This recording is provided by Times Square Church
in New York City.
You're welcome to make additional copies for free
distribution to friends.
All other unauthorized duplication or electronic transmission is
a violation of copyright and other applicable laws.
This recording cannot be posted on any website.
However, written permission to link to the Times
Square Church homepage may be requested by emailing
info at timessquarechurch.org.
Other recordings are available by calling 1-800
-488-0854 or by writing to Times Square
Church Tape Ministry, 1657 Broadway, New York, New
York, 10019.
Where have you taken Jesus?
John chapter 20, beginning at verse 11.
But Mary stood without at the sepulcher, weeping.
And as she wept, she stooped down and
looked into the sepulcher.
And she had two angels in white sitting,
the one at the head and the other
at the feet, where the body of Jesus
had lain.
And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest
thou?
She said unto them, Because they have taken
away my Lord, and I know not where
they have laid him.
And when she had thus said, she turned
herself back and saw Jesus standing and knew
not that it was Jesus.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou?
Whom seekest thou?
She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith
unto him, Sir, if thou hast borne him
hence, tell me where thou hast taken him,
and I will take him away.
Jesus saith unto her, Mary.
She turned herself and saith unto him, Rabboni,
which is to say, Master.
Now for this particular lady, Mary, who we
know from the scriptures to be Mary Magdalene,
it must have been like a whirlwind nightmare.
And sometimes a walk with God can even
seem like that from person to person.
Luke chapter 8, verses 2 tells us that
she had been set free from demonic oppression.
And when a group of other women began
following Jesus and ministering to him out of
the substance, whatever it is that she had,
whatever her earthly possessions had been, she had
now found a truth that had set her
free.
She was a wholehearted and devoted follower of
Jesus Christ.
But suddenly, after just a few years, she's
caught in a firestorm of misguided religious passion.
Now that can happen in every generation.
We get letters here in Times Square Church
of people who come to Christ.
And they're walking in a church that seems
to be feeding them.
They're touched with the power of God's presence.
And all of a sudden, some program comes
in.
And there's a tremendous passion, but there's such
a coldness that comes with it, such a
sense in the heart that this isn't God.
This direction we're moving in is not good.
And it can happen to anyone.
And it's happened to many who have been
in the professing charismatic Pentecostal churches in the
last two decades.
This firestorm of passion is removing the hope
of the Christ that she has known and
placing him somewhere out of her sight.
And quite often, it is animated by religious
men who hate the simplicity of Christ because
it offends their ambition.
The simplicity of Christ, he came to be
a servant to all.
He came not to be ministered to by
the words of his own mouth, but to
be a minister.
And there are so many who want to
profess to know Christ, but yet they want
to be lords over God's heritage.
And just even that factor alone can obscure
Jesus from the view of his people.
They're looking to the ministry as a type
and shadow of Jesus Christ, but what they
see does not reflect him.
And the ambition that is found in the
heart puts him out of the sight of
the people.
The selflessness of Christ exposes their greed, and
his life magnifies the power of death that's
still residing in them.
And every time you have a ministry that
rises, that is moving in the flesh and
moving by its own ambition, there will unwittingly
begin to put away from the people this
visible manifestation of Jesus Christ that so touches
and warms the hearts of those who are
hungry for him.
They say in their hearts, John 11, 48,
If we let him thus alone, all men
will believe on him, and the Romans shall
come and take away both our place and
our nation.
And by their very statement, they reveal that
the intent of their ministry is position and
kingdom.
They want a position and a kingdom.
And they say, but if people start looking
at Jesus, they'll stop looking at us.
And if they stop looking at us, then
we'll lose our esteem as it is in
their sight.
We'll lose the high seats at every banquet.
We'll lose the greetings in the marketplace.
We'll lose the finances that so freely flows
from their hands into ours.
We'll lose our place, and we'll lose our
kingdom.
And so they went, and they stood on
Calvary.
All these religious, misguided religious passion as it
is.
And they mocked the cross and the blood.
And we see it today, even in the
non-charismatic churches, where there are churches rising
in our generation that are saying, we don't
preach the cross here.
We don't talk about the blood here.
Because these things are an offense.
They don't even understand they're of the same
spirit as these men were.
Where Christ is hanging on the cross, and
they're mocking everything about the cross and everything
about the blood.
This very life, love as it is of
God, that is dripping out of the veins
and feet of Jesus Christ for fallen humanity.
They have no understanding of it.
It is a disgrace to them.
It's an offense to them.
And so they succeeded as it is in
killing Him, so they thought, and removing Him
out of the people's sight.
And they went and made the sepulchre sure,
and they set a stone.
They sealed the stone, rather, and they set
a watch.
Every generation has its ministry whose intent is
to promote itself and obscure Christ.
And we have no shortage of that now.
As they increase, the land becomes increasingly barren
under their leadership.
As in the days of Ezekiel, when the
ministry rose that caused the people to be
worshipping at wrong altars, God Himself said, I
cannot endure this anymore.
And He said, I'm going to come down,
I'm going to defile these abominable altars, and
I'm going to take the bones of those
who worship around them and scatter them around
the altars.
You'll find that in Ezekiel chapter 6.
