Atmosphere + Climate = Culture

I heard a series of sermons on atmosphere and how it affects our lives, how it can come against our best intentions.   Sometimes you don't know why you react the way you do at home with your kids or to hyour spouse or why your church isn't seeing revival, etc.  So if there is strife or discord or you feel something in a place but can't explain it such as in your home or church, you might find these notes helpful.  If you want to hear all the stories that go along with notes, you can order the CDs.  His preaching is MUCH better than my notes, so I encourage you to get he CDs.  But if you can't then I hope these notes will help!

Atmosphere + Climate = Culture by John Kilpatrick

CD with full message available at www.johnkilpatrick.org

Leviticus 14 …then they shall cleanse the house with blood…. And they will make atonement for the house and it shall be clean.

Before the Jews moved into Jericho, they were strategizing and the people of Canaan couldn’t see them, they said OK they may get the land, may get our wells, vineyards, homes, but we are not going to let them get our silver and gold into little demon gods. They hid them under their house. So that when the Jews came in, the Jews started living in those houses. God knew there was something wrong in that house. 

And so the Lord put streaks in the wall as symptoms.  You wouldn’t know anything was wrong unless He put the symptoms in.  The priests would see these stripes and tear down the house. Then the little demon gods would be found.  Why would God go to that much trouble? Because it was a spiritual problem in the house.  It will affect your ability to prosper, health, etc. 

Atmosphere is tremendously important to you.  It affects the way you feel, how you can perform, how you think, how you sleep, how you digest food, your intimacy, and EVERYTHING about you!   Has nothing to do with being saved! You can be saved and living in an atmosphere that hinders you. 

The blood will be for atonement for the house.  Our warfare is not with flesh and blood! It is with powers and principalities, and rulers of the darkness.

Lesson 1 of Revival: Just 30 minutes ago we were laying the presence of God loving each other and as soon as get home start fighting. The Lord said, you prayed 2 ½ years to purge the atmosphere at the church, you had corporate prayer and until the glory came, when those people are in that atmosphere it changes the personality. And they are loving, compassionate in church, but when they come home they are facing same atmosphere that has not been purged. It affects their personality and it is a comfort zone. Those curse words are still rumbling around in the house….where the parents blessed out the kids and criticized them, where the woman running down the husband, they come under the influence of that atmosphere.

God said to Pastor that, “My people are more a product of their atmosphere than they admit.”

Let’s talk about working conditions…. When you go to work it is almost like you are a slave, put on quotas, pressure to produce, live in that atmosphere. And so, there are things that God knows is in atmospheres that affect you, adversely.  He said He was going to put green and red streaks in the wall, tear down house, and needs to be cleansed with blood.

Atmosphere: the air of a place meaning that wherever you live, you have an air that is called atmosphere about you. Jesus had one, too. When Jesus came he said to Nathaniel, b/c the heavens had been shut up for 400 years w/ no sign from heaven, the earth was under brass heavens. He said to Nathaniel, I saw you under the fig tree. Nathaniel couldn’t believe it.  Jesus told Nathaniel that he would see the heavens open and angels descending and ascending for Me. You will see atmosphere part over Me, you’ll see angels being sent by God to minister me Me and angels to take messages from Me to God. 

Climate/Culture: The sustained atmosphere will produce a climate (like the atmosphere in FL and is good for producing fruit trees). The atmosphere and the climate will create a culture. The culture will be boating, fishing, tourism, and the culture will be a tourism where the beachcombers and water sports people will come. Compare / contrast Florida beaches, Aspen Colorado snow, ski resorts, and Las Vegas, prostitutes, gambling, etc.

Atmospheres hold spirits…. You shall cleanse house w/ blood, would not use words atonement and blood had it not been a spiritual problem.

Some of the things that you are experiencing might not be b/c you did something wrong. It might be that you are sensitive to something in the atmosphere that is different than where you came from…. That doesn’t mean that God is going to absolve you of any guilt if you sinned in it….

But it could be that something is going on w/ you that you have not committed any sin to feel the way you do, but it is b/c you are in a new atmosphere, you are not sleeping good, nightmares, eating is affected, problems thinking, you need to understand that atmospheres can be a spiritual thing.

