You Can, Should and Will Stand

Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. You can, you should, and you will stand. The Bible declares, no matter where you are, no matter what kind of captivity or weakness has threatened to overtake you, you can stand, you should stand, and you will stand. Thank you for joining us today for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon. Friend, it's no secret we're in a moral and spiritual crisis in America. But as followers of Jesus Christ, we have been lifted out of the kingdom of darkness and brought into the glorious kingdom of light.

Here's Carter with today's message. You can stand, you should stand, and you will stand. These are promises that I believe that God's put in his word for you, and we're going to look at it. Isaiah chapter 40, beginning at verse 25. To whom will you liken me? Or to whom shall I be equal?

Says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high. In other words, he's saying, look into the heavens. Now, today, with the help of the telescopes that we have and the satellites and the such like devices that we've sent into space, we're looking into foreign and distant galaxies.

And there are billions, not millions, billions of stars. And we're only touching the edge of this incredible vast universe that's created by the hand and the heart of God. So he tells us, I want you to look up and I want to talk to you about something and see who created these things.

Who brings their hosts, who brings out their hosts by number. In other words, I created all of them. There's nothing that exists that I did not create, the Lord says. He calls them all by name. Isn't that amazing? We know a few planets and we have the occasional stars that we name, but God has a name for every one of the billions of stars that he has created.

They all have a name. Isn't that amazing? By the greatness of his might and the strength of his power, not one is missing. Not one is lost. Not one has strayed out of his control or his power.

Isn't that amazing? Not one star. Just think about this for a moment. All that God has created, he knows them all by name. We only know there are billions, but he knows their names. And none of them exist independently of God and none of them is, he hasn't lost one. He hasn't saying, Gabriel, where is that star in galaxy XL 29F4 subsection three?

Seems to be one missing. That never happens. This incredible omniscience or knowledge of God, he has total knowledge of everything in the universe and where everything is. Isn't it amazing? He knows where every atom and every molecule of everything that ever existed is right at the moment. That's why I often say, if you're on a ship going overseas and let's say the ship went down and you drowned and you were eaten by fish and you ended up served as sushi in a Japanese restaurant somewhere, when the rapture of the church comes, he knows where every one of your molecules is and they're all going to come back together and you're going to be raised up forever. He does. He doesn't lose, he doesn't lose an atom of your body.

He doesn't lose anything. He knows where everything is. I want you to just understand the omniscience of God, the power of God, the knowledge of God, the vastness of God. Sometimes we, I don't know how we do it, but we have a tendency to take this great grand creator God and we bring him down into something little that maybe we try to comprehend and sadly he becomes so small that it seems like he can't do anything for us anymore.

So think about this. Think about the billions of stars, the molecules of everything that's ever been created and God knows where everything is, hasn't lost sight of a single thing. Why do you say, verse 27, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord. In other words, God doesn't see me.

Why do you say that? He says, why do you say I don't see you in your struggle? Why do you say that somehow I've overlooked you when I know where everything is in the universe, right down to the atom, I know where it all is. I know how to bring it all back again.

I know how to cause it all to return to me. Why then do you say, my people of all people, that God doesn't see me? And why do you say my just claim is passed over by my God? Why do you say I'm crying out to God but God doesn't hear and God doesn't listen?

Or somehow he's indifferent to my cause. Have you not known, have you not heard the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary and his understanding is unsearchable. The things that he knows, we can't even begin to scratch the surface of it. He gives power to the weak and to those who have no strength, no might, he increases strength. Even youth shall faint and become weary.

That means even the natural strength of the naturally strong and young will eventually dissipate trying to in a sense live in its own strength. And young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.

These are promises from God. Those who turn to me, those who trust me for life, those who see my heart and know me for who I am, they will renew their strength. Yes, for a moment, we might become weak. For a moment, we might become in a sense aware of our own weakness, but don't let the awareness of your own weakness blind you about the strength of your God. Don't let your own weakness somehow take away the understanding that the God who created this universe in the third person of the Godhead dwells inside our physical bodies now. We're not going to fail.

