Pastor Tim …
Good morning, everybody. Really glad to be with you this morning. Those of you that are tuning in online, thanks for joining us live. I believe that this time together is going to be a blessing to you. I’m reminded this morning of the goodness of our God, and I love what David’s said. He said, “I will bless the Lord, oh my soul and all that is within me. I will bless his holy most wonderful name.” He also said, “I will not forget not one of the many benefits of my God.” In essence, he was saying no matter what I’ve been through, Father, you’ve been good to me. And I’m going to tell of your goodness. I’m going to testify of your greatness. I’m going to sing of your goodness because you have been good.
I think about this past year and how difficult things have been for so many. I kind of feel like what Paul said in 2nd Corinthians 4. He said we’re pressed on every side by troubles, but we’re not crushed. Sometimes we’re perplexed, but we’re not driven to despair or hunted down, but never abandoned by our God. God is always for us. He’s never against us. He said He’ll never leave us. He’ll never forsake us. Sometimes we get knocked down, but we’re not destroyed. And that’s why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every single day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever. So we don’t look at the troubles that we can see with our eyes. Rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen, for the things we see now will soon be gone. The things we cannot see will last forever.
So our hope is in the Lord this morning. It’s not in our circumstances. It’s not in an any man, not in our government. We put our hope and our trust in the Lord.
Well, I trust you, Lord, with all of my heart. I will not lean to my own understanding, but in all of my ways, I will acknowledge you. And I know that you will direct my steps. Thank you for that, Lord. You’re so good. You’re so good to us. That’s why we can say in spite of our circumstances, you’re good. You’re always good.
I love this song that we’ve sung so many times here. I love the verse. The first verse, it says “I will sing of your goodness. I will sing of your love.
♪ Though the seasons come quickly. You’ve always been enough though. Though the night may get darker, though the waiting seems so long, you have always been faithful and you remind me of your love… You are good, in the morning, I say you are good… in the evening I say you are so good. You are good to me… ♪
Pastor Ray…
I remember way back when I heard some things from the Word I’d never heard before that were so great and so good, I thought that’s almost too good to be true. Can we believe that? Yes, because it’s the Word. So if you’re sensing right now a lifting, it’s because of the anointing on the Word. And the Word that’s being sung right now is an anointed word for each one of us, for now. It’s for now. It’s for tomorrow. Yesterday’s gone. It’s over. Goodbye. But we’re moving into new days. And when Pastor Tim was declaring that He’s working, He’s always working. That’s one of my favorite pictures. He is working no matter if we can sense it, feel it, see it, hear it. He’s working. He’s working on your personal situation. And there’s such a power in agreement.
I read a testimony from Kenneth Hagin this morning about the first time he ever prayed a prayer of agreement with someone else. When you were singing that, Pastor Tim, Matthew 18:19. But verse 18 says (this is the Amplified), “I’ll tell you whatever you forbid and declare to be improper and unlawful on earth must be what is already forbidden in heaven.” Okay. Well right there. If it doesn’t line up with goodness and mercy, if it’s not changing, we forbid that. That’s not heaven’s ways. That’s the Devil’s plan or plans against us to hold us back. And it goes on to say “and whatever you permit…” and we permit His goodness and we declare it to be proper and lawful on earth because it already is permitted in heaven. Hallelujah! Again, I’m just going to tell you if two of you on earth…” And we’re on earth. We’re still on earth and we agree or we get together and we harmonize together and we make a kind of a symphony together about whatever or anything or everything that we might ask, it will come to pass and it will be done for them.” That’s us. “…By my Father in heaven. For wherever two or three of you are gathered or drawn together as My followers.” And we are. “…where you’re gathered together, drawn together as followers in My name, there I am in the midst of them.” In the midst of us today. Yesterday is over, but today is a new day.
And so this morning we declare some things to be improper. They’re not in heaven. There’s no touch of it in heaven. All the things that Pastor Tim, that you declared, He’s working on health, He’s working on prosperity of every kind, whatever it is that we need. I hate when we don’t actually act on the Word. It’s something I read from in agreement, praying the prayer of agreement. Brother Hagin said, “I just hate when Christians don’t even use the Word they know.” Or let’s say, Ms. Sue here, said, “Could you agree with me for such and such?” And it looks like I agree, but do I really agree? So, you know, there’s more to the Word than … a lot of times we just gloss over.
