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  CAN A FAILURE MOVE THE HEART OF GOD？
  by Carter Conlon
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Summary: This sermon focuses on the power of prayer and intercession,
emphasizing how even in our failures and weaknesses, we can move the
heart of God. Through the story of Moses interceding for the people of
Israel in Exodus 32, the message highlights the importance of
understanding God's mercy and promises. It challenges listeners to come
boldly to God's throne in times of need, reminding them that their
prayers can make a difference, especially when feeling like a failure.

Duration: 27:21 Topics: "Power of Prayer", "Intercession and God's Mercy"
Scripture References: Exodus 32:7, Hebrews 4:15, James 5:16, Isaiah 6:5, 2 Chronicles 7:14, Acts 2:41, Romans 5:8, Ephesians 3:20, 1 John 1:9, Psalm 51:17

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon focuses on the power of prayer and intercession, emphasizing
how even in our failures and weaknesses, we can move the heart of God.
Through the story of Moses interceding for the people of Israel in
Exodus 32, the message highlights the importance of understanding God's
mercy and promises. It challenges listeners to come boldly to God's
throne in times of need, reminding them that their prayers can make a
difference, especially when feeling like a failure.

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CONTENT
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Or wherever you happen to be even if you're on a park bench Just
listening to this prayer meeting on your cell phone, whatever your
situation is right now I want to share with you a truth that Is based on
a message that pastor tim delena Spoke last sunday morning on It was
called the closer very far And the far are very close how god's kingdom
Most often doesn't work the way we think it should and doesn't work
through the people that we think it should work through His ways are not
our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts as far as the heavens are
above the earth His thoughts and his ways are above ours So may god give
us understanding as we look into his word and i'm speaking Tonight to
every person who's online who feels like a failure You feel like you
maybe even miss the calling of god. You feel like you'll never get out
of your place of weakness You feel like your life can never amount to
anything and you feel that god is is utterly displeased with you And i'm
going to ask a question. It's the title of the thought the lord's given
me this evening.

It's called can a failure Move the heart of god I want you to really
contemplate this with me. We're going to go to the book of exodus We're
going to start there in exodus chapter 32 And there's something
important in this sharing tonight for you And if you can lay hold of
this, I think it could lead to a spiritual awakening in your heart your
home Perhaps even your community it could go far beyond that Because we
are at a point where we have to start examining truth again And letting
god begin to speak to us in a way that only he can So father as we open
your word tonight God almighty I ask in jesus name You told us that the
entrance of your words brings light. So let your word find an entrance
into our heart Our mind our very character Help us lord to agree with
the things that you say And the things about your heart that you
actually reveal to us through scripture if we want to see it Help us
lord for we find ourselves in a place of weakness as a people as a
church age even as a nation We find lord that we know in our hearts that
you're coming as soon And we understand there's certain things that need
to happen and that your church is destined for one last Harvest so god
help us to understand how our prayers can make a difference Help us to
understand that even in our weakened condition We can still move your
heart and we thank you for it in jesus name Now i'm reading from the
book of exodus chapter 32 beginning at verse 7 right through to verse 14
If you want to follow along if you have a device where you can and i'm
reading from the new king james version And the lord said to moses Go
get down for your people who you brought out of the land of egypt have
corrupted themselves They've turned aside quickly out of the way, which
I commanded them They've made themselves a molded calf And worshiped it
and sacrificed to it And said this is your god.

Oh israel that brought you up out of the land of egypt And the lord said
to moses I have seen this people and indeed it is a stiff-necked people
Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I
may consume them and I will make of you a great nation Then moses
pleaded with the lord his god And said lord, why does your wrath burn
hot against your people? Whom you have brought out of the land of egypt
with great power and with a mighty hand Why should the egyptians speak
and say he brought them out to harm them to kill them in the mountains?
And to consume them from the face of the earth Turn from your fierce
wrath And relent from this harm to your people Remember abraham isaac
and israel your servants In whom you swore by your own self and said to
them. I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven And all
this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants and they
shall inherit it forever Verse 14 is an incredible verse And it says so
the lord Relented from the harm which he said he would do to his people
one of the most profound Statements that I have seen this there's
obviously a lot of profound statements in the word of god But one of the
most profound concerning the issue of prayer Is verse 10 of exodus
chapter 32 When god almighty having fully declared his intent Speaks to
a mere man an 80 year old man a man who had spent probably 40 Plus years
of his life feeling like a total abject failure in the sight of god But
yet that same man has the power and god Reveals that that same man has
the power to change his mind To turn his heart from something he had
already determined to do. It's an incredible thought Imagine that god
looking at you tonight and saying i'm going to do this now.

