Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of the Seventh Trumpet in Revelation, highlighting the call for the church to embrace its identity as the Bride of Christ and to engage in corporate intercessory worship. He explains that the Holy Spirit will empower the church to cry out for Jesus' return, establishing a partnership where God responds to the prayers of His people. Bickle stresses the importance of teaching the next generation about both the intimacy of being the Bride and the urgency of the end times, as these truths will awaken a spirit of prayer and intercession. He encourages believers to understand the prophetic nature of their calling and to prepare for the coming of the Lord through worship and prayer.

Father, I thank you in the name of Jesus. I thank you for the Word of God, and I ask you, Lord, as men and women are giving themselves to you to raise up the next generation of young people, the Malachi 4-6 generation, turning the hearts of fathers to the children and turning the children's to the father's, we ask you, Lord, even now to equip, even in this session, those that are giving themselves fully to you in your end-time purpose. In Jesus' name, Amen. Revelation chapter 22, verse 12, and then on in verse 16 and 17, is one of the most informative and significant prophecies in the whole Bible. This is the most descriptive, maybe at first reading it may not seem that, but it is, the most informative and descriptive, significant prophecy of what the Holy Spirit is going to be doing in the generation that the Lord returns. Verse 12, Jesus says, behold, I am coming, I'm coming quickly. Verse 16, he describes himself in four ways, and often this verse 16 gets lost. It's very significant, verse 16, again, at casual reading it might not look like it, but it really is. He says, I, Jesus, I am the root of David. I am the offspring of David, two different things, because the root of David comes before David and the offspring of David comes after him. So he's the Alpha and the Omega on both sides. I am the bright star and I am the morning star. Those are, those are different things as well. Verse 17, it's this revelation of Jesus that contributes to verse 17, the spirit resting on the church, the church in her bridal identity, the church as a bride, a church understanding her position before Jesus as the bridegroom God cries out in intercession, come Lord Jesus. The spirit is pictured as resting on the church in her bridal identity, energizing and empowering the church to cry out, come. And then Jesus, in answer to that cry of intercession, he answers it. Verse 20, he says, surely I am coming, surely I will answer this invitation, this global cry from the earth, come Lord Jesus, because Jesus will not come in a vacuum. He will only come in response to his covenant people on the earth, asking him to break in in power. That's one of the ways that God in his wisdom and his sovereignty runs his kingdom. He will not break in except his people ask him to. It's, it's partnership, it's a revelation of partnership, the highest degree that God has all power and his full sovereign power and wisdom. He restrains himself until he hears the cry of his people. And in that way, he has partnership with his people. There's many dimensions to why God operates his kingdom that way. But he, but he does the most significant, the most powerful, the most powerful activity in this age or the age to come is corporate intercessory worship. Now that may seem like a big statement and it is, but it's a true statement based on the word of God. Not the only, uh, means of God releasing his power, not the only one by, uh, and, and, uh, by any means, but clearly the most powerful vehicle, the most powerful means God has ordained for the releasing of his authority into this earth is through corporate intercessory worship. And that is not just before the coming of the Lord. That's actually how he will operate his kingdom after his coming as well at the, after the second coming, when he comes back to the earth, he will continue to run his government through his people interceding and worshiping. So the spirit verse 17, the spirit is resting on the church. The church is in a bridal identity and the church is postured in intercession, crying out calm. Now we'll find out later as we, uh, in, in this teaching tonight that the cry come is twofold. She's crying first to Jesus come. And then the church with the bridal identity under the anointing is crying out, come to the people, to, uh, they're telling the people to come to Jesus, the bridegroom. So the cry come goes two ways. First it's vertical and worship and intercession, and then it's horizontal and proclamation and that proclamation come to Jesus, the bridegroom. We say it to believers, but we all end on believers, but we say it to the church as well. That's what I'm doing actually right now. I'm saying, come to you. I'm saying, come not just to Jesus, come to Jesus in the revelation of a bridegroom King, not just Jesus, the one who forgives that's dynamic, but there's more to Jesus than forgiving. There's more to Jesus than providing for ours, our needs, our circumstances. He is a bridegroom King. He's a King with a burning heart. And we cry out, the spirit is going to anoint the church to cry out from a bridal reality with a bridal heart, calm in intercession. And then come, we're going to call the church to Jesus, the bridegroom, and we're going to call the lost to Jesus, the bridegroom. Beloved, this is quite a amazing statement because this is the capstone. This is the, the, the, the, the full expression of the move of God right before the coming of the Lord is summed up in this brief sentence, the spirit resting on the church. The church is in a bridal identity and the church is in an activity of crying out, come in intercession and worship. And then in proclamation to believers and unbelievers, this is the activity verse 20 of which Jesus responds to and Jesus answers back. I will come. I will break in. There will be a breaking in of my presence. And there are several different manifestations of that. The ultimate being the second coming of Christ, that great historical break, a breakthrough when he comes in the clouds, but it's not only that, that's the ultimate expression of this. And then when Jesus says, surely I am