Story: One church went though several pastors in fairly short time.  All ended up leaving the church and losing their families over unfaithfulness to the spouse.  Finally they got a preacher a little older/wiser.  He hadn't been there a month and approached the board, telling them that he couldn't stay in the parsonage any more, that he needed them to help him get the "hell" out of the house because every time he laid in that bed at night, all he could think about was sexual lusts.  So they went over, prayed, and cleaned out the atmosphere.  

Atmosphere sustained long enough creates a climate.  That climate sustained long enough creates a culture.

People might ask the preacher to come pray over their house and bless it But don’t do it until the atmosphere has been dealt with because the blessing can’t light on it because of the demonic atmosphere, etc.

You have to clean a place before you can put a blessing on it.

Atmospheres hold inventories… the prayers of those who have gone before us, they are gone but their prayers are in the soil, in the woods, in the trees.  God let him listen to prayers of generations ago.  Story: Atmosphere inventories: Pastor Kilpatrick went to a church in Virginia as a guest preacher.  All during the worship all he could hear were these voices of older men and women crying out to God, but it wasn't inside the church.  It sounded like it was coming from the woods nearby.  The atmosphere in the church was electric, the power of God was all over the people.  He began telling them what he had been hearing.  After the message some of them told him that there was no way he could have known that generations ago the people were very poor and they did not always have a church to pray in, or they couldn't get there, so they got used to praying in the woods!  And those were the prayers that were inventoried there in that atmosphere! 

America has had people praying down through the centuries….!!! 

Revival is coming to America.  A new reformation is coming. It’s not over!

Israel is not just a modern day Israel. King David is attached, Samuel is attached Rehaboam, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc all attached and their words are still resting in the atmosphere of Israel. It only appears that Israel is a godless nation.  And the end time prophecy around Israel will all come to pass.

Bible says God inventories prayers and a bottle inventories tears.  A book holds the names of those who are born again. 

Change channels (stop listening to the politics, the news) because it drags you down.  Change the channel…!

You can’t say that a mom praying for her daughter and son, grandparents praying for their kids and grandkids, board members who backed their church, gave when they didn’t have money to give (sew something else instead) … can’t tell me that their prayers died with them in the grave.

Atmospheres inventory blessings and even curses.  Atmospheres hold offenses.  That’s why Jesus, says we have to deal with some things like sin because it is our responsibility to repent and ask Him to forgive us.

And the Lord will forgive you.  Deal with offenses in the same way. 

But then there are things you will come into contact with that you had nothing to do with, such as if you become pastor of a church with a history of fighting, fueding, grudges, etc.  You then have 2 things: the keys of the kingdom to use to bind and to command that the thing ceases and desists, then you loose the angels of the Lord to come in and then you plead the blood of Jesus to break the strongholds over atmospheres.

Atmospheres can hold inventories of grief, unusual grief, where divorce or suicide or murder took place, where strife has been there, unforgiveness, etc. 

Before Jesus ministered in the temple where the money changers were, he cleaned it out, cast out things that caused a bad atmosphere.  He cleansed the atmosphere.  He didn’t tear the temple down, He garnished and swept the atmosphere.  Why can’t some churches experience worship? Or why they can’t seem to have revival or can’t sustain it?

They have too many things inventoried in the walls of the churches!

It’s because the atmosphere has caused a climate, which has led to a culture. 

Sterile Atmosphere: where you come in to a church or a home, business, and you don’t know what is wrong but you don’t want to stay there.  You feel ill at ease and in a sterile atmosphere, worship has a very difficult time.  You can’t worship because Holy Spirit isn’t there, so routine takes over.  The atmosphere is dead and sterile. In homes, kids can’t wait to turn 18 to leave. They don’t think about staying there long term because they would rather live with a neighbor than stay in that home. When the atmosphere is sterile and atmosphere not right, the household members can go to church and promise to change, repent, etc.  They come home to the atmosphere that hasn’t been dealt with.  They come home and man tries to compliment his wife.  Before the words reach her ear, the atmosphere has taken the words and garbled them, and his heart was not conveyed in the way she heard it.  And so the vows they made become broken because they start fighting all over again.  In churches, it works pretty much the same way.  That’s why it is important to preach the Word, it can’t be what you think, it has to be the Word to cut through that atmosphere, to cut, divide and pierce that kind of atmosphere.