Carter Conlon addresses the feeling of spiritual stagnation, emphasizing that even when it seems God is silent, He is actively working within us. He draws from Isaiah 30, highlighting that true strength comes from returning to God in quietness and confidence, rather than seeking worldly solutions. Conlon warns against the temptation to rely on external noise and quick fixes, urging believers to trust in God's quiet work in their lives. He illustrates this with the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel, contrasting the noise of false prophets with the quiet power of God. Ultimately, he reassures that God is continually building us into His temple, even when we cannot see or hear it.

1st Kings, Isaiah rather, chapter 30. If you go there with me in 1st Kings chapter 18. If you put a, well, let's start in Isaiah 30 and put a marker in 1st Kings 18, if you will. Have you ever felt that God is doing nothing in your life? Father, I thank you Lord for the anointing of your Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, unless you come and animate me, unless you anoint the Word, there's no life in it. There's nothing will advance of any lasting value. God, so I yield my body, my mind to you Lord, my entire being, with only one desire, that you be glorified. That the desire of your heart today, Jesus Christ, be satisfied. Lord, make an entranceway, God, into your people, the temple of the Holy Spirit, and reveal to us truth that will give us strength to face the day that we're living in. God, we thank you for it with all of our hearts. In Jesus' mighty name. It's a long title. Have you ever felt that God is doing nothing in your life? Isaiah chapter 30, in just one verse, verse 15. For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall you be saved. Or actually, it should, a better translation would have been, you would have been saved in returning and rest. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength. And you would not. Now, have you ever felt that God is doing nothing in your life? Everyone around you is testifying, morning by morning, new mercies I see. And all you see morning by morning is another morning. The problems of yesterday are still there, and the new problems of today are being piled on top of them. And it seems like it's a never-ending saga. You feel like the beggar at Lazarus' gate. Or Lazarus, rather, the beggar at the gate. And you hear these testimonies, if you come out Sunday night, of all these marvelous things that God is doing. You come to church on Sunday morning, and the people are leaping into the air and singing about the goodness of God. And you feel like that person is sitting at the foot of the king's table saying, I wouldn't mind if a crumb of this could fall my way. You feel like the blind man on the side of the road when this whole parade is passing by. Jesus, Son of David, won't you have mercy on me? God, won't you come and touch my life? And why is it that I am a Christian, I believe in Christ, I do want truth, I am reading the Word, I do spend some time in prayer, but I don't feel anything's happening in my life. Somewhere along the line, it seems like the construction of this temple came to a screeching halt. I don't hear anything, I don't feel anything, I don't sense anything going on in my life. Is there a reason? Now this is the time that the accuser will come. He'll point his crooked bony finger at you, and talk about all the areas of your failing, and talk about all your struggles, and try to convince you somehow that God has lost patience with you, in the midst of your situation. He's angry with you, he's withdrawn his hand, he's recalled the construction crew as it is, and nothing is going on in this temple. And ultimately he'll accuse you, and accuse God of having separated one from another, and try to leave you in despondency and despair like you've never felt in your entire life. You know, David the psalmist said in Psalm 23, in verse 2, he said he makes me to lie down in green pastures, and he leads me beside the still waters. I've been there, and I know that some of you are there today, you say I sure wouldn't mind finding out where that place is. I've just got this whirlwind, it's like a tornado has gone off inside of this temple, and I'm living in a place where I seem to be in a constant earthquake, and I'm just wondering, God are you, what is going on, and why am I so subject to the things that are around me? In Isaiah's day, now the Lord wanted to lead his people into quietness, and rest, and confidence, but it seems that they were addicted to their own reasonings and strength, and that's exactly what happens to us. We, God says, no, I want to, I want to lead you into something of my life. I want to give you peace, I want to give you rest, but first you've got to, you've got to give up, in a sense, on your own reasonings. You've got to stop living in the realm of thinking and feeling, and you've got to come by faith into something that I will begin to show you, and you'll begin to understand. In Isaiah's day, the people felt they could find peace and security by embracing the best of the world as they saw it, and everything that the world had to offer. The Lord was calling them, he said, now you come to me, and I'm going to give you quietness, I'm going to give you confidence, and peace, and rest, but they said, no, no. You see, we've, right next door to us is Egypt, and Egypt is prospering at this time, and there's there's all kinds of material wealth there, and they have a big army, and if we can just get close to this society around us, we can find a safe haven to get through the difficult times that we're