coming, John, he ends the book of revelation. He gets lost in the spirit of prayer. It says, even so come Lord Jesus, John, that's a personal prayer. When Jesus says, I am coming, John just kind of puts his pen down. He's writing the book of it worked and he throws himself into intercession and begins to say, come Lord Jesus break in even now. My point in saying that is that this message, this revelation of Jesus as a bridegroom, the spirit on us, when we understand his soon coming, it awakens in us what it did in John 2000 years ago, it awakens a cry in us even so come. And I'm hoping that this just brief overview of this grand prophecy as we understand it, it awakens in our spirit, a cry come to the Lord Jesus. People come and visit. I hope we have, you know, hundreds of visitors each week and, and, uh, you know, for, for, for these, uh, uh, almost from the beginning in the early days, we had more visitors than we had staff members because people are just so, uh, uh, excited about a 24 hour prayer and they, cause, cause it's burning in their heart for their own city and region. And so we've had just all these visitors over the years. And I love that. But one of the common questions I always get is people want to know how to, how to get an IHOP going and what they often are asking is how do you structure it? Or what's the model? And, and I, and that's a legitimate question. It's an important question, but we can answer that question in an hour or two, we can give you the structure and the model. I mean, literally in an hour or two, we can lay the whole thing out. I said the key to IHOP isn't the structure and the model. Those are important. You've got to have a, a skeletal structure for a body to work. You know, there, there, there are structural dimensions, but those are, that's the easy part. I go, the key to IHOP functioning is feeding people's spirit in a way that produces a cry, come Lord Jesus. I go, that's the key. The key isn't structuring it. It's, it's sustaining it. The key isn't birthing it and get a lot of people say, we got a building. I go get a good building. I appreciate that. I love, I really do appreciate. I'm not minimizing that in any way, but I go getting the buildings, the easy part, even getting a crowd for a month or two, though, I appreciate that as well because that it's still difficult. That's still the easy part. It's sustaining it. That's the challenge of it. And the key, in my opinion, to sustaining an IHOP is feeding the people's spirit on this message, because this message, verse 12, I am coming. We call that teaching on the end times. The fancy word is eschatology. It means in the study of the end times, eschatology, I am coming, feeding the people's spirit on this. I am coming produces verse 20, the spirit of prayer that says, come Lord Jesus. When we, when we understand the revelation of the coming of the Lord, it awakens our spirit to cry out for it. When I talk to folks and I tell them that I go, do you have any way to feed your people's spirits on Jesus, the coming King, the bridegroom King, he's coming. And more times than not, it's like a stare, like, really? And I've had this question many times. And I understand it. It's a, it's very, very common question. Do we have to do the end times thing if we're going to do an IHOP? I go, you don't have to, but I guarantee you the message I am coming is what awakened a spirit of prayer in John the apostle. That's how we do every Friday night. We've done this for years. Every Friday night, right here, we do teachings on intimacy because we want to stir up people's spirit to intimacy, to the, to the encountering God as a bridegroom and countering the father as the father, the bridegroom fatherhood intimacy cry is, is essential. And then every Saturday night we do end times because it produces urgency. It produces a sense of confidence. Yeah, we can pray in an informed way from a biblical point of view. We know what God says good and bad is going to happen. And, but he's only going to release the good and bad in response to a praying people on the earth. And those people, he will have a praying people on the earth and mostly people. And I love this, the verse 17 part, the spirit resting on the churches of bride, they go, you know, I, and I hear this a lot. Uh, I liked the bride part. I liked the intimacy part. And I go, that's brilliant because the intimacy part is critical to sustain a cry. Come Lord Jesus. Intimacy is, is essential, but it's not enough. It's intimacy and eschatology. It's the both of them operating together that awakened as sustained. And I mean, a sustained spirit of prayer in John's life or, or here in his final cry here is the picture of how that sustained and having, uh, been a person of prayer for some years and having led people in prayer from some years, I can say this with absolute confidence. I'm focusing this on, on those that are from out of town, where, cause those that are in town here, this all the time, that a steady diet of, I am coming says the Lord. We call that in times or eschatology and a steady diet on. I am his beloved and he is mine. The message of the bride of Christ is not nice. It is essential to sustain a prayer ministry. And as I see the people with a heart cry to want to do an IHOP, the first thing I asked them, I go, what is your action plan? What is your plan to bring the revelation of a coming Jesus who is a bridegroom, the coming, the end times and the bridegroom, the intimacy, what is your plan? And those that are raising up children in this hour, beloved this, the children need to hear this as well. Now they hear it in a way that's, that's suitable to their understanding, but they need to hear it. The thing I really love about what Lenny and Tracy are doing here is they have a vision to bringing eschatology in times and intimacy as long as, well, the whole Sermon on the Mount lifestyle, just practicalities of Christianity 101, bringing it to five-year-olds and 10-year-olds. You say, well, they can't understand. They may not understand it at the level that some of the olders do, but they can't understand this. The human spirit was made to be inspired by these two dimensions. Now, folks, again, it's, it's, it's sometimes a little bit, uh, discouraging because they hear that and they go, well, we appreciate the clear direction, you