A Dead Man, Four Lepers, Barren Women, and You

I want to talk to you about a dead man, four lepers, barren women, and you. You say, how do I fit into all of this?

Well, you'll see. We're so glad you could join us today for a call to the nation with Carter Conlon. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord is heard throughout the Scriptures. It was heard by a dead man named Lazarus, by the four leprous men who would have died from famine.

It was heard by Hannah, who gave her child back to the Lord, and by Sarah, who was too old to bear a child. And now, the voice of the Lord is heard by you. Let's join Carter to learn more as we turn to Psalm 29. Psalm 29, if you have a moment to turn in your Bibles, a psalm of King David who knew the power of God. He knew that when God speaks and you move in the direction of his voice that miracles begin to happen, things that can't be done by any amount of natural human effort come into view.

And people are encouraged. He would have known that the day that he stood in the valley and fought against a giant, that not one single man in the army of Israel had the courage to fight. But God sent a teenage boy who was able to hear his voice and being stirred by the leading of God, and for the glory of God, went in to face what's humanly an impossible battle. But when we learn to cooperate with the voice of God, God begins to do something through us that only God himself can do. David says, give to the Lord, O you mighty ones. Give to the Lord glory and strength. Give to the Lord the glory due to his name.

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. That means every trial we'll ever face, all confusion of this world. And there's no shortage of confusion in this world right now.

As a matter of fact, the world is insanely confused in my opinion. But his voice is over all of these things, all of these waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord is over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

In other words, he speaks not as people who don't know God speak, but he speaks as one with authority, as a king would. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The voice, yes, the Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon.

He makes them skip like a calf, Lebanon and Syrian, like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord divides the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare. And in his temple, everyone says glory. In his temple, where he dwells, among the people that belong to him, everyone says glory.

The Lord sat enthroned at the flood. The Lord sits king as king forever. The Lord will give strength to his people. The Lord will bless his people with peace. I want to talk to you about a dead man, four lepers, barren women, and you.

Let me say that again. A dead man, four lepers, barren women, and you. You say like, how do I fit into all of this? Well, you'll see in just a moment. Well, as a matter of fact, some of you are saying, yeah, that's me. That's my company.

Those are the people I hang out with. Dead lepers, barren, and me. Now in his temple, the script says everyone shouts glory. And the word glory in the original text essentially means the weightiness of God that was infused in me when he spoke and I believed him.

In other words, God's, the weight of God, that which only God can do. He spoke, I believed, and God did something in me and through me that only God can do. And when that starts to happen in your life, nobody has to tell you to shout glory.

The band doesn't have to crank up and hit the right note for you to start singing. You walk in and you just say glory to God. Only God could have done this in my life.

Only God. I remember we were in Burundi many years ago and there was a tribe of actually pygmy people called the Twa. And we brought them a truckload of goats in from Tanzania and another truckload of chickens.

Now these people had no means to make a living whatsoever. And when they saw us arrive and when we started to carry the goats up the mountainside and give them to them and they brought them into their homes. They had huts made and they brought the goats and chickens actually into their homes. And then they got together and they sang a song to us. And it was in their own language.

So I asked somebody there, what are they singing? And their song was, only God could have done this. Only God could have done this. We prayed for help and help has come. Only God could have done this. Now they were giving God glory for two goats and five chickens. Do you understand me?

In every home. It was impossible for them but they prayed. They turned to God and suddenly truckloads of provision from God arrived. And they knew that although God put it on our hearts to do this, we were responding to his response to their prayer, to their cry.

Only God could have done this. And these people are going to praise God for two goats and five chickens. I'm going to praise God for what he's done in my life. I'm going to praise God for the victories he's given me. I'm going to praise God for the changing of my heart. I'm going to praise God for the things that I've seen over the years.

And I'm going to praise God for the things I'm believing for as well in the future. Hebrews 13, 8 tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. He doesn't change. Now we either believe that or we don't. We have to get to the point in this generation where we believe that the God of Acts chapter 2 is still the God of Acts 20, 23.

Nothing has changed. He's still the same. And he will still respond when we cry out to him and he will still bring us out of the natural and into the supernatural. The voice of the Lord, David says. David knew this voice.

I know this voice. I know and measure what it's like when God speaks and you move with God and miracles start to happen. I could tell you all kinds of stories of what God has done over the course of years. And I feel that the mandate that God's given myself and others like me who have come before many of you is to take the baton and pass it to the next generation and say, it's great that I can tell you my stories, but it's time for you to get yours.

