SIGNS AND WONDERS CONFERENCE MIKE BICKLE Transcript: 02/27/02 INTRODUCTION We re going through this one-page handout called. It s two sides but one page. I was talking to the Lord about this conference; I said, Lord, we have a Signs and Wonders and Prophetic conference coming up, and what are You saying? What s on Your heart? Because as different servants of the Lord come and speak different words, I want to have a sense of being prepared, to bear witness to it. If you re going to go to a gathering where you know they ll be emphasizing this, you want to get your spirit connected with it in a way where you can have a yes and amen in your spirit. So that s the context in which I was asking. I said, Lord, is there anything You want me to say that would be a prophetic word sown into the hearts of these people? And the word of the Lord came to me in a very clear, very surprising way. I m reading it right here from the handout; He said, I m raising up a global Bridegroom fast. Now, Bridegroom fast is a term I m familiar with; it s a term that we use here in Kansas City at in the International House of Prayer. It s not a biblical term, but it s a biblical idea. So the Lord was speaking to me, as He does so often, in the language of my own heart. He speaks to you in the language of your own heart, so that you can hear and understand in an intimate way what s on His heart. He says, I m raising up a global Bridegroom fast. ASK ME TO RELEASE ONE HUNDRED MILLION BELIEVERS WORLDWIDE Here it is. This is quite astounding, but, though I tremble about it, I have a spirit of faith that invigorates me. He said, Ask Me to release one hundred million believers worldwide who would come before Me with fasting in one accord for three days each month until the Lord returns. This was staggering to me, and I tremble before it. But it s not my problem, it s not my burden, it s not my responsibility to make it come to pass. I understood that apart from leading the International House of Prayer, this would be equal to it in magnitude and scope in terms of my own personal life and ministry. I ve never been challenged to anything that would be more significant. I mean, a hundred million! I believe that God is going to release a billion new souls and more in the great harvest. I believe that we re going to see a billion new souls, yea, and more than a billion. And the Lord put it in my heart: Ask Me to release a tithe of the harvest that would dedicate themselves to fasting and prayer on a regular basis. THE SPIRIT OF ELIJAH IS ROOTED IN THE GRACE TO FAST AND PRAY In the message that I spoke this afternoon I talked about 1 Kings 17 and 18. Some of you have come in since then. I talked about the spirit of Elijah, the prophetic spirit related to the spirit of Elijah, and the fact that it s rooted in the grace to fast and pray. The spirit of Elijah isn t only about fasting and praying, but it s profoundly a part of the spirit of Elijah to receive the grace to fast and pray, and the Lord is going to release this anointing, this spirit of Elijah upon His church in the generation in which the Lord returns. I believe we re in that generation right now. I believe there are people on the earth right now who will witness the second coming of the Lord with their own eyes. If that be true, and I believe it with all of my heart, if that be true, then the final generation of natural history will have so many unique dynamics released into it, both evil and good, the glory of God as well as the works of darkness.
Transcript: 02/27/02 Page 2 THE WHEAT AND THE TARES WILL MATURE TOGETHER AT THE END OF THE AGE I mentioned this afternoon that Scripture makes it clear that the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13 mature together. Evil will become increasingly evil. Evil will become ripe. Sin will be ripe for a harvest of judgment. It says in Isaiah 24 that the earth will be burdened by the weight of sin (Isa. 24:20). Sin will burden the entire globe, because it will come to a crescendo and it will become ripe. And in the economy of God it will demand cataclysmic global judgments. I talked about Sodom and Gomorrah, and how what happened in a city will happen across the globe. But not only is sin going to become ripe, righteousness is going to become ripe and mature as well. Now there s going to be a collision; there s going to be such a confrontation of light and darkness in one time frame of natural history before the coming of the Lord, and it s coming to the generation in which the Lord returns. And in that generation God is going to raise up the Church in her true identity as a praying church. MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL NATIONS I mentioned also this afternoon Isaiah 56:7: the core identity of the Church is to be a house of prayer. When God looks at the church of Jesus, He christens her, The Praying People. Now I realize we re not living in the fullness of that name. As a matter of fact we re only living at the very outskirts of that name. But the day is coming, and is now upon us, where the Lord Himself is going to take matters into His own hands. And the Lord is going to cause the Church worldwide to live out our core identity as the Bride of Christ with the spirit of prayer upon us. The Church will be a praying church. I m using the word praying to mean operating in spiritual authority. It involves worship; that s a form of prayer. It involves ministering to the sick; it involves proclaiming and declaring the truths of the gospel, which is a form of intercession in itself. We re crying out for the lost, we re standing in the gap before them even in the preaching of the gospel, intercession for revival, the breaking of bondage. And the Church is going to enter into her identity as a house of prayer. We have a little ministry of a few hundred full-time people, and a few others who come as well. We call it The International House of Prayer. Beloved, it isn t fully accurate to call a little side ministry a house of prayer. The whole Church in the earth is the house of prayer. When the Lord was naming His people the house of prayer, He wasn t thinking of little catalytic prayer meetings like ours. He was thinking of the whole Body of Christ across the globe. We will operate in spiritual authority before this is over. I want to prophesy this to you: one hundred million believers, yea, and more than that, will enter into the grace of