know, that it, the, the, the, uh, proclamation that these are necessary, and it seems like it probably is. I mean, it says the church will be a bride crying out, come. And Jesus, matter of fact, three times in Revelations 22, he says, I am coming. I skipped one of them, but three different times he goes, I am coming. Verse seven is, is, is the other one as well as Revelation 22, verse seven, three times Jesus goes, I am coming. Meaning the, the revelation of his coming is what was stirring John's spirit here at the end of the book of Revelation. Of course, he just saw the whole book of Revelation that stirred him a bit too. It's interesting that the praying bride, the praying bride is not the fruit of the book of Acts or the book of John or the book of Romans. I mean, the favorites. I mean, you love the book of Acts, the book of Romans. I mean, meat and potatoes, Christianity 101, the book of Romans, the book of Ephesians. But beloved, there's not a praying bride at the end of Romans and Acts. The praying bride is at the end of the book of Revelation because the revelation of Jesus in the end times produces a praying bride. It's not just the power of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. It's the soon coming King who's breaking in a judgment and glory that awakens the spirit of prayer. And so the discouraging part I was mentioning is that people say, I appreciate the clarity that we need intimacy and eschatology. We got a little bit on intimacy. But I just eschatology thing is so confusing. I can't understand it. And I want to tell you, it is understandable. It is understandable. It's a critical subject. There are 89 chapters in the four gospels. If you add up the four gospels together, you have 89 chapters. The gospels reveal the power of Jesus at his first coming on his way to pay the price for our sin to purchase our redemption. The four gospels, almost 90 chapters, Jesus, the power of God in the ministry of Jesus on his way to pay the price for our salvation. Beloved, there are over a hundred chapters, a hundred more than the four gospels added up together about the end times in the Bible. And the subject of the end times is the power of Jesus on his way to world dominion. It's the same Bible. It's the same Jesus. It's the same power of God is the gospels, but the gospels was the power of God on his way to pay the price for our redemption. The end times chapters is the power of God on the way of Jesus taking over the world in world dominion. And so the end times is not a subject that is just kind of about charts and events. The end times is the, is God's presentation of a man coming to the earth. He's a man. It's fully God, but he's fully man. That the study of the end times is about a bridegroom coming back to the planet to take it over. So don't relegate the end times to kind of like, you know, strange eccentric Christians have graphs all over their walls of when he might come. It's more for the eccentric curious beloved the end. And there's plenty of those that study the end times, but the end times is not mostly about charts and events. It's mostly about the power and the personality and the action plan of a Jewish man who's coming back to the planet. And that Jewish man, we really, really like him. I mean, we really love him. We, we, we want his leadership over our life. And when I studied the end times, it fascinates me. It's that man fascinates me because I understand the, the activities and the wisdom and the power that are in these hundred plus chapters are describing the man I love and the man who loves me. And so for some time in my thinking, it's been far removed from just kind of curious dates and charts. It's all about a man who's coming back, who loves me. And he's giving us insight into his personality and into his action plan. The Bible there, there's, there, there's a lie going around that nobody can understand the book of revelation. So why try and nobody can understand the end time. So why try that is absolutely not true. That, that, uh, that lie is burst and making the end times, these a hundred plus chapters, making them symbolic. Many, many theologians have done a great, great disservice to the body of Christ. They have reduced these a hundred chapters to allegorical symbolism. And then they all debate on what the symbols mean. It's all these double, triple PhD guys all disagree on the symbolism and they write books and, and, and, and then the common folk look at all these books of all these different symbols and they go, who can know? And it's all these smart guys and their, and their education that have, they've reduced the plain meaning of scripture to symbolism and all this figurative stuff. And so nobody can understand it because all the real smart guys don't agree with each other. And if they can't figure it out, how can we figure it out? That's the logic. Well, let me give you a, a little tip off. Don't take these a hundred chapters and make them symbolic. They mean what they say, and they say what they mean, read them in their plain sense, direct non-symbolic way, unless the scriptures in that very chapter tell you that that paragraph is symbolic. That happens several times, not usually, but that, that does happen where the angel told John, this part is a symbol. And so for the next three or four verses, that is a symbol, but then John will tell you what the symbol means. There's really not much debate about it, but by far, the majority of these hundred plus chapters are not symbolic. And they're only symbolic when the, when God or the agent from God, the angelic being tells the prophet, it is symbolic. And again, it's only a couple of verses typically that are symbolic. My point is this, you can understand the end times. You really, really can. Because remember the Bible was written, it was the Bible written to, the Bible was written to the majority of the human race that has been poor and illiterate for the last 2000 years. The Bible was written for poor and illiterate people, not just for PhDs who, who speak eight languages. The Bible is not locked, except you have several PhDs. The Bible was meant to be understood by the common people who were poor and illiterate through church history. This thing is understandable. It really, really is. That's a big stronghold on people's minds. They just think, who can