Let me alone Don't try to change my mind in other words, but yet moses
intercedes And the intercession of this one man this this 80 year old
man Which spent 40 years in the wilderness as a failure in one sense in
the in the work that god had given him to do God looks at this man and
says now let Me alone now most often when we pray we we think that Our
prayers are answered when we feel the closest to god when we've we've
come out of 40 days of fasting or we've we've been reading our bible
faithfully every every morning for a month or or we've had some
victories along the way or Maybe just do we feel really good about
ourselves and we come in and and and faith seems to be burning in our
heart And we really feel That it's at that moment That we have the power
in a sense to move the heart and the hand of god in the direction that
we're asking for And and that can be the case i'm not negating that that
can be the case but most often when you study the scriptures you and I
will see that it's It's not at these times that the heart and hand of
god were the most deeply moved It's when there was somebody standing
there that knew their unworthiness somebody who felt like a failure
somebody who knew maybe that they They needed god and without god
nothing was going to happen through their lives or in their future
Hebrews chapter 4 verses 15 and 16 The writer says we do not have a high
priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses But was in all points
tempted or tested as we are and yet without sin He right he says now let
us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace now it speaks about
Coming a picture esther if you will coming into the very throne room of
the king Let us come boldly. It means by invitation. It means god longs
to hear your voice.

He wants to Understand your your petitions and your intercessions and to
answer you So let us come boldly to the throne of grace And it doesn't
say in a time where our faith can move mountains in a time where we feel
like we're on on on top of our game In a time where we've had victory
and we've lived righteously and we we are successful in our sight. No He
says come boldly to the throne of grace That we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need So there's three words there come
boldly to the throne of grace when you need mercy when you need that
grace of god when you need that that empowerment that mercy in the sense
that That presence of god that can only bring the victory To to find
help in time of need so grace mercy help and need that's the boldness
that god invites us to come to his throne with And so it brings us back
again to the question. Can a failure Move the heart and the hand of god
That's quite a thought because if we can lay hold of this truth See the
devil would try to convince you that because you are a failure or
because you have failed In what maybe you were given to maybe you failed
at life itself.

You failed as in a marriage You failed to be loyal as an employee. You
failed as a friend you You you've you've failed you thought you wanted
to be certain things Uh in your character and you failed and so here you
are You tried to get free of an addiction and you failed And so I know I
know tonight i'm speaking to Thousands perhaps of people in the course
of the season where people will see this even after the meeting I know
i'm speaking to people who are just saying you're talking about you're
preaching right down my street now I i'm a failure and I I know i'm a
failure and why would why should I pray? Why would god even listen to
me? What would be the point of my prayer said I have hardly any faith
left and I have such a lousy track record Why would he even entertain my
voice? at his throne And so the question is a legitimate question. Can a
failure move the heart and the hand of god Now follow with me for just a
moment in the book of acts chapter 2 the apostle peter Speaks an
incredibly powerful moving sermon the first actual sermon of the new
testament that was preached by the early church a sermon that was so
Backed, you know the bible says you can't come to god unless you're
drawn by god himself You can't come to the knowledge of salvation unless
god chooses to reveal it and that day 23 000 people came to the saving
knowledge of jesus christ so obviously the heart and the hand of god are
moved through this man peter as He is preaching and talking about this
incredible Wondrous mercy of god that's available to all people who call
out to him But you see this this moving of god's heart and hand happens
after peter has wept bitterly it happens after He has cursed and denied
with an oath that he even knows christ after he has He has failed in his
declarations of love and loyalty and though others deny you I will not
and though they flee I won't flee i'll go with you to jerusalem And if
you die i'll die with you and all of this bravado that had no grounding
in reality whatsoever After he'd gone out and literally was destroyed in
his own sight Only to have christ Reappear to him and speak peace into
his heart and give him a commission.

So this man in the depth of his failure Now god is answering his prayers
and the heart and the hand of god are moving with him so powerfully that
at One point in the new testament the scripture says people were laying
there sick in the streets That so the shadow of peter passing by might
bring healing into their lives. God was so Moved through this failure
called peter You think of esther in the old testament this this wondrous
young girl who's called In for to bring deliverance at a particular time
for her people in history it was at the point where she felt unlovely at
the point where she might have felt like Felt like I failed the needs of
my husband the king He doesn't desire me anymore. It was it was at that
point that God called her and she went into the this inner court of the
king and made intercession and brought about great great deliverance For
a people who were destined for the slaughter God wanted to use a young
man called isaiah And isaiah was already in ministry and he's already
speaking god wants to use him in a much deeper way He wants to give him
a much more profound revelation He wants to cause his Put power in his
speech and power in his voice to even turn perhaps a tenth of the people
that he speaks to back to the Worship of the one true and the living
god, but before he can use this man He draws him into his presence and
as he drew him into his presence isaiah realized how undone he really
was Maybe he felt done up to that point.