facing right now, and that's exactly what you and I have a tendency to do, all people do, even God's people do. We say, now listen, I'm aware that everything is shaking, I believe that according to the Scripture. I believe that we're living in a difficult hour, and I see, in a sense, the writing on the wall, that things as they have been, are about to change, and change very dramatically, and so I've got to find a safe haven, and that's exactly what they did, but they looked in the wrong place. There's something in the heart of humanity that says, I just can't stand still, I've got to do something, I've got to find something, I've got to, you know, I've got to find a spiritual 401k, for lack of a better way of saying it, I've got to find something, that's, and so they started moving to alliances with the world, in a sense, which Egypt represents, it was all around them, and they felt they could find peace and security there, and God told them, He said, the Egyptians will help in vain, and to no purpose, therefore I've cried concerning this. They're only strong when they're sitting still. They also felt they could create and embrace a smooth road theology, that would quickly lead them to the rest that they wanted. Verse 9 of Isaiah 30, it said, this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord. They say to the seers, see not, to the prophets, prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits, get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. Listen, this is not a time where we need a prophet standing and saying, sin, this is not a time, they said, where we need to hear what's wrong, we need to hear what's right, we need to hear good things. We need something comforting, and we need something assuring, we need something that will give us instant peace. We want peace, and the Lord was saying, well, I know how to give it to you. I have to send you a word to tell you where you are, what you're embracing, and what you're doing that is robbing you of peace, but you don't want to hear it. You'd rather take a shortcut as it is, and set before you some kind of an entertaining word that would tell you how wonderful you are, and how blessed you are, and what an incredible destiny lies before you, and all of these such like things, and tell me today that we're not a whole lot different than the people in Isaiah's day. We, so many today are just gravitating to this smooth road theology. It's a quick fix as it is, instant peace. We want to go into the church Sunday morning at 10 o'clock, and we want to leave at 12, or in most cases 11, 15, and we want to walk out of the church, and we want to, if we're not completely at peace, we didn't meet with God. What a waste of time that is, because we're an instant society. Click a button. Everything starts just at the push of a button, and we somehow feel that God operates this way too as well, when such isn't the case. The people developed a false confidence in Isaiah's day that led them to believe that they had the power to escape all adversity. Verses 16 and 17. Now right after the Lord says, in returning and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength, but you wouldn't come. But you said, no, we'll flee upon horses, therefore shall you flee. We'll ride swiftly, and therefore shall they that pursue you be swift. One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one. Now he's talking about God's people fleeing. At the rebuke of five shall you flee, till you be left as a beacon, or that word means a tree that is void of branches. Till you be left as a beacon on the top of a mountain, and as an unsign on a hill. He said this false confidence led them to believe they had the power to escape all adversity. They had in themselves the power. God was warning them of what was coming, but people were saying, no, we have the strength, we know how to do this. And even if it's a rough, we know where to find safety, and we have the strength to get there. And they had built this false confidence in their hearts. And the Lord said, when your enemies come, they're going to pursue you until you're left pitifully defeated as a sign for all who pass by to see. On the top of a mountain, a branchless tree, no fruit, no life. And folks, people who will not sin under the Word of God, I tell you with a broken heart today, that's where you're going in the not too distant future. Much of what has professed to be the testimony of Jesus Christ is going to be bankrupt in the coming days. Fruitless, no life, exposed in a sense, humiliated before the world, as unable to stand in the day of adversity. If you can't stand, the scripture says, in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Oh, beloved, beloved, what a tragedy it's going to be when adversity strikes, and so many who've not really come into the rest of God, they've not really come into a place of confidence in God, are going to find themselves fleeing, find themselves without strength. This is not an hour to be devising easy-fix theologies. It's not an hour to be looking to the world for anything of any lasting value. If ever there was a moment to be turning to Christ, it's now with all of the heart and all of the soul, as the scripture says. Pitifully defeated. Now go to 1 Kings chapter 18, please. I trust you already have a marker there. Pitifully defeated upon a mountain, as in the days of Elijah on the top of Mount Carmel. Now remember, in Elijah's day, the people were almost completely enamored by a ministry, supposedly representing something of supernatural power, and even God in some cases, that was telling the people what they wanted to hear. But into the midst of all of this