know? Because they'd get a couple of books and it's always the books about the symbolic meeting that, and they, they debate each other and they go, oh, I can't even figure out what the argument is. I don't even know what they're talking about here. And they put it away and then they turn their mind on off. They switch, you know, the, the default button from, I want to understand this. And their new default button is it's too hard to understand. I might as well quit. And beloved, you just threw away a hundred chapters plus of the man, Jesus that you love. You threw it away and relegated yourself to never understand it. And it's the same Jesus in the gospel, the same Bible, the same Holy spirit that wrote it. It's the same power of God, but the gospels is on his way to accomplishing redemption. And the end time chapters are on his way to world dominion. And, and you get rid of that part of Jesus. You've lost a great, a great amount of, of, uh, of the food that the Holy spirit would energize our spirit. And, and we can break these things down in simple ways and children can receive this. The same thing with intimacy. We can break it down to where children can understand the bridegroom God. I mean, none of us will understand it fully in this age, but we'll have enough to where it really touches our spirit. One thing we have here for those, uh, I'm talking to now again, the four to 500 that are with the children's equipping center, a summit this weekend, every, uh, Friday and Saturday night, we take this teachings on intimacy and on eschatology, and we have them on web streaming. You can go to your computer, turn it on. And you can, I mean, there's lots of people listening to this live right now with the, I mean, with the cameras in the, in the web streaming. Hi, I'm waving at the camera there. They can, and we get reports from all over. People are tracking with it in little groups of three and four. They get together on Friday and Saturday nights and they, the notes are right on the internet. They, they print them off and they follow along with us. Now, my point isn't that you need to do that. But my point is, if you think, and I don't, you know, I don't know where to get sustained, regular teaching on intimacy or on in times, we'll just ask the Lord where to get it. And we can be a part of a resource or other places. Well, are you in the Lord or you've, you can figure that out because the Lord it's his will that people understand this stuff. But I have a lot of passion for this because the prayer movement is never going to get beyond. It's never going to, it's never going to have a maturity level that surpasses its revelation of Jesus, the coming King and Jesus, the bridegroom King. And this is critical because it's the coming of Jesus. And it's the bridegroom heart of Jesus that awakens the praying church at the end of the age. So when folks come and visit, I bring them right to those two points again, they say good on the intimacy. They go, we like that. Don't understand it that much, but we do like it. It feels right. But the eschatology, do we really have to do that? I go, do you have to? No. Do you get to? Yes. Is it, is our, are you smart enough to understand it? Yes. If you're as smart as one of the poor illiterate peasants of history have no, with no education, you can handle this because this book of revelation was spoken to him. They didn't even study it. They just had it read to them. And they went, wow, I get it. It means what it says and it says what it means. That's the key to the book. That's the key to the Bible. It means what it says and it says what it means. It's just really, unless it tells you it's symbolic in a portion, which most of the Bible isn't. Well, now I've all but preached the whole four pages here. Let's go ahead and look at them. I'm not going to cover all of it, but I'm going to look at some of these points. So I've already made it several of the points. Let's look at Roman number one, the most important prophecy for the end time church. This is a prophecy. Verse 17 is, I mean, I'm talking about the spirit of the bride say come. That's a prophecy. Beloved, the spirit is going to be on the church right now. The spirit's not on the church much spirits in our, in our, in our midst in a, in a certain way. But I'm talking about his manifest presence in the full manifestation of what was on God's mind is going to be on the church. The full purpose of God, of the, uh, the anointing of the spirit and the church is going to be a, in a bridal identity. This is a prophecy and the church will be saying to the Lord, come, come, that will be her primary occupation. That's a prophecy. You want to get in line with what the spirit's doing, learn how to pray and worship with a bride's heart. You want your children being trained up in what the spirit's doing in the generation of the Lord returns. I believe we're in that generation. I've told people maybe five years and maybe 50 years. I don't know. And, and, and my, my guess is it's closer to 50 than five, but then nobody in heaven's asking my opinion. I don't think it's, I, I'm very sure it's not any day. I'm very, very sure of that. And I want to say something, one more thing before I get into this, although I'm really talking about intimacy here, but I'm slipping over to the end times thing that's for tomorrow night. But I would say this real clear, the doctrine of a pre-tribulation rapture of Jesus is coming anytime to take us away is one of the most destructive deceptions in, in the body of Christ in the Western world. So it's a new doctrine. It's only been around about 150 years. He is not coming any minute to get us out of the way or to get us out of the path of his end time drama. He is coming to anoint us with power to, we have the, the church will have the role of Moses in Egypt, raising up the rod of intercession, loosing the judgments of God with supernatural provision and guidance and significant amounts of protection. I'm not saying every believer will be protected in every case. There will be believers who die in the end time scenario, but the picture is Moses, like Moses, 40 years in the wilderness. And the Lord visits him after 40 years and says, now go into Egypt and stretch out your rod and release the signs and wonders and deliver my people. And Moses going, I've been in the