You see, later on in Ezekiel 37, when
God says to Ezekiel, can these bones live?
He's speaking about these bones that have been
scattered around these false altars.
In Ezekiel 6.14, God says, I'll stretch
My hand upon them and make the land
desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness.
We have more Christian preaching on television and
radio than we have had in the history
of America.
Or the western world.
You can go to television stations now, uniquely
set aside for what's supposed to be the
preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
You can turn on radio, you can go
to Christian bookstores, you can buy tapes all
over the place, yet the land is getting
increasingly desolate.
We see this spiraling out of control immorality,
touching every level of society, every level of
the media.
The Christ mockers now are on the airways
with no apology whatsoever.
There is absolutely nothing they won't say.
And you see, beloved, because the nation is
under a ministry that is largely obscuring Jesus
Christ.
Men are standing and they have other agendas.
They are selfish, they are out of touch
with God.
They have lost an understanding of the very
principles of the gospel and doctrines of Jesus
Christ.
They are building on another foundation.
And so as they preach and as they
increase and as they mesmerize one another and
as they encourage one another and gather people
to themselves, the land becomes increasingly desolate.
Before the justice of God ever hit a
nation in the Old Testament, speaking of Israel
of course, you'll always find a rise of
religious frenzy.
You'll always find 400 or 450 prophets pushing
into the inner court of government and parliament
and position and power and authority because that's
where their gospel is.
That's what they want, that's what they're after.
They're pushing into it.
They'll tell the people everything they want to
hear, just so that they themselves, their place
in their nation will remain intact.
In Luke 22, 53, the scripture says when
they came to arrest Jesus in the garden,
He said to them, this is your hour
and the power of darkness.
In other words, this is your time, this
is given into your hand by God the
Father.
This is your reign and here is the
effect of your reign.
If this religious falseness were loosed, here is
in effect what the end result would be.
Luke 23, 44 says it was about the
sixth hour and there was darkness over all
the earth until the ninth hour.
And the sun was darkened.
Now it's an amazing type as it is.
You read everything you want to read about
it and there are many opinions on this.
And certainly some of them have some validity.
But I see in this passage of scripture,
this is the reign of darkness.
When a religious zeal without knowledge is guiding
the heart, this is what happens to the
human heart.
There is no life.
It's exactly as creation before God's word breathed
into this empty void that was called earth
and the space that surrounded it in the
galaxy.
Until God spoke, it was just empty and
dull.
And that's exactly what happens to people when
they're under a ministry that is zealously religious
but fundamentally wrong in the theology about Jesus
Christ and in their principle and practice of
the word of God.
But even in the midst of this darkness,
God always has a plan.
He had a plan that he formed before
the world was ever fashioned.
And nobody can stop his plan.
That's why God says, never give up.
Never give up because it's not about you.
I have a plan.
I formed it before the world was formed.
And I invited you into it.
That's why you don't have to give up
because I formed this plan in my heart
and nothing can stop what I'm about to
do.
And you can see, perhaps if I could
take us into a theater of the imagination
for a moment, you can see the powers
of hell dancing around the cross.
They have this religious crowd worked into a
frenzy as they are crucifying the Lord of
glory.
You can see all of the celebration and
the supposed victory and this veil of darkness
that comes with this misguided zeal as they
see it for God.
Bringing this veil of darkness over the people.
But you see, God always has a plan.
I believe it's a darkness probably thicker and
darker than any darkness perhaps they had ever
known.
A very fearful darkness had come on the
earth at this particular time because the scripture
says that the sun was darkened.
God literally turned the sun out.
It lasted for three hours.
There is no way, as I read it
yesterday, there's no way throughout any history that
an eclipse of the sun could ever last
that long.
Or completely block out the sun.
It was a sovereign act of God.
He turned the sun out.
Perhaps he put his hand in front of
it.
I don't know how he did it.
He just simply blocked it out.
But in the midst of this darkness, verse
45 in Luke 23 says the veil was
rent.
The veil of the temple was rent in
two.
In the midst of all this darkness, God
says, yes, hell seems to be prospering.
Yes, the land is getting increasingly desolate.
But I have a plan and I'm going
to reveal myself to all who seek me.
Now, he didn't do it by stealth.
But it's as if he just, in the
midst of all this darkness, just slipped out
from behind the curtain.
God, who was separated from man from the
days of Moses, building the tabernacle.
God, who is so holy that if the
high priest went in and he was in
any way defiled, would die right on the
spot.
They would put bells on his feet and
a rope around his ankle.
So that if the bells stopped ringing, they
knew he had died in the presence of
God.
And they would just haul him out of
the holy of holies.
And this same God, who is so holy
that no flesh can approach him and survive,
slips out, as it is, from behind the
veil and says, I have a plan.
I'm going to now be revealed to everyone
who's seeking me.
They're going to find me.
And it's a plan that the religious are
not going to see it.
It's a stealth plan, in a sense.
Because it's not obvious.
Yes, one day he comes back with horses
and he comes back with thousands and ten
thousands of his saints and trumpets and fanfare
and the whole world, it says, will see
his return.
But till that day, he says, no, I'm
coming to a people.
But I'm coming in such a non-obvious
way that those who are religious and zealous
and misguided, those whose hearts are not in
line with mine, are not going to be
able to see it.