came a famine and a drought, and suddenly the people are in a position of want. Now this ministry's got to prove itself. It's captivated the people with all of its demonstrations and all of its noise, and that's what false religion always does. God works with a quiet confidence in the heart. False religion works with noise, folks. Noise. There's always got to be noise. It's all about noise. If there's nothing happening, they can't fathom that God could actually be doing something. You always know a preacher's in the flesh. He's always or she's always got to be working the crowd. Crowd's always got to be making noise. It's an evidence that God is actually doing something, but the deepest evidence is that there's an inner working of the Spirit. There's something of God transpiring in your heart. If I have the anointing of God upon me, the kingdom of God is coming into your heart. Something is transpiring. Your heart is burning at moments within you. There's a recognition that this is truth, and something of God, something supernatural is beginning to be built in your life. It doesn't come with outward observation, Jesus said. The kingdom of God is within you. It's a deep kingdom. It's a powerful kingdom. It's a kingdom that changes the heart of man, changes the minds of men, changes the lives of men. You can't see it. It's something that works by God's Holy Spirit, combining with His Word inside of the heart, and day by day, line by line, little by little, image by image, as I simply behold Christ. This is not just a casual, careless looking at Him. It's a beholding of Him, saying, Jesus, you are everything I want. Everything I long for is in you. I look away from the things of this world. I look away from what is gripping and satisfying the hearts of ordinary men. And God, I look to you. I want what's in your heart. I want what you're thinking to be in my mind. I want what you're going to be my direction. I want to walk with you, Jesus. But false religion, with all of its noise, has always, throughout scriptural history, left the people bankrupt. And it will do the same in our generation as it did back then. They gathered, all the prophets of Baal gathered on the top of Mount Carmel. And look at what they did. They took the sacrifice of the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and they called on the name of Baal from morning until noon. That's verse 26 of 1 Kings 18, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. I think every every one of them wanted to be God's men of the hour. They wanted to be the one that was standing on the altar when the fire came. And it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked them and said, cry aloud for he's a God. Maybe he's talking, or maybe he's pursuing somebody, or on a journey, or maybe he's sleeping and must be awakened. And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets till the blood gushed out upon them. They're sincere. Oh God, look at our sincerity. And the people must have looked and said, boy, they're sincere. Folks, that's not a litmus test of whether or not somebody has got the Spirit of God on them. You can be a sincere false prophet. You can be so sincere. Many cults are sincere, extremely sincere in what they believe. But their sincerity is not a litmus test of whether or not you're speaking truth, or God is actually with you. And so that none of that worked. The loud crying didn't work. The cutting of the flesh, the evident sincerity of this worship was producing nothing. And so now they moved to prophesying, somehow thinking that they can just force the hand of God, I guess. And it came to pass, when midday was passed, they prophesied till the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. There's neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regard it. Now this was an all-day event. Started in the morning, and it ended up at evening. And everybody has got to be really tired by this point. I think the prophets of Baal are exhausted. I can see the 450 of them there, and they're all out of breath. They're panting and heaving. The people are, if they had aspirin they would be taking them in that generation. They've no doubt got a headache from all the shouting, and everything that's been going on. They're blatantly disappointed. The fire hasn't come, the rain hasn't come, the drought hasn't ceased, their bellies are still empty, the nation is still in calamity, nothing has changed. In spite of all the noise and all the sincerity, nothing has changed. Remember Elijah, not Elijah, but Isaiah said, the Lord said, you'll do all of these things until you are pitifully left as a defeated tree on a mountain. That's exactly where they were in that generation of Elijah. The psalmist in Psalm 74 verses 4 and 6 said it this way, Oh God, your enemies roar in the midst of your congregations. They set up their banners for signs. They break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers. Now this psalmist knew what he was crying about. He said, Oh God, Lord, there's a noise of human effort, and it's accompanying destruction that has taken over the quiet majestic beauty of the temple that was designed by the works of your hands. The psalmist had to have been aware or a witness of these things, having gone into the... Whenever you fully begin to understand how God works, folks, it produces in your heart a grief when you just hear noise in the name of God, when it isn't the Spirit of God. It's not the hand of God. It's not the power of God. It produces such a grief in your heart. I've been in places, I've sat in places where many thought, Oh, this is wonderful. Aren't we having a great time? And