You've got to get your story. So if the Lord tarries and you get to be 70, you can pass the baton on to the next generation and say, I have heard his voice. And when I walked with him, he did in me and through me what is humanly impossible to do. The weight of God came into my life. My thinking was cleared up. My timidity was replaced by the courage to believe and my reluctance to move forward was replaced with a boldness to take on the enemies that are trying to destroy this generation and so many of our families and our testimonies. In John chapter 11, the voice of God spoke audibly to a dead man.

Now that's quite a distance. I mean, the man was Lazarus. The man was dead in John chapter 11. He was dead for four days.

But the voice of God is not limited to us having anything left in a sense to give to his kingdom. You know, sometimes when you're dead, you're better off than when you think you're strong. You know, he knew he was dead.

There's no doubt about that. I don't know where he was, but he would have known he was dead. And suddenly he hears God calling his name. One voice has the ability to call you out of wherever you are and into the place where God has destined you to be. The only thing that Lazarus could do is the very thing that you need to do today is just simply get up and move towards the sound of his voice.

There's nothing else you can do. When you hear him calling you, in this case it was an audible call, simply get up and start moving towards the voice of God and you watch what God will begin to do. The first thing that happened to Lazarus is that they unwrapped him. He was all bound up with death clothes, really. That means when we get into behaviors that we shouldn't be into, our minds get wrapped up in death and our feet are tied. We don't have the ability to go forward and our hands are not reaching out the way that God destined them to be.

But when we start moving towards his voice, the very first thing that happens is that we begin to find ourselves, the bonds that held us start to be loosed. Then he said to Martha, Lazarus' sister, did I not say if you would believe you would see the glory of God? I find this interesting because there's no evidence in the Bible that Martha actually believed, ever believed. When Lazarus was raised from the dead, she believed. I was looking at it today and I was wondering is it possible that he was speaking about Martha in this verse of scripture?

Obviously the Son of God speaks on a multiplicity of levels. But he said to her, did I not say that if you would believe you would see the glory of God? In other words, she's about to witness the raising of her brother from the dead, but she's a person who just, she's limited in a sense to doing what she can naturally do, which is pots and pans and buns and cooking and all this stuff that she's doing and serving. She's never known the supernatural.

I just started to think about it. Is it possible that God was saying to her, as he's saying to somebody, did I not tell you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God? You Martha, you're going to witness it with your eyes, but if you would believe that I have the power when I speak to change every situation, that if you would believe, that you too would see the glory of God. I can't help but wonder, was he speaking to Martha about her own future? Was he trying to draw her out of, it was a good thing she was doing, but it was short of what God had for her lives.

And that's the case for many of us. We're not doing bad things, we're actually doing good things, but the things we're doing are short of what God has for our lives. Second Kings 7, he spoke to four leprous men internally. Now to Lazarus, it was audibly, but to the leprous men outside the city gate, he spoke to them internally. They were sitting outside a city that was starving. The city was surrounded by enemies and suddenly the thought comes into their heart. Like if we're going to the city, we're going to starve.

If we stay here, we're going to die. Let's just get up and go into the camp of the enemy. And as they got up, because they were in the plan of God, and as they got up and moved into the enemy's camp, the scripture tells us that God turned up heaven's stereo, may I call it that way? And caused the enemies, the Syrian army, to hear these four lepers as if they were a whole army of horses and chariots.

And they were so terrified by what they heard that they fled. And there were just four lepers that God spoke to. But he spoke to them internally, and sometimes the voice of God comes audibly, but sometimes the voice of God just comes internally. He just begins to move us in a direction. That is as much the voice of God as if Christ himself is standing at a grave and saying, Lazarus, come forth. We need to learn to hear that voice and move with that voice. And it was really an impossibility.

Four lepers walking into the camp of an entire enemy army that had surrounded the city and were trying to starve the city out. Amazing. Isn't it amazing what God will do? Jesus Christ is what?

What is Jesus? The same today and forever, right? Do you believe that? Do you believe that in your diseased condition he can use you?

Do you believe that in your deficiency? You know, lepers, they're just sitting there watching each other fall apart, and that's what Bible school could feel like after six months. You know, you're just like, everybody's sitting there staring at each other just saying, oh God, I thought I was so holy when I came here. And now I'm falling apart.