fasting and prayer before the Lord returns. In my heart I believe that s a small number; there will be an even larger number that enters into the grace of fasting and prayer. DON T DESPISE THE DAY OF SMALL BEGINNINGS The Lord spoke to me: I m raising up a global bridegroom fast. The word global is a prophetic word. He was speaking in my spirit and was naming that which is only seed. It will be a global reality. It will begin as a small beginning. It will begin as a small seed. Zechariah 4:10 says, Don t despise the days of small beginnings (Zech. 4:10, paraphrased). The Lord will blow upon it. The Holy Spirit is zealous to bring forth the Church as a church of prayer and worship, operating in the anointing of God to speak the word of the Lord, to deliver the captives. Now, what I m about to say is a small thing; it was important to me, but small to you. I had this word, and I carried it in my heart for a few weeks, I don t know the exact number, but seven or eight members of our IHOP-
Transcript: 02/27/02 Page 3 KC team had a meeting in the exact same time frame. Seven or eight of us, in that seven-to-ten-day period, received prophetic dreams about God calling us to fasting in a far more aggressive way. Now that was just a nice kiss from the Lord to me personally, that the people whom He set around me had prophetic dreams where the Lord spoke to them in different ways, showing them that He was calling us to fasting. And, at the same time, He was giving me this word of a far bigger magnitude than just our little team. AN EXPLOSION ACROSS THE GLOBE OF THE GRACE FOR FASTING AND PRAYER What is it? Let s read the next paragraph. We re asking the Lord to release grace for fasting to one hundred million believers worldwide. Again, I realize right now that the number is really, really small, but that doesn t trouble me. When Gideon went to war he had 30,000 and the Lord said, That s way too many. And they brought it down to 10,000, and then to 300. I want to begin with a little beginning, and we ll go from there. I know that the numbers are really small in the church of Jesus right now. But beloved, I want to speak to you with boldness in my spirit: there s going to be an explosion across the globe of the grace of worship and prayer with fasting. It s going to be the most normal thing before the Lord returns. It may be ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years before the Lord returns; I don t know. I sense that it s a short amount of time down the road. I don t believe that it s any day. Some say that. I don t think that s the truth; I believe it s several decades away, or more. I don t know. But I believe that we re in that season; we re in that time where the Lord is preparing His Church, and inviting us and wooing us to say yes to certain invitations where we can begin to prepare for the greater things that are coming. WHAT IS THE GLOBAL BRIDEGROOM FAST? What is it? We re asking the Lord to release grace for fasting to one hundred million believers worldwide, to come before Him for three days of worshiping and prayer and fasting here s the key phrase in one accord ; in one accord, beginning on the first Monday of every month: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the first Monday of every month. And I m urging you to pray about jumping in with us. And we ve made the briefest announcement, and I ve had emails and visitors and communications from all over the world. We posted it on the web site for three days. And the amount of people who have already contacted me personally through email, or sent me a letter or something, was amazing. The numbers are still very, very small, but I m not concerned about that. On the first of every month, from Monday to Wednesday, we re gathering for three days. The IHOP-KC team here in Kansas City, the Forerunner School of Prayer, the interns there are about 300 of us total, and some others outside of the IHOP-KC staff who are committed to this. It s a little group of about 300, and I m committed to this in the grace of God, every first Monday until I meet the Lord or until He comes in the sky in the second coming. I m not prepared, I ve made a commitment before the Lord to do this for the rest of my life, and I ve got a group of men and women who have made the same commitment. We re serious about this. I ve never made such a commitment like this, but it s a commitment that I m very, very sure is in the grace of God. It has His favor and His blessing because it came from His initiative. A THREE-DAY GLOBAL SOLEMN ASSEMBLY I ll continue to read this: We will do this each month, by the grace of God, until the second coming of Christ. We will do this every month. And I m calling you; I m urging you to consider doing this, every month. You may not start every month, but maybe you ll start every month. I have one big profound word: why not? Why not you? Why not every month until the second coming? I realize Monday night football shows up in the fall; let the reader understand. In other words, the global Bridegroom fast is a monthly, three day, global, solemn
Transcript: 02/27/02 Page 4 assembly of believers who are unified in the Holy Spirit with worship and prayer empowered by experiencing the love of Jesus. All worship and prayer models are welcome in this monthly, ecumenical, interdenominational, worldwide concert of prayer that seeks the face of God at the same time with the same burden in the same spirit. I m calling it a three-day global solemn assembly. And the word solemn has a number of different applications. It s a very, very important word, and it comes from Joel 2: Call a solemn assembly (Joel 2:15, paraphrased). It s solemn because of the importance of it. But I m using the word solemn in three or four different ways. I m just going to mention one of them here. It s solemn because we re putting it on our calendar as our most sacred activity in ministry. And unless the Lord specifically mandates me, through a Macedonian call or something, I ve made this the top priority in my ministry until I meet the Lord until our eyes meet face to face, however that works. