Welcome, and thank you for joining us for Carter Conlon's 2023 New Year Special, When the Spell Breaks. This is something the Lord's spoken to my heart.
I'm going to speak it to you with as much integrity as I have. And God's given me faith to see, to believe that we're going to experience as a nation a moment of mercy. I don't know what comes after that, but 2023 might just be the year when we have an opportunity to turn back to God in a way that we never thought we could.
That's what this program, this year is all about. 2023, When the Spell Breaks. This New Year's, Carter Conlon believes that the Lord has spoken something special to his heart for 2023. Carter encourages us to have faith to see and believe for a moment of mercy for our nation.
Let's join Carter now in studio. I want to welcome you to this New Year's special that we have today. And it's a title that God's given me for this particular program is 2023, When the Spell Breaks. And this is the cry of my heart. Oh, God, would you break the spell that seems to have fallen over this nation that is causing darkness to abound, thinking to be perverted? Lord, people going in wrong directions, believing it's right. Would you help us as a people?
Would you bring us back home? This is the prayer of my heart. As a text today, I want to use the book of Galatians Chapter three, beginning of verse one, where the apostle Paul says these words. Oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth? Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified.
This only I want to learn from you. Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain. Now, Paul the apostle is talking to a people who who once knew the truth or still had some, even if it might have been a marginal grasp on the truth. Just I suppose, like many in America today, a nation once founded on truth, once founded on the cornerstone of being a country that would bring the name of Jesus Christ to reputation, not just from coast to coast in America, but also throughout the world, a place that people could worship freely according to conscience and according to the word of God.
But yet something happened to these particular people in the Bible just as something happened to America. He says, Oh, foolish Galatians, who bewitched you that you should not obey the truth? What kind of a spell is saying was placed upon you that caused you to believe the darkness could be called light and light could be called darkness?
What happened to you? How did this how did this come into your borders? How did you once know the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and substituted for foolishness, substituted for for that which doesn't satisfy? If I were speaking on God's stead to this nation this coming New Year, I would say I brought you from a place of persecution and opposition. I brought you here on a small ship called the Mayflower. I brought you to the shores of Plymouth, Massachusetts over 400 years ago because you sought me. And you said, give us a place where we may worship God in truth.
We worship God according to the word of God and according to conscience. So I brought you here not in your strength, but I brought you here in your littleness. And I gave you the victory that you knew you couldn't win in your own strength. Think about it for a moment. Of 103 that landed on the shores of Plymouth, 402 years ago now roughly, there's about 53 survived the first winter. And I had the privilege on the 400th anniversary of the founding of America in Plymouth.
I had the privilege of being in a house that is built on the actual foundation of the very first house that was built in this settlement in America in 1620. And you think about the people who gathered there after the first winter, half of them had died. And the half that were left alive were emaciated, surrounded by enemies and had literally no possibility of going forward. But yet they had a promise from God. And I can just envision what that prayer meeting in that house must have been like. Where they said, God, in Jesus' name, would you have mercy on us? And God believed you that you were giving us a nation where we could worship in truth and in spirit.
And of course, you and I know the history. God gave them what they asked for. And from a little handful of people in a small hut surrounded by impossibility, a nation that became the envy of the world was born. And we knew in America, we knew our founding, we knew where we came from, we knew what our purpose was. But what happened to us that suddenly this pallor of darkness settled on the nation? And we began to forbid our children to pray.
We began to move against the very one who had given us these freedoms in the beginning. Oh, foolish Galatians, who cast this spell upon you that you should not obey the truth? You once knew it was through Jesus Christ that you had been given this victory. And the victory you were given, did you get it? Paul was speaking to America today would say, did you get it in your own strength? Or was it given to you in the strength of God and by the promise of God? Why have you become so foolish, having begun in the strength of God?
How is it now that you are thinking you can be perfected with your own reasonings, your own understanding? Have you suffered so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Have you fought your wars?
Have you fought to produce a fair and just society, only to go down in the heap of history as a failed nation? You think about earlier in the book of Galatians chapter 1 and verses 6 to 8, Paul said to these same people, I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is not another, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. In the book of Acts chapter 27, speaking of the people of that particular day, the scripture tells us, when the south wind blew softly, supposing they had obtained their desire, they put out the sea and they undertook their own journey.
They were warned not to take this journey. I think of all the voices that were raised in America warning us not to take this journey away from God. But yet so many people, it was a day of relative peace and prosperity and we thought we could sail and chart our own course and craft our own realities and somehow not pay a price for it. And we turned away from the gospel that had brought us here in the first place.
And we developed a soft gospel that required nothing of us, did not remind us of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. It all became about me, myself, and I. And we didn't know that we were sailing farther and farther and farther away from the source of our strength. And now we've fallen under a spell.
I don't know how else to say it. In America, there's a delusion on this society that is mind-boggling. It's almost unthinkable that we are becoming the people that we are presently becoming. How did we fall under the spell of thinking that we could be divided or living in disunity and somehow continue to stand as a people? Jesus said to them in the gospel of Matthew chapter 12 and verse 25, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. And every city or house divided against itself will not stand. And we look at the division now in our nation simply because we've ceased to be followers of Christ.