They will not understand it.
Can you see the religious leaders of the
day dusting off their hands, satisfied that their
misrepresentations or accusations of Christ have left the
people sufficiently bewildered enough to fall back under
their control?
As they stood there and said, he saved
others.
And himself he cannot save.
If you're the Christ, come down off the
cross.
Even the thief, one of the thieves said,
if you're the Christ, save yourself and us.
And as they walk away, seemingly satisfied, can
you see them turning to teach the people
now and telling the people, now let us
tell you who God is.
Now, David, in Psalm 12, he knew this
dark time, even in his generation.
I'll read it to you, unless you want
to turn there.
Psalm 12, that's where David says in verse
one, he says, help, Lord, for the godly
man seizes.
The faithful fail from among the children of
men.
David knew this time.
He said, oh, God, help us.
Where are the godly men in this generation?
He is himself a godly man, a seeker
of God.
But he's looking around and seeing perhaps at
this point so little of what really represents
the heart of God.
He says in verse two, they speak vanity,
everyone with his neighbor.
With flattering lips and a double heart do
they speak.
They speak things to people that are of
no profit to them.
They tell people what they want to hear
for their own advantage, as it is.
The Lord, he said in verse three, shall
cut off all flattering lips and the tongue
that speaketh proud things.
Who have said with our tongue, will we
prevail, and our lips are our own.
Who is Lord over us?
Verse five says, for the oppression of the
poor, for the sighing of the needy.
Now will I arise, saith the Lord, and
I will set him at safety from him
that puffeth at him.
Now I want you to listen to this
because I believe that I'm speaking this prophetically
to our generation.
He says, for the oppression of the poor
and for the sighing of the needy.
I'm going to arise, saith the Lord, and
I'm going to set him at safety from
him that puffeth at him.
And the word puffeth in the Hebrew text
means to scoff, to utter lies, to incite
sedition.
To encourage a person to abandon or rebel
against God.
To become cool in the evening as when
the heat departs.
And what the Lord is saying, there are
people out there who are still seeking me.
They are still looking for me.
They still want me.
And I'm going to set them at safety
from the people around them who speak coldness
into their hearts.
Who speak about me, but there's no warmth.
When they open their mouths and they open
this book, they speak a cold breeze like
at the end of the day when the
sun is gone.
And the people leave and there's no passion,
there's no life in the heart of the
people.
They don't go out and want to serve
God.
They wonder why they even keep going to
the house of the Lord.
And many of them become meat now for
every beast of the field, as the scripture
says.
Anything that looks like it's got life, they're
so desperate for life, that anything that looks
like it's alive, they will gravitate to it
now.
Even, sadly in many cases, if it's deception.
And I can see many returning to listen
to them, but not Mary.
Many going back to the Pharisees and the
Sadducees and say, well, tell us now who
God is.
Obviously, this wasn't God.
Tell us now who God is.
But Mary didn't go back.
You see, she had been touched by the
power of his life.
And Mary had more longing for what she
supposed was a dead Jesus, than for a
religious system that had left her under demonic
oppression.
It's amazing, folks.
When you've been touched by the life of
Christ, nothing else will ever satisfy you.
I might be speaking over the internet now
to people who listen to these tapes every
week.
And you know exactly what I'm talking about.
You were touched by the life of Christ.
Your heart burned like the men on the
road to Emmaus with a passion for Almighty
God.
But you ended up somewhere in a cold
place.
And now it's all systems and theories about
God.
It's all man-made ideas about how to
build a kingdom that you can't even see.
And the longer you are there, the colder
your heart is becoming.
But there's a longing in you now, because
you've been touched by the life of Jesus
Christ.
And once you've tasted and know that the
Lord is good, nothing else will ever satisfy
you.
And there's a cry.
Remember, the Lord says, for those who rise
up and are thirsty, for those who cry
out to me, I'm going to arise and
I'm going to reveal myself to you again.
John 20 again, verse 11.
The scripture says, Mary stood without at the
sepulcher, weeping.
And as she wept, she stooped down and
looked into the sepulcher.
Now, Peter and John have already been there.
They've already confirmed the fact that Jesus' body
is not there anymore.
And they've gone home.
They've looked into the history as it is
and said, yeah, that's right.
He's no longer there.
And they've gone home, but she was not
willing to leave.
And verse 12 says, she saw two angels
in white sitting, the one at the head
and the other at the feet, where the
body of Jesus had lain.
And the interesting thing about Mary is she's
not even interested in angels.
Some people settle for angels.
They settle for angels of light even.
They settle for anybody who looks like they
have life.
Or looks like there's some measure of God's
radiance about them.
But you see, it's not an angel who
had touched her life.
And even Paul the Apostle himself said, if
an angel from God preached any other gospel,
let him be accursed.
She saw two angels, but she's not interested.
All she wanted to know was, where is
Jesus?
Where have you put him?
And they said to her woman, verse 13,
why weepest thou?
She said to them, because they have taken
away my Lord, and I know not where
they have laid him.
And when she had thus said, she turned
herself back and saw Jesus standing and knew
not that it was Jesus.
Remember what the Word of God says in
Psalm 12, verse 5, For the oppression of
the poor, for the sighing of the needy,
now will I arise, saith the Lord.