We're not going to be overcome. Weakness is not our portion. Yes, we might become aware of our weakness, but in that weakness, please become aware of the strength of God that is in your life, this immeasurable strength of God, this incredible faithfulness of a God who cannot fail. And those who turn to God, those who trust Him, they intertwine themselves.

The word wait actually means to be bound together by twisting, if you can fathom that. It's like taking two twist ties and twisting them together, those who wait upon the Lord, those who turn to Him for strength, those who acknowledge His presence, those who in all their ways acknowledge Him, and He begins to direct their paths, they will renew their strength. We all go through periods of weakness.

We all do. If you're not going through one now, just give it a week. We all go through periods of weakness, but don't forget about the strength of God and the faithfulness of God, the power of God, the fact that He sees you. He's never lost sight of you. Don't ever buy the lie that somehow your situation is so small that God's busy running the universe.

He hasn't got time for you. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They'll be renewed. They'll fly again. You might feel like you're running down the runway and can't get off the ground, but you will fly again.

You'll run and not be weary and you'll walk and not faint. Then it goes into verse one of chapter 41. Now, keep in mind when this was written, there were no chapters and verses.

That was all put in later. And it finishes with this thought. Keep silence before me, O coastlands, and let the people renew their strength. Keep silent. Every voice that's trying to say God has forgotten you, every voice that tries to tell a child of God that you'll always be in the place you're in, you'll never get victory, you'll never get freedom, you'll never run again, you'll never fly again, you'll never walk again. God says, be quiet, all you demonic voices and all you voices of unbelief, whether they're coming from without or coming from within.

It doesn't matter. The Lord says, be quiet, every voice, and let the people renew their strength. That's a command from God. In a sense, He's saying, I command every voice that tells you that you can't to be quiet.

I command every voice that tells you you won't to be quiet. I command every voice that tries to tell you you will never walk again in the strength of God to be quiet and let the people renew their strength, because I haven't forgotten you. Every believer faces a time when our faith in the promises of God for our present and future will come under attack.

Every believer faces this season in their life, most of us repetitively over the season and the course of our journey with God. The devil will come to you just like he did to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, 1, and he'll say, has God indeed said? Has God indeed said? Can you trust what God has said? Can you trust who God has said he is? Can you trust that his promises are true?

Can you trust that your life will become everything that God says it will be? And he will fight against the knowledge of God and against the promises of God, just as Christ did. Those of us who want to follow him will face seasons where voices will be raised within and without against all that you have trusted in.

Remember Paul said in, I think it's 2 Corinthians 7, he said, when we came to Macedonia, we had no rest. Outside were fightings and inside were fears. And every Christian goes through that where there's the noise outside causes a fear inside. And we begin to have to battle to what are we going to believe? Are we going to believe what God has said? Are we going to believe what my own heart is trying to speak to me or what the other voices around are trying to tell me or what the demonic realm is trying to speak to my life? You think of Jesus Christ himself when he was on the cross in Matthew chapter 27 and verse 39. Voices came to him and they said, and those who pass by blasphemed him, wagging their heads and saying, you destroyed the temple and build it in three days.

Save yourself. If you're the son of God, come down from the cross. And in essence, these voices were saying to the son of God, you claim to have supernatural power, but look at you now.

Have you ever heard that voice? You claim that the power of God is within your earth and vessel, but look at you now. Look at how weak you are now. Look at your fight with sorrow now. Look at the unbelief that's trying to gnaw away at you. Look at the pain that you're going through. Is this what God does to his children? Is this what God does to his people?

Look at you now. You claim to have this supernatural power that's been given you to build and rebuild, but look at you. If you really do have it, come down from the cross. In verse 42, they said, he saved others himself.

He cannot save. And there's these voices that come and say, well, what you've told others obviously doesn't apply to you, does it now? In the early days of maybe the first time you heard the gospel, you talked about this God of victory. You talked about this wonderful new life that you had.

Then old struggles came back into your life. You told people that they could be saved, but you're now doubting your own salvation because of the depth of your own struggles and the pain that you're going through. In verse 43, they said, he trusted in God, let him deliver him now, if he will have him, if God will have you. See, that's the ultimate goal that the devil is after in your life is if God will have you, let him deliver you now.