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT WE CAN DO ON PLANET EARTH Say the president of the nation calls; I don t flatter myself that he will, but if he did, if the kings of the nations call, it s more important for me to be in Kansas City with a group of intercessors on the first Monday for three days than it is to meet with a king or the president of a nation. That s what I m saying. That s not really a great statement to some people; you might say, Wow, that sounds pretty grandiose. But if you really take a step back, we re meeting by solemn invitation with the King of kings in the grace of God with His pleasure, and He says, You ll lean into My strength by using the very best of your strength to give yourself to prayer and fasting. The most important thing that we can do on planet earth from my point of view, more important than even making the kings like us, is to stand before God with spiritual authority. As I said this afternoon, we want authority with God. We want angels to move, we want demons to flee, and we want hearts to turn. And that only happens by spiritual authority, with all of us in one accord, coming at the same time with the same burdens in the same spirit. HOW GOOD AND PLEASANT IT IS WHEN BRETHREN DWELL TOGETHER IN UNITY! The Church is going to be unified before the Lord returns. I believe that the greatest place of reconciliation, where Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant and Messianic, black and white, young and old, male and female, every kind of distinction, every kind of tension, will meet, is in the oil of sitting at the feet of Jesus and worshiping Him. Psalm 133 talks about how good and blessed it is when the brethren dwell in unity. God commands the blessing of God when the brethren come together in unity. He says it s like the oil flowing down the beard of Aaron (Ps. 133:2). The oil flows down the priestly ministry, not the kingly ministry. He didn t say, the oil on Moses, in a kingly role. It s the oil upon Aaron. When we function as priests, as lovesick worshipers ministering to God, that s where the oil tenderizes and brings unity to the Body of Christ. WHEN MEN AND WOMEN ARE TENDERIZED IN WORSHIP, UNITY IS EFFORTLESS Historically the Body of Christ tries to unify around kingly activities. I don t want to go on and on about this right now. It s something I have a lot of feeling about, but that s not my point right now. We try to unify around, Let s bring Billy Graham to our city unifying around a task, a kingly mandate, an event. And more often than not, when we gather around events, we actually end up more divided. We end up saying, You know, I don t bear witness with that brother. I don t really like him anyway. That s how we respond in these citywide meetings. But when we gather as priests, as lovesick worshipers, our spirits are tenderized and all kinds of dynamics take place, and I believe that when God releases the anointing and the grace of fasting and prayer and worship, it will tenderize, and that s the place of reconciliation. To think that reconciliation will happen mostly
Transcript: 02/27/02 Page 5 because of dialogue around tables is not accurate. I do dialogue around tables, I believe in that, but my chief hope isn t in that. When men and women of God become tenderized through worship, unity becomes effortless. And I believe that God is going to unify us, first, around the priestly functions of worship and prayer and fasting; and then, secondly, around the kingly mandates of doing events together, and that will be a much, much, easier thing to do. It s going to become normal. I said it this afternoon: it s going to become normal for the leaders in the Body of Christ to walk in the grace of prayer and fasting. In the Old Testament and in the New, it was totally normal. But somewhere in church history it became abnormal. And now in the twenty-first century in the Western world it s strange when a man or woman lives in the grace of prayer and fasting. And I prophesied, and I ll say it again: the Lord is going to turn things around. It s going to be very, very rare; it s going to be the exception to have a man or woman with national authority, with authority in the Spirit, who doesn t experience in his or her private life the grace of fasting and prayer. Right now you take the top 100 or 200 voices in the Body of Christ; probably only a very small number of them experience the grace of fasting and prayer. But before the Lord returns, it s going to be exactly the opposite: it will be the rare exception, and those who don t move on in that grace will be disqualified and replaced in terms of national voices of authority in whatever nations they re in. I m not saying that as a judgment; I m saying that as an exciting statement. THE GREATEST TRAUMA IN THE CHURCH IN THE WESTERN WORLD I mentioned this afternoon the greatest trauma in the Church in the Western world; it isn t what happened in New York on 9/11, as traumatic as that was. It s not the increase of pornography; it s not the increase of evil; it s the prayerlessness of the chief leaders of the Body of Christ. That s the greatest trauma on the planet right now: the lack of the spirit of grace for prayer and fasting upon the primary leaders in the Body of Christ worldwide. There are exceptions in a few places, in Asia and South America. But mostly it s true, that s the trauma of planet earth right now. The Lord says, I will correct that; I will woo them into it. If they say no to Me, I will replace them; they will disqualify themselves. My Church will be led by people who live according to My heart and My values. THE WORLD WILL ONLY LISTEN TO THOSE WITH AUTHORITY It won t be a group of men replacing them; it will take place by the Holy Spirit. Because they simply won t have authority, and the masses will only respond by spiritual authority. Be it on the dark side or on the light side, when it s all said and done, the people with authority in the realm of the occult or the realm of the kingdom are going to be the only people on the earth whom anyone will listen to. Speaking nice sermons and grand stories and this and that was never going to move angels, demons, or humans when it s all said and done. The people on the occult side, the people on the dark side, are fasting and praying far beyond where the Church is. But the Lord is smiling; He says, Don t worry; I will turn that around in a moment. He s going to use some of the older saints, but there s an army of young adults who are ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty-two, and twentyfive, who are coming in with an appetite for the realm of the supernatural and a life of abandonment. They have no apology for loving this lifestyle.