She turned back and saw Jesus standing, but
she didn't know it was him.
In verse 15, Jesus said to her woman,
why weepest thou?
And whom seekest thou?
And she, supposing him to be the gardener,
said unto him, sir, if thou have borne
him hence, tell me where thou hast laid
him, and I will take him away.
She supposed him to be an ordinary person,
until in verse 16, Jesus said unto her,
marry.
Now this is an incredible thing.
I want you to just follow me in
this thought.
She thought he was just an ordinary person.
She turned after he was raised from the
dead.
She looks at a man.
He looks like a gardener.
I don't know what gardeners look like.
Maybe they're a little smudgy in their clothes.
Who knows?
Maybe he had a rake in his...
I don't know.
But he looked like the gardener.
Like the man who just comes in and
takes care of the whole garden area that
surrounded this tomb.
And it wasn't really just so much when
he spoke to her, because initially, he asked
her why she was weeping and who was
she looking for.
She looked at this ordinary man.
Until he spoke her name.
You see, nobody can speak your name like
God.
Nobody.
You see, many, many people will speak your
name, but nobody speaks it the way that
Jesus can.
You see, when Jesus speaks your name, he
speaks it as a creator.
Just like he said, let the world, let
there be light.
And light was.
He said, let there be John.
Let there be Grace.
Let there be Alice.
Let there be Mary.
You were not born by fluke or happenstance.
God determined in his heart for you to
be born.
And he spoke your name before you were
born.
He knew you before you were formed in
your mother's womb.
He spoke your name.
He wanted you from before the foundation of
the earth.
And when he spoke your name, it's because
he wanted you for fellowship with himself for
all of eternity.
He said, you are born to be mine.
You are born to be my beloved bride.
He spoke your name as a bridegroom.
And those who have been married or have
ever been in love, you know that nobody
can speak your name like the bridegroom.
Your mother can't speak it that way.
Your brother can't speak it that way.
Nobody can speak your name like the bridegroom
can.
There's such a tenderness.
There's such a love.
There's such a care.
There's such an authority that all he had
to do was say her name and she
knew it was Jesus.
Nobody ever said my name like this.
She was a disadvantaged person in society.
She had been oppressed of the devil.
We don't know what her life was like,
but some commentators don't seem to think it
was a very pretty situation.
But one day, God Almighty in the flesh
came along and he spoke her name.
And when he spoke her name, it was
spoken like nobody else had ever spoken it
before.
And it's as if it was branded in
her heart, God spoke my name.
Have you ever heard God speak your name?
Have you ever heard him call you?
Have you heard him tenderly speak your name
in the prayer closet?
Have you ever understood the compassion that God
has in his heart for you?
The care, the authority to fight against all
of your enemies.
The desire to cover you with his presence
not only in time, but for all of
eternity.
Have you understood that he's going to take
you as a jewel in his crown and
parade you before the galaxies for eternity as
his beloved bride?
Nobody speaks your name like Jesus speaks your
name.
And so Jesus takes on a form after
he's risen from the dead.
Now follow me carefully here.
And he speaks through a person who looks
like a gardener.
That's incredible.
Stop and think about it.
He could have very clearly stood there in
his majesty and there could have been no
doubt.
He could have had fire coming from his
feet, six feet on every side.
Could have done anything he wants.
He's God.
But he appears to Mary looking like an
ordinary person, a gardener.
That's what perplexed Isaiah.
When Isaiah wrote these words, he said, Who
has believed our report?
To whom has the arm of the Lord
revealed?
Isaiah said, God, this is incredible.
Here you are sending me with a message
of this incredible strength that you have for
a generation of people who will believe in
you.
But you are revealing yourself in a way,
who's ever going to believe it?
Who's ever going to know your strength?
You're not showing yourself in a way that
the world wants to see you.
They want to see a conquering king and
you're coming as a suffering savior.
They want to rule, but you're coming as
a servant.
You're doing everything backwards.
You're doing it differently than the world does
it.
So those whose hearts are not in line
with God are looking in all the wrong
places.
And they're looking for the superstars in the
church today.
They're looking for the great wonders and signs
and these great men and women of God.
And they're missing it.
Isaiah said, he will grow up before him
as a tender plant and as a root
at a dry ground.
In other words, you're not coming with this
sense of incredible strength.
You're not coming with majesty that causes men
to stop and bow right on the spot.
He says, he has no form or comeliness.
And when we shall see him, there's no
beauty that we should desire him.
He looks like a gardener.
Amazing, the risen son of God looks like
a gardener in this passage of scripture.
You see, but what she was really looking
at was the form of an ordinary earthly
body which contained within it the risen and
living son of God.
He had chosen at this moment to take
on this form, to look like this.
What was he trying to say?
You see, the majesty, when he came out
of the veil, the revelation, how he was
going to show himself to this world was
through an ordinary body.
An ordinary people like you and me.
Not gifted, not talented, not educated, not handsome,
not pretty, not necessarily anything more than a
gardener.
But we have God living inside of us.
That's how he chose to reveal himself.
He could come down through the clouds this
very moment to New York City.
He could send lightning bolts into everything that
displeases him.
