children in your neighborhood. Maybe your own kids are struggling and your grandkids, your brothers and your sisters. Or if there's nobody in your immediate family, the nation itself is dying around us now. And we have access to the throne of God. So as we pray, would you lift your voice with us? And yes, we're gonna do everything we know to do, but then we're gonna do what we've been taught to do and come to the throne of God and we're gonna believe for miracles again of freedom and deliverance. So Father God, in Jesus' name, we lift our voices unashamedly. We open our mouths, we begin to pray God, and we ask you, God Almighty, for the sake of our children, for the sake of our marriages, for the sake of our homes, our families, for the unborn in the womb, my God, who are destined to the slaughter. We lift our voices for them, O God, and we ask you, Lord Jesus Christ, as you once did for the people of Israel and Egypt, God, that you would set us free.

We don't care what your plan looks like and we don't care how you do it, but we just ask you to do it. We come to your throne, we come unashamedly. We come, O God, expecting that you're gonna answer our prayer, and we throw our lives in as part of the answer.

Whatever you choose to do through each one of us, my God, we yield our bodies to you as a living sacrifice for the glory of your name and for the sake of others around us. Give us boldness, Lord Jesus Christ, to stand up and speak your word. Give us an enablement, O God, to live lives that are worthy of your name. Give us power to believe you, God, that you do answer prayer.

Nothing has really changed. You have always been a God who answers prayer. O God almighty, God almighty, hear the prayer that is prayed in this hall.

Hear the prayers that will be prayed on the way home. Hear the prayers that will be prayed when people lie on their beds tonight or kneel beside them. God, help us. God, help us. God, help us. God, help us. God, help us in the days ahead. Set our children free. O God, this is our prayer. Set them free, Lord.

Jesus Christ, break this log jam in the mighty and unmatchable name of Jesus Christ. Amen and amen. Amen.

Amen. The message today has been brought to you by Carter Conlon from Times Square Church. For more information, log on to TSC.NYC. That's TSC.NYC. Plan to be with us next week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.