Better to Crawl in Faith Than Stand in Fear

Show Notes

This message is for anyone who feels overwhelmed by what they are facing — outnumbered, outmatched, and tempted to stay still rather than move forward. Pastor Carter Conlon draws from one of the most striking battle scenes in the Old Testament to show that the size of the enemy has never determined the outcome when God is in the fight. It is a word for this moment in history, for families, for students, and for anyone who has been worn down by the relentless pressure of darkness.

Using the story of Jonathan and his armor bearer in 1 Samuel 13 and 14, Pastor Conlon shows how two young men with no weapons, no army, and no plan beyond trusting God climbed a mountain on their hands and knees and sent trembling through an entire enemy camp. The lesson is not complicated, but it demands everything: stop waiting for better conditions, stop counting what you lack, and bring God into the battle. "We may not have swords, but we have knees." That is the strategy for this generation — not cleverness, not human strength, but humility before God and the willingness to move forward in faith even when fear says to stand still.

Scripture: 1 Samuel 13–14, Luke 4:18, James 2:19

What is Carter Conlon | Sermons?

Sermons by Carter Conlon, from Times Square Church NYC and author of It’s Time to Pray. The sermons posted are to encourage you, the body of Christ, to mobilize in this unique time to reach all generations and people globally with the gospel of Christ and the truth of salvation.
For the latest sermons and additional resources, please visit https://www.carterconlon.com.