He could speak a word and either cause
to live or die the whole surrounding area.
He could reveal himself any way he wants.
But God being God made a choice to
have a body, an ordinary body like you
and me.
Ordinary people.
And he said, here's my plan.
I'm going to die for their sin, then
I'm going to come and live in them.
And I'm going to so change them that...
I'm getting ahead of myself here, just hang
on.
You see, you ask me the question, how
does this affect me?
You've got to catch this.
The people at your workplace think you're just
an ordinary clerk.
Or an ordinary salesperson.
An ordinary cleaner.
An ordinary janitor.
An ordinary single mom living in an apartment
building.
But within you is the same spirit that
raised Jesus from the dead.
When you've come to Christ, God in the
form of the Holy Spirit has come into
your life.
Like helium into a balloon, for lack of
a better example.
And has given you the power to rise
above your old nature.
He's given you the power to be more
than you are.
To go higher than you could go.
He's given you more intelligence than you could
ever possess.
He's given you a greater heart of love
than anything in this world could ever impart
to you.
He says, I love you.
I've cleansed you.
Now I'm going to change you.
From image to image and glory to glory.
By my spirit within you, you're going to
change.
You're going to know victory.
And people, you go to work and people
think you're just an ordinary clerk.
But you've got to have that sense of
the supernatural in your heart as a church.
I'm not just an ordinary person.
I have God living inside of me.
Not just an ordinary fireman.
Not just an ordinary policeman.
Not just an ordinary housewife.
Not just an ordinary street cleaner.
Not just an ordinary store clerk.
I have the spirit of God in me.
I'm the temple of the living God.
God almighty.
No longer lives in buildings made with hands.
No longer dwells behind curtains.
Let the religious mock him.
Let them try to figure him out.
Let them scheme how to build his kingdom.
I have God living inside of me.
And you see, the same spirit that raised
Jesus Christ from the dead, through you, if
you can catch this, through you, through me,
Jesus calls out the names of those who
are sighing and crying for him.
Mary.
He puts something in your heart that can
only come from him.
You begin to speak to those that are
lost and searching for him.
God begins to move you by his spirit.
I've sat in a restaurant with a man
recently and he just wept.
We talked together and this man was not
a Christian.
And he was weeping and he kept saying
to me, What am I hearing from you?
What am I seeing?
Why am I feeling this way?
He was very embarrassed that he had begun
to weep in a restaurant.
He began to weep openly.
I said, You are feeling from me the
love of God for you.
That's what you're feeling.
And he could not shake it.
God using an earthly vessel to call his
name.
You have to understand this.
You see, if you don't understand this, you're
always going to live at the level of
the four spiritual laws.
You're always going to live at the level
of evangelizing people as just somehow getting your
foot in, like a skipper playing a skipping
game, just trying to get in the conversation
and throw in a few scriptures and hope
that somebody bites.
It's much deeper.
You're not sent out by the Holy Spirit
to do this alone.
God is inside of you.
He is the one who died for them.
Not you, not me.
He died for them.
We're only human vessels.
We walk into a situation and if our
minds are fixed on the things that are
above, if our hearts are in tune with
the ways and the will of God, if
we're not given to secret ambitions, if we're
not doing what we do because of inward
lust, if we're not being led by the
natural man, if the Spirit of God is
leading us, he begins to speak.
The scripture says, he says, this is the
way, walk in it.
Do this.
Stay away from that.
Speak to this person.
And it doesn't have to be a barrage
of information to lead a soul to Christ.
Sometimes you just have to speak their name.
That's how he chooses to reveal himself.
It's amazing.
If you could sit down beside somebody and
say, what is your name?
Oh, your name is Sam.
Sam, I see you're having a hard time.
But God loves you.
And he's calling you.
We're just ordinary people.
Jesus never, after the cross, appeared in recognizable
form.
If you study your Bible, you're going to
see that.
Even in John 21, they didn't know.
They saw.
He told them to throw the net on
the other side of the boat.
They gathered in a huge multitude of fish.
John says, it's the Lord.
Peter jumps in.
They're sitting there.
He doesn't look like Jesus.
Every time he appears, he's got a different
form.
And he's trying to make a statement, trying
to help them to understand.
They're all looking for a kingdom with a
powerful king to come in deep in their
hearts.
They're still waiting.
They thought Jesus is going to die.
He's going to go back and he's going
to come back.
And it's all going to happen in just
a month or so.
But he's trying to tell them, no, I'm
going to be revealed from now till the
day I come back to the earth.
And I'm going to be revealed in this
manner.
When the men walked on the road to
Emmaus, the Scripture says clearly that Jesus came
up and walked beside them.
But they didn't recognize him.
And he opened the Scriptures.
And starting at Moses.
And through all the prophets began to expound
everything concerning himself.
And then, of course, it says when they
invited him in and broke bread, their eyes
were opened.
Not necessarily that they saw anything physical.
But they knew it was him.
Their eyes were opened.
And they said to each other, did not
our hearts burn while he walked with us
by the way?
You see, that's the difference.
When God is speaking, it ignites something in
the heart.
It causes a deep inner burning.
There's something happens to you and me that
says, oh, Jesus, you are the source of
my life.
You're the source of my strength.
You're my hope for the future.
