Let’s Talk About Prayer

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Show Notes

Pray in Agreement

• Matthew 18:19-20 (NKJV)

“Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.

For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”

 
Pray Scripture

• This type of prayer was practiced by many in the early Word of Faith movement
 
Pray Amiss

• James 4:3 (NKJV)

“You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”

 
Pray the Prayer of Faith

• James 5:15 (NKJV)

“And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”

 
Effectual Prayer

• James 5:15-17 (NKJV)

“And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.”

 

Written by Kent Simpson, Apostolic Prophet

God with Us

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Then Joseph, Mary’s husband, knew that his wife was pregnant and he needed to protect her reputation. “While he thought about these things, behold, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you and your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:20-21)
 
There is no one in history that has been given more names or titles than Jesus Christ. If you’ve read through the Bible carefully then you know what I mean. Throughout the pages of Holy Writ over 100 names and titles are given to Jesus. And whether He is called “Bright morning star, Wonderful Counselor, the Root of Jesse, the Alpha and the Omega, or the Lamb of God”, each of these names and titles is rich with meaning. They all say something significant about who Jesus is. However, there is one name that is very significant this time of year “Immanuel“. This name, which Matthew refers to in his Gospel (Matthew 1:23), was first given to Jesus by the prophet Isaiah 700 years before His birth (Isaiah 7:14). And this very special Christmas name, as Matthew tells us, means “God with us.” Jesus Christ, Yahshua is Immanuel, “God with us,” and I’d like to share why this is so meaningful at Christmas time.
 

Angel Proclaims His Purpose:
“And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

 

Angel Declares the Prophecy:
So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet (Isaiah 7:14), saying: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”

 

Angel Delivers His Name:
“Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name Jesus.” (Matthew 1:21-25)

 
When Paul preached to the pagans of Lystra (in Acts 14) He reminded them that the true God, the Creator, had always been with them, giving them witness of Himself by providing them with rains, fruitful seasons, and giving them food and glad hearts. Thus, God has always been with His creation in the sense that He, who is everywhere, has showered all mankind with blessings — despite their sin.
 

Angel Delivers a Warning:
“Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.” (Matthew 2:13)

 
So great was His love for His fallen creation, for you and for me, that He left His glory to come here. And through His perfect life and death on the cross He broke down the wall of separation that our sin had built and reconciled us to Himself; as it is written “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” (2 Co. 5:19). Through Jesus Christ, Immanuel, our sins are forgiven and we have fellowship with our Creator again.
 

Angel Clears the Way:
“…when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the young Child’s life are dead.” (Matthew 2:19-20)

 
Immanuel, in this one name, everything mankind needs and the entire plan of God’s salvation is culminated. How blessed we are that Jesus Christ, Yahshua became Immanuel, God with us. May His Angles be all about you and your family during this special Holy Day.
 

Written by Kent Simpson, Apostolic Prophet

Angels Watching Our Children

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One beautiful summer day in July, 1976 something happened that started me on a quest to find out how this supernatural event took place. My first born was 3 years old. We had just arrived home from work after my wife and I had picked up our daughter from the home of the lady who watched over her each day. The first thing I would do when I gone home each day would be get out of my suit and tie and put on my work jeans and old shirt. Get into my old pickup truck and ride out to the pasture, work on the fence and check on the cattle. We did not have many neighbors but recently a new family from California moved into a large home across the highway from our little ranch house. They had just finished having a new swimming pool put in behind their house. Wanting to be good neighbors they invited my family to come swim and we did so the previous weekend.

As I was jumping into my jeans I heard our cattle dog barking. Well, he never barked unless someone was coming up the drive to our house. I worked my way over to the bedroom window and looked out but couldn’t see any vehicles; although, Boots was aggressively warning us something was wrong. He would bark looking across the road and then turn barking back at toward the house. That is when I caught a glimpse of top of my little girl’s head running across the highway toward the new neighbor’s home. Scared and feeling rushed I hollered out to my wife, “The baby is running across the road.” Her mother was in the hall restroom, when I screamed out the danger she jumped out into the middle of the hallway, pulled up her jeans and sprinted out the door and up the drive toward the neighbors. Standing outside dressed and waiting for their return. Then I saw her mother walking over the highway fussing as the baby girl was crying. Soon as we were close enough to talk she angerly reported that our daughter was standing at the edge of the swimming pool when she found her. Now, we realized that if she had jumped into the swimming pool without us knowing she would have definitely drowned before being found. Thanks to our dog, Boots, we had been spared a great deal of guilt and despair. I was amazed that the dog knew she was not suppose to go over that way without us; but how did he know to vigorously alarm us?

