Returning to Divine Purpose

Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City to be afraid of the stock market suddenly one day collapses. I don't know how God is going to get our attention. But I can tell you God is going to get our attention. God will do what he has to do to get us back to divine purpose. Again, God will do it in his mercy welcome this to a call to the nation with Carter, in first Kings chapter 18 we read of a miraculous scene on Mount caramel in the land of Israel. The prophet Elisha told the king to summon all the people of Israel and all the prophets of bail to gather together on this holy spot. The people had to choose between male and the false God of provision and prosperity and Jehovah God shows them mercy. Despite the people turning away and forsaking. Let's join Carter with his message titled returning to divine purpose first Kings chapter 18 want to talk to about returning to divine purpose. Now this is a true historical's story. It happened exactly as the word of God says it happened when people read the story many people see it in different ways, but when I read it I see the mercy of God.

For I know in my heart that God is good and his mercy endures forever.

The heart of the law even is mercy in the Old Testament. Everything was leading to the mercy of God.

If you don't know that by now you have never fully understood God. God is a God of mercy.

He doesn't call us to come to the throne of his and pray when were strongly calls us actually in our weakness calls us when we know that there's nothing of our own strength good that could ever read about a victory whether it's a personal victory corporate victory victory that you need in your neighborhood, town, city, whatever it is, God knows that the calls to throne those of us who know that there is no plan of man that can never win this Victor. This is a spiritual victory and only he can win it.

The people at this time, through whom God had chosen to testify have himself and the earth Israel his people. This nation that he gathered by his mercy and he brought them from the distant place and he brought them together into a place of promise and he said this is going to be a place where my glory is going to be so exhibited through a people called by my name, that strangers will, in foreign nations, which they did in the early days of Solomon and they will come into the place where you worship. And they will have hard questions, but when they call out to me those questions will be answered but they will come because they see in you the glory of God. They see something in you and around you see in order.

They see a sense of divine purpose that can only come from God himself. It can't be procured by any amount of human effort forth. It could be in every other kingdom who put the effort into it would have, but they became divided. I personally believe that Solomon became bored with the things of God. I believe in my heart as I read and study his life that after 20+ years of faithfully attending the temple faithfully seen God do what God said he would do in the amount of with the creative mind. It was given him by God. He simply got bored with the things of God and begin to leave early, as it doesn't do other things.

His boredom with the things of God caused him to begin to do things that he regretted caused him to establish systems and places of worship. There were never prescribed by God. It brought a weakness into the nation and weakness into his own house. The father to son Ray. Hope all who was an arrogant young man not given the godly counsel given to impulsive moving in this wonderful nation that God had established and subsequently divided the nation between North and South. The larger portion was known as Israel was smaller portion was known as Judah larger portion was the north. The smaller was the South. This division open the floodgates in Israel. The larger part of with 10 tribes and it to a succession of godless leaders under whose guidance, false worship began to prosper.

Remember Jeroboam the first leader in this northern kingdom feared that the people would return to the temple and to that place where God said worship was supposed to be so to stop the people from doing that at both ends of the northern kingdom established places of worship, which really mirrored the gods of the societies around in the societies around them were completely different and focused on the people of God were supposed to be and he told the people. This is as far as you have to go. You don't have to go all the way to Jerusalem. You can stop here in Bethel and in Dan and you can worship at the altar said, I have made for you not remember that the purpose of worship and service to the true God was spoken to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 in verse three he said Abraham. Now Abraham being the father of faith.

The man through whose lineage God chose that the Savior Christ was eventually going to be born in and out of Christ.

Of course the church was going to be left in the earth, as a testimony of who God is. Just as Israel was left in the earth in that date is a testimony of God is or was to that generation. In Genesis chapter 12 verse three God said to Abraham in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

I'm going to multiply you on the dude sovereignly is going to be done by the spirit of God can be done any other way and I'm going to do something in you and what to do in use is going to cause you to be a blessing to many, many others all throughout the world known the northern part of Israel realism became the predominant form of religion and bill as it was an inversion of this blessing. In other words, it turned it around. The blessing was to be for others Bayless and turned it inward and became the theological focus became blessed me it the blessings for millions.

It's for my purposes for my agenda and it was a self focus worship that had to be maintained at all costs, even the cost of sacrificing their infant children. What a tragedy when you think that God's people could descendent so low that they could end up sacrificing their own sons and daughters throne babies as it was somehow thinking this is pleasing to God. But when our focus of worship is a people as a nation turns to self every form of self. There's no limit to where we will go to maintain that sense of self-worth. Even the sacrificing of our children.