But I remember when Sandy and I first heard that way back and we had a situation with a business that we had and we had a huge order for us at that time. For a couple of huge sculptures in Houston, Texas. But we didn’t have a contract. We had nothing in writing. We just had a person’s word on it. We want you to do one for each matching business tower in Houston, Texas. We want you to make a sculpture for each one and we’re going to pay you X thousands of dollars for each one. “Oh, wow.” We were just “Hallelujah.” Well, we forgot to get anything in writing. And so then we came back here to Minneapolis. We were in Houston, came back to Minneapolis. I started on one of them, got a phone call and it was a couple that owned these properties. So the wife called me and said, We’re questioning whether we should do those sculptures.” I don’t know what happened in their business. “We’re just kind of…” and she didn’t know exactly how to say it, but she said, “Have you started on them?” Oh yeah, yes. Yeah. I have started on them. This is all I knew to say. And I had. So she said, “Well, I’ll just get back to you.” Sandy and I, we used that prayer. We just stood on what the prayer says and we agreed that, that… even though we had no proof in writing, but we had their word on it. And you know what? They called back and said, “Well, since you’ve already started, we’ll just go ahead and order both of them.” Ahhh! Talk about joy. Well, because we needed it. I mean, it was how we were making our living. But the prayer of agreement. And so it’s that way with all of the Word and to know that He’s so good that He’s always working.
Just let me read this one short little thing from Kenneth Hagin. This little book fell out of my… I have a big stash of prophecies and I pick those up and this fell out of it. And I was like, Oh, I forgot about this book. And it’s called “Prayer Secrets” by Kenneth Hagin. So he said he remembered Smith Wigglesworth. This is awesome. He said he was talking about an English Presbyterian lady who had gone to his mission. So she went to a meeting Smith Wigglesworth was having and she received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
“You may have experienced that yourself when you first received; you thought everyone would be happy for you, but you found out later that maybe they were not so thrilled.”
I know when I got baptized in the Holy Ghost, I called my Catholic sister up. “Hey, would you like to go out for dinner?” I still remember trying to explain to her. It was just like… the words went like [makes noise]… She wasn’t really thrilled. But I was over thrilled. So this lady got so baptized in the Holy Ghost, she went back to her church and she started just speaking in other tongues. Where upon… what did they do? They threw her out. “Get out of here.” Her husband was on the board, and they told him that he would have to put a stop to it or else they would have to excommunicate her for good. He went home mad, angry, and he informed her that she would have to choose between the Holy Spirit and him. He would give her 10 days to make up her mind. That’s interesting. She sent word for Wigglesworth to come to pray for her. When he came, he saw that her face and eyes were red from crying. She told him that he was too late. Nonetheless, Wigglesworth assured her that God never sent him anywhere too late. Don’t you love that? He always was on time. She related the story and added that it was the 10th day. Time is up. At the breakfast table that morning, her husband had asked her what her decision was. She told him that she could not give up the Holy Spirit. So he packed up and left. Wow. Wigglesworth told her that if they agreed in prayer, her husband would be back. She replied, “Well, you don’t know my husband.” He answered, “No, I don’t know him, but I know my Jesus.” She informed him that her husband never went back on his word. After a little time, Wigglesworth succeeded in showing her what the Word said. He told her that all they had to do was to agree on earth. Finally, she agreed just to agree. She agreed to agree. That was her agreement. They prayed and asked that her husband would come back. While they were praying, she began praying in the spirit. Wigglesworth told her that when her husband came back that night… He didn’t say if. He just said when. He’ll be back. She should be very nice and act as if nothing had happened at all. He added that after her husband went to bed, she should go to another room, be alone, and start praying in the spirit. And when she was in the spirit, she should go quietly and lay her hand on him and claim his soul. Wigglesworth left. The woman’s husband came back that evening. She cooked him his favorite supper. And later when she was praying while he was asleep, she laid her hand on him and claimed his soul. The minute she touched him, he jumped out of bed and asked the Lord to save him. Wow! The minute, BANG, he’s out of the bed and he’s asking to be saved. He then confessed that he was a board member of the church, but he wasn’t even saved. Ohhh. He converted and a few minutes later, he was also filled with the Spirit.
This all happened because Wigglesworth and this woman had agreed in prayer. And then he just went into Romans 8:26. “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought.” So right from praying a prayer of agreement, they knew what to pray for and they agreed on that. Then he went into not knowing what to pray or how to pray. For what needs to be prayed for, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And then he quoted Dr. PC Nelson. He affirmed that the Greek translation says that the spirit makes intercession with groanings, which cannot be uttered in articulate speech. Articulate speech means your normal kind of speech. You know, whatever language you might speak. This verse includes praying in tongues. That agrees with what Paul said in 1st Corinthians 14:14, “For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.” The Amplified says “My spirit by the Holy Spirit within me prays. We know not what to pray for as we ought.” You cannot possibly know in your natural mind what to pray for as you ought.
Kenneth Hagin said, “You can be so mighty in prayer alone, but you can be even mightier when someone else joins up with you.” And that is exactly what we do every morning in here. We get together. I’ve never felt, you know, people that come to the chapel or over the Internet… I’ve never sensed people being in disagreement. I’ve always sensed in agreement because we’re standing on what the Word says.