Years later when my daughter was 13 I really began to understood that God had His angels watching over our children. You know how teenagers can get! She wanted to go on a date. I told her; “Well, I’m not having any boy come pick you up and take you on a date. I’ll take you to the movies I want to meet this guy. Then I’ll pick you up.” I made her promise me she would not get in his car or go with him anywhere else. She had to stay in the movie until I came to get her. She replied; “Oh, I’ll do what you asked Daddy, I’ll do it.”

I go and meet the boy, and I don’t feel too sure about him, but I’m trusting God. Couple of hours later while home watching T.V. God suddenly says, “You know, parents always run late picking their kids up.” I thought about that a minute. I knew it was not enough to hear God; we’ve got to know what He means, and that takes years. He was basically saying “Go pick her up early.”

I get there early. The entire mall is locked up except the exit doors to the movies so I watch everybody come out, and I’m parked at the curb right in front of the doors so I could see everyone coming out but I didn’t see my daughter. All of a sudden, she comes running up to the side of the car. She jumps in the car crying, saying this boy dropped her off on the side of the road. I said, “Wait a minute. You told me you wouldn’t leave here.”

She said, “I know Daddy, but-.” I said, “But nothing. I want his parents to know and I’m going to call them. No boy is going to do that to my daughter.”

As we’re driving home, we passed our house. She said, “We just passed the house.” I said, “I know, we’re going up to the church because we’re going to call his parents.” I was the pastor of the church back then.

She said, “But you can’t do that Daddy. You don’t know his number.”

She was feeling really confident, thinking I was lost and not going to call his parents. She never gave me the number. I go in my little office and pick up the trashcan and put it on the desk. I start digging through it. And she’s getting a little haughty, you know. She’s thinking she’s got me over a barrel. I picked out this piece of paper and turn it around to show it to her.

“Look, is that his number?” She turned white! I mean like chalk. I said, “You have one more chance. You tell me the truth about everything that happened. Everything you’ve done, or I’m calling them.” She broke, confessed to everything.

After we had a heart to heart talk I found out what the problem was. The reason why she got so rebellious, was because her baby sister was close to being delivered and she was afraid she was going to lose her daddy to this new baby. Of course, we know that wasn’t going to happen. I was barely able hold our new born because my oldest daughter was holding her all the time!

My point is that you as a parent need to know what’s going on with your children all the time because you can know! God will tell you. He will let you know what you need to do. We’ve just got to be in tune with His voice. Our mind needs to be focused on His thoughts. There’s a place within each and every one of us who are spirit-filled where we can find the mind of Christ. You can be in both places – in the natural realm and in the spirit realm at same time and still hear Him. Now, there are times you’re going to be almost all in the natural because of things you’re dealing with, but there are times you can move all the way into the spirit realm. There you will see all kinds of things that will help you in the natural.

We’re going into places that will teach you what you were created to do in this life. We can even get to the place where we will understand what is happening in our time right now, and what God is getting ready to do.

But if you feel like you need more of God, and let me assure you that you do, then keep seeking Him. Pull upon Him with your prayers and He will give you what you need to know. You’ll experience Him on a level that you have not ever experienced before. 

Written by Kent Simpson, Apostolic Prophet

Pray Without Ceasing

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You must first have God’s word in you. And I’m not talking about reading the scriptures. He may lead you to the scriptures to tell you what He wants you to do, but I’m saying you need a relationship with Him where you pray without ceasing, as we read in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.
 

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

 
How do you pray without ceasing? Do we go to our knees with our heads bowed and hands clasped? No, He’s saying you keep your antenna pointed toward Him and spiritual dial tuned into Him at all times, whether you’re driving, you’re talking or walking; no matter whatever you’re doing. That takes time to learn how to do this. Once you spend a lot of time with Him you’ll find out how. You’ll get to the place where the only times you break down and pray like you use too is when you really need Him bad, like right now. All the other times you know He is with you.
 
You may be a plumber going through Home Depot and, all of a sudden, you stop and wonder “why am I looking at this piece of equipment? I don’t need that.” And you go on your way. You drive back 30 miles to where you came from, where the job is, and all of a sudden you realize you need that part. You should have picked it up! How many times has that happened to you? It’s the Holy Ghost telling you, Spirit to spirit. Get it! Those are the little things that add up to bigger blessings. Pray without ceasing.
 