Haley's Bible dictionary says the prophets of Baylon Ashtoreth Astro. There was this fictitious goddess wife with the official murderers of little children hard to imagine that this could happen to a nation, isn't it. It could have a succession of leaders took the nation into deeper forms of godlessness. What was supposed to be thousand God would turn to self bail was this son God. It was the Lord of the elements, the forces of nature, the God of basket and store. Another was a God of provision and prosperity in the people began to worship prosperity to begin to worship everything that could be given to them. They forgot Jehovah God, and they began to almost unthinkable. This could happen and that they started bringing the children in for human sacrifice thinking this is somehow part of legitimate worship, no history repeats itself. Folks, we have sacrificed 50 million children in this nation on the altar of self and convenience of history does repeat itself. We are now dysfunctional as a society were dysfunctional as a government word. This dysfunction is on every level, but this is a moment of mercy and the mercy of God. For this particular tragic situation begins with the famine God takes away the basket in the store. It takes away that which is captivated his own people. Don't forget that in every generation. It's all about his people always has been and always will be. And he takes away whatever captivates the hearts of his people, and I want you to remember its mercy. If it does this mercy and judgment would be letting the people just go along in this delusion and end up in hell let's judge thinking they're happy thinking their prosperous thinking everything is fine. Thinking there worship is accepted only to find out they been outside the kingdom of God.

The whole time.

No mercy.

Mercy takes away the sense of well-being when it doesn't have its origin in God and God sends a famine and you'll see that throughout scriptural history, famine, or mail call at the cutting off of the fuel source of error has often been God's method of bringing his people back to true spiritual worship and practice, the gospel of Luke chapter 15 Jesus himself told the story of a young man who took the inheritance of his father maybe found his father's house too restrictive.

I really don't know why but he asked for his inheritance. Jesus said he took the journey far away from the heart of his father into a land where he began to spend that which his father had given him once self consumption and on riotous living. Now do you think the father would get that son to come home.

The Scripture says, but when he had spent all their Rosa famine a severe famine actually in that land, and he began to be in want. A severe famine, God will do what he has to do to get us back to divine purpose. Again, God will do it in his mercy. So don't want you to be afraid. If you have to go through flood and fire and trial. I don't want you to be afraid of the stock market. Suddenly one day collapses don't want you to be afraid I don't know how God is going to get our attention.

But I can tell you God is going to get our attention, and I can tell you scripturally.

It will even literally shut the rain as he did in Elijah's day, they could've rightly just judged that northern kingdom for what they were doing. That really forsaken him.

But in his mercy he stopped the rain for 3 1/2 years. Don't forget Dale was the son God bail was the Lord of the forces of nature and of the elements. He was the one who provided basket installer. So if God wants to get his people away from a worship that is not true. How does he do it he simply proves this God to be false proves this God would be powerless prove that this God does not satisfy does not have the provision that the people need is not the source of happiness. There is no joy in everlasting peace to be found. There is simply turns off the ring and I want to remind you to an active mercy judgment would have been to let it keep raining that would have been judgment. This is mercy, and you have to understand this because we don't understand that were not going to fully comprehend the season, there were going to have to walk through the net effect is whole world may have to go through it together. I really don't know the scope of it. But I do know what God speaking to my heart throughout scriptural history. You see this famine over and over again and that's the famine that caused this prodigal son to consider his ways caused them to come to himself and head home and come back to his father and so do it because the people in Elijah's day to think about whether or not that what they were worshiping was real. Was it really reflective of God's purpose for them or was there power in that purpose.

In that worship to achieve the purpose of God for them in the earth and cause them to think otherwise.

They never would've come to the top of Mount Carmel.

There would've been no contest. Elijah agrees to his understanding was the only public voice left. We know there were others are not bent their knee to this God of prosperity. There were 7000 others, according to the word of God.

But Elijah was not aware of another public voice at this time in his life and ministry. And yet there were 450 false prophets willing delete the people into this false worship willing to literally body up to this false political system that was promoting deeper and darker godlessness in the nation constantly. There were no voices left apartment and are willing to stand up against it and say this is wrong what you're doing is wrong where you're going is wrong. You may think it's going to prosper you what is going to end in disaster.

It always has and always will end in disaster.

You cannot take evil and making God.

You cannot take good and save see when you Can't transgress the law of God without consequence folks. You can't is not possible to do it. God will not be mocked. Whatever Mason sows that nation will wreak God will not be mocked.

There's no way we can transgress the boundaries of God is said in proper order for this world to exist without paying a terrible price for God himself said don't you enter into the fields of the fatherless, don't you remove the right don't take away their boundaries for if you do I will arise and defend them in this nation. We have entered into the fields of the fatherless. Every child that we not killed in the womb when telling on in our schools that there is no God try to tell me we have been entered into the fields of the fatherless, and the society. The folks I know I do say this a lot and sometimes sometimes I wish I could have another message but I can apologize for what God's called me to do and sent me to do.