Transcript: 02/27/02 Page 6 DO ANGELS MOVE, DO DEMONS FLEE, DO HEARTS FLOW LIKE A RIVER? And I m saying that those of us who are older, who have more years on the earth, need to hear what the Spirit is saying and jump into the river. The Lord loves us whether we jump in or not. But I tell you this, though the Lord will love us, we will be disqualified and replaced by those who operate in authority. And the authority won t come entirely from this, but it will be rooted in the grace of prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting isn t the only thing that will be important, but it will be a substantial reality. I don t care how many of the big men you know. You may know Billy Graham, Bill Bright, Pat Robertson, you can name them all, and they may sign your letter and endorse you, but it doesn t matter how many of the big men endorse you at the end of the day. What will matter is this: when you when you speak, do angels move, do demons flee, do hearts flow like a river? Because I say to you this: the men on the dark side are fasting and praying for spiritual power in the realms of darkness. When is this going to happen? I m going back to the notes. Three days every month, beginning on the first Monday of every month, and seven days in December. In other words, every month from the first Monday until Wednesday, and then in December we extend this to seven days. The net result will be forty days every year of unified, worldwide fasting and prayer. Again, we re doing it at the same time, with the same burdens, in the same spirit globally. The Lord will do this. Again, I don t feel any anxiety in the human sense about this. This is a work of the Lord; this is of the Lord, and it will happen. ISLAM IS ON THE RISE GLOBALLY BECAUSE OF MUSLIM PRAYER AND FASTING I m going to talk about Ramadan in a few minutes. Ramadan is the thirty days of fasting undergone by several hundred million Muslins. I ve written one hundred million in the handout on the backside of the page here. It s over a hundred million. They dedicate thirty days every year in November and December towards fasting and prayer for the increase of Islam. Beloved, Islam is increasing rapidly. The house of Islam is on the rise, right now, in a powerful way. And the youth of the earth are being swept into Islam. Things ought not to be this way, and they won t always be this way. We ll get to Islam in a moment. A CHURCH CRYING OUT FROM HER IDENTITY AS THE CHERISHED BRIDE Go to the next paragraph: the Church with the bridal paradigm of the kingdom at the end of the age. The Spirit and the bride say, Come! (Rev. 22:17). And Jesus says, Surely I am coming (v. 20, paraphrased)! At the end of the age the Church with a bridal identity will cry out in intercession, Come! Come! Come! Jesus will come for an interceding church. It will be a church crying out to Him, Come, come! And it will be a church that cries out from her identity as the cherished Bride of Christ. It didn t say, The Spirit and the army say come. It didn t say, The Spirit and the family. It didn t say, The Spirit and the body. it didn t say, The Spirit and the temple. We are the temple of the Spirit. We re the family, we re the army, we re the body. But it s the redeemed with a bridal identity, interceding throughout the earth, who will bring the second coming of Jesus in the clouds in glory. Critical to the type of fasting to which God is calling us is the revelation of the Bride of Christ. I realize the vast majority of the Body of Christ in the earth is almost completely ignorant and uninstructed in the realities of the Bride of Christ. But that s going to change as well. The Lord will raise up voices all over the earth of who He is as a passionate Bridegroom, and who we are as a cherished bride. It will change the way we fast, it will change the way we pray, it will change the way we spend time and money and everything. Our hearts will be overwhelmed and transformed in the revelation of the Bride of Christ and the revelation of Jesus as the Bridegroom God.
Transcript: 02/27/02 Page 7 CAN THE FRIENDS OF THE BRIDEGROOM MOURN WHILE THE BRIDEGROOM IS WITH THEM? Next paragraph on the handout. What is the Bridegroom fast? Again, this is a term that we use here in Kansas City. It s not a biblical term, it s a biblical idea: like the ideas of the Trinity and the Rapture. The Lord will catch up His people to meet Him in the air one day. It s going to happen. What is the Bridegroom fast? We take it from Matthew 9:15. Jesus is answering some critics. And the critics, some of the Pharisees disciples, and the disciples of John, came to Jesus here in Mathew 9 and said, What s the deal with Your men? They don t fast! And Jesus answered in a very surprising way. He said, Can the friends of the Bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them (Mt. 9:15)? And the answer is, no. It s an obvious question. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast (ibid). He s talking about Himself, the cross and resurrection. Let s look at this again; it s a very important statement here. He titled the apostles, The Friends of the Bridegroom. It s a very interesting spiritual reality by which He named the first apostles. He named them Friends of the Bridegroom. In John 3:29, John the Baptist called himself a friend of the Bridegroom. It s a different approach to ministry and to worship when you know you re a friend of the Bridegroom. That s why we like that phrase. I encourage any of you who want it to use it. We use that term around here. I ve had people say, Hey, can we use that phrase, Friends of the Bridegroom? I say, It s not my term, it s the Lord s. Run with it! Of course you can; the more the merrier. Someone says, Won t that get confusing? I don t care. If they want to press into that, go for it. Jesus called the early apostles, Friends of the Bridegroom. He said, They re going to mourn when the Bridegroom is gone. Now the apostles are thinking, We re friends of the Bridegroom. Is that who we are? Who s the Bridegroom? And You said we re going to mourn when You re gone? I mean, what s going on? And Jesus said, When I m taken away, you will be heart sick. And that lovesickness will drive you; it will compel you into a lifestyle of fasting. You must have more of Me. FASTING THAT S MOTIVATED BY THE BURNING DESIRE OF JESUS LOVE Let s look at this next paragraph. The global Bridegroom fast is fasting. It s different than Old Testament fasting. It s fasting that s motivated by experiencing the burning desire of Jesus love. The apostles had become accustomed to experiencing intimacy with Jesus. The apostles were so accustomed to the nearness of this beautiful Man, the God-Man, Christ Jesus. However, they didn t understand that He was soon going to be taken away by death. Jesus said, When I m taken away They said, Well, where are You going? And what s going to happen?