Prayer is a place of being with God. It’s not a thing we do; it’s a thing that happens to us. Pray to ask God what He wants you to do; don’t pray to tell God what to do. Please! He’ll just mess up your life if He does what you say to do because He knows your needs better than you do. He knows our needs even before we ask (ref. Matthew 6:8), so maybe we need to start asking Him what He wants us to do, and how He wants us to do it.
 
A lot of times we’ll pray, “God, I need something.” Or “God, I need to get healed.” What you need to do is say, “God, how do I get this thing need taken care of?” Then let the revelation come to you. You need to walk under that pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. Then you’re under His protection at all times. The grace of God is a good thing! But you’ve got to be willing to listen to Him. We’re saved by grace through faith, which is the gift of God (ref. Ephesian 2:8).
 
In other words, if you want to get saved from a certain situation today, you’d better have faith to hear what God has to say. Romans 10:17 says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
 
You won’t believe it unless you experience it yourself. The point is not just to tell you about this, not just to give you my stories and testimonies, but to reveal the knowledge so that you may be activated into this new way, God’s way, all the way. So, you receive all that God has for you. I am attempting to fan that spark inside of you that will give you the ability to know of things to come, to be able to look around the corner of tomorrow and be prepared for where you need to be, for what you need to say and what you need to do. It’s important!
 
I used to be a bank president. A lot of times I’d have customers that would come in that wouldn’t want to go to the teller. They’d want to come to me. One time this fellow had come in and started talking to me; he was one of our loyal customers. I kind of read between the lines of what he was wanting as he slid his checkbook across my desk. He said, “I need about $750. My wife wants to go skiing and we have never done that so we’re going to try it. So, we need to buy some skis and stuff.” Then he just started talking. I knew right then he couldn’t read or write, so I took his checkbook and started filling it out. Without saying a word, I just pushed it back and he made his little mark and sent it back to me. I pulled the check out and called the secretary in so she could go and cash it. We were talking and I said, “Now let me ask you a question. How did you get so much money?”
 
He said, “Well my dad just told me I was going to be a ditch-digger, so when I got out of school in the third grade I started digging ditches.”
 
I said, “Yeah, but now you’ve got all this heavy equipment and machinery that costs millions of dollars!”
 
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Well I just got this gut feeling one day that if I’d go out there and start digging these holes down these trenches and laying some line, that could work.” He had built a subdivision. Then that subdivision sold out really quickly, and he went and built another one, and another one, and another one. Then he started contracting for the government.
 
But we missed something real important there: He said, “I just had that gut feeling.” How many times has the Holy Spirit been called a “gut”? Really! “I just had that unction” or, “Oh, I just kind of knew that if I did it nobody would believe me. But when I stepped out and did it, it worked.” That’s not you; it’s the Holy Spirit.
 
We’ve got to be careful not to become rodomontade. “Look how big I am! Look how smart I am! Look what I’ve done!” All you did was obey the Holy Spirit and He commanded His angels to go make it all happen. That’s all you need to do to get ahead in this life, is to pray, hear and obey. He did all the forecasting, he did all the preparation. He did everything to make it fall into place just for you. You need His word working every day of your life!
 

Written by Kent Simpson, Apostolic Prophet

Purpose, Process, Promise

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When God called me into the ministry, I didn’t want to go. It was 1976. In July I asked God, “What do you want me to do for You?” He didn’t hesitate. He told me to read Ezekiel 33, so I started reading that chapter and I read that you’ve got to warn the people because if you don’t then when the sword of the Word comes on those people and their blood is shed then their blood will be on your hands. But if you tell the people and they don’t listen, then the blood will be on their own hands.
 
I was a Baptist then, so all I knew about was getting people saved. I thought God was saying I’ve got to save the whole world, but how was I going to do that? I was ignorant. I didn’t know the things of the Spirit. Especially when it got to verse 33 of Ezekiel 33. “And when this comes to pass-surely it will come-then they will know that a prophet has been among them.”
 
That really threw me. A prophet, what is that? Needless to say, every time I heard the call of God on my life, I’d envision myself leaning over some wooden pulpit wearing a moth-eaten sport coat, speaking a hard or dry word. I didn’t want to do that, I was a banker and wanted to stay a banker until I was the president of the bank! I had a lot of things to do. I was going places, doing things, and it was fun! I didn’t want to be a prophet, but God has His way. Your going God’s way one way or the other. The hard way is not the way go; I highly suggest you be obedient on His first call.
 
