Prayer Changes The Atmosphere | Senior Pastor Kenneth Carpenter

well if you have your bibles i'd like to invite you to the book of psalms chapter 141 verse number two well that song is just a ass song just make you feel good from from your head to your toe i mean i am who i am because the i am tells me who i am am i the only one that song makes you just feel good i am who i am because the i am tells me who i am amen hey just a quick note a reminder to all of the men that work on the ground crew that keep all the grass mowed around here um under the direction of brother randy newcomer they're going to be having a picture taken and that this sunday morning i believe at 9 15 and so all of the yard crew be here brother randy newcomer be organizing that and uh we appreciate how many appreciate these men keeping our yard all clean all mowed up thank you for that let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense father i love you tonight lord i ask you that you would help me to feed the people tonight lord this mighty prayer meeting that we've got going on of the mornings god is affecting the climate of our church god great miraculous things are taking place lord father i just pray that you would lead me tonight to leave this church during these unprecedented times lord help me god give me wisdom lord for the day that we live in god that i may lead this church under the banner of your spirit god i may lead this church god under the banner of truth victorious lord bless this gathering bless our minds tonight jesus wonderful name we pray everybody said amen you may be seated the psalmist said let my prayer let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense so we begin to know a little bit about the subject of prayer because the writer has informed us tonight that prayer and incense are similar so if we can understand what incense does we can begin to understand prayer in the book of revelation chapter number eight verse number three the writer here as he is writing about the end time that we now live in revelation chapter 8 and verse number 3 john says and another angel came and stood at the altar having a golden sensor there was given unto him much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which is before the throne so now we begin to see how that this incense is mingled in it is mingled in with the prayers it says in verse 4 and the smoke of the incense which came up with the prayers of the saints ascended up before god out of the angel's hand and the angel took the censer and filled it with fire of the altar and cast it into the earth and there were voices thunderings lightnings and an earthquake so we begin as we put these verses together we begin to see that david likens prayer to incense we understand that before the throne of god is a piece of furniture called the golden altar and the golden altar serves only one purpose and that is to offer incense upon that altar no animal was to be sacrificed there the animals were sacrificed on the brazen altar but on the golden altar the only thing that was offered on the golden altar was incense the golden altar was the closest to the throne of god in revelation we see how prayers and incense were mingled together and then the prayers that had got into the throne room were then cast down into the earth where john says when they were cast down verse 5 to the earth he said there were voices i believe those are heavenly voices there were thunderings and lightnings and an earthquake in other words the prayers that came with the incense change the atmosphere the atmosphere was changed by these prayers now brothers and sisters tonight i want to make a statement and i know that there will be those that in the future will misquote this statement but i'm going to say it anyway praying isn't about getting answers it's about developing a relationship prayers are not necessarily all about getting answers maybe that's a better way to say it so when they say you say prayer is not about getting answers i can say well it's not all about getting answers i really believe this is where people give up on prayer if they only view prayer as a means to get an answer from god i can see them becoming weary with prayer i can see them i can see them trying it for a while and then basically giving up and the best maintaining a small ritual that resembles prayer but the primary function of prayer is for you and i to develop a relationship with god a relationship with god you see a continual prayer creates an atmosphere in our lives a continual prayer around you is like incense what does incense do it affects the atmosphere you begin to burn incense and people can walk in to the room where it's being burned and they can smell the effect because incense has a way of affecting the atmosphere church prayer has a way of affecting the atmosphere of our lives now i know this may be a simplistic statement to be made but palm trees don't grow in tennessee palm trees don't grow around here you know why and i'm saying that for brother dave and sister barb tonight palm trees palm trees don't grow in tennessee and you say well that's the obvious well the obvious is is because the atmosphere and the environment does not fit what is needed to grow those trees down south a few hundred miles there is the right climate the right humidity the right of the right amount of heat and a land with only one season amen and it can grow palm trees so i'm saying all that just simply say this there are some things that cannot grow in our lives unless we continually create an atmosphere that will grow them there are some things that will never grow there are some levels with god i i can't explain it since november 1st since november 1st from 6 30 a.m of the mornings to 8 a.m people come and go from this room right here people come and go i've got a i've got a picture i was almost going to show it tonight but brother perry gets here a few minutes before i do i try to get here right at 6 00 6 30. i come in of the morning i got the picture on my phone but i come in of the mornings some mornings he would sit in the truck and wait for me to get out but how i know that he's already in here he takes his work boots off and they're back there at the back door and i stopped in and i i wanted to send him a text and say the steps of a good man are ordered by the lord amen but you see i don't know about you but those of you that have been coming i'm feeling a change in the atmosphere man we got all kinds of crazy things going on around us in our world right but in the midst of all that when people's lives are falling apart and there there there's all kinds of turmoil and chaos it just seems that being in the presence of the lord creates an atmosphere of peace that we can just stand in the midst of all this and say it's going to be all right it's going to be all right everything's going to be all right it's going to be all right the only thing going to stop thanksgiving from coming is going to be the rapture it's going to be all right the only thing that's going to stop christmas from coming it's going to be the it's going to be the rapture it's going to be all right church come on it's going to be all right you say man you got a lot of faith no i just got a lot of prayer because prayer creates this unexplainable atmosphere around your life when you ought to be falling apart you seem to be hanging in there when you ought to be speaking doubt and gloom you find a way to find a silver lining in the cloud because of prayer because of prayer he said he cast it down to the earth it affected the atmosphere with voices and thunderings and lightnings and an earthquake let's go to let's go to ephesians chapter 1 verse number 15 we kind of went over this a little bit last week but i i can't get away from it i just cannot get away from it ephesians chapter 1 verse number 15 wherefore i also after i heard of your faith in the lord jesus christ and love and to all the saints notice those things those two things go hand in hand you can't have the faith of the lord jesus christ without having the love for the saints if you don't have a love for the saints then you don't have the real faith of jesus christ but when you have the love when you have the faith of jesus christ you automatically will have a love for the saints he says in verse 16 love the saints cease not to give thanks for you making mention of you in my prayers i know i said a lot of this last week but i'm still taken back with the prayer life of the great apostle paul there's never been another like him the great apostle paul he said i am praying for you i am praying for you so now i want to listen to you paul what are you praying for us verse 17 says that the god of our lord jesus christ the father of glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him oh you need to underline that because this is one of the purposes of prayer the primary purpose of prayer is to develop a relationship with him and we develop a relationship with him by having a knowledge by having a knowledge of him now years ago out west it was a man by the name of hearst and mr hearst was an extremely wealthy wealthy wealthy man into newspapers and all and his wealth is just beyond any comprehension that we may have he was mr hearst was a lover of art he was a lover of rare artifacts he was a a lover of anything from from from hundreds of years ago he had uh things from egypt he had uh swords of emperors he had all kinds of different things that he would collect he was always collecting art statues and all these things from around the world he was obsessed with it he was obsessed with obtaining rare things that no one else had he came upon a piece of art that he wanted and he wanted it bad he called a man an aide to his side and he told the man about the piece of art and he said i don't care what it cost he said i don't care how long you have to be gone in search of this i don't care what the plane tickets are the hotel rooms are i don't care what you have to do you have to search until you find this piece of art a few months later his aide called him back and he said to him he said i have found it i have found this piece of art and mr hurst said well buy it i told you it didn't matter he said well i've got some news for you he said i assert