I don't know. Maybe he felt like his ministry was going good Maybe he
had one of the the clearer words of his his generation, but god in his
mercy draws him into his presence to the point where he says woe is me
i'm undone i'm a man of Unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a
people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the lord of glory the lord
of hosts It was at that point The mercy of god the hand of god moves
towards him the mercy of god begins to flow through him And isaiah is
not only given a word for his nation But he's given a panoramic view of
the redemption of the world as it is through jesus christ right into the
coming of christ again moses Endured what must have seemed like a
lifetime? Of failure you can just imagine his life How he must have felt
how would you feel if you were moses and you're you know that you're
called of god to deliver your people As as you are i'm speaking to
somebody tonight. You're called And that deliverance might flow through
your life to people around you beginning in your house and Your children
your family and and and moses Knew this and he headed out to try to
accomplish it in his own strength only to fail miserably End up fleeing
into the wilderness and for for 40 years a man who was raised in a
palace is now raising sheep 40 years there's no longer any plush Marble
under his feet or carpet any longer It's it's just dust and dirt 40
years of of living with the pain of regret.

I blew it I was given something to do by god. I was giving this
commission by god and I blew the commission My my time of effectiveness
is over. I am a total utter failure in the sight of god Only to stand At
the height perhaps of feeling that way before almighty god himself Who
looks at him and says now let me? alone You see what god was speaking to
moses is that you have the power In your littleness in your nothingness
in your right assessment may I say of yourself? You have the power now
to move my hand and my heart If you and I could lay hold of this truth
this one truth If we could get off of this treadmill of trying to feel
like somehow we've got to just work it all up and stir it all Up and and
we've got to have this these building blocks of victory underneath us
and we have to have read so many chapters of the bible and we have to
Memorize scripture and we got to get our we got to be walking right in
every little area of our life For if we can just get out of that
thinking and come into the place of the apostle paul understood
eventually That when I am weak Then I am strong That the power of god is
not made known through my strength.

It's made known through my weakness The greatness of god we heard about
tonight is not made known through My life, but it's through his life
being lived through mine his success through my failure his victory
through my defeat His resurrection through my death It's all about jesus
christ. Everything is about him And i'm starting to understand these
things now as I get older i'm starting to understand What prayer really
is how it really can move the heart of god how a spiritual awakening
could actually occur? in our generation when god's people everywhere
just rise up and say I understand now we heard tonight about this
goodness and this greatness of our god through jesus christ. I
Understand that there's something in the heart and the character of god
that i've missed in my desire to please him I now understand that in my
nothingness because all flesh is as Filthy rags in the sight of a holy
god.

Isaiah knew that All of our works that we do are are nothing. They're
futile. They're worthless Everything is of him.

Everything is in him Everything that we have is in christ. Everything we
ever will be is through jesus christ And it's not he's not looking for
our strength to do anything. He's looking for Us to acknowledge what we
really are And then when we do then we start to acknowledge what who he
really is A god of mercy a god of power a god of incredible grace.

We start shouting. Holy Holy holy is the lord god of hosts heaven and
earth are filled with his glory when suddenly we die and he lives When
we don't have anything left to prove, but we're saying god Prove
yourself through me. I offer my life as a living sacrifice to you for
your purposes on the earth Which is my reasonable service.

That's what the bible says about me I won't boast and if you should put
a crown on my head I'll be the first to throw it at your feet when I get
to heaven Knowing i'm not worthy. You are the only one who is worthy You
are the only one who can save you're the only one who can empower you
are the only one who can show mercy to a wayward generation The lord
said to moses i've seen this people indeed It's a stiff-necked people
now Therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I
may consume them and I will make of you a great nation Now verse 11 it
starts it says moses pleaded with the lord his god and said lord Why
does your wrath burn hot against your people? Whom you brought out of
the land of egypt with a great power And with a mighty hand you see only
a person who had known failure and mercy could pray like that It's the
kind of a man says god I deserve to be judged as well I deserve you you
didn't have to show me mercy Yes, they failed you but I failed you too
as well I knew you were god and I chose to be god in myself and they
built a calf and I I built myself up as something that I wasn't at the
time or Nor did I have the strength to do? But yet in my failure you you
reached down in my wilderness And you heard maybe the ache of my heart
and you pulled me out of my wilderness and so why Why would your wrath
burn hot against your people that you brought out of the land of egypt?
You you went to such expense and such power To bring them out god. Why
now you knew what they were you knew what I was moses could say but yet
you called me You knew my failure You knew my struggles you knew my
temper you knew my my trials and yet you called me and you brought me
out of the wilderness And so why would you why would you harm them? When
you've shown me such mercy, it's the only man who's known mercy Could
make intercession like that And in verse 12 He said why should the
egyptian speak and say he brought them out to harm them to kill them in
the mountains And to consume them from the face of the earth turn from
your fierce wrath and relent from this harm to your people Here's here's
what moses is saying Lord god Think about what your enemies will say
about you About your name that you have some insidious purpose to the
things that you do you you draw people out with great promise You say
i'm bringing you to the promised land then you destroy them Think about
your reputation think about your name.