And those voices do come to people that find when we find ourselves in seasons of struggle and trial and difficulty. Listen to the words of King David in Psalm 18, verses four to six. This is the future King of Israel. This is the Christ type. This is the man who has the actual DNA lineage of the man Jesus Christ in his loins.

This is the halfway point in a sense to the Messiah. David says in verse four of Psalm 18, the pangs of death surrounded me. Floods of ungodliness made me afraid. The sorrows of shale or hopelessness surrounded me. The snares of death confronted me. In my distress, I call upon the Lord and cried out to my God. And he heard my voice from his temple and my cry came before him, even to his ears. Don't think it's strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you, Peter said.

As if some strange thing is happening. As if you're somehow, you are foreign to the kingdom of God. No, everybody, in this world, you shall have tribulation. You will be opposed. You will have to fight in your mind. But he tells his own people, but be of good cheer. I have overcome this world. I've overcome this world's power to overcome you.

There's a point where God says to every weapon of hell that is formed against you, be quiet. Let my son, let my daughter regain their strength. Be quiet voices. Be still storms.

Be silent winds. I have redeemed this one. This girl, this man, this young person, this older person belongs to me. They're mine. I have sealed them in my father's hand and no body can take them out of my father's hand. I will never leave them. I will never forsake them. I have redeemed them by my blood. They have a righteousness that is not earned by their own works. It is given to them freely because they trusted in the sacrifice that I paid for their sins on Calvary. Oh, hallelujah. Be silent, oh islands.

Be silent coastlands and let my people renew their strength. Verse 16, David says, he sent from above. He took me. He drew me out of many waters. That's a type of many thoughts, many contrary streams. Remember Jesus said, whoever believes in me out of his inner parts will flow a river of living water. That's the promise of God. That's the life of God. That's the power of God. But from time to time, other waters will try to come in and other thoughts will try to wash away in a sense that which comes from God himself. And David said, I cried. He heard me and he took me out of these waters. He took me out. He took me out of this wrong thinking about God. This thinking that God doesn't see me, God doesn't care, or somehow he's found fault in me and no longer wants me because of my struggles.

It couldn't be farther from the truth. God, he died for you. He died for you. You don't die for somebody just to reject them when they struggle.

It would make them almost bipolar. He didn't do that. He died for you because he loves you with an everlasting love. He said through the prophet Isaiah, a nursing mother could forget her child. It's possible, but I can't forget you because I engraved you on the palms of my hands.

When those nails went through the hands of Jesus, your name was engraved there. He will never forget you. He will not forsake you.

Be silent, O coastlands. Let my people renew their strength. He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, in the day that I became aware of my weaknesses. They came after me.

They confronted me. And David would have been aware. He made a lot of mistakes. Even though he was in the lineage of Christ, it doesn't mean we don't make mistakes.

And he made some big ones in the course of his life. But God still called him a man after his own heart, after all he did and the struggles he made and the season where he himself lost confidence in the word of God and decided to take action to try to save himself and ended up in the wrong army on the wrong side of the battle. And yet God didn't forsake him. The Lord was my support. He brought me into a broad place. He delivered me because he delighted in me. It doesn't say he delivered me because I did right. It doesn't say he delivered me because I was on the right path. He delivered me because he delighted in me. He delivered me because somehow I have become the center of God's affection, a mystery that the angels desire to look into. You imagine from heaven's perspective what we look like. Everything in heaven operates in perfection.

All the created beings, they don't need to be redeemed. They fly all over the place. They've got six wings. They do miraculous things. They cry out, holy, holy, holy day and night. There's smoke in the temple.

The pillars of the door are moved. Everything moves in divine order. The only thing in the kingdom of God that is a mess is us. The angels look down and must wonder why is the center of God's affection on these created beings. But you see, we were created in the image of God. We were created for fellowship with God. I don't fully understand it, but all I can tell you is that God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son. God so loved us. God so wanted us to come home and be with him forever that he gave his only begotten son. And Paul the apostle says elsewhere, if God did not spare his son, how shall he not with him freely give us all things that we need?