there's this deepening grief that's come into my heart because it's all noise. They've taken what is such a beautiful relationship that Christ has with his church, and with axes and hammers they're banging away and creating noise in the temple of God. 1 Kings chapter 6 and verse 7 talks about the house of the Lord when Solomon built it. Let me just read it to you. It says, The house, when it was in building, was built of stone, made ready before it was brought to the place where the temple was being built, so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron hoarded in the house while it was in building. Now think this through. Now the Scripture tells us that 80,000 hewers were sent into the mountains by Solomon. Now they went into those mountains and they carved. The engineering was incredible. It must have seemed impossible to the natural mind, but it wasn't impossible because the pattern of the house was given by the Spirit of God to David, and David gave it to his son Solomon. Solomon began to build, but he had the Holy Spirit with him when he was building this house, this temple that is a type of my life and of your life. And they went into the mountains, these 80,000 hewers, and they carved out stones so exact, so precise, so engineeringly perfect, that when they brought them into the temple, they slid into place without a sound. Think that through for a moment. Folks, because you don't hear anything doesn't mean that nothing is going on. That's the point. Because you don't hear anything. When Christ came into your life, He came in with heaven behind Him. He came in with the resources of Calvary. He came in with deep truths. He came in with the power to change your character and your life, but not by power, not by might, but by my Spirit says the Lord. Some of the times that God is doing the deepest work in your life and in mine are the times when we're not hearing anything, times when it's quiet. And folks, ironically, that's when we really are beside these peaceful streams that David the psalmist talked about. Oh, I thank God for this knowledge. It's a freeing knowledge. It just throws the condemner right out of the temple. Satan, you get your filthy head out of the temple of Almighty God. God is doing a work in me. God is changing me. God has promised to come and give me a new mind, a new heart, and a new spirit. And I don't have to hear anything going on inside of this temple. It doesn't have to be noise. I don't need to hear hammers and saws banging and clanging. I don't need an evidence in the natural that God is doing the work that He said He was going to do. Try to imagine for a moment the incredible awe as magnificent stones, big and small, are quietly brought in and slid into place. Can you imagine just standing in that Old Testament temple and you're watching them come in? And the Scripture says there's not a hammer. There's not an ax. There's not a chisel. Everything is perfect. Everything is being brought in in its perfection. And you're watching as these incredible foundation stones are just being brought in and they're sliding into place. And then the smaller stones are being brought in where they need to go and they're being put into place. Do you know today that God says, I'll put everything in your life that is needed. When I come in, I come in to build a new person. I come in to build a temple where my glory can be manifested. And I do this in quietness and in confidence. I wanted you to understand this, Israel. I wanted you to come to the place of understanding that I am who I am and I will do what I said I will do. I'll not leave you. I'll not forsake you. I'll not run from you. I am a friend that sticks closer than a brother. You have the right to condemn every tongue that rises against you in judgment because your righteousness is not of yourself. It's of me, says the Lord. And the work that is happening inside of you is not a work that you are doing. It's a work I am doing inside of you. When you open the door to your heart, I came in and brought the resource of heaven with me. Praise be to God. Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, But as it is written, The eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed them to us by his spirit. For the spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. My natural eye hasn't seen it. My natural ear has not heard it. But God's Holy Spirit within me tells me and shows me the things that God is doing in my life. I receive it by faith, folks. I don't have to make it happen. I don't have to pull a hammer out of a drawer somewhere. And I don't need noise to tell me that God is working in my life. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. 1 Kings 5 15 tells us that 80,000 hewers were sent into the mountains to hew out these costly stones that made up this initial Old Testament temple. But for you and I, there was only one that went into the mountains. Hallelujah. Only one went to the mountain called Calvary and he said it is finished. And when he said it was finished, everything you need to live as a Christian, everything you need to to live a life of glory to God, everything you need to get through, I don't care what lays ahead of us, everything you need to get through these coming days is ours in Christ Jesus already. Jesus Christ went to a mountain and there he opened the storehouse of God's never-ending supply to provide everything for me that by faith I'm never going to require. To be a person whose quiet assurance and confidence in God will be in this generation a testimony to the glory of God. In that temple, remember that no stones were seen. Everything was covered with cedar. And