I don't know any other way but I want you to see the mercy in this sale at this God lets this religion run its course with its sincerity. It was sincere sincerity doesn't mean it's true. It was actively danced and ran around in the King James is even left on their altered when I didn't do it. They started cutting themselves to prove us and soon they were before God that they were willing to die for what they believed in, and when that didn't work in the began prophesying as if they is that the prophesying somehow is going to force God to move his hand and do what they say no one heard no one regarded no one was answering and then I see something in the Scriptures that is caused me to see this passage like of never seen it before. It's now the time of the evening they've had their goal for the whole of the morning. The whole of the heat of the day they had the time is now coming to the evening sacrifice is getting close to the end of the day go to be dark soon and Elijah said all the people come near to me on know how you feel about those four words but extending their on behalf of God and you and I knowing the circumstances people up and sacrificing the children they been worshiping taps they been listening to evil, and somehow thinking it was good they've strayed so far from God that it's tragic. Even looking at it from only historical perspective but yet God through that man that he had at that time says come close to come close to. In other words, I'm not going to reject you, O Jerusalem O Jerusalem, how many times of long together you along to draw you close to my heart I long to show you who I really am of him long to make you partakers of the victory that could be yours.

Come near to me and all the people came near to him and so he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down and he took 12 stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord to come saying Israel shall be your name. They took 12 stones and he started to show them their weakness came when you allowed yourself to become divided firstly separated from a true fervency for the things of God were divided from the heart of God and what your purpose really was in the earth, and then you became divided from each other on top of that, and so this was a broken down altar, no matter how fancy it was, or how much gold that they were putting on or how integrate the design might've been the Bible declares it to be an altar that was broken down because there was no unity.

I've always believed that unity is the folly of peace time and then with the stones in verse 32 first Kings chapter 18 he built an altar in the name of the Lord and made a trench around the altar large enough to hold to sales of seed and put the wood in order to cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood said filled for water pots with water and poured on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood they said do it a second time and then he said do it 1/3 time and to me it represents the fact that Christ was going to die he was going to go into the grave for three days at the evening sacrifice. It came to pass in verse 36 of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near the said Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and I'm your servant, and I've done all these things in your word here me oh Lord, hear me, that this people may know that you are the Lord God, and that you've turned their hearts back to you again the fire of the Lord fell. The Scripture says, consume the sacrifice and the wood in the stones in the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. It looked up another words it consumed everything that had the power to put out my light in your life. Everything that had the power to cause us not to live for him. God said, I will consume it. I will do. I will do it sovereignly. I will do it supernaturally and impossibility was swallowed up in victory. Bottom line, we need to be the church again.

Every one of us and I guess the question we have to ask her own heart is. Do people really matter enough that we're willing to do all we going to pursue a self focus, which of course has no real concern for its neighbor or its children or are we going to follow the one who went to the cross, that we might be here today suffered that we might have wholeness. Are we willing to be embraces of his compassion in his passion, and are people really worth it. Are they really worth it.

The cry of my heart is distal. God gives my life to turn others back to you again and let your Holy Spirit look at the water in the trench. The things that are around me, that make it would make it impossible if they're allowed to exist impossibility in my own character, the impossibility of of the lack even of ability to do the things you called me to do. I want you to join with me in this church to pray for the mightiest baptism of God's Holy Spirit we have ever known in our generation.

We need to be filled with the spirit of God. There's no way humanly. This can be done but when we are ready when we made that decision when we willing to come to an altar lift our hands is a God. I don't care how long it takes, but I'm staying in your presence. I'm going to keep pressing and I'm going to keep trying until you touch my life with the fire of your Holy Spirit until you burn out a meal God in your mercy, everything more.

That would drive me into weakness and falling short of where worship really is supposed to be. I'm not content just to be religious and not content just to come to the house once a week maybe even twice I'm not content while a generation around me.

Paris is God's gift to take me farther. You got to do more in my life. You've got to leave me you got to guide me. Got to do it. Only you can do. There is a holy discontent God will stir in your heart and in my heart so that we will want his presence because it is coming my friend. When the rain is going to stop and people will be coming to where you are. I guess the question is will you be able to say come near to me community.

Let me explain to you who God is. Let me tell you about how kind he is powerful he is a wonderful that will be the message so the altar call the Lord put on my heart is his justice of God use my life to turn others back to you again. Let your Holy Spirit, lift me, carry me. Take me, empower me and take away the impossibility that stands before me and everyone of you here today all of us. We all know what those impossibilities are. It's that area of your life is a God. If you don't touch this are never going to mount anything you don't touch this is will always impair my ability to represent you. You've got the common touch. This area of my life and you know what that is. You know exactly what it is but the cry of my heart. You realistically, we are about 8000 or so people in this church if we had to meds in the first hundred and 21 3000 in a day. If we had the fullness of what they had how many people in New York City. Do you think would come to Christ. How many people would be compelled to stand up in the subway and this I just got to tell you what God is done for me. How many people in the in the marketplace just couldn't stay quiet any longer. How many people in the college campuses would stand up with such an anointing.

It couldn't be denied. Words of wisdom can only come from God wisdom that cannot be countered because is born of God power. Thank you. Let that be the cry of your heart is my life Lord to turn others back to deliver me, God delivered me from the impossible places deliver me, God, and that which would prevent this 10th from being a place of people can come to find in Jesus name the message today has been brought to you by Carter Conlon from Times Square church. For more information log onto TSC.NYC that's TSC.NYC plan to be with us next week for a call to the nation with Carter,