Our Guest John Kilpatrick
SID: You were telling me that all these people were touched so mightily in your church on a Sunday, or another night, but then, something happened when they went home. What happened?
JOHN: When revival first broke out at Brownsville … and I had been there 13 years as a pastor before revival broke out, so I knew what was going on in people’s lives. I knew people were on the verge of divorce, already signed the papers. I knew kids were giving their parents trouble, and all that.
SID: Smile on the outside, but what’s really–
JOHN: Yeah. Then when revival broke out … we’d been praying two and a half years, and revival finally broke out I began to see these people hugging, and crying, and reconciling, and making up with their children, husband and wives reconciling. I was so grateful to see that, but then my telephone began to ring, and people were saying, “Well, brother Kilpatrick, man when we had church we couldn’t be happier, we were so free. Then we go home, and by the time our car pulls onto the garage we’re fussing and fighting like cats and dogs.” So if I got one call, I got many calls. I went to the Lord and I said, “Lord what’s going on?” And He said, “Well son …” He said, “You prayed two and a half years in this sanctuary, the people did.” And He said it garnished, swept and garnished this atmosphere.
JOHN: He said, “But when they’re in this atmosphere, it changes their behavior. They’re at peace, there’s reconciliation. When they go home where all the fusses are inventoried, and all the curse words are inventoried, all the pornography is inventoried. When they get in that atmosphere it changes their behavior again.” He said. “The atmosphere has to be changed.”
SID: How can we make our homes ready for the glory?
JOHN: I think to repent is the main thing, and that’s something to–
SID: That’s a nasty word today.
JOHN: I know. But if you want the presence of God to come, He’s not going to come where it’s defiled. He won’t make His habitation there. He may visit, He may do something, but He’s not going to make that His habitation. The atmosphere has got to be swept and garnished, and that presence will come. Just like when they dedicated Solomon’s temple, the presence came in so powerfully and that’s what happened to Brownsville when the presence of God came. The thing that drew people to Brownsville was not me, or Steve. I know for sure it wasn’t me, and I know it wasn’t Steve. It was not the church, it was not the city, it was the presence, that’s what drew them. When people came and they felt that, it was tangible. They would fly for a day to get there from Australia and different places. When they’d get there, it would be worth that whole day’s flight just to spend an hour in the presence of God. Listen, when the atmosphere is right, you won’t have to worry about the glory coming. It will come. When the atmosphere is right in this church, when it’s right, when it’s cleansed, and washed, and purged, you won’t have to worry about God showing up.
JOHN: He’ll show up. The problem is not getting God to show up, He’ll show up. But the main thing is keeping Him there when He does show up. You’ve got to work with the Holy Spirit, you can’t grieve Him, you can’t offend the Holy Spirit. But see, the Holy Spirit is a Person but the glory is a atmosphere. The Holy Spirit is a person, He’s the third person in the adorable Godhead. But the glory is not the Holy Spirit, it is the presence of God, the manifest weighty presence of the Lord. The glory of God usually manifest in two ways; in Israel it would manifest when the priest would go in an and take the hyssop and sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat. Fire would break out, and that would be the tangible Shekinah glory of God. That would be the fire, that would be the visible. But the kabod, that’s the tangible weighty, satisfying, therapeutic presence that man was built to carry. I don’t know about you, but my life’s ambition since I’ve experienced the glory … and that doesn’t make anybody special because anybody can have it, but life’s ambition is to be a carrier of the presence of God. That’s what I want more than anything.
SID: You know, when this man talks about the glory, it keeps getting higher, and higher, but when we come back, there is a foundation for the glory that few understand. Most of us were cursed by the people that love us the most because they didn’t understand it, our parents. They’re called word curses, “Oh, you won’t amount to anything.” You know what they are, but there’s a way to reverse it that few have ever tried, and there’s a way to be blessed. Once you reverse the curses and walk in the blessings of God, and clean out your house, and repent of what you need to repent of, watch out, the glory is going to overtake you. Be right back.