Transcript: 02/27/02 Page 8 He said, They will mourn. They ll have such longings to have that intimacy that they had with Him in the flesh. They will mourn because they ll want the intimacy they became so accustomed to having with Him. They ll mourn in desire for intimacy with Him. Jesus said, This mourning I m describing will compel you to fast. FASTING THAT S COMPELLED TO HAVE MORE OF THE NEARNESS OF GOD Here s what the mourning says: I must have more! I have to have nearness! I need Jesus! I need intimacy! It s a fasting that mourns, that s compelled to fast to have more of the nearness of God. That s why we call it, The Bridegroom Fast. Thus they mourned with fasting. Why? For renewed experiences of intimacy. ENLARGING OUR CAPACITY TO RECEIVE MORE OF THE OCEAN OF JESUS LOVE The Bridegroom fast isn t focused on earning or deserving. Beloved, hear this: the Bridegroom fast isn t primarily focused on earning or deserving more of God. Rather, the Bridegroom fast is focused on enlarging our capacity to freely receive more of the ocean of Jesus love. What happens when we experience more of the Bridegroom s love is that from this reality we will enter into the fullness of God s power. When we begin to mourn Jesus, I need more intimacy, I need You! our heart expands in our capacity to receive more, and out of this receiving more we reach the fullness of the King s power. Beloved, people are trying to reach the fullness of power without going through the revelation of the Bridegroom. It won t happen. It s only through the Bridegroom revelation that we will be able to have confidence in the presence of the King in fullness. FASTING AND PRAYER EMPOWERED BY CONFIDENT LOVE Queen Esther is a picture of coming to the King for power through fasting and prayer empowered by confident love. I mentioned earlier that Gary Wiens has this book entitled Bridal Intercession. He spends a chapter on that story, and a lot of people are writing, this day, on Esther. The story of Esther, the great intercessor who saved the nation of Israel through intercession, is very, very appropriate for today. She was a queen whose beauty moved the king, whose confidence in love was her position of intercession. And Gary s book on Bridal Intercession develops it powerfully. It s destined to be a book that will cover the earth in many languages. It will be translated. They re hungry for the reality in that book. Esther s confidence to enter into the power of the king was her confidence in love as a cherished bride. It saved the whole nation of Israel then, and it will lead to the salvation of Israel now. Oh, the book of Esther is absolutely stunning. And Gary, you can t do it tomorrow; you have to do the healing model. He slips over into that so easily. He says, Let s talk on healing, and starts crying, and does one of his poems, and then he s right into Esther. So you have to stay on the healing model. THE HOLY SPIRIT IS BUILDING A GLOBAL ALTAR OF LOVESICK WORSHIPERS Next paragraph. Why unified worship with fasting? This is what I spoke on earlier in the message of forerunners in the spirit of Elijah. The Holy Spirit is building a worldwide prayer altar. The Holy Spirit is building a prayer altar right now. He has been building it for several decades. It s been building to a crescendo. It s not starting right now; it s something that He s been doing for quite some time. But it s building rapidly, and we will offer spiritual sacrifices of love through worship. I have here Mark 14: that s the story where Mary comes in and takes the alabaster vial of perfume and wastes it upon Him. The end-time church is going to take our greatest strength, our lives, and we re going to waste ourselves upon Him through worship. We re going to waste ourselves upon Him, like we did in Mark 14. And God the Father is going to answer with fire upon this altar. As we saw in our discussion of 1 Kings 18:24, The God who answers with fire is God (1 Kings 18:24, paraphrased). In Acts 2, the disciples were in the upper room for ten days, worshiping and loving on Him, and the God who answers by fire answered with fire in Acts 2. But beloved, what God did with Elijah on that altar
Transcript: 02/27/02 Page 9 in 1 Kings 18, what God did on that altar in Acts 2, is nothing compared to the global altar the Holy Spirit is now raising up of lovesick worshipers. He will answer with fire like no other time in all of human history. FASTING THAT FLOWS OUT OF MOURNING FOR THE BRIDEGROOM The next thing I have written here is that we have more teaching. I told you about a series I have with about eight or ten messages on it. And we have a lot on it on our website, and a lot of it you can download for free. Again, our copyright is the right to copy. You can copy it, you can change it, you can put your name on it; it s yours. Run with it, rewrite it, translate it, change it around; you can have it. I ll be writing a book really soon on the Bridegroom fast to put some of these teachings into a formal book so that people can run with it, because it s more than fasting. Fasting as we ve known it is not enough. It s going to be fasting that flows out of mourning for the Bridegroom: that s the key. The fasting in the Old Testament was fasting to avert a crisis. This is more than to avert a crisis, though it will avert a crisis in the earth. But this is a fasting that flows out of being awakened with love; a fasting that mourns: I have to have more. I have to have more. And that will lead to the fullness of power in the King s presence. It will lead us to a far greater place than the other modes of fasting when it s all said and done. Again, it s the story of Queen Esther. THE VERY COUNCIL OF THE LORD WILL BE IN OUR MIDST Let s turn the page over. I want to speed up and go through this more quickly here at the end. What are we going to pray for? What can we expect? There are seven things that I m laying out there, and people can obviously add and subtract as the Lord shows them. They re pretty general, pretty basic ideas to be honest. They re not very creative or particularly unique from the general burden that s in the Body of Christ. I m just putting language on it for the purpose of focus: the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and unity in the church. Beloved, we re praying for greater works than