Sid: Now my guest Pastor John Kilpatrick is red hot for the Messiah, Senior Pastor of Daphne Alabama Church of His Presence. And those that are not familiar with John Kilpatrick, he was the Pastor on Father’s Day June 1995, Pensacola, Florida Brownsville Assembly of God. They had an invasion of the Holy Spirit and during a five year period over 4,000,000 people from around the world came to that little sleepy town and went to that church. Hundreds and thousands of people made rededications or professions of faith to believe in Jesus. And it was what John, as you put it on yesterday’s broadcast you knew that there was more and you got it.
John: Yes, I was just desperate, desperate for the Lord, you know not desperate for church, not desperate for religion, but I was desperate for the Lord.
Sid: Now as a young man you were involved in prayer, I find that interesting. You were being mentored by your pastor in prayer and it was a very tough time for your pastor; someone was trying to put him out of the church. But there was one night that you had amazing visitation of angels. Tell me about that.
John: Well, my father left us whenever I was twelve years old and after he left us, from twelve until fourteen I just really was lost, I mean I was disoriented, I didn’t have a man in my life. I had a mother and three sisters and so whenever my father left my brother-in-law married my sister and his father was a pastor and he was the pastor of the church there that we began going to. And so after I was called to preach at fourteen years old, he took me under his wing and he asked my mother if he could take me and mentor me and teach me how to pray. And I remember that I was standing there Sid, and I thought to myself, man I’m not called to pray, I’m called to preach, you know. And so I began to go to those midnight prayer meetings with him, he had them every night. I’m talking about seven days a week, even after church on Wednesday night, after church on Sunday night. It started about 11:30 at night and that’s when the mill shift would get off, and the foundries, cotton mills and the foundries and all and the men would get off from work and they would come by and they’d wash up and they’d go in and pray with pastor. And so I was the youngest guy there, and so we began to pray and I remember when I first started in those prayer meetings I was so lonely, a lot of times it was just me and him you know and I was lonely, I was a young boy fourteen years old. I was full of life, I didn’t have a Dad. We’d drive by a lot of times the ball fields and I see the ball fields’ lighted up you know and I’d be out there playing little league ball and I could hear the bat crack the ball and I thought I wish I could be out there on that ball field. But I didn’t know then what I know now and I know that God had a plan for my life and I know that I wasn’t, couldn’t belong on that ball field but I belonged in those prayer meetings with Him. And when I first started it was so new to me and I just couldn’t get adjusted to it but as I began to pray with him and as he began to teach me to pray and teach me about the presence I would never ever exchange one night of those prayer meetings for any other thing that I’ve ever been through in my life.
Sid: Oh, you would not have prayed through the revival at Brownsville had you not been mentored as a young man.
John: Exactly, and he was a prayer warrior; he was a German, he was a very brilliant man. He had a very great mind, but he was humble, he was the most humble man that I’ve ever met. And he walked with God; he was not a common pastor, this man walked with God. And when he heard from God, it wasn’t hope so or maybe so, it was know so you could write it down. And if he ever told you something that the Lord told him you could write it down because it was going to come to past, because the Lord told him. And he didn’t know it but a lot of times he’d tell me things the Lord would tell him and I would go and I’d go and I’d sneak off and I’d write it down and I’d put it in my wallet and whenever it come to pass I’d take it out and check it off. And there was never a time that he told me that the Lord told him something that I didn’t check it off. But he was a powerful man of God and as I began to pray with him in those prayer meetings…
Sid: Now by the way, when you prayed with him how did you pray? Was it mostly in unknown tongues, was it with understanding? What was the majority of your prayer like?
John: Well, he would tell us to get all the gum out of your mouth, he would say, I don’t want you talking over in the corner when it’s time to pray, when it’s time to pray it’s time to pray. I don’t want you fellowshipping, I want you to pray. We usually pray in English you know and then there would be time in prayer meeting that the Lord would give a message in tongues and then there would be an interpretation of tongues. Sometimes there would be a prophetic exhortation, but we would always pray with the lights out and there would range anywhere between just he and I in the prayer meetings up to thirty-five, thirty-eight, forty people in prayer meetings, just men. And we would usually pray from like 12:00 at night, we’d gather about 11:30 but we’d pray from about 12:00 to 1:30 – 2:00 and I’d have to get up the next morning and go to school.
Sid: I was going to ask you how did you go to school?