Let's just put it out there very clearly and very simpler. We've turned away from the Word of God. The Word of God is no longer our guide. It doesn't guide our laws. It doesn't guide our courts.
It doesn't guide anything, our families and our relationships. Now we have division in cities, towns, government, society, homes. There's division at every conceivable level in this society.
So how did we ever fall under the spell of thinking that we could be divided amongst ourselves as a nation and somehow continue to stand? In the book of Romans in chapter 1 beginning at verse 18, here's what the Word of God says. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. We think about the day we're living in where if you have an opinion on something that's based on the Word of God, people are now in danger of being canceled or losing their employment. Simply having a biblical worldview has somehow become some kind of a hate speech or a crime in this nation. Verse 19 of Romans 1 says, Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
It's not like it's a secret to us. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made. Even his eternal power on Godhead, so they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man.
Birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves. I think one of the most disheartening things that I've seen in the news in the last season is drag shows now. Men dressed as women doing their thing that they do in the sight of children, whether it's daycare or libraries, wherever it is. And somehow, this is being touted as liberty and a good thing when men are standing in front of five-year-olds and doing pelvic thrusts.
I can't even fathom this. I'm a former police officer. Let me tell you straight out, in the days when I was a police officer, men who would do this would be in jail overnight. And here we are putting this thing out as if it's some kind of a virtuous thing in this society to be tolerant of all things. And yet it's evil. It's pure evil. Let's not mince any words about it.
This is what it is. This is what evil looks like. This is what happens to any and all nations that turn away from God. And even more so when you once had a knowledge of God, yet we turned away from him. And we chose evil over good. And we chose our own thinking and strength over the strength of God. We chose not to be thankful for the things God has given to us as a people in America. It's as if America is under a spell.
I'm going to say it over and over again. It doesn't even make sense the way people are thinking. The kinds of things now that are being espoused as virtuous are evil. They're called evil in the Word of God, yet we've ceased to call it what God calls it.
We want to give everything new names now. God help us. God help us. Because the judgments of God on the nation for this are becoming obvious. We are weak militarily. We are extremely divided socially.
We are uncivil in our conversation. I was listening to the acceptance speech of the new president of Kenya a little while back, and I was stunned at how articulate this man and how gracious this man was, how intelligent this man is. It was stunning because it's been so long since we've had statesmen standing and speaking in the name of God and before the nation and leading the nation, God Almighty. It just seems like we've fallen under a spell, and whoever can be the more vile or shout the loudest or be the most sarcastic now becomes our leader. People don't even have to make sense anymore to lead the nation.
God help us. The book of Proverbs in chapter 29 and verse 2 says these words, When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice, but when a wicked man rules, the people groan. And there is a lot of groaning in the nation today because we've professed to be wise and we've become fools. We've changed the glory of God, and God is giving up the nation to uncleanness and the lusts of our hearts. Now, as a society, we're beginning to dishonor our bodies among ourselves, and we're confused.
We don't know what's up, we don't know what's down, we don't know what's male, we don't know what's female. It's just tragic, the spell that has come over this nation. We somehow believed that we could forbid our children to pray in their schools, and this is going to produce a positive result and people accepting of one another, etc. Now we have a whole generation so confused, so dark, in many cases. And even in our colleges, the tragedy of shunning intelligence, where there's no analytical thinking anymore, there's no ability to look at two sides of an equation and decide which one you'd rather follow or which one is right. Now it's just strict indoctrination. And young people are at the point where they have to color books or pet puppies if somebody has a contrary thought to their own thought. We've produced a whole generation that is shunning critical thought.
It's almost unthinkable that we're doing such, because there's no ability now to reason what is good and what is not good, or what I want to follow and what I don't, because both sides of the equation are not being presented to the young people of our particular time. You know, there was a prophet in the Old Testament, his name was Hosea, and it was a season where God was trying to bring back his own people to himself again. They had fallen so far away, and Hosea was a prophet who took a wife and she became a harlot.
That's what the scripture says. She gave herself sexually to other men. And Hosea, his heart was broken and he did everything in his power to get her back. He even tried to purchase her back. He did everything he could, and it was given as a type, in a sense, of the heart of God, when his own people have fallen away from him and have turned to immorality, which we have done as a nation.
It's so sad. And Hosea saw a moment of mercy that was available to the people, and this is what I see in my heart. This is what I'm trying to convey in this radio program this new year, that 2023 could be a season where the spell breaks over America, where people just simply come to themselves. There's a story in the Bible of a young man who took his inheritance and went far, far, far away from the heart of his father, who had given him life. And he spent everything on himself, and he ended up in a field feeding pigs and longing for even their food to be his own. He never dreamt he could fall so far from what he had been born to do and what his inheritance really was and the house that he'd come from.