these (Jn. 14:12. We re praying for unity (Jn. 17:21). I believe that this fast, and not only this God is throwing it into the mix of everything that He s doing in the earth; there s no one thing that s most important, but beloved, this is important. It s not the most important; no one thing is most important, but it s one of the many things that God is doing that will be important in the generation in which the Lord returns. It will bring about the fullness of the Spirit and a church with unprecedented unity, purity, and power. The very council of the Lord will be in our midst (Jer. 23:18). The council of the Lord will be in the Church. MEN AND WOMEN WHO STAND IN THE COUNCIL OF THE LORD IN THE HOUR OF CRISIS I mentioned that one of the great tragedies of our day is a church without the spirit of authority and prayer on it. Another great tragedy is that when a terrible thing happens, like 9/11, very few people have the council of the Lord. God s servants were stumbling and fumbling and contradicting one another. Where are the men and women who stand in the council of the Lord in the hour of crisis? We don t need to take our best shot at it, the shot that can give us the best following. We want what heaven is saying when crises happen. And many, many more crises are going to break in on planet earth and in America itself. We re going to have crises far greater in number than the 3,000 at the World Trade Center. I don t say that in a trite, calloused way. That was a tragedy of tragedies. But beloved, the numbers will be far greater. There will come times I m prophesying this by the word of the Lord there will come times when a million Americans are swept away in one strike against us: a million, not 3,000. That might sound fanatical to some people, but beloved, it s going to be more severe than that. This isn t the hour to do business as usual; this is an hour for us to enter into the fullness of being a people who embody the prophetic gospel. PRAYING FOR A YOUTH MOVEMENT TO EXPLODE IN THE EARTH
Transcript: 02/27/02 Page 10 Number two: we re praying for the great harvest. We re praying for over a billion souls. Number three: we re praying for a great youth movement. God says in Malachi 4:6 that the spirit of Elijah is coming. He s going to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. There s going to be a great turning to the children. We talk a lot about God raising up a young adult movement, and it s going to be the young adults, twelve, fifteen, seventeen, eighteen, but also the crowd before them as well. Some say, Hey, what about all of us? It s more than young adults, but according to the sheer demographics of planet earth, the vast majority of the planet is young. If there s going to be a harvest on the planet, it has to be young adults, by virtue of the sheer numbers of young people. And it has to be the poor. The vast majority of the people on planet earth are young and they re poor. But we re asking the Lord for this young adult movement to break out in Muslim and Hindu countries: eighteen- and twenty-year old apostles, men and women coming forth in power and authority. The apostles of old in the New Testament were just young men. We re laboring for a youth movement to explode in the earth, all over America, but outside of America as well. We re praying for the fullness of God s prophetic promises on national Israel. Beloved, Israel can t deliver herself. The church in Israel is so weak, and I don t mean that in a condescending way. Here s what I m saying: there are so many forces against the church in Israel. The whole planet has to be unified in prayer and intercession to birth Israel. Israel can t birth Israel; the church in Israel is struggling to survive. But all across America, all across Asia, all across South America, all over Europe and Africa, we re going to be fasting and praying for the birthing of the church to come forth in Israel and all the national promises to be released. It s going to take the whole Church together. PRAYING FOR THE GRACE OF FASTING IN CITIES THROUGHOUT THE EARTH Number five: we re going to ask for the grace of fasting to be released in houses of prayer in all of the cities of the earth, and especially in Israel, that the watchmen would be in their place in Jerusalem again. But we re going to labor together in this. We want to see houses of prayer and maybe little side ministries like our little IHOP-KC. It may be catalytic side ministries at first, but eventually the whole Church will be a house of prayer. But for a while there will be twenty-four-hour-a-day expressions in cities across the earth that will love and serve the whole Church. Eventually this spirit will touch the whole Church in cities throughout the world. I heard the report that three million believers gathered in Nigeria. I heard it from several sources. Three million gathered for a day or several days of prayer and fasting. And one of the points of focus was that they were praying that the grace of fasting would hit the Western church. Three million Nigerians! That wasn t their only concern, but they were saying, Lord, release the grace of fasting upon the Western church. I believe that we re going to see large, large congregations gathering for prayer and fasting. I believe it s going to become commonplace for one million, three million, five million, eight million to gather! In Ramadan they have what, ten or fifteen million? I don t know the number; I ve seen the pictures right there on the spot. There are millions praying to Allah in fasting and prayer for thirty days. The Holy Spirit whispered in my heart, I will cause large gatherings across the earth according to My timing and instruction, and they will come in such large numbers with fasting and prayer, it would challenge any of us right now if we knew the numbers that the Holy Spirit was about to bring together. It will go far beyond stadiums; the stadiums would never hold them. We ll be in the stadiums many times, but these are bigger than the stadiums. The three million in Nigeria is a down payment, a token, a beginning. Under the leadership of Lou Engle and the Call, God brought 400,000 young people together for a day in Washington, D. C. I believe the days will come when four and five million will gather for fasting and prayer, even in Western nations.