wilderness 40 years, but rapture me. I don't want to go to Egypt. The Lord goes, no, Moses, you do want to go to Egypt. I trust me when I, when I finished doing the book of Exodus, you'll be glad you were in the script. Rapture me. I don't want to go to Egypt because Pharaoh's going to get mad. It's going to cause trouble. Beloved, the book of revelation is the end time church in the position of Moses, releasing the plagues upon the antichrist kingdom through prayer and worship and intercession. It's, it's the church's finest hour. It's the, it's, it's the natural history culminates with a prepared church equipped with intimacy, crying out, calm, anointed with power. That is not, we don't want to escape that. We want to be prepared and right in the thick of it. I've often said of the Lord, if I'm wrong on this, the Lord, once raptors church, I'm going to ask him, Lord, I want to stay. I did. If there's any possible way I'd like to stay. I don't think I'll have to say that because I'm very, very sure that the pre-tribulation rapture, again, I don't want to be mean about it because a lot of people were raised up on it. It is a non-biblical and more than that. It's one of the most, it's one of the most destructive deceptions in the church today. It has the folks just on their way to get whisked away, maybe any day or any hour, and they need to be planning a lifestyle to go deep in the spirit, to be prepared for the most glorious and the most difficult hour of human history that's around the corner, maybe a couple of decades away, may not be. And it may, it may be longer than that. I don't know, but I, that one thing I'm sure of, we're getting close to it. And I believe personally, there are people that are on the earth right now that were in this room right now that will see the coming of the Lord. They may be the five-year-olds and then maybe older ones as well. I don't know. I can't tell that, but I, whether I see it with my eyes or I'm preparing a generation, I don't care. It's all, it pays the same to me, either way it goes. I just want to be faithful, but I, I, I, I spend my life energy getting prepared and preparing people for the greatest hour of history before us. Roman numeral one, it's the most important prophecy. Verse 17 is the spirit on the church, on the bride and the bride crying out, come. That's what the church is going to be doing. In all your training of children, train them to cry out, come Lord Jesus. I don't mean just the word come Lord Jesus. I'm talking about the activity of intercession and worship. I mean, it's good that they used the actual word come Lord Jesus, but it's not limited to that terminology. It's the, it's the prayer and worship spirit on the, on, on, on their hearts. Hey, this is one of the most informative and significant prophecies in the whole Bible. There are so many implications to this prophecy. Many implications. I gave a message once on 15 implications of a verse 17, one implication. If the spirit is coming, resting on the church and the church is, and they're going to cry and the church can be like a bride crying, come beloved God. That means God's raising up worship leaders, young worship leaders right now, not limited to young, but he's raising up worship leaders with bridal identity. He's going to give them bridal songs and he's going to call them in to worship and intercession as their primary mandate in life. That's an implication of this verse. If the church is going to be crying out as a bride, come guess what God's doing with worship leaders and young musicians right now. He's separating them onto this calling, even though it's new to them and they don't flow in it well at this time, but he's separating hundreds of thousands, millions of young people. And he's going to give them the revelation of Jesus as a bridegroom. They're going to write many songs. They're going to write many solo songs, worship songs, prayer songs with the bride of Christ, Christ emphasis. That's one implication to this verse. Same thing. God's raising up preachers and teachers, young and old, that will be able to speak on this subject with clarity, because if God's going to have the whole church with this understanding, guess what that means? He's going to raise up before the church gets it. He's going to raise up an army of forerunners who teach it to them before they get it. They're not just going to wake up one day with the revelation. They're going to be taught it line by line. That means even now God's raising up young and old, male and female preachers, teachers, seminars, writers, songwriters, intercessors that are feeding their spirit on this ahead of time. Beloved, you want to feed the children on this, not only this. I mean, Christianity 101 is the sermon on the mount. We want to teach people to live the sermon on the mount lifestyle, Matthew five, six, and seven. But I tell you this spirit on them, energizing them will cause them to embrace the sermon on the mount lifestyle with a far greater perseverance, with a far greater revelation than if they don't have the end times and the intimacy dimension in their understanding and on their spirit. This prophecy, I'm still in paragraph A, this prophecy describes the church in deep unity with the Holy Spirit. The church is in unity. The church is saying and doing what the spirit is saying and doing. The spirit's on the church in the end times. Beloved, the spirit is not in unity with the church right now. The church in the west is so out of sync with the Holy Spirit. But before this thing is over, the church and the spirit will be in sync. They will be saying and doing the same thing. The spirit will be on the church and the church will say and do what the spirit is saying and doing, which is very, very different than what's happening in the church in the west right now. I tell you one thing, the church, what the spirit is saying, he's saying Malachi four, six, he's saying, turn the hearts of fathers to children and children to fathers. That's what the spirit is saying and doing. The Bible backs this thing up. I appreciate visions and dreams and prophetic words. I've had plenty of them given to me, real ones. I've had a lot of hamburger helper ones given to me over the years. I call them cut and paste prophets. They get on the internet and cut and paste what the other guys said that