Thank you, those that are here with us this evening. You in the sanctuary may be seated. And for those that are online, we really deeply thank you for being here with us tonight, and we're trusting. As we sang tonight, we need a move of God. Nothing else will meet the need of the hour that we're now living in except a spiritual awakening in our time, and I thank God for that. I thank God for this school. I thank God for those of you who are with us online who are given to prayer because God still answers prayer. We want to invite you to join us on Sunday, November the 15th, for our annual fundraising event for our Bible school here at Summit International School of Ministry. The day begins at 10.30 a.m. with a special service. It's going to feature worship and student testimonies followed by a fundraising luncheon where you can hear more about what God is doing through Summit. This year we're believing God for $500,000 for the Summit Fund, which helps provide scholarships for students pursuing God's calling on their lives. In fact, 80% of our students receive scholarship assistance. We'd love for you to be part of this mission. To either reserve tickets or make a donation, please go to summitpa.org forward slash events. That's summitpa.org forward slash events. We're going to have communion after the short sharing of God's Word tonight, so if you're at home, get some juice and get some crackers or whatever you have or bread, and we're going to celebrate together the victory of Christ on the cross for our sins. Now, Father, I thank you, Lord God, for the touch of heaven in this sanctuary tonight. Lord, there's faith arising in people's hearts. We are believing God because it's you who's speaking to us, that you desire to do something that can only be attributed to you. It's not by the power or the cunning of man. It's by the mercy and the presence of Almighty God. Lord Jesus Christ, would you give us the sense to bring you into the battle? Would you help us, Lord God, to rely upon you? Would you help us to walk humbly before you? I ask you, God, tonight for the anointing of your Holy Spirit to be able to deliver this message in the manner that you desire it to be spoken. Help me, God, in my weakness. You be my strength. Be my reasoning. Be the words of my mind and my heart. Father, thank you, Lord, for the students that are gathered here tonight and those that are gathered online. Lord, this is your plan for this generation. There is no secondary plan. The people listening tonight, this is your plan to show your glory one more time, and we thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. I've entitled the sharing of God's word tonight, It's Better to Crawl in Faith Than to Stand in Fear. It's better to crawl in faith than to stand in fear. Let me set the scene for this. I'm going to go to 1 Samuel chapter 13 and 14. But the people of God had turned away from God in measure. People of God at that time were given the promise through their forefather Abraham that they were supposed to be a people through whom God's name was brought to honor and reputation on the earth, just as with you and I. It's the desire of God. To save us is a wonderful thing, but leaving us on the earth, it's so that his name might be glorified through us by giving us what we could never possess, making us into what we could never be, and then subsequently taking us where we could never go. But the people stopped looking to God, and they wanted a king like the other nations. They wanted a king actually to fight their battles. They were rejecting God, and so God gave them a king. His name was Saul, and it was in the second year of his reign. The people he was leading had for some time been under the control of a foreign nation, even though they were in the promised land. Isn't that something? You know, we're in the promised land of redemption in Christ, but maybe there's a foreign nation going on inside of you right now, a foreign nation in your home. Something is oppressing you. Something is telling you that it's stronger than you are and stronger than your God is. They headed out, and they launched an initial attack against their oppressors, and all they succeeded in doing in that initial attack is just arousing the ire of their enemies who decided to come in and renew their dominance. You know, this has always been the battle, always throughout history. It's the battle today in America. Godlessness wants to come in and renew or establish its dominance over the testimony of Jesus Christ. This has always been a spiritual war. It's not a political war. It's not a physical war. It's a spiritual war. It's light versus darkness. It's the testimony of Jesus Christ versus godlessness. The devil himself knows that this nation was established to be a country that was going to bring honor to the name of Jesus Christ in the earth. That was what the Mayflower Compact was all about when it was first established, and it's very much the same with you and with me. There's a covenant promise of God to every one of us that he's going to take us. He's going to use our lives for his glory, and his power will be made known and will be seen through us. They launched this initial attack. I don't know. It's almost like being a student in Bible school. Let's put it that way, and you head out, and you launch your initial attack against your enemies, only to find out they've come back a hundredfold against you, and it's almost like you flicked a hornet's nest with your finger, and then suddenly you're surprised that something comes out and wants to fight back. In chapter 13 and verse 5 of 1 Samuel, it says the Philistines gathered together to fight with Israel. 30,000 chariots, 6,000 horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the sea shore in multitude. Now, the followers of Saul were vastly outnumbered and mostly without weaponry. 1 Samuel 13 and 15 says this, and Saul numbered the people present with him about 600 men. Can you imagine? I don't know. I don't have the math. I should have done it today, but the odds are not very good in a situation like this. You've got 600 soldiers with you. The rest of the people are hiding in dens and caves. Half of them have taken off, and they've run into the hills because they think they're going to get slaughtered, and you've got about 600 people with you, and you're fighting against 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen and people as numerous as the sand which is on the seashore. Now, to add insult to injury, they sent out raiding parties to further erode any courage that people had left. A raiding party is sort of like a little battle that you don't win. You're focused on the big battle, so the enemy sends out a raiding party, and the raiding party causes you to say a word you shouldn't say or causes you to do something you shouldn't do or think a thought you shouldn't think or react in a way you didn't think you were going to react to. The raiding parties are sent out to convince you and I that there's no point to engaging in a larger battle. How can you take on such a significant need that's presented right now that's against you when you can't even win? One of these little raiding parties, I don't know, maybe there's 15 or 20 horsemen in this thing, and they would go into small towns and terrorize the people and just try to take away their courage, and that's what the devil does to the people of God. Comes after your mind, comes after your physical body, comes after you any way he can, comes after you through words, and tries to convince you, hey, listen, there's no point in fighting this bigger battle. You're never going to win it. That's the strategy of darkness. As a matter of fact, the people that were with Saul had no weapons. To even make it worse, in verse 19 of 1 Samuel, it says, 13, there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, lest the Hebrews make swords or spears. So the Israelites had to go down to the Philistines to sharpen each man's plowshare, his mattock, his axe, or his sickle. Verse 22 says, so it came about on the day of battle there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan. So you got 600 people against tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, we don't know. It says, as numerous as the sand on the seashore, you have no weaponry, and the scripture, even worse, says the people following Saul were trembling. First Samuel 14, here's where it begins to turn. A young man called Jonathan, I don't know how old Jonathan was at this time, maybe in his late teens, possibly his early 20s, and he had a friend, an armor bearer. As a matter of fact, the armor is just called an armor bearer. You don't need to be known to do something great for God, or to have something that God wants to do great through you. You don't need to be known. It doesn't matter what our names are, but it does matter what the name of God is, and it does matter that his name is brought to glory through each one of our lives. In First Samuel chapter 14, verse 6, Jonathan said to the young man who bore his armor, come let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few. And Jonathan understood something. When