God, I yield myself to you, Lord.
How could I lose by yielding my life
to you?
I yield it, oh God.
There's this burning in the heart that says,
Lord, come with me.
I trust that you're going to guide me.
You're going to keep me.
You're going to use my life for your
glory.
Where Christ is, you will always find this
passion.
You will always find your heart stirred when
you are hearing from the Lord.
When it's his voice.
When people look at our lives, what do
they say?
That's an interesting question.
Do they say, where have you taken Jesus?
Or look where Jesus has taken you.
Where have you taken Jesus?
That's a good question.
That's the question Mary had to the angels
and to the gardener that she thought was
a gardener.
Where have you taken Jesus?
What an indictment.
What an indictment to have my children ever
one day look at me and in their
hearts say, where have you taken Jesus?
I've heard so much about him.
But where did you put him?
I don't seem to see him.
Where have you laid him?
The whole churches, whole churches will stand before
God one day.
You have to answer this question.
Where did you put Jesus?
The church of Laodicea, just hardly a generation
as it is from the cross, finds Jesus
Christ outside the door trying to get in.
They're all rich.
They're increased with goods.
And in their hearts, they say, we have
need of nothing.
We're rich.
We're prosperous.
God has been so good to us.
They sing their songs.
But Jesus is outside the church trying to
get in to his own house.
Where have you taken Jesus?
Isaiah chapter 60.
I'll close with this.
This is a prophecy about Christ, about Christ's
work, his church.
And, of course, twofold also about the nation
of Israel one day when the glory of
God comes to the Jewish people.
He says, Arise, shine, verse one, for the
light has come.
And the glory of the Lord has risen
upon thee.
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth and
gross darkness the people.
But the Lord shall arise upon thee and
his glory shall be seen upon thee.
And the Gentiles shall come to thy light
and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
Lift up thine eyes round about and see.
All they gather themselves together.
They come to thee.
Thy sons shall come from far and thy
daughters shall be nursed at thy side.
Then thou shalt see and flow together.
Thine heart shall fear and be enlarged because
the abundance of the sea shall be converted
unto thee.
The forces of the Gentiles shall come unto
thee.
The Lord says there's a time coming of
gross darkness.
Very similar to the darkness that we spoke
about earlier that happened when Christ was crucified
on Calvary.
And it's going to cover all the people.
And so many are going to be saying,
Oh, God, where is hope?
Is there hope in our generation?
But the Scripture says here's the hope.
The Lord will arise upon thee and his
glory shall be seen upon thee.
I believe with all my heart that I
am part of an end time victorious, glorious
church.
It's a church of every race, every nation.
It's a church of every culture, every color,
every language, every country.
All throughout every continent, throughout the entire world.
It's a body of believers who have found
Jesus Christ.
They understand.
They have a revelation in their heart of
who Christ is.
They've opened their hearts to his truth and
invited him in.
And he has arisen upon them and his
glory is revealed through them.
They are speaking for him.
And he is speaking through them to their
generation.
I want to be part of this end
time victorious Christ honoring church.
Paul says in Ephesians, we must put off
concerning the former conversation, the old man, which
is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and
put on the new man which after God
is created in righteousness and true holiness.
If you want to be part of the
church that Jesus Christ is building, if it's
your heart's desire to be a voice to
this generation, that Christ can call people to
himself through your life.
Scripture says clearly you must, of course this
is done by faith alone, but you must
put off the old nature.
You cannot intermix the two.
Jesus said when he comes into the house,
he will bind the strong man and take
over his goods.
He doesn't come into your life in the
power of the Holy Ghost to share the
temple with a corrupt nature.
He comes to overpower it and to give
you a new nature.
And to create a new man which after
God is created in righteousness, that means right
standing with God and true holiness.
Yes, it's an ongoing work.
It's a work that, but the true man
or woman of God can honestly say, Lord,
I'm not what I should be, but I'm
changing.
I am changing every day into the image
and glory of my Savior.
The heart begins to change.
The values change.
The thinking changes.
And we find ourselves being able to call
a generation to God.
How do I account, folks, for being a
policeman for 12 years?
I had a heart as cold as stone.
I'd go to shootings.
I'd go to accident scenes.
And I've told you before I'd put chalk
lines around bodies in the highway, help pick
them up, put them in the ambulance and
go and eat my lunch.
And it wouldn't even bother me.
I was just stone cold dead in my
heart.
How do you account for that same man
standing in Africa, broken hearted, calling home the
lame, the poor, the blind, the maimed into
the kingdom of God?
How do you account for Muslims hearing God
calling their name and yielding up a lifetime
or generations even of religious deception to come
to the one true living God?
I had a Muslim write to me from
Africa, and he said when I heard I
was compelled to lay down a religious system
where God cannot be found, I was compelled
to embrace one where the true Savior of
the universe has been revealed.
He said I am now a loyal follower
of Jesus Christ.
Pray for me.
How do you account for the difference?
The difference is God working through earthly vessels.
He doesn't have in this generation a few
supermen and superwomen anymore as it happened in
the Old Testament.
It's what the prophet Joel said.
Yes, it's a select few in times past
when Israel was under the law and previously
to that.
But now it's to all flesh.