I’m just reminded of this years and years and years ago. I was in a prayer group and we’d say, “I think it’s right for us. The word says pray over your pastor.” So we start praying over Pastor Mac and Lynne. Just start praying in the spirit, pray over them, declare over them, whatever it was that we felt like it came up in our spirits and we just pray that out for them. And we do that for quite a while. And then we get all done. Hallelujah, in Jesus’ name. And there was one person that would always pipe up and pray out some things in his natural language, because just in case we didn’t cover it. Wait a minute… I thought the Holy Spirit would go to our aid and we would pray out by the spirit out of our spirit the things that needed to be prayed for our pastors. So for us to get done doing that and then get over and just pray out of our minds about what we think we didn’t cover. That just doesn’t make sense to me. It never has. So today, there are so many things, subjects, names, plans, purposes of God that need to be covered and declared over here on this earth. And let Him do the work that needs to be done.
Like Pastor Tim was singing, he’s always working. And so, you know, He works on behalf of what we declare based on what the Word has said. So I thought maybe we should just start singing. I didn’t think about this before, but right now it just came to me, start singing in other tongues. We’ll just come right along with you.
Pastor Tim begins to sing in the spirit…
Pastor Ray…
What you just sang right at the end, I heard this… “And so it’s by the blood.” I just heard that really clearly: it’s by the blood. There is not one thing that we could pray out that the blood has not already made a way for the victory in that area. The blood. This just came to me. If you look up here, I’m not sure if the cameras are picking this area up. Look, we have the American flag. We got the United States of America. We’ve got Israel. And we’ve got the church. We’ve got three things together, a three-fold core. It’s just not going to be broken. Hallelujah.
Pastor Tim led worship…
Pastor Ray…
We plead that blood over the United States of America. We cover it from one side to the other… from the north to the south, the east to the west in Jesus’ name, we plead the blood. We use the blood, we declare the blood as a covering for things that need to be rearranged and things that need to be changed… Oh, the blood of Jesus…
Pastor Tim continues to sing about the blood…
Pastor Ray…
Hallelujah. So just back again with those three flags. On Genesis 12, just moving over to Israel, Genesis 12:2, “I’ll make of you a great nation. And I’ll bless you with abundant increase of favor and make your name famous and distinguished. And you will be a blessing dispensing good to others.” And then verse three, “And I will bless those who bless you, who confer prosperity or happiness upon you and curse him who curses or uses insolent language toward you…” or shoots rockets at you! “In you will all the families and kindred of the earth be blessed. And by you, they will bless themselves. I will bless those who bless you, confer prosperity or happiness upon you.”
Hallelujah. So thank you, Lord. Israel, we have your back. We are in agreement. Just like we’ve said at the beginning here in Matthew 19, we agree for Israel today, for the nation of Israel, from all of their shores, from the shore over to the other side, you know, from the top down to the bottom. We plead the blood of Jesus over the nation of Israel and declare it shall never be broken up. The land shall not be taken away in the name of Jesus. And we pray a hedge of protection all around Israel. Televiv, Jerusalem, all over the land that was given to the people of Israel. We cover Israel. We lift you up. (tongues)
We take authority over every hindrance, obstacle, over every attack. Those that are trying to curse you, we take authority and we push back. We push back with the precious holy blood of the Lamb, and we put up a hedge around the people. We put a hedge up and around the people of Israel … safety, safety in Jesus’ name… And we’ll declare, Satan, stop in your maneuvers. We resist you on behalf of Israel, who we are connected to. (tongues) We plead that precious covering of the blood of Jesus that was shed right there on that land. The cross at Calvary … Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Jesus. Oh, that name that is above every other name.
Pastor Tim led group in singing about the name of Jesus…
Pastor Ray…
Proverbs 18:10 says “The name of the Lord…” His name is a strong tower. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The consistently righteous man upright and in right standing with God, runs into it and is safe.” high above evil. Safe. And then over in 21 says “Death and life are in the power of the tongue and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it for death or life.” We choose life. We choose life this morning. We choose Him. We declare life, liberty, freedom and victory. We choose the good. Because God is good. As we sang right at the beginning, He’s good. He’s great. Things are good and things will be better and better and better. We choose it. We hold the blood of Jesus against all opposition to the plan and to the purpose. We hold the blood against the plan of the enemy. The purpose of the enemy, what he has tried to do. We take our place in that high tower, where there is safety. We pray that for Israel. We pray it for the church. We pray that the church in these days will rise on up higher and higher and higher. More glory and more glory … from one step of glory to another … that the Church, Israel, and the United States… we declare we’re together … together in one accord… in agreement for what needs to take place in these hours that we’re living in 2021. Hallelujah. Thank you for it, Lord.
Pastor Tim led group in worship…
♪ Every day gets sweeter… every day gets better. ♪
And the reason we can say that is because our hope and our trust is in you, Lord. And that’s your promise to us. We’re standing on that promise and we’re not backing off of that. So we can say with confidence, You are good… in the morning