Transcript: 02/27/02 Page 11 PRAYING FOR THE WEALTH OF THE NATIONS TO BE RELEASED IN OUR MIDST We re going to pray for the wealth of the nations to be released into the midst of the people of God. We re praying for supernatural provision to fund the prayer movement and the harvest. I m believing God in our little ministry here, and I challenge a few others, if He ll let you believe Him for this, because He s the One who told me to believe Him for it. I m believing God for a billion dollars from our little ministry here to give to the prayer movement in the earth. I said, Lord, You re rich. You re more than rich, You re powerful! You re more than powerful, You re smart! So use Your smart, rich power and give me a billion dollars. I don t have to be smart, rich, and powerful; all I have to do is love You and trust You. You re the One who s rich, smart, and powerful. I don t have to be, because You are. I just have to be obedient and say, I love You, I love You, I love You, forgive me, forgive me, I love You, I love You. That s all I have to do. He s already smart, rich, and powerful, so I don t have to be. The Lord spoke to me in a very, very clear way. He invited me to ask Him for a billion dollars to give to the prayer movement in the earth. I said, I m taking this really seriously. The Lord made it clear to me; He said, You re not taking it nearly as serious as I am. Beloved, there s billions, billions to be given to the prayer movement. Not just the prayer movement, but beloved, the Church needs the prayer movement. When there are a hundred million people in fasting and prayer, the heavens will open, the power of God will break in, and the harvest will come. The prayer and fasting movement is about the harvest as well as about being lovesick worshipers of Jesus. It s about loving people and loving God. I WILL BE A WALL OF FIRE ABOUT YOU, AND THE GLORY IN YOUR MIDST Number seven. God says, I will be a wall of fire about you, and the glory in your midst (Zech. 2:7). We need God to raise up a wall of fire to protect what we birth in prayer. Because I tell you, when we birth this thing, the occult will come, sickness will come, sin will come crouching at the door. There will be resistance from the powers of darkness, and martyrdom will break in. All these things will happen when the Church begins to flow in her identity as a house of prayer, a praying Bride. I tell you, Satan will rage with such fierceness, we will need a supernatural wall of fire. Job had a hedge; we need a wall of fire around us. The counterattack will be fierce, but the wall of fire will be stronger than the counterattack. I tell you, you don t go stir up a hornet s nest and live in business as usual without this wall of fire. Beloved, you don t strike Satan as lovesick intercessors and worshipers committed to fasting and praying in one accord in large numbers without having a wall of fire around you. Who should be involved? Everyone. That paragraph on the notes says everyone: pastors, leaders, youth groups, campus ministries, business leaders, moms, dads, students, everyone must exercise their option to be wholehearted. Every one of you has the option, which you can freely exercise, to be wholehearted in the grace of God. Exercise it! Use it! Throw off all of those arguments and just do it. THE GREATEST RELEASE OF DARKNESS AND GLORY IN HUMAN HISTORY Why can t we neglect this? The Devil is orchestrating the greatest release of evil ever known in human history. Deep darkness is covering the earth when God s glory shines. Look at the next line there, at Revelation 9:21: murder, sorcery, immorality, and theft, will be four major strongholds. Murder, sorcery, immorality, and theft are going to crescendo on the earth beyond any time in history, surpassing even what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah. Murder, sorcery, immorality, and theft: the Lord said those would be the prominent things which the people of the earth will refuse to repent of doing.