You know, what have I done with my life, you know? Well, okay, I might as well get up and move towards what God has for my life. Not realizing he's turning up heaven's sound system and making the sound of your feet like a marching army into the camp of darkness.

He's the same. And when it gets in our hearts and we're not looking to our own intellect, we're not looking to our own ability, we're not looking to our own strength anymore, but we're hearing something from God and we're starting to move in unison with God because the voice of the Lord is above all the waters. The voice of the Lord strips the forest bare. The voice of the Lord is the final word. It's the final word on what happens in your life. It's the final word on the end of a society.

It's the final word on what's going to happen to the heavens of the earth in the future. The voice of the Lord is above every voice. And when you learn to hear the voice of God, and this is important for people that are online, move towards that, that longing in your heart, that thought that God has planted there.

Get up and go down into the camp of the enemy. It's not by your might nor power, your intellect, it's by the Spirit of God that the victory will be won in your life. In 1 Samuel 1 verse 17, there was a woman who came into prayer and she was just so tired of being barren. She was empty.

She so wanted life to be born in her womb. It was the chief desire of her heart and she was so used to being disappointed that her prayer, she couldn't speak it anymore. Only her lips could move.

Have you ever been there? Have you ever been so disappointed even in God that you can't utter the words anymore unless you'd be disappointed one more time? She couldn't speak. She was so grieved. She could move her lips but nothing would come out.

I've been there one time. I know what that feels like when you just can't get the words out of your mouth anymore because you just don't want to be disappointed. She was there and it was Eli the priest that spoke to her and told her, the Lord grant you the request that you have placed before him. The scripture says she put away her grieving as it is and got up and went home and started to enjoy life. It was a spiritual leader that spoke to her. Maybe you can't hear the voice of God.

I don't know online. Maybe it's such a foreign concept to you. Maybe the negativity of your heart is so strong that you can't hear the positivity of God wanting to move you in a direction of victory. But you can't hear my voice. I am a spiritual leader. I am in your living room right now or your car. I know there's somebody that texted in and said, I always go up into my car to listen to the prayer meeting because I like it better.

I'm speaking to you in your car. I am a spiritual leader as this guy was to Hannah and I'm telling you, God will be faithful to you. God will meet the desires of your heart. God will give you a victory that you could never have in your own strength.

And it's amazing. I wish I could have heard Hannah's prayer when she found out she was going to have a child and this voiceless prayer birthed a voice that guided the nation for 40 years. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. A lady so discouraged and so empty that she couldn't speak her prayer gives birth to a voice that guides the nation, Samuel the prophet, for 40 years. Lastly, in Genesis 18, God spoke in person within the range of a lady called Sarah's hearing. And she was too old to bear a child and she had long suffered disappointment. She had a promise that you're going to have descendants.

Her husband had it. Of course, the promise was to come through her life. And she had a promise that you're going to have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.

And yet it's been years and years and years and the promise is not fulfilled. There is no real heir that's come through her life. And suddenly she gets a visitation from God. The Lord God is speaking to her husband, Abraham, and she's in the tent and she can hear his voice. It's an audible voice she's hearing. And the Lord says, your wife Sarah is going to have a child.

Now she's way too old to have a child. And the Scripture says she laughed. And the Lord said, why did you laugh? If I'm telling you that God's going to use your life for his glory and do something supernatural in your life, why did you laugh? Why do you smirk in your heart?

Why is there this chuckle in your heart that says, oh no, not me. I'm too old. It's too long. It's too far.

It's too gone. In verse 14, the Lord says to Abraham, he says, is anything too hard for the Lord? So this is my question to you. Is anything too hard for God? Are you the one person in the realm of all of history that God can't do anything through?

Are you unique? He took a dead man and brought him out of the grave by the power of his voice. He took four lepers and defeated an enemy army. He took two barren women and with one he birthed a voice that guided the nation with others.

He birthed what became the church. Oh God. Oh God. Do you understand that you're here because of that promise being fulfilled in Sarah's life? Do you get it? Do you understand that through her lineage came the patriarchs of Israel, through the patriarchs came the Savior Jesus Christ, through Christ came the early church, through the church passing on the baton came you.

And so it's as if you were also in that tent and now we're given the opportunity to respond to the voice of God as the voice of God comes to us. You know, some people stay in the grave and they just say, put the stone back. It's too late. I'm too far gone. And others say, well, we're just lepers.