I remember years ago When pastor theresa myself and a bus driver began
to pray We were in an area of 40 square miles where there was no
christian testimony as long back as as we knew or even uh history
recorded and we were told By other people we're told by others who who
had the skill set to do something For the lord in that area that it
could not be done. I remember this one Pastor told me we've sent people
in there. We've put money in there and everything everything we've done
has failed We call it a pastoral burnout area and then he looked at me
and said, you know, if you try to do something in that area The the work
will not grow but you will you will grow and I remember leaving and
Sitting in my car and I said god.

I don't believe that man. I don't believe that man And i'll tell you why
I don't believe him because he's saying there's something you can't do
He's saying there's a place you can't go. He's saying there's a
darkness.

You can't break. He's saying there's a people you can't redeem He's
saying that the devil in this world can put boundaries and borders
around a certain geographic area in the world And and they can put a
sign says no god allowed and somehow you have to obey that Well, I don't
believe it and I began to pray that way and I began to pray exactly as
moses prayed not fully knowing it Back then but I remember my prayer
lord. It's dishonoring to you to have all of these people here lost in
their sin To have people say that you can't break into this area When
there's somebody here interceding When somebody as weak as we are here,
we are tuesday night.

We are calling out to you and asking you to be god in this area long
story short Less than 10 years later There's three churches a food bank
a christian school and a testimony that had gone Far and wide of what
the lord had done and is still doing today in that area for those people
And then he says these words remember Abraham isaac and israel your
servants to whom you swore by your own self And you said to them I will
multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and all this land that
i've spoken of give To your descendants and they shall inherit it
forever Moses was saying god I remind you That your promise to your
people Is to bring increase to them Your promise is to bless them your
promise is to make them something they could never hope to be in
themselves Take them out of what they could never get out of and bring
them into what they could never hope to have Unless you bring them there
your promise is increase not destruction and I remind you of your word
It was at this point The lord relented from the harm that he said he
would do to his people My Desire for you And the desire in my heart For
the rest of my life is god would have to look at me every morning and
say now leave me alone Now leave me alone that I would understand that
the intercession the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man
availeth much James told us in the new testament. Elijah was a man Just
like we are a person just like we are and he prayed that it might not
rain and the rain stopped for three and A half years and then he prayed
that it might rain and it rained again and the land gave her increase
the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much not
righteousness in ourselves, but Receiving the forgiveness that god's
given to us through jesus christ Understanding that we don't deserve it
and we can't earn it It was given to us as a free gift When god sent his
son to die for each of us on a cross 2 000 years ago The promise of god
is not to destroy us when we deserve it the promise of god Is to bring
his own name to reputation through each of our lives And the promise of
god Is in spite of our failure? to bring increase into each of our lives
And so i'm going to challenge you tonight to get up from wherever you
are And just say lord I deserve to be destroyed But you sent your son to
die in my place that I might be forgiven and through him Your bible
tells me that I become as clean as god is where the righteousness of god
in christ jesus Is Yes, I deserve it because of my failure, but your
promise is not to destroy me Your promise is to bring increase to my
life blessing to my family Deliverance to my friends joy to my community
that your name Would be exalted and glorified one more time in the earth
And so father in jesus name I ask you almighty god Send a spiritual
awakening to your people Only you can do this lord We deserve everything
the children of israel deserved at that time We deserve it We even built
our own god In this nation but lord To you belongs mercy And it couldn't
be said of you That somebody stood in the gap that somebody because you
said to the prophet ezekiel I didn't want to destroy the nation So I
sought for a man to stand in the gap and make up the hedge that I should
not destroy it, but I found none But it can't be said of you that
somebody stood in the gap somebody offered their life to make up the
hedge And you turned a calloused heart or a deafened ear or a blinded
eye towards it It couldn't be said of you lord. It can't be it can't be
It can't be said So i'm asking you I'm asking you for mercy On our
generation i'm asking you for Your holy spirit to come not because we
deserve it Just because of who you are I'm asking you for a moment Where
so many souls are swept into your kingdom that nobody could count them.

Thank you lord god for hearing our cry Thank you lord jesus christ for
bringing us to this place that only you can Now tonight we're going to
come to communion together if you can get some juice and some bread or
crackers And here's my challenge to you let not the mercy of god Towards
you be in vain Don't keep calling yourself unclean when god is willing
to cleanse you through his son And don't fall to the lie that somehow
your prayers don't matter because you feel defeated Oh they do You just
might be You just might be the failure that moves the heart of god in
our generation Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah I'll be back with you
in just a moment

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/w1wb_D9uHHE.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/carter-conlon/can-a-failure-move-the-heart-of-god/
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