that cedar always to me has represented the cross of Jesus Christ. Yes, the initial temple was built with these costly stones, but we don't point to the things in our lives. You and I might become, we might become people of love, we might become people of faith, we might become people of kindness, we might become people who can stand when everything else is failing, but we don't point to ourselves. We point to the cross of Calvary. We point to the one who went and bought these resources for us. It's not about what we are, it's who Christ is inside of us. Then the scripture says that the wood, the cedar was covered with gold. Everything was covered with gold. What the Apostle Peter said, the trial of your faith. When you come through all of the things that will assail this faith and you still trust in God, the trial of your faith will be like gold. Yes, it's the resources of God that change our character, that come because of the cross, but ultimately what covers it all is the faith that God says, I will put into the hearts of those that are mine, who don't lose confidence in me in the time of testing. And that's, it's that faith that became gold. It's that faith that reflected the glory of God. We don't reflect His glory because we run the aisles in some church somewhere. We don't reflect His glory because we can clap our hands and shout with our voices. As wonderful as all of these things might be, we reflect His glory when we are quiet in the midst of calamity. Think of the Apostle Paul, everything is falling apart all around him. Paul steps out from the belly of hell, literally, in that ship and the glory of God is on this man who's quiet in the midst of the storm. He's confident when everything else is failing and suddenly everybody is looking to this man of God who has this inner quiet confidence in God. He knows he's going to survive the storm because he knows that the purpose of his life is to glorify God till the end of his days. 1st Kings chapter 18 again, verse 30, said that Elijah said to the people, come near to me. And all the people came near to him and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying Israel shall be thy name. And with the stones, verse 32, he built an altar in the name of the Lord. He repaired this altar that was broken down and he did it with 12 stones that represented 12 tribes. Now there's a lot of symbolism here. It speaks about unity. Israel, of course, we know was divided. And because of the division, there was an open door made to false religious voices to grip the hearts of the people. And when you and I are divided from God or divided in the body, it becomes an open door, beloved. Be very aware and careful of this. But it also represents something else to me. These 12 tribes, remember when Jacob was dying in Genesis 49, he called in his 12 sons and then he gave a physical description of each of these sons. And he said, Reuben, he told Reuben, you're an unstable man. And it speaks of the instability of the human spirit. Try as we want to to be solid in ourselves. There are porous borders all around us in our humanness. And even the strongest, like Peter in the gospel, who just said, no, I'm going to die with Christ. I'm going to Jerusalem. I'm going to do this. Suddenly he was unstable as water because the human vessel has no lasting stability in it. Simeon and Levi, Jacob said, you're self-willed and angry. And it speaks about that part of the nature of man that we want to do it our way and we get angry if others don't cooperate. And Judah, he likened to an old lion, somewhat discounted but still filled with power and promise and the potential for victory. Zebulun, he talked about the commercial aspect of man. Zebulun was a man of commerce. Issachar, human strength. Now you have to read it for yourself in Genesis 49, but you'll see it. He talked about Issachar being the natural strength of man as it is. He said he was like a donkey, crouched down between two burdens. He had a natural human strength and we all do in measure have a natural strength. Dan, he likened to human reasoning. Gad talks about resilience. He said you'll be overcome, but you'll overcome at the last. Asher was human provision and creativity. Naphtali was enthusiasm. He said Naphtali's like a hind let loose and he travels around speaking goodly words. It's about the natural exuberance of man. It's amazing when you really study it, what you see here is the totality of humanness. They were these men of the patriarchs of Israel, the fathers as it is, of the nation. The lineage, I guess, cumulatively through whom Christ in the church would, and I know it was Judah, but they were part of that family through whom Christ was going to come. And it speaks to me about the humanness of all of us. We are all human and we are unstable. We are self-willed and angry. We are like an old lion. We trust in commerce. We trust in our own strength. We trust in our own reasoning. We trust in our own ability to get back up when we've fallen down. We trust in our ability to provide for ourselves and to do it through creativity. We trust in our own enthusiasm and our own optimism to get through the coming days. And then he got to Joseph. He talked about a man who was wounded, but he would rise again. And Benjamin, it says he will divide the spoil. In the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil. And as I was looking at this, I said, God Almighty, you are showing us humanness as it is. The only hope for humanity is that you and I must be built on a foundation of the victory of Christ. Because when he got to Joseph, it was a Christ type. He'd be wounded, but he will rise again. And Benjamin, it