I Can See What He Said: A Prayer of Praise!

In this episode of the PRESS Movement Podcast, we travel to Luke chapter 2 and meet Simeon—a man who waited faithfully for God’s promise to be fulfilled. After 400 silent years between the Old and New Testaments, Simeon stood as a beacon of hope, led by the Spirit and holding fast to his faith.

When he finally saw the child Jesus in the temple, he lifted Him up and prayed, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace.” Simeon didn’t wait for the promise to be completed—he blessed God for what had begun.

This episode reminds us that God is always working, even in the waiting. The Holy Ghost still leads, still reveals, and still fulfills what He has spoken. You can bless God for the beginning of what He’s doing because prayer reaches every single situation—even the ones that are just getting started.

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#ApostolicDoctrine

Transcript

Press means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through.

And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. Greetings, everyone. Welcome to the Press Movement Podcast.

Thank you for joining me today. Sorry, I've been out the last couple of weeks. I was actually in Greece with a group from TM Global and the Press Movement and just able to help encourage the church that is there and just pray over the country.

We are very excited for what the Lord did while we were in Greece, but it did cause me to delay publishing this podcast. So my apologies for that, because we are still definitely going through the New Testament. And I'm excited about what God will do.

I'm always excited when I get to see prayer in action. And I must say the faith of the people in Athens, where we were able to minister to the church there and to just fellowship with them, it was so encouraging to us. Here in the States, we often have multiple churches.

They're all over the place, especially in Indianapolis. There's dozens and dozens of churches that are in truth, but it's not so everywhere around the country or even the world. And so just seeing that they may not have that on every corner, but they're holding fast to the apostolic doctrine, and they're doing it in unity and with boldness.

My heart was so encouraged and humbled to be there. Perhaps one day I'll be able to share more about Greece, but that is not what this podcast is about. Let's go to the book of Luke chapter two.

While you're getting there, you know what? Maybe not just Greece. Maybe one day we'll come back to just what the Lord has done abroad. Because I do love missions work.

I love the fact that God is everywhere all the time. And you can see his hand in so many things. And as we get to the book of Luke chapter two, we see that Jesus is born and he has been named Jesus.

And now it's time for his parents to go offer a sacrifice according to the law, because they had just had a child. And so they go up to Jerusalem and they're bringing him and dedicating him is what you would say to the Lord. They're offering their child to the Lord.

They're calling him holy or separated to the Lord. This was not unique to Jesus. This was the law of Moses for every son that was born, that he should be given back to God.

So they're coming to give their sacrifice. And the Bible says, and behold, in verse 25, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.

And the Holy Ghost was upon him. Now, we don't know much about Simeon other than here. He is somebody the Bible calls holy, just, innocent.

He's somebody who was consistent. He was not a fake person. That's why the Bible refers to him as devout.

He was dedicated. He was religious, but not religious in the sense of it being an outside thing. But the scriptures can tell you the difference.

He was just and devout. He wasn't just religious on the outside. He was religious on the inside.

And what he had purpose in his heart was that he was waiting for the consolation of Israel. He was waiting for something to change. Now, you have to understand that the period between that last page of the Old Testament, the last of Malachi to the first of the Gospels, it's around 400 years of there being no new word from the Lord.

It's around 400 years of there being no real move of God to talk about. The presence of God is not with the people in the same way. There's no prophet to tell them what he's saying.

400 years of distance between Israel and God. And so it makes sense that somebody was still looking for the consolation of Israel. There was the encouragement of Israel, the comfort of Israel, the stirring of Israel they were looking for.

Somebody didn't forget about God just because God got silent. And Simeon was one of those who even in the silence believed God. The Bible says, and the Holy Ghost was upon him.

Remember, as of yet, the Holy Ghost was not given, John 8 says. That means it wasn't poured out yet. It wasn't inside of all the people it would be.

But it did come upon different ones throughout the Old Testament, even here as you see in this New Testament. And Simeon was one of those that the Holy Ghost was upon him. The Bible says, and it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.