God is in the battle, you see, God and I are a majority. It doesn't matter who people, how many come against us, but you and God are a majority. When God is sending you somewhere, and you're bringing him into the fight, his armor bearer said to him, do all that is in your heart. Go then, here I am with you. According to your heart, and Jonathan said, very well, let us cross over to these men, and we will show ourselves to them. And if they say thus to us, wait until we come to you, then we will stand still in our place and not go up to them. But if they say thus, come up to us, then we will go up, for the Lord has delivered them into our hand, and this will be a sign to us. So both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines, and the Philistines said, look the Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they are hidden. Then the men of the garrison called to Jonathan and his armor bearer and said, come up to us, and we will show you something. It's a mockery. Come up here. There's 20 of them in the garrison. The odds are 10 to 1, that they can win this battle in the natural. As a matter of fact, in the natural, they wouldn't have won it, and the Philistines knew that, and they're just mocking. They're saying, you come up to us, and we'll show you a thing or two, and so Jonathan said to his armor bearer, come up after me, for the Lord has delivered them into the hand of Israel. And Jonathan climbed up on his hands and knees with his armor bearer after him. You see, there's a picture here, I want you to see. On the top of the mountain is an enemy with all of their armor, and their swords, and their threats, and their mockery. But coming up to face them are two men with a trust in God, two young men on their hands and knees. We may not have swords, but we have knees. We may not have the best weaponry, but we have hands that we can raise to God, and we can bring God into the fight. And I'm telling you folks, that's what's going to have to happen in this generation. There's no longer, no more clever schemes in the house of God, no more of all the things that have gone on. We're now surrounded as they were surrounded then. We have an enemy more powerful as they did then. But as we've heard tonight, all the way through this service, the same Christ that did things in the Old Testament, the same God of the past, is the same God that's with us today. And he will give us the victory if we are smart enough to go on our knees with our hands raised in the air. I love the fact that they climbed up on their hands and knees with his armor bearer, and they fell before Jonathan. And as he came after him, his armor bearer killed them. The first slaughter with Jonathan and his armor bearer made was about 20 men within a half acre of land. And there was trembling in the camp, and in the field, and among all the people. The garrison and the raiders also trembled. The earth quaked, so that it was a very great trembling. There was a trembling that came among all of the enemies of God at this particular time. A very, very great trembling, the scripture says. Because, James says, you believe there is one God, you do well. The devils also believe and tremble. The powers of darkness know that if God comes into the battle, they're doomed, they're finished. And so Saul looked down, and suddenly there's this great stirring going on in this Philistine camp, and people are starting to turn on one another, and they're fighting with each other, and they're fleeing when nobody is really pursuing them except God. And it's a phenomenal picture that trembling and confusion and infighting comes among the enemies of the people of God. Why? Because somebody on their hands and knees brought God into the battle. Somebody on their hands and knees brought God into the battle. Somebody who was willing to crawl up a mountainside and put it all on the line for the glory of God and for the honor of God. Jonathan said in his heart, it's enough of this. It's enough of standing here trembling before our enemies. It's enough. We are the people of God. We are the people that God has promised he would be with. We are the people that are supposed to bring honor and glory to the name of God in the earth. Why are we standing here trembling? So he turns to his armor bearer and says, let's go. Let's go. God doesn't need an army to defeat this army. He can do it with us. And they walked up and they climbed up on top of that mountain and they took a half acre of land and in that half acre a trembling went through hell because the Philistines were motivated by powers of darkness. It's a spiritual war, folks. It's always been a spiritual war. And the Philistines were motivated by darkness and the darkness recognized that somebody brought God back into the fight. Bring God into your fight. Bring God into your situation. Throw yourself at the mercy of God and climb that mountain the devil says you can't climb and take on that fight the devil says you can't take on. That is the plan of God. In Luke 4 18 Jesus stood in that synagogue that day and said the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. That means people who know they don't have the resource to win the fight without God. He has anointed me to set free the captives. He's anointed me to give sight to the spiritually blind. He's anointed me to preach to those whose hearts are so bruised and wounded they think they'll never recover. This day he said this is fulfilled in your ears. We are the poorest of all people if we don't recognize that in this generation. It's time to fight for this generation. It's time to fight for our sons and daughters. It's time to fight for our kids in school. It's time to fight for our college students. It's time to fight for our marriages, our families, our children. It's time to go back to our knees and raise our hands to God one more time. That's how this darkness will be pushed back. You know there's a story yet to be written. It goes something like this. There was a season in America where it looked like foreign powers that were against Christ and against the testimony of Christ and the Word of God had come in and they were so numerous it looked like they were going to dominate the entire culture. But there were two people at a Bible school called Summit International School of Ministry. They got together and they said we're going to pray and we're going to fight and we're going to bring God into this battle that's before us. And as they began to pray and as they began to move forward, they're pushing aside all the fears and pushing aside all of the struggles and trials and every voice that says this can't be done. Then suddenly a shaking came. A shaking. Oh, it's time to shake the powers of darkness one more time. It's time to shake the powers of darkness, those that are listening online. It's time to shake the powers of darkness that want to devour your home and your family and your sons and your daughters. It's time for you to go to your knees. It's time to just let go of all the plans and the schemes and the arguments and all the rest of it. And just go to your knees and say, God, you don't need an army to win this. You just need one or two that will go up on their knees, their hands and knees if necessary, and bring you into the battle. And a great shaking. You know, it says in the Bible that even the raiding parties started trembling. Isn't that something? They were like miles away. And when Jonathan and his armor bearer won that battle, even the raiding parties started to shake. Isn't that something? And they started to tremble. Because the devil knows when God comes into the battle. The devil knows. And the devils know. And the powers of darkness behind that ever encroaching darkness that wants to swallow the light of Christ knows when God comes into the battle. And so I want to encourage those that are online tonight to pray a simple prayer with me. And this will be the beginning of your ability to fight. And then if you've got to go down on your hands and knees and pray for your family, your mind, your addiction, your situation, you do that tonight. Because you are the plan of God for this last day. There's no secondary plan of God. The plan of God is you. It's your family. It's your testimony. It's what God is willing to do through your life. That's where revival starts. It starts somewhere. It starts with somebody somewhere that just gets down on their knees and say, Lord, I'm in for the fight. I'm not going to back away. And I'm asking you to come with me and give us a victory that can only be won by the Spirit of Almighty God. Pray this simple prayer with me, those that are online tonight. We'll pray it with you so you can hear us praying and standing with you. Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for loving me, for dying for my sin. I open my heart to you and I invite you into my life to be my Lord and my Savior. I believe that you died for me to pay the price for my wrong so that I can live again and be a child of God. I believe tonight that my sin is forgiven and I have a purpose on this earth. God, use my life for your glory. And I thank you for saving me in Jesus' name.