What can we do? Let's just stay here and die. Some just walk away from the house of God disappointed, somehow believing that God is not the same as he always has been and can't answer their prayer any longer. And some laugh and how sad that is to God.

They laugh and walk away. Will you laugh or do you say, God, be it done to me according to your word. According to your word, Lord, be it done to me. According to your word, Lord, let the weightiness of your life become mine. According to your word, take me out of death. According to your word, take me out of weakness. According to your word, lift me out of barrenness. According to your word, use my life for your glory.

According to your word, may I live to come into the house of God, or maybe I live just to come online in this prayer meeting and shout, glory. Glory to God. Only God could have done this. I prayed and he's come. Only God could have done this. I asked for victory and victory has come.

Only God could have done this. I prayed that God would use my life in a way that I knew it was him and he did, and only God could have done this. Glory to God. Glory to God for the words that you gave me to speak to that person on the street corner. Glory to God for the healing you brought into my marriage and home and my family, my mind. Glory to God for the freedom from addiction you brought into my life. Glory to God for breaking all the barriers that kept me in isolation. Glory to God for bringing me into the place where I know that he lives.

I'm no longer an argument about the reality of God. I know that he lives. I know what he can do. I know his power. I know his grace.

I know his glory. Oh hallelujah. Oh hallelujah.

Oh hallelujah. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory that the God of the universe would intertwine his life and mine, that the God of the universe would give me his strength, his cleansing, his freedom, his abilities, his voice, his compassion, his song, everything belongs to him, that he would take this empty vessel and he would infuse it with the weight of God. Oh hallelujah. Glory is right. Glory to God. Glory to the Lamb of God.

So you have a choice. The scripture says in the book of Hebrews today, if you can hear his voice, don't harden your heart. It's what the children of Israel once did in the wilderness and because of it they died in the wilderness when he was giving them this incredible promise and they turned back because of unbelief, the scripture says.

Will you get up? Will you go forward into the plan that God has for your life? Will you believe that even in your emptiness that he can produce something of himself that brings his own name to reputation? That's what the kavod of God means, actually the glory that he does something so powerful in you that his name, not yours, comes to reputation through it. Praise God. Praise God. I was where you are years ago.

I was in a church hearing something like this and I leaned forward in my seat and I remember saying, God, could that be true? Could you use this life for your glory? Could you change me? Could you give me a heart for people? Could you take me out of the frailty of my mind and my thinking and my background and the walls I built around myself? Could you actually do something through my life that brings your name to glory? I can't tell you the day it happened, but I do know I went towards the sound of his voice.

That's all I can tell you. I just moved to the sound of his voice and say, God, I want it all. I want everything you have for me. I want the fullness of it. Now some people just want knowledge. Some just want personal freedom. But I wanted everything that God had for my life.

I still do today. There's more. There's always more with God. How can we ever get to the place of saying I've got all of God that I need?

I mean, come on. There's always more. And so I want to challenge you as I challenge those that are online. Begin this way. Admit you need a Savior. You can't save yourself. Believe that God loved you so much that He sent His Son to die on a cross to pay the price for the wrong things you have done, the Bible calls that sin, that separated you from God, from the life of God, the plan of God, the purpose of God, the heaven of God. It separated you completely from God for eternity.

But God so loved you that He came to get you. That's why Christ went to a cross. And then start confessing with your mouth. The Bible tells us that if you believe in your heart and you confess with your mouth you'll be saved. You start to confess what you believe.

That's basically what it's saying. Whatever is in the heart is going to come out of your mouth. Jesus is the Lord of my life.

You start just to confess it. Jesus, you have the right to govern my thinking. You have the right to determine my future. You have the right to tell me what your life plan is going to be for me. You have the right.

I give you the rights to my life. And you start declaring Him to be Savior and Lord. And His promise is that He cleanses you from all sin, brings you home again to Himself forever and gives you a reason to live while you live on the earth. And the reason that we live is to glorify Him. Thank God to bring glory to His name.

Pray this simple prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, thank You for loving me. Thank You for dying to pay the price for my sin. I open my heart to You. I invite You into my life to be my Lord, my Savior, and my God. Thank You for loving me and for giving me the promise that You will show me the reason and the purpose and plan that You have for my life. I give myself fully to You, Lord. Speak to me. I will listen.

In Jesus' name, amen and 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. Learn to be with us next week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.