And he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law, which is to declare him holy after a sacrifice, dedicate him to God, then took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, now that's the prayer. But before I even read what he said in verse 29, that he took him in his arms, actually kind of stood out to me.

As a mom, if I'm walking into a city with my newborn and I'm going to church and you take him out of my arms, you better know Jesus. You feel me? You better know God. You better know it's him.

So it was funny to me that he took him. How focused must he have been? How dedicated? How devout? Not only to have committed his time in life, though we don't know his age, we know it was long enough to declare he was consistent. And even in his speech, he sounds older.

Because saying you won't see death until this happened, typically starts to sound like death is on the table. You don't have to say things like that to a young person because they don't anticipate dying anyway. So I would probably argue this to me.

It was probably up in the ears. But it is his conviction that stands out to me by him just walking in by the Holy Ghost and taking their baby. What? But he lifts them up to God and this is his prayer.

Lord, now let us thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou has prepared before the face of all people. A light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel.

This prayer is one of just blessing God. He blessed God because God had kept his promise. He knew by faith he had seen what God said.

And it's amazing because he didn't see the completion of what God said, but he knew he'd seen God started what he said. There are some things we may have to praise God through at the beginning. I don't know that we'll get to see all the things we've prayed for come to fruition.

I think about it now in a way differently than I did as a young adult. Once I had children, I started praying for their children and their children's children. I may see the start of that.

Perhaps I'll meet my grandchildren or if the Lord carries my great grandchildren even. But I may not see the great greats. But with God, I'm seeing the start of what he said.

He knew because of the Holy Ghost. One, to keep praying. It's set up on him.

It was strength to him. It was encouraging to him. Remember, this was not a very popular time for serving God.

He's looking for the God of this gap period. The God who will come back and comfort Israel. But he knew by the Holy Ghost, he's going to see this promise.

And he knew by the Holy Ghost how to find the promise. The Spirit led him. And when he followed the Spirit, he walked into what he had been praying to see.

I keep encouraging myself and I'm going to encourage you, be Spirit led. For as many as are led by the Spirit, they are the sons of God. And sometimes we like to make that deep.

And I'm seeing a lot of weird stuff in church. Some stuff, borderline, looks like witchcraft. It doesn't look like.

And when I say look like, I don't even mean just with my eyes. I mean, I'm looking saying, no, God, this isn't it. This is spiritual, but it's not the right Spirit.

What you see in the scripture is it's the Spirit, capital S, that is guiding him. When the Holy Ghost leads you, it leads you and guides you into all truth. It looks like his word when he leads you.

And I would encourage the body of Christ, be led by the Spirit. Not a spirit, but the Spirit. The Holy Ghost, even as it did here in Luke 2, will always lead you back to Jesus.

It'll always lead you back to what he said, to what he did. This example is no different. When you follow God, he does amazing things.

I've seen a lot of people who can quote scriptures and they can even explain them. But they cannot execute them. I don't want to be an expert in the scriptural definitions and fail at scriptural execution.

It takes the Spirit of God to be led by God. But when you follow him, he always leads you back to himself. He always leads you back to where he is.

And Simeon did this in a time where there wasn't much of that. And it led him right to Jesus. And he could then celebrate not the end of a thing, not seeing how God was going to do it, but seeing that Jesus had stepped on the scene and God was already working.

He blessed God at the beginning of the work. And that's what we'll take from Simeon today. There was an old song that used to say, don't wait till the battle's over, shout now.

Simeon teaches us that in this prayer. Don't wait till it's finished. Praise God when it starts.

And did you know that your prayer can be a praise? You can bless God for you've seen his salvation. You can bless God for what he's prepared before the face of all people. You can bless God for being a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of Israel.

You can bless God because he's come and he's stepping in the situation. And you know that prayer reaches every single situation. If God already knows, how will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice.

It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have. You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you. It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer.

It's designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith. Visit PressToPray.com.