When the veil was rent, Jesus came to
every man, every ordinary woman, every ordinary student,
every ordinary young person who wants to be
the temple of the living God.
And He says I will live in you.
I will change you.
I will overpower your enemies.
I will make you into a new person.
I will give you victory over the powers
of darkness.
And I will begin to speak through you
to your generation.
I will put within you everything you need.
And your testimony will simply be this.
I know my Redeemer lives.
I know He's alive because He lives in
me.
You'll not be presenting to your generation or
your family some theological argument about Christ or
some scheme to build His kingdom.
You'll be presenting the living Christ who lives
within you, flows through you, calls through you,
touches through you, walks through you, sees through
you.
Christ in me, Paul says, the hope of
glory.
Hallelujah.
Don't settle for anything less.
Don't settle for religion.
Don't settle for knowledge just about God.
Don't settle for anything but His life in
you.
And don't let the thought that you're just
ordinary stop you from what God has for
your life.
So many people are stopped.
And that's always the story, well, I'm just
ordinary.
Jesus put it to rest in the garden.
He said, this is the type of man,
the type of woman that I manifest my
glory through and I call people who are
looking for me through.
Ordinary people.
Hallelujah.
The ground is so level, it's amazing.
That's why Isaiah said, the lame take the
prey.
Hallelujah.
With all my heart, I want to be
part in my generation of an end-time
Christ-honoring victorious church.
I want to know this.
Everything that I've preached, I want to know
it in its fullness.
I don't want to get to heaven and
have God say, well, Carter, you attained 85
% of what I had for you.
I want it all.
It's my inheritance.
It's Christ.
I want all He's got for me now.
I don't want to stop short of what
God has for me.
I want it all.
Whatever He is destined in my life to
be, that's what I desire it should be.
If you're lost in sin this morning, this
life you're hearing about, even if you don't
fully understand it, is attained by being born
again by the Spirit of God.
Jesus died on the cross for your sin.
And when He died, He made a way
that you can be forgiven and that God
can come and live with you again and
accept you as His own.
And it's not just that your name is
written in the cosmos in a book somewhere,
but God Himself says, I know, I'll come
and live in you.
That's who the Holy Spirit is, the third
person of God.
And He says, when you receive Christ as
your Savior, I will come and live in
you.
And you will become a new creation.
I spent quite a long time in 1978
looking for God.
It was a long journey.
Went all through Europe.
Stopped, had a Eurail pass, and my wife
and I, we stopped in every town through
Europe, all the way from France to Greece.
When we would stop, we would visit all
types of buildings that are religious buildings.
It doesn't matter what denomination they were.
And I was like this sighing Mary.
Although my life had not been touched by
God at this point, I wanted it to
be.
And I knew that He was the only
one who could satisfy this deep inner longing
in me.
But everywhere I went, the question was in
my heart, where have you put Jesus?
Where is Jesus in all of this?
I knew that it was Jesus I needed,
but I couldn't find Him.
I found a lot of gold, a lot
of glitter, a lot of smoke, a lot
of religion.
But I never found Jesus.
And I remember coming back from Europe after
six weeks of searching so utterly disappointed to
have a policeman come and knock on my
door who looked like just an ordinary guy.
But there was something about the way he
spoke to me that so stirred my heart.
There was something about the fact that he
cared for me even when I was rude
to him.
Never got ruffled.
There was a compassion in him for my
soul that is so far beyond human ability.
It stirred me to the very depths of
my soul.
An ordinary man.
I've been in all these big buildings and
seen all the smoke and the fluff that
goes with religion and couldn't find Jesus.
But an ordinary man came to my door,
thank God.
And I found Jesus.
I found where He lived.
I found how I could know Him.
I saw Him, I heard Him.
He spoke to me through an ordinary man.
And so stirred my heart that I began
to read the Bible and He opened my
eyes to an understanding of the Scripture and
I invited Him into my heart.
And now He speaks through me.
That's the miracle of the gospel.
It's the miracle of the church of Jesus
Christ.
Ordinary people.
Touched by an extraordinary God.
Hallelujah.
Father, God, You are speaking to us.
You are speaking to us about being an
end-time victorious church.
You are speaking to us about something that's
in Your heart that You want to do
in New York City through this body and
through Christians around the world who can hear
Your voice.
You are longing, Jesus, to be revealed.
You are longing to speak.
You hear the sighs and the cries.
God, You know the shopkeepers, the school children,
the college kids.
You know them, Jesus.
You know the ones who are searching for
You.
You know the ones that are visiting empty
buildings where You can't be found.
You know them, oh God.
You see the teenagers without hope, walking home
day in and day out, not having a
future.
God, You know.
You want to speak to them.
And You've chosen to speak to them through
Your church.
Oh Jesus, oh Jesus.
We ask You, God, that we might be
found where they are.
That we might be found standing in the
power of our God.
Oh God, we ask You for the grace
that our mouths might be opened.
Lord, that we would have words of knowledge
and wisdom flow through us.
That healing might come from our hands, oh
God.
Lord, that we can be Your body in
New York City in this last hour of
time.
Oh Jesus, I pray, God, that You open
our eyes to see who You are.
I pray You give us an understanding of
why we are a church.
What it means to be part of the
body of this living Savior.