have a crowd and they put it together and made it their own prophecy and a lot of cut and paste prophets going around. It's not so horrible as long as they're saying the true things. But anyway, a lot of hamburger helper in the prophecy world. But I like the prophecy world. I'm committed to it. But what I really like is the prophecy that's telling us what's happening. That's rooted in the scripture. It's in the Bible. And the Bible says the spirit of Elijah is coming and the fathers are going to be turned to the children, the hearts and the hearts of children. Father, that's in the Bible. The Bible says the spirits could be on the church and the church can have a bridal identity and the church will cry come. But beloved, I'll take that over a dream and vision any day, although I like dreams and visions, but I'll take what the Bible says over what any famous prophet says. And we have really concrete materials to what God, the spirit is doing. What is the spirit doing in this passage? The spirit, not only the bride, the spirits crying out, come see, it's not just the church crying up. The spirit is interceding for Jesus to come in breakthrough. That is what he is doing right now. So if you want to do what the spirit's doing in verse 17, begin to cultivate a lifestyle where you give yourself to what the spirit's doing. And he is saying under the anointing through the church, he's crying out, come or breakthrough, Lord Jesus breakthrough. Instead of the word, come, you could put the word breakthrough, breakthrough, Lord. What is the spirit saying at the end of paragraph eight? He's revealing the church's bridal identity. Who we are is Jesus's bride. See, paragraph C. This prophecy, verse 17 I'm talking about, this prophecy describes the highest function of the church in four ways. I've already said this. Number one, the church is anointed. The spirit's on the church. Number two, the church is engaged. The church is crying out, come, engaged in intercession. Number three, the church is established in bridal identity. She, she sees herself as a bride. Number four, she's effective in the harvest because if you read the whole passage carefully, she's crying out first come to Jesus, but then she's crying out, come to people as well. Come to Jesus, the bridegroom. She's effective in the harvest. D, this will be the first time in history that the church worldwide will be in dynamic unity with the spirit. First time in history. I know in the book of Acts, I'm talking about worldwide on the book of Acts for a minute, meaning a couple of years. That's what a minute means. The spirit was in unity with the church in the book of Acts for a minute. Small number of people, some thousands in one little part of the earth. Beloved for the first time in history, the church and the spirit are going to be in unity worldwide. It is our most glorious hour is yet ahead of us. It's fantastic. Spirit's going to be on the church. E, this prophecy awakened the spirit of intercession in John when he cried, even so come. And when we get touched with the message of the coming Jesus and the bridegroom Jesus, and those two messages come together, he's coming and he's a bridegroom. It awakens the same spirit of urgency in us. F. I've already said this. I'll repeat it. The scripture clearly states nothing is more significant to God's kingdom than intercessory worship. I like to say corporate intercessory worship. It's, it's prayer that's energized by worship that's led by worship. Now I, I've prayed many times in my life alone, not corporate and without worship and it's effective and it's biblical. It's totally effective and it's biblical to pray alone without worship. So I'm not saying that's the only type of prayer. I'm just saying is the most powerful is when the people of God gather and there's a worship anointing. That's why King David raised up 4,000 full-time musicians. Can you imagine that first chronicles 23 had 4,000 full-time musicians in his prayer ministry, full-time, the government paid for him. He was the head of the government. He was the president. He goes, we're going to use this tax money and we're going to fund 4,000 musicians in one prayer room. I don't mean all at the same time with 24 hours a day. And he had 288 trained prophetic singers. And, uh, he had a whole farm, farm club, if you will, you know, uh, like in baseball, they have a farm system where they're training up all the singers. He had 288 trained prophetic singers and 4,000 musicians that, that was in the baseball analogy, the first string, the major leagues, but they had a whole farm club system of training up musicians and singers. And beloved, if God's using you to raise up young people, which is what he's using so many people today and call them to Jesus, the bridegroom, get them into instruments, get them in to understanding the prophetic and understanding music, because God is going to release a prophetic anointing on the singers and the musicians to establish the end time per movement. It was in second Kings chapter six. This is just not on the, on the, on the notes here. Elisha second King six, Elisha is before the King of Israel, the King of Judah. And they go, Hey, we need a prophecy. We have a big crisis here. They had a military crisis. We need a prophecy, Elisha. And Elisha says, you want a prophecy. You bring me a singer and a musician. You bring me a, a prophetic musician. The King of Israel says, what he goes, you want a prophecy. You bring me a prophetic musician. The prophetic musician comes, begins to play before the Lord. And the spirit of prophecy came on Elisha in context to the prophetic spirit coming on, on that, uh, those musics, I mean, musicians and singers is the, is the testimony of scripture. He didn't have singers in that one thing. How about King Saul? King Saul has got a demon. He's tormented first Samuel 16, and they get around and they go, the King is tormented. What do we need? They said, we need a prophetic musician who can play and the spirit of darkness will be driven out of the King. And that's how they found David. He came to the King's court, this young 17, 18 year old guitar player starts playing on his harp and the spirit of darkness leaves Saul because, uh, a young person operated in the power of the prophetic in his instrument. God's raising up intercessory worship. Uh, I've