Transcript: 02/27/02 Page 12 But you know the Lord says through the prophet Isaiah? The glory of God will shine; when deep darkness covers the people, the glory of God will shine in that hour (Isa. 60:2). Why not now? Extreme times require extreme measures. We re entering into extreme times. Again, what happened in New York on 9/11 is the beginning of the beginning. As tragic as it is, beloved, it s only the beginning. It s time for the Church to rise up in her bridal identity to abandon herself to Jesus in lovesick worship with fasting and purity so that we can preach the gospel more effectively, serve the poor, and heal the sick! THE MOST POWERFUL FORCE IN HUMAN HISTORY You know what the most powerful force in human history is? The end-time church in her bridal identity, in her royal position of fasting and prayer. The most powerful force in all of human history is the end-time church in her bridal identity, in her royal position of fasting and prayer. Nothing can withstand the end-time church in that position nothing! Nothing! Nothing can withstand us! Who is fasting now? Billions of Buddhist, Hindus, Muslims, are fasting and praying with intensity unknown by the Western church. The most dramatic statement of unified prayer and fasting in all of history, up to this time it s going to be surpassed by the end-time church, but at this moment the most dramatic statement of unified prayer and fasting in history is Ramadan. Millions of Muslims worldwide join together at the same time for fasting and prayer for thirty days. Ramadan means the ninth month. It s in November and December on their calendar. They meet all over the world in solemn assemblies, and Mecca is the big place where millions gather. I don t really know the number; it s millions and millions. I ve seen the pictures and the movies on it. And on our website we re posting a lot of research on Ramadan. Beloved, the most powerful expression of devotion in history is to Allah, with Muslims, with no Holy Spirit. Brethren, things ought not to be this way! This cannot be! The Hindus, the Muslims, are far more devout then the Christians! We have a living God! We have the Holy Spirit! We have the grace of God with mercy! We have the bridal paradigm! In the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, the great conflict was capitalism vs. communism. That war is over, for the most part. Now it s going to be Christianity vs. Islam. It s no longer capitalism vs. communism, it s Christianity and Islam, and it s going up a notch. It s going to be the Bride against Babylon before it s over. It will go beyond Islam; it will be the Bride vs. Babylon. Beloved, it s weak and broken people; whether we re on the side of light or darkness, we re all the same. They gather in Mecca by the millions for fasting and prayer. And the Church with a perverted idea of the grace of God finds every theological reason for living a superficial life with no grace for prayer and fasting. God is going to answer it. Look at the next sentence. The Holy Spirit is answering this. It s a preemptive strike of the Holy Spirit. There s going to be something more powerful than Ramadan. The end-time church in her bridal identity, in her royal position of intercession and fasting, will answer Ramadan. It will answer every religion in the world. It will answer the explosion of the occult that Satan is raising up. You can read the rest of this on your own. We re committing to this; all of our ministries here are committing to it. Only about 300 of us are currently doing this full time. We re going to meet every single Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, on the first of every month. And then down the road, we re going to add Tuesday as a fast day on top of it. Every week Tuesday will be a fast day; but that s to come later. No need to worry about it now. We re going to do this until the Lord returns, by the grace of God.
Transcript: 02/27/02 Page 13 Go to the next paragraph. We re going to have three staff meetings where our few hundreds come together, three times a day. I have it written there. Some of you said, Man, I m out in Timbuktu, all by myself. Well, come and visit us a few times then. We re going to get hooked up on the Internet. We re going to have three of the prayer meetings where our whole staff is together. And we re going to have them live on the Internet. I m not saying that the prayer meetings will be all that great right now. They will be one of these days. But we re going to be there. Maybe it s just you by yourself in an office. Turn on your Internet and you re with us. Say, I can t do this alone, but I can do it with you guys. I ve got different ways you can do that. I have the dates written here at the bottom for the next two years. I encourage you to take this paper, if you want, and distribute it, post it, put it in newsletters, on web sites, anywhere you want. And we trust this thing to the Lord. Amen. The Lord is raising up a global Bridegroom fast. Amen. Let s stand. MINISTRY TIME Lord, we re Yours. We re Yours, O God. Lord, teach us about the Bridegroom. Teach us about fasting through mourning for more of You. I want you to close your eyes. Let s wait quietly on the Lord for a moment. I know some of your minds are reeling. You re thinking, O my goodness. You don t know what you find more disturbing or challenging. One hundred million? Yes, but what about the crisis coming? Did he say a million people are going to die? What about the four million, five million gathering for prayer and fasting? What about the church leaders being disqualified? What about them? What on earth? I realize there are lots of things stirring. Different people are stirring with different ideas. Beloved, this is bigger than us. The Lord can carry us in our weakness in it. Just hear the word of the Lord. I believe that I m speaking the word of the Lord to you. Hear the word of the Lord. Just let it settle in you in its own time. I don t speak it perfectly. You always add a little human element of it here and there. But the essence of it was the word from His heart; that I m sure of. Lord, we are Yours. Some of you right now tonight are responding to this. Some of you will be more committed than many others. But right now you don t have the faith, meaning it hasn t been quickened in you to respond. The Holy Spirit hasn t given it to you yet. He will give it to you in the days to come. But some of you, even tonight as you heard this, said, Man, this is what I m about. This is what I m about. I want to do this with a lot of people. I want to do this. If you have a yes in your spirit to do this, and if you re not from Kansas City we ve already prayed over this several times if this is the first or second time you ve heard it, or maybe you re visiting, but you have a yes in your spirit, if you re saying, I want to do something like this; I don t fully know how yet, but I have to do it, then come up. I m not asking you to make a covenant until the second coming; I m just saying you have a yes in your spirit to do this right now. Others of you will have a yes, but you re saying, Give me some time. Let me sort this out for a few minutes here. But some of you already have that yes. It s the gift of God for you tonight. If you have that, I want you to come on up here. We want to pray for you. You re saying, I want to do this thing; I want to enter into this. Beloved, the times are serious. Extreme times require extreme measures. Don t worry about stumbling; just worry about the yes in your spirit. The Lord will help you through it. You ll take three steps forward, three steps back; you gain ground and you lose ground. Don t worry about stumbling; just have a yes in your spirit for