says in the morning he will devour the prey and at night he shall divide the spoil. When Christ rose from the dead, Luke 24 says, it was very early in the morning that the women came to the sepulcher. They saw the stone rolled away. Two men standing there in shining garments, and they said, why do you seek the living among the dead? That was in the morning. Remember, in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil. The same chapter, Luke chapter 24, two men that night on the road to Emmaus, toward evening, invited him to come into their midst. He sat at the table. He broke bread, and their eyes were opened. In the morning, it says, he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil. And they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight. Now, I believe that Elijah built this altar symbolic of the frailties of man, resting upon the promises of God. My frailty and yours, and that's how we get through. That's how you and I get to the place of confidence in God, saying, Lord, without you, my deepest and most sincere and most powerful efforts will fail. I'll not make it through, and there's nothing in me that will ever procure the glory of God. And I will be always restless. I will always be looking for exterior signs of God. I will always be making noise, and looking for noise in your name, as a sign that you're doing something in my midst. I think Elijah built this altar, and each stone represented an aspect of the frailty of humanity. I believe that. And it was all resting, or either the capstone or the bottom of the pile. I don't know exactly how he built it, but it was resting, in a sense, on the promises of God. And he stood back, and he had to be saying in his heart, Oh God, you must come, and you must bring peace back into the hearts of your people. You must touch our weakness with your power. You must touch our fear with your love. You must touch our folly with your glory. You must touch our exhaustion with your rest. My God, speak to every area of my life. Don't let me resist you, Lord. That's really the key, because noise is the resistance of God. I remember Pastor David one time, gave an altar call in this church, and there was a person who started shaking, and he said, young person, he said, Stop that. He said, In my experience, as a preacher of the gospel, when you do these things, you are actually resisting the work of the Holy Spirit in you. The work of the Holy Spirit comes with a quietness. It's an inner agreement with truth. God, this is right. It's an opening of the heart and the hands, and saying, Lord, come and do what only you can do. And then suddenly, in the spiritual realm, in comes another incredible stone of truth. And it comes in quietly. It comes in without fanfare. It comes in without axes and hammers and noise. It comes in in the power of the Holy Ghost, and it slides into place in the wall of your life, and is there forever. That's how God works. I thank God. You see, I've traveled the noise route. I know what that's all about. The shout and sweat route. Strive and try route. I've been there, only to get to be 56 today, and to realize that in quietness and confidence is my strength, and it's yours. That when I open my heart, and I don't disagree with God. See, this is really the key. I have to agree with God with all of these things that are placed on this altar. I am self-willed, and I am angry, and I am stubborn, and I am all of these things. I trust in my own strength. And when we finally just agree with God and say, Lord, come change this. Come and make a difference in my life and through my life. God, speak please to every area of my life. You do yourself such an incredible disservice when you won't let God speak to you. And you spend your whole life trying to justify something that is weak, something that is frail, something that is literally a hole in the wall where the devil can just look through and shout accusations at you, because you simply will not agree with God. That I can't build this life in my own strength. And Elijah stood back, and he said, Lord, touch this thing with your glory. And the scripture says that the glory came. The fire of God came. The glory came. And when the glory of God comes into your life in this generation, all the people around you will say exactly what they did in the day of Elijah on Mount Carmel. The Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is the only God. When they see you standing and me standing in the midst of whatever we're going to face. Now, whether it's a historical moment we're about to face in our generation or just something that we all have to face that life brings our way. When they see you standing with that quiet confidence in God, that is the one Bible that people will still read. Don't fall for the lie that God isn't doing anything in your life. As a matter of fact, he might be doing more in your quietness than you've ever known before. I want to give an altar call today for those who just are willing to step forward and saying, Lord, oh God almighty, speak to my heart. Change me where I need to change. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, God. Thank you, God, that I know your truth today and your truth is setting me free. Thank you. And I want you to have a mental image as you come here of these great stones of God's Holy Spirit that speaks of truth and the fruits of the spirit that are not going to leave you and I as a bankrupt barren tree on a hill in this generation. No, sir. No, sir. There's another tree on a hill and that tree is still talked about today. Maybe some mock that tree. Maybe some don't understand it, but it's still talked about. The life of God is still there. The power of God is still in it. And I thank God that I am, I'm going to lay hold of that tree and I'm going to be standing there in the strength of God, nothing of myself. By God's grace, you have to understand we can't even will to do this in our own strength. By God's grace, this temple will glorify God. And that's got to be the cry of your heart today. By God's grace, by God's grace, this temple, your temple, your body will glorify God. By God's grace, you'll stand in the storm. By God's grace, there'll be fruit on this tree. No matter what this day looks like, that you and I will stand. And some people today, you need to inwardly thank God with everything you've got. Oh, Lord Jesus. Thank you. You've not forsaken me. Thank you, God, that I come in here with such doubt in my heart. Come in here listening to such accusation against your work only. God, thank you. You said you should know the truth and the truth will set you free. Lord, you've never stopped working. Even now as I'm speaking, great stones, great things prepared by God are being moved into your temple. You're not even aware of it. You don't hear it, but by faith, you know it. By faith, we know it. We are changing, the scripture says, image to image, glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord. We are changing. We are changing. And morning by morning, we can see new mercies. Morning by morning, by faith, we get up and say, God, thank you. You've just moved another foundation stone into this temple of the Holy Ghost. Thank you, God. You're plugging the holes in the wall. Thank you, God. The wood is starting to take preeminence. Thank you, Lord, that when I'm tested and tried, my faith is not going to fail because you've built something into my heart. You've built into me a trust in almighty God that will allow me to stand no matter the fires, no matter the floods, no matter the storms, no matter how many are running in what direction. God, you are working into me a quietness and a confidence, a returning and a rest. Now, if you've been striving for Christian character, may I encourage you to stop striving. Stop striving and come back to the finished work of Calvary. Come back by faith to what's already been won for you, already provided for you. Come back by faith. Open the doors to your physical temple again and say, Almighty God, bring in to my life what is missing, the very things that you purchased for me that I'm blocking out because of my own human reasoning and effort. God, I lay it down and I'm asking you to do a supernatural work that the glory may be of God and not of men. Hallelujah. Praise God. Would you stand, please? The Holy Spirit's speaking to you today and this is your life. Would you slip out where you are? Just meet me at this altar, please, in the annex. You can stand between the screens. I want everybody who's felt that God's doing nothing just to come. And we're going to give thanks together. We might even do it quietly. Just give thanks to God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Let's take time and worship together. You know, when the temple was finished, the glory of the Lord came to the temple. And it came into that temple that Solomon was building so powerfully that nobody could even stand, no human vessel could stand and take any glory. Everything was brought to its face in the presence of God. And there was a song, and it's the only song that God's ever written about himself in the Bible. He gave that song to David, David gave it to Solomon. And it says, the trumpeters and singers got together and they were as one voice in giving glory to God. And they sang these words, God is good and his mercy endures forever. God is good in his mercy. It's the goodness. What did David say? Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. God is good in his mercy. You are not good. I am not good. God is good. God is good. And you have to see, you have to see that God is good. You have to see that when you can just say that in your heart, that God is moving these incredible truths into your life and rebuilding you constantly every day. And when you and I get to the end of the journey, not only on earth, but in heaven, that will be our song. There'll be no other song. You and I are not going to be singing songs about ourselves and how we persevered and how we were strong in the midst of adversity. We're just going to get to the end and say, God, you've been so good and you've been so merciful to me. And when you and I get that deep in the heart, what happens is that we can praise God when we don't hear, when we don't feel anything, we don't see anything. We can because we have this inner knowledge. Remember the scripture says, he who comes to God must believe that he is, and he's, he's a rewarder of those who are seeking, who diligently seek him. He is good at his mercy. In other words, he's never withdrawing his hand. It's not about how we feel. It's, it's not about whether the clouds are out, whether there's a stormy day or a sunny day, it's got nothing to do with any of that. God said, when you opened the door, I came in and I came in with a, with, with, with all of heaven's goodness and mercy with me. And I've been putting it into place and rebuilding your life into a temple where my glory will be seen my glory and nobody will stand and take the glory. You'll not be writing a book about how this happened, folks. Anybody who can, ooh, that's iffy. I always have a problem with that. You know, somebody said, you know, one time told me, he said, you should write a book about your life. And what am I going to say? God is good and his mercy endures forever.