said this, uh, I want to say it right. It's not scriptural to feel sorry for the devil. It's not biblical at all, but the devil has funded a worldwide music movement. He's used all these, I mean, MTV is filling the earth with demonic music. So all these 10 year olds, they watch it and they go, I want to be like it. They start learning the guitar. They start learning the drums because they want to be like that. They get saved when they're 14 and I mean, and they're trained, they're, they're musicians worldwide. And the Holy spirit is going to come and captivate them and move them over to the end time prayer movement and turn the whole thing back on Satan. I mean, he's funding it on the front end and that's not a biblical statement really. So I need to be careful, but he's pouring all this money into getting these people to dark music and the millions are getting saved and they've learned their instrument and the instrument becomes a weapon against the kingdom of darkness. There are more 10 year olds playing the piano playing drums. Yes. Playing drums at home in the, in the, in the garage that beats the bedroom upstairs, but put them in the garage. But anyway, they're playing the drums and the horns and guitars, eight year olds, 10 year olds are captivated. They want to dance. They want to do it. The Lord is raising up a generation that is going to be right in the middle of the end time with the spirit on them. Roman numeral two, what is the bridal paradigm? Hey, we talk much about the bridal paradigm of the kingdom. The word paradigm means perspective or view. That's where we refer to the bridal perspective of the kingdom. We see the kingdom through the eyes of a wholehearted bride beloved. If we do not feel loved, I'm talking about feel we don't have to feel loved by God to be loved by God. And many of God's people don't feel it, but it's within our inheritance to feel it. We don't have to feel it, but it's within our inheritance to feel the love of God, not all day, every day, every minute, but to have a substantial part of our life in, in the kingdom of God, feeling love and feeling love back to God. I don't, again, I'm not, I don't want to exaggerate it and say it's an unbroken feeling that we're just lost in capital. I don't want to set you up for idealism. That's not real, but there's a substantial amount of this that God wants his people to, to experience and to not give up that, but, but to hold out for, for this reality, because if we don't feel loved and feel loved back for, for Jesus, we are, we compromise much more easily. We lack courage much more, and we're spiritually bored. The spiritually bored church in the West, because the church in the West right now is mostly spiritually bored and uncompromised is in desperate need of the bridal paradigm to be fascinated and to be exhilarated with a God who feels for them with great energy and emotion. Because when we're spiritually bored, we are vulnerable, far more vulnerable to darkness. When we are spiritually exhilarated in our spirits, again, I'm gonna talk about all day, every day, but, but that's, we feel this fascination. Oh, we are so much more locked into the kingdom of God. Righteousness is so much more attractive when our spirit feels the presence of God on it. B, the Holy Spirit, for the first time in history, first time in history, is universally emphasizing the church's spiritual identity as, as Jesus's bride. Now, there's always been a couple groups through history, I don't know the number, small number, there's always been a few groups around that have seen the revelation of Jesus as a bridegroom. One of my, uh, uh, favorite teachers from church history is a man named Bernard of Clairvaux. He died in a, in 1152, uh, AD. And he, uh, was a, uh, Catholic monk in France. And he was, his whole life was about, for years, he taught on the Bride of Christ and the Song of Solomon, and operated in great signs and wonders, and led tens of thousands of people, had the biggest, uh, preaching meetings with signs and wonders, and his primary life message was the Song of Solomon. And they, uh, uh, have copies of, like, a 15-volume set from Bernard of Clairvaux on Song of Solomon, you know, and, and, uh, 1053, you know, I mean, or, or 1153, you know, and 1128, you know, that kind of time frame. I mean, it's really a, uh, there's always been guys around and gals through the years that have carried this, but never has it been universally emphasized. Notice it doesn't say that the Spirit, and I have it here in B, and the army. It doesn't say the Spirit and the family say come. It's not the Spirit of the kingdom. It's not the Spirit of the temple, or the Spirit of the body, or the Spirit of the priesthood. All of those are realities. They're part of our spiritual identity. It's the Spirit on the church who understands she's a bride that's going to be energized in prayer. It's the bridal identity that is missing. These other dimensions are, they need strengthening, too. We need this. We are the family of God, and we need that spiritual identity. We need to understand it, but it's not the Spirit of the family crying, come with the Spirit of the army. It's the Spirit of the bride. It's the church and a bridal identity crying, come. Top of page two. Roman numeral three. The bridegroom message. The bridegroom message in one sentence. The bridegroom message is a call to experience intimacy, active two-way intimacy with God. It says in first Corinthians two that the Spirit searches all things. Yes, the deep things of God, so we can experience, we can know them. The Holy Spirit wants to give you and me the deep things of God's heart. Not just kind of intellectual mysteries of how the universe works. The deep things of God's heart. The Spirit is searching the deep things of the Father and the Son, so you and I can know, and the word know means experience. God wants you and I to experience the deep things of his heart. Paragraph B. As sons of God, we are in the position to experience God's throne, his power. As the bride, we are in a position to experience God's heart, his emotions, his affections. We are all sons of God and the bride of Christ. One of them is our position to experience. We're heirs of God's power as sons of God, but we're heirs of God's heart as the bride of Christ. We want both. It's not either