Oh God, I thank You from the depths
of my heart for the knowledge that You
delight in using ordinary people like me.
God, I delight in it.
I thank You for it, oh God.
Oh God, enlarge my heart.
Enlarge my heart, oh God.
Enlarge my mind.
Enlarge my spirit, oh God.
Help me, Jesus, to know what it is
that You're doing in me and through me.
Help me to cooperate with You, to walk
with You, oh God.
Make me willing, Lord, to be a vessel
that can do good for people who are
searching for You in my generation.
My God, I pray in my life, You
put out of me everything that offends You,
God.
Any area of ambition, any pride, anything in
me, God, that offends You, that obscures You,
Jesus.
Oh God, take it out of me.
Take it out of my mind and heart.
Take it out of my body, oh God.
I want to be released to You and
to You alone.
I want to serve You and You alone,
oh God.
Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, send an awakening to
New York City.
My God, I cry out for this city.
Send an awakening, oh God.
Cause people to hear Your voice again.
Father, I thank You, God, from the depths
of my heart.
I praise You, God, from the depths of
my heart.
You've heard this cry today, oh God.
And You hear the cry of Your people
all over this city.
I pray now, oh God, You release this
church in faith to understand who You are
and what You desire to do through Your
body.
God, help us to get things out of
the way that are not supposed to be
there.
Relationships, financial practices, areas of besetting sin, lying,
pornography.
Oh God, get it out of the way.
I pray now that You just put something
in this church to lay down this filth,
to lay down all these things that cause
Jesus to be out of people's view, that
cause Him to be hidden from those that
are seeking.
Lord, we want to be a righteous people,
a holy people, a people who can stand
and others can draw from us, oh God.
They can see Christ in us.
God, let it be.
Let it be, oh Lord.
Let it be, oh covenant-keeping God, let
it be.
Let's stand, please.
The Holy Spirit is speaking to you and
you have stuff in your life that's got
to go.
You're obstructing Jesus.
You're obscuring Jesus from your family, from your
co-workers.
Slip out of your seats.
Balcony, go to either side.
Annex, stand between the screens.
Do it now.
God is calling a people.
Do it now and do it without apology.
Just slip out.
You know what it is.
It can be pride.
It can be fear.
Whatever it is.
You have an uncontrolled tongue in your home.
You have a violent temper.
You have something that's obscuring Jesus.
Come and believe Him to change that.
Come and believe Him to give you strength.
Just step out wherever you are.
You have a lying spirit.
You can't tell the truth, even about the
present, let alone the past.
You're a financial cheater.
You're stealing at work.
Whatever it is.
You have secret desires in your heart.
You're married to someone but you're secretly desiring
someone else.
Put that filth out of your mind.
Get it out of your spirit.
Come down and give your all for the
purposes of Jesus Christ.
And then you will know Him.
You will know His power.
You will know His resurrection inside of you.
Pray with me, please.
Lord Jesus.
I am your church.
I'm part of your body.
And you have chosen to reveal yourself to
New York City and my area through me.
Jesus, forgive me for the areas of death
that I allow to operate in my life.
That obscure you from view.
That cause people not to hear your voice.
Who are struggling and broken hearted.
And they are looking for you.
Today, by an act of my will and
by faith in the power of God, I
lay before you my life in its entirety.
I ask you, Jesus, by the power of
the Holy Spirit, to take out of my
life every practice, every way in me that
offends your nature.
That causes others not to see you alive
and reigning in me.
I willfully give these things to you, trusting
that by your power, you will take them
away and make me into another person in
the image of my Savior.
I ask you, Jesus, to speak through me
to the hungry and the hurting and the
confused.
I ask you to touch them through my
hands and love them with my voice.
I ask you, Jesus, to call their names
through me when I speak to them.
May they hear your voice calling them through
me.
I yield myself to this purpose.
And I ask today that for the rest
of my life, my life would bear fruit
to the honor and glory of Almighty God.
I ask it with faith.
I ask it believing in the name of
Jesus Christ, my Lord and my Savior.
Let me pray for you now.
Father, you've heard the cry of those in
this church at the altar and many who
are still in their seats.
I believe this is a tremendous hour for
New York City.
You have determined a visitation on a city
that you are going to judge.
And Lord, you always remember mercy and judgment.
God, you have an army.
There's 8,000 in this church and there
are thousands in other churches.
You are speaking to and raising an army
in this generation.
God, you're going to speak.
You're going to send ordinary gardeners, ordinary fishermen
into every area of this city.
And you're going to speak and call names
of those that are hurting and longing for
you.
God, I invite you to call them through
my voice.
On the street, make me sensitive.
Shopping, in the drug stores, everywhere we go,
I pray, God, my voice and their voices
might be sensitive.
That we would unashamedly call their names.
Oh, God, this is a supernatural work.
It cannot be manipulated by man.
But, oh, God, we believe that it's in
your heart.
You are sending us into the harvest field.
I pray that there may be a shout
of glory even in the midst of the
fires.
I pray, God, that your name be so
glorified that it will be noised abroad in
the earth.
We give this to you and we give
ourselves to you.
We ask you, Jesus, to be glorified in
us.
In your precious name.
This is the conclusion of the message.