It's a logical argument in Paul's mind. If God wouldn't withhold his son, what makes you think he'd withhold what you need right now from you? To give us the victory that he won for us, to bring us out of weakness. You know, sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, I'm just thankful for my own weaknesses.

You want to know why? Because it makes me appreciate God's strength. It makes me appreciate that this redemption is not mine.

It's his. I haven't earned it and I can never earn it. And I could never be perfect enough to say, well, I've earned the right to keep it. It was given by grace. It's sustained by grace. It's maintained by grace. It stays by grace. It finishes by grace. Oh God, when we stand before him one day, no wonder if we have such a thing as a crown, we'll throw it at his feet.

No wonder. I think it's going to be like a Frisbee toss when we get to the throne of God. We'll be taking our crowns off and throwing them at his feet and they'll just appear again because when he gives a gift, he doesn't take it back.

We'll throw it and it appears and we throw it and it appears. This is going to be awesome at the throne of God. I don't deserve this and it just appears again. No, I don't deserve this and it appears again because he's given us a righteousness. He's given us of himself. He's indwelt these frail flawed bodies. He actually indwells us.

Someday, the reality of that is going to hit home. In some of our lives, God indwells us. He indwells these physical bodies.

He could have stayed in heaven and kind of kept us at a distance and say, well, here's my word and I'll help you when you need help, but I just don't want to get too close to you. No, he indwells us. He indwells these physical, it's like we're the balloon, he's the helium, I put it that way. He's the one that causes us to rise above the circumstances around us and makes us more than we could ever be and lifts us into higher places than we can ever go.

That's a simple illustration, but it's like that. He's the life source. He's the one that changes us. Why would we ever buy the lie that he doesn't hear us? Somehow he's too big to think about. Oh, he's forgotten us when he remembers a hundred million billion stars by name. Knows exactly where they are, knows their orbit, knows the future, their past, their present. He calls them by name.

Why would he forget us? For you will light my lamp. Verse 28, David says, the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. By you I can run against a troop. And by my God, I can leap over a wall.

Hallelujah. In other words, I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me. The devil can send a thousand against me, but by the spirit of the God within me, I can run through them and overpower these things that come against me. No weapon fashioned against me will prosper. And every tongue that rises against me in judgment, I shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.

By my God, I can leap over a wall. All the barricades the devil tries to put in front of us to tell us this far, no farther. We just take that pole vault out of God's word and over we go one more time.

You talk about it at Olympics. As for God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord is proven and he's a shield to all who trust in him.

So let's go back to where we started then. Why do you say then, oh Jacob, God doesn't see me? Why do you say that? Where did you get that authority from? Where did you get the perspective from that somehow I'm just too small for God to see me? Why do you say that my way is hidden from God and my prayers are passed over, my just claim he calls it, but it means my prayers, my faith, the things that I believed that I could go to you for somehow have just passed your throne and you've not taken notice of them. Have you not known, have you not heard the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.

Then it goes on to his, that's his character, but then it goes on to what he does. He gives power to the weak and to those who have no might, he increases strength. Even youth shall faint and be weary and young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.

Listen to all the shalls here. Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, shall mount up with wings, shall run and not be weary, shall walk and not faint. And then he concludes by saying, keep silence before me, oh coastlands and let the people renew their strength. Let every voice that rises up against my people in judgment be silent because I have decreed says the Lord, they shall renew their strength. Hallelujah. Take heart. God has a plan for you that is so much bigger than anything you've ever thought for yourself. The origin and the fuel source of the plan is quite simple, but it's through you and me in our weakness that his mercy and glory are going to be displayed. Because you struggle, it doesn't change who he is.

He's still the same as he's always been. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

You shall, you can, you should, and you will stand up. We're going to suddenly realize who our God is and we're going to stand up and say, oh Jesus, thank you for your mercy. Thank you for your power. Thank you for this great salvation. He died for you 2000 years ago so that you could be free. He took the penalty of every wrong thing you've done, which the Bible calls sin upon himself so that you could be forgiven in simply believing that he took your place, took your punishment upon himself. That's how much he loves you, so that you can be forgiven.

If you believe that in your heart and you confess that with your mouth, the Bible says you will be saved. 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.