Ten years I ran from the call, then God one day jerked the rug out from under me and I feel hard I was crying out to God, “Please God let me serve you! I’ll do whatever you say!” And it still took a couple of years before He respond back to me. If you reject Him, He will reject you. But He is merciful and He has a lot more grace and forgiveness than you or I, so He cut me some slack and knocked off 8 years and I did not have to wait the full 10 years that He waited for me. And so, I began the journey and now I would never ever trade the ministry for what I had before. Serving the Lord in whatever it is you’re called to do is the most exciting thing you could ever do.
 
You’ll hear people saying, “We’re going to go over to Liberia” and think, “Don’t you know there is Ebola going on there?” They don’t care. If God is sending them, that’s where they are going. You may think they’re nuts! But once you know what it’s all about, you just get out of the way and let God have His way, because where He sends you He’ll take care of you. He’ll line up people to finance you. He’ll do everything you need to do His work.
 
You know, doing God’s work isn’t always about ministry either. When I was a banker, I was doing what God called me to do. It was a miracle that I was even in banking! I was bad at Math, Algebra and all the course pertaining to being a bank president. So, I don’t know how I ever got there. I started out in the mail-room sorting mail and in 10 years I was a bank president. How does that work? Only God! God has people in all areas of life and when you find your place with God and you are doing what He wants you to do your life is complete. It doesn’t matter what He has for you to do.
 
That’s what I hunger for, to see people find their niche with God. Where do you fit in the Kingdom and the Body of Christ? It is vast! And God is moving people through all different streams of life. He’s taking people out of nothing and turning them into a testimony that just shocks people because of what they are doing now. You look into your spiritual rear-view mirror of your past to see where you have come from and where God’s got you now you’ll just be shaking your head in awe. How can this be?
 
I tell you these things so you may know that God has a purpose for giving you a word. And when you receive that word, there’s a process you will go through before you see the promise of His word fulfilled. Nobody wants to go through the process; everybody wants to go from the purpose to the promise, but you can’t do it that way because a lot of the process is about shaping and molding and preparing you for what He’s about to bestow upon you, what He’s about to entrust you with. There are so many things God wants to do for you and through you.
 
Some of you are still going through that process, and you’re getting closer and closer to the promise. Just let God do what He’s going to do. Don’t try to help him or get in His way. And don’t go sharing it with everybody because not everybody is going to understand it. In fact, Joseph made that mistake and wound up in the bottom of a well, sold into slavery. It’s best just to keep it between you and God and maybe a few very close friends or family.
 
It doesn’t take much to get out of line with God. Sometimes He gets furious about things that we think are nothing. But it just doesn’t matter – if He says He wants you there that means He wants you there. He chastens those whom He loves. And His paddle can come out of nowhere, designed in a way that you would have never thought of! When pain is inflicted by Him, you’ll know it. Some folks will say, “God doesn’t do that.” Um, they had better read the bible again. They’ll say that’s all Old Testament stuff. No, it’s not. You can find where the Holy Spirit put words upon a king and He killed him in Acts 12:21-23. “So, on a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat on his throne and gave an oration to them. And the people kept shouting, ‘The voice of a god and not of a man!’ Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten by worms and died.”
 
We can also read in Revelation of those who were prophesying and the water would turn to blood. They would prophesy famines upon the world. What kind of Christianity is this? It’s warfare, not just in the soul but right in front of you. It’s like the terrorist of today who are trying to kill us it’s up front and personal.
 
There are days coming like those of Moses and Aaron standing before Pharaoh, power against power. That’s where we are headed, like Elijah standing before 450 prophets and calling fire down from God (1 Kings 18). He went up against those who said they had spiritual powers in doing all of their chanting and incantations. But in all their sacrificing and all that they did – the wood never was lit. And that was the bargain they made: Whoever’s god comes and lights the fire – that god everybody would serve. Elijah sat there and he listened to Baal’s prophets all day long. He mocked them and made fun of them because of his assurance that God would meet him on that day because God already told him to be there.
 
You know, you can’t shoot somebody with a trigger pulled halfway. In Texas, we call that “half-cocked”. You’d better go in with everything you’ve got. And the only way you’re going to do that is with God’s word abiding in you and you abiding in Him. Therefore, you’ll have whatever you say. By the way, this is scriptural. John 15:7: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”
 
If you come into agreement with God’s word then that is what is going to happen. If He gives you a word and you agree with Him then you will go do that word. Well, if Satan sends a word to you and you buy into it and come into agreement with it, then guess what? Unfortunately, those powers of darkness will work in your life too. So be cautious what and who you come into agreement with.
 

Written by Kent Simpson, Apostolic Prophet