or. C. Women are the sons of God and men are the bride of Christ because they describe a position of privilege. And then the rest of C and D. I'm just gonna just say what it says, that men have this, they struggle with, well, I don't want to be the bride of Christ because they think it's gonna call them to minimize their masculinity. Women usually understand that being sons of God does not minimize their, the feminine dimension of their humanity. They understand it's to operate in power. To be this, to be the bride of Christ, men, it doesn't minimize your masculinity. But I have in D here, the three of the most powerful men in history, King David, John the Apostle, and John the Baptist, were men who understood the bridal dimension. They were lovesick men who understood the affections of God's heart. And they were, all of each one of them, you could call them in the traditional, I mean, in the phrase that we use sometimes, use in our culture, a man's man. I tell you, King David, the great warrior king was a man's man. He was a lovesick worshiper who gazed on the beauty of God. That's the bridal paradigm. Let's go to top of page three. What is the bridegroom message? What is the bridegroom message? And for those of you that are just visiting this weekend, we have just so much material on this on our website and all of our notes. We say our copyright is the right to copy. You can take it, you can put your name on it, make your own handouts, you can use any of the written material that any of us have, because on our website, the IHOP stuff, if we're, you know, advertising somebody else's, you can, but anything that's mine or any of the leaders here, you can use it, because my point is, we just have multitudes of handouts and notes and articles and all kinds of things. You can take it, and I encourage people, make handouts, give Bible studies, put your name on it, put your mother's name on it, it's yours to run with it, so you can have it. And so I can't, I'm not going to go into the message right now in any great detail, but we have it just everywhere around here. But the bridegroom message is revealing the emotions of God and God's commitment as a bridegroom to us. And the bridegroom message, A, starts with Jesus having tender mercy. The tender mercy of Jesus is the foundation stone of the Bride of Christ message. It's the tender mercy, the emotions of his heart towards us in our weakness. He's gentle with us in our weakness. He has tender mercy. This is what David understood. B, Jesus has a heart of gladness. Most of us, when we think about God, we think that he's mostly mad or he's mostly sad when he relates to us. I wrote a book called After God's Own Heart, which I take the life of David, and in one sentence, David, I mean, the thing I highlight was a student of God's emotions. It's a fascinating reality of David's life. David was a student of the emotions of God. And we need to know God's emotions. And David was the one that understood the gladness of God's heart. It was fantastic. God's not mostly mad or mostly sad when he relates to you, even in your weakness. We've got to distinguish between rebellion and immaturity. A lot of people think rebellion and immaturity are the same because they have some of the same activity. They have some of the same external behavior. But the heart of an immature believer is very different than a rebellious person towards God. And some people cannot separate those two. And those are significant realities that are different. God is angry at persistent rebellion. But God delights in his people, even while they're immature and they're growing up, and they have a sincere yes in their spirit, wanting to follow hard after him. C, the bridegroom message has to do with Jesus's fiery affections. D, his zeal to destroy everything that hinders love. E, his indescribable beauty, the number one description of David's life was he's a man. He said, this one thing I've done all the days of my life, I behold his beauty. Oh, these are fast subjects, vast subjects. Roman numeral five, the threefold cry of intercession. We ask the Lord to come. We say, come Lord Jesus. That means breakthrough. We say, come near us. That's intimacy. Break through my heart. I want to break through my heart. Come Lord Jesus. That's a personal prayer. There's a come to us. Lord, visit Kansas City. Lord, visit Washington DC. Lord, visit Israel. A breakthrough revival in a geographic region or come for us. That's the second coming. So there's three different ways to cry out come. B, there's two different ways to express it. We can do it with worship. We love you. We love you. We beckon you with our love. Come to us. Worship is the cry come and intercession is the cry come as well. Top of page four. Didn't think I was gonna get through this, did you? I knew I was gonna get in the fast version real quick. A two full dimension. We cry upward to God and outward to people. I've already said that. E, God's raising up forerunners. He's raising up people like yourself who a forerunner is one short step. I don't want to stir up a spirit of pride or an elite spirit in people by saying this. A forerunner and there's and there's you know might be millions of them. I don't know the number but it's it's a small percent of the body of Christ but still a large number. They are those that are one short step ahead of others in walking out and announcing what the Spirit's going to be in a universally emphasizing in a decade or two. Beloved, in a decade or two I want to assure you the Spirit is going to be emphasizing the bride of Christ of the whole body of Christ. But in a decade or two when it's a global universal uh emphasis, he's going to be emphasizing prayer and worship the cry come but he's going to have a million or so intercess I mean I don't know the number that's totally arbitrary number. He's going to have some hundreds of thousands or a million or two forerunners all over the earth who already have a root system. They've already been deep in this for 10 or 20 years and when it's time for God to bring it to a billion people, he's going to have teachers and worship leaders and moms and dads clear in their spirit with a history in God ahead of time. That's what forerunners are and that's what God's doing in this day. He's raising up forerunners. We're just going to end with that.