We as a country couldn't dream that we'd fallen as far as we have. The Pilgrim Fathers, if they saw what we were going to become, I wonder if they would have got back on the ship and headed home, if they saw the kind of a nation that America was going to turn into over time. Hosea, the prophet, says these words, O Israel, return to the Lord your God. Just like the prodigal son who, the scripture says, one day he just came to himself and said, what am I doing here? And this is, I think, what is about to happen in this nation. There's about to be a moment of conscience. There's about to be a season where this spell of darkness breaks over the society. And people start reasoning again and saying, what are we doing here? How did we get to this place? Why are we being given over to this darkness?
Why is evil being called good and good is being called evil? I'm getting back up, this young man said, and I'm going home to my father. O America, I plead with you in the name of Jesus. It's time to get up.
It's time to let this, shake this darkened thinking away and get up and start heading back to God, saying, the young man said, it was better in my father's house than it is here. There was bread to spare, and in this place I am dying of hunger. And we are a nation that is starving for truth. We're starving for direction. We're starving for stability in our homes, our families, our cities, our towns, and in our states and in our country. We're starving for righteous leadership again in the nation.
God, help us. Hosea said in chapter 14, verse 1, O Israel, return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. You've fallen because you have embraced sin. You've embraced wrong thinking. You walked away from the one who gave you life, who created you for a divine purpose, much bigger than anything that comes out of your own heart and out of your own mind.
But you walked away. You sold yourself for nothing when you were one who belonged to God. You sold off that relationship and you undertook this journey into a dark, dark place where you began to hate everything that was good and love everything that is evil. Take words with you, Hosea said, and return to the Lord and say this to him, take away all iniquity, receive us graciously, for we will offer the sacrifice of our lips. Take away this crooked thinking, Almighty God. Bring us back to the place that we are supposed to be as a people. Give us back, O God, the integrity that we once possessed. Give us back the willingness, Lord, to be reasoned with by your word. Give us back worship in your house again. Give us back preachers in this nation that will open the Bible and speak the truth to our hearts again. O God, give us back stability in our homes, our marriages. Give us our children back.
O my God, give us back stability. Take words in return saying, take away all iniquity. Receive us graciously, for we will offer the sacrifices of our lips. O God, forgive us for what we have done. Receive us, God, for we know you to be a God of grace. We know you to be the one who went to a cross, the one who said, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they do.
We know that forgiveness is at the center core of your heart. So, God, receive us as we come back to you, and we will begin to speak to you what is right. We will begin to call you Lord again. We will begin to honor you. We will allow our children to pray in their schools and in their homes. Verse 3, they said, Assyria will not save us, nor will we ride on horses, nor will we say any more to the work of our hands. You are our gods, for in you the fatherless find mercy. We're done with mixture.
Assyria was a place of mixture. Mixture will not save us. We will not look to escape all of the storms that have come upon us because of what we've done to you. We won't say any more to the work of our own hands. You are our gods. God, forgive us for this arrogance and this ignorance, for it's in you and you alone that those without fathers in our society will find the mercy they need. And here's the Lord's response now in verse 4 of Hosea chapter 14. He says, I will heal their backsliding.
I will love them freely. My anger has turned away from him, and I will be like the dew to Israel, and he shall grow like the lily and lengthen his roots like Lebanon. His branches shall spread, his beauty shall be like an olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon. And those who dwell under his shadow shall return, and they shall be revived like grain and grow like a vine, and their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
Think about this just for a moment. Even this New Year's, if we can bow our hearts before God and say, God, forgive us for what we have done. God looks at you, and God looks at me and says, I'll heal you. I will love you freely. I will turn away my wrath from you, and I will be like a dew coming down upon you. I will give you stability and strength in the midst of every storm you're going to have to face. Your influence will spread, and there will be beauty like in an olive tree among you, and there will be a fragrance, a sweet smell again instead of a stench, instead of the stench of sin. And those who dwell under your shadow will return, those who came here 402 years ago to find freedom Those who now dwell under the shadow of this great initial victory shall return to this place and be revived again like grain. They shall grow again like a vine, and their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon. It speaks about joy will come back into our borders again. Love and laughter will come into our homes.
There will be a natural caring and compassion for one another in our cities, no longer bitterly divided, no longer under the influence of godlessness. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do anymore with idols? I've heard and observed him. I'm like a green cypress tree, and my fruit is found in me.
In other words, there'll be no more mixture. People will say, I'm going to live for God. I'm going to serve God the rest of my life. I've heard him. I've seen him. And he's promised to make me like a green tree and promised to give me that in my life which can only come from him. And he finishes in verse 9 by saying, Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is prudent?
Let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right, and the righteous walk in them. Father God, in Jesus' name, this is my prayer. Let 2023 be the year that the spell over America is broken. God Almighty, let there be a returning to your house. Let there be a gathering, a moment of mercy. Let there be life back in our families, in our homes, in our cities. Let there be miracles.
Do God what only you can do, Lord Jesus Christ. We dedicate this year to you, God. And we dedicate it to crying out to you, to calling out to you, until we see the answer to every prayer in every heart, at every home, at every table, from every voice. Jesus Christ, forgive us. We love you. Thank you for loving us. And thank you that 2023 will be a year when the spell breaks. In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you so much for joining us for Carter Conlon's 2023 New Year's Special, When the Spell Breaks. For more specials like this one, visit carterconlon.com. Happy New Year's.