John: I got use to no sleep early, I really did. I’d get up and go to school and then I would work for him in the afternoons, he’d use me in some secretarial work you know answering phones and things like that and I’d work for him and then I’d stay with him all afternoon and then we’d pray that night. And I’m telling you those prayer meetings Sid, was the most life changing experience. Here’s what pastor knew that I didn’t know and here’s what a lot of pastors may not know and he knew this that no preacher is ever going to exceed his prayer life. If he doesn’t have a prayer life his ministry will never exceed his prayer life. You’ve got to have a prayer life, you’ve got to have a relationship and a walk with Christ in order to have a successful ministry. And it’s like he told me so many times, and like I mentor ministers today, and like I tell them in the mentoring sessions. You may have a ministry, but if you don’t have integrity you may have a ministry but you won’t have it in the long run, there’s a trip wire out there somewhere that’s going to trip you up. You’ve got to have a personal relationship with the Lord. And the way you develop that is by prayer and by meditation and by spending time with the Lord. And I saw him as an example, a living breathing example through those years of in prayer and I remember how he would always take off his coat and take off his tie and you could see that white shirt in the dark, you could see it disappear behind that last pew on the left hand side of the auditorium and there he would be for the next hour and a half, two hours. And sometimes he would pray in English, sometimes in tongues, sometimes you’d hear him groaning just like an animal; just groaning and interceding.
Sid: He reached into the realm that’s called travailing, yes it was definitely travailing, I have heard him do it many times. And I still hear those sounds in my head to this day, and I was with him from the time that I was fourteen.
John: Tell me about that very unusual night when you were fifteen years of age.
Sid: Well, he had had to stop revival in the church because an evangelist had, he suspected an evangelist of some behavior that wasn’t right. And so he cancelled the revival and closed it down and when he did the evangelist began to work against the pastor in the church and caused some problems. So much problems that he was going to resign. So this particular night he told all of us, there was seventeen of us that night in the prayer meeting and he told us, he said, “I’m going to take a church in Woodhaven, Florida.” And whenever he said that it just devastated me, I mean I couldn’t even talk, because this man had become my life. And the first thought that came into my mind was, “Well I’ll just catch a city bus and I’ll catch a city bus and I’ll go home,” because I don’t want him to see me crying. And the other thought was, “Well you know I’ll just walk home,” but it was too dangerous, it was back there in the sixties and there was a lot of rioting and burning around the church and it was just too dangerous for me to walk home. So I remember I felt trapped in the church, but I didn’t know as I felt trapped and I couldn’t leave, I didn’t feel like there was any options. I didn’t know what God was about to do in the next few minutes and there was seventeen of us there that night and they started to pray and they didn’t pray over just a few minutes and I began to see them gather up around the front of church around the altars. And I heard one man say, well, I think I’m going to put on my shoes and go to the house and they hadn’t even been praying fifteen minutes which was highly unusual. But the church was filled with just a lot of heaviness because the pastor was going to be leaving and he was going to be leaving under not good terms. He was hurt, he was broken hearted, I was broken hearted, we all were and so the prayer meeting just came to an abrupt halt and about that time a holy hush just came into the sanctuary. And about that time as I felt that Holy hush come into the sanctuary I joined the others, I was setting out in the auditorium in the dark and I had joined the others up on the altar. And as we sat there, on the altar bench just bam the power hit our two front doors of the sanctuary and they were locked five ways. They were locked with a deadbolt, pins jammed in the top, pins jammed in the bottom a key beneath the doorknob and a deadbolt latch; it was locked five different ways. And a power hit those doors and both of those big front doors of the church busted open, just burst open. And in off the porch, what one angel and came and stood where Brother Wetzel had just been praying a matter of minutes before; he stood right there where he was praying. And then after him came another one and he stood on the right hand of the sanctuary and he stood right next to a bookcase where I started the church library. And I remember that big angel was so big standing beside that bookcase it made that bookcase look so small. And I was fifteen years old when I saw this, and I was thinking in my mind, just my fifteen year old mind, my God I have never seen anything so big. They were not dressed like regular angels, they were dressed like warriors, I saw no weapons; there were no wings, they never addressed us, we never addressed them, but they were just standing there and those doors were wide open. And I remember saying to myself, “Jesus I’m dreaming.” I put my hand up to my face and touched my face and when I did I knew I wasn’t dreaming because I could feel my hand on my face. I lifted my eyes and I looked back over to the left and to the right and there stood those angels. And they didn’t stay but just a few minutes; it seemed like just a few minutes, but evidently it was a little bit longer. And just like they received a cue from another world, the first one that come in turned just like a soldier and he marched toward the center aisle and he turned just like…
Sid Roth: But then, what happened at your next prayer meeting? Were out of time, but John from a visitation of God he’s been given a prophetic insight for what is going to happen starting this year and in the near future and he has a special series on “Angels Enforcing Blessings.”
Tags: It's Supernatural, Sid Roth