Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of understanding Jesus as the Bridegroom, King, and Judge in his sermon 'The Forerunner Message.' He reflects on the 15 years of prayer meetings that laid the foundation for the International House of Prayer (IHOP) and expresses a vision for the next 15 years, anticipating greater impact and challenges. Bickle shares personal encounters with God that shaped his understanding of the beauty of Jesus and the importance of the first commandment, urging the congregation to embrace a deeper relationship with Christ. He calls for a recommitment to the forerunner message, encouraging believers to stand firm in their faith amidst the complexities of the world.

It was in the church called Metro Christian Fellowship. We had three prayer meetings a day for 15 years. Three prayer meetings a day. Every morning, every 6.30, then at 10 o'clock in the morning, and then at 7 o'clock at night. And I believe most of those prayer meetings had about 10 to 20 people. Very little music. There towards the last few years we had a worship that would go on for about 30 minutes at the front, and then in the evening, you know, we'd worship 30 minutes, and then two and a half hours of no music and just intercessions. Seven nights a week we would have prayer meetings. Seven mornings a week we would have prayer meetings. And worship times. And I believe that the 15 years of those little 10 and 20 member prayer meetings, not very anointed at all, not very many people involved, but they were steady. I believe those 15 years birthed IHOP 15 years ago. And I believe that the last 15 years, I call the last 15 years IHOP 1.0, I believe that a 24-hour music-led prayer room with visitors from all around the world and far more people engaged, I believe the last 15 years is birthing the next 15 years. And I have this sense that we're in a time of transition, and we're going to look back in 15 years from now and see that the second 15 years of IHOP had many different dynamics and dimensions that were different than the first 15 years. Just like the first 15 years of IHOP was very different than the first 15 years of the little prayer room where it didn't seem like much was happening, but the Lord was paying attention. And I think in the next 15 years we're going to have far greater impact. I believe we'll have far greater release of God's power that's manifest, that's visible to the natural eye, I mean where people will see it, not just believe it by faith. I believe we'll have far greater finance in the next 15 years. But I believe we'll have far more enemies, far more obstacles, far more challenges. So as I look at the 15 years, and I have a very similar feeling to 15 years ago when we birthed it right here on this stage. We dedicated it here, then we went down to the trailer on September 19th, and then 15 years ago tonight we started here, then we went down there and we ceremonially threw the key away because we would never lock the door and we would go 24-7. But I remember that feeling right here 15 years ago, September 19th today, and I have a very similar feeling today, and it's different than all the 15 years. I feel like we're at the beginning of a new season. Again, I believe there'll be greater finance. There'll be far greater impact. I mean the footprint of the impact of this community of believers around the world is growing so rapidly. What's happening out and abroad is far exceeding what we can see here. And I hear reports regularly, and I'm blessed by that, but that's not my big point that, my, aren't we big and good. That's certainly not the point I'm making. I'm saying, but we're going to dramatically see an increased impact, increased power, increased finance, greater enemies, far more fears, far greater obstacles and challenges. Because the larger numbers, the larger economics, the larger powers will bring, it's like one man said, new levels, new devils. You go to new levels of God's purpose, you will have new challenges. So I'm girding myself, looking at the next 15 years saying, Lord, yes, but I'm not naive about it. It will be bigger, better, more powerful, but actually more challenging and other dynamics than we can imagine. But before the Lord, I'm signing up again for another 15 years. I mean, it was 15 years ago when I made a commitment before the Lord. I said, as long as I have breath on the earth, I will be in this house of prayer. I'm not going anywhere else. I'm not taking another mandate. I'm going to do this. If I'm 100 years old sitting in the chair, I'm going to be here till the day I die involved in this. And I don't know how many years I have, but I'm girded for another 15, and I'm ready for a few more after that if that's what the Lord's heart is. And I know some of you have that same resolve. You may not do it in this city, but you'll be involved in a very focused way in the prayer movement all of your days. And there are some of you, you'll be here all your days. That's just how the Lord, just how He does it. He appoints them. You don't have to know that. You don't have to know where you'll be if you'll be here. But I believe that just like there's a whole company that are still here from day one. Matter of fact, just for fun, any of you that were here in that first year, I want you to stand up at any time, or I'd like you to stand up. Just stand up for a moment here. You were here. Go ahead, Diane. You were here. I remember seeing you. Come on, you guys. Alan, don't be shy. Okay, wait. Stand just for a few moments. Just for a few moments. Go ahead. If you were here the first year, keep standing. Now, if you were here the first three years, go ahead and stand. Don't sit down. You don't get to sit down for a few minutes. Okay, the first three years, I'd like you to stand just for fun. Okay? And it's not like if you were not here there, you missed it, because you were doing the will of God wherever you were. And some of you in this room were just waiting to get born the first time. Not really waiting. You didn't exist yet. But you were not... Anyway, you know what I mean. Anyway, you can sit down. I just wanted just to look at you. And there's a handful more that are not here tonight that are participating in the weekend. But I'm girded for another 15-year run. But I'm... IHOP 2.0. But I'm confident that the last 15 years is birthing the next 15 years. And I believe the next 15 years will birth the 15 years after that. And, of course, there's other dimensions besides just the prayer room itself. But I just wanted to make that point. Well, let's look at some of the messaging. The messaging is important. And I'm not going to preach on the messaging, because the messaging is pretty self-explanatory. What I'm going to tell is the way the Holy Spirit emphasized in a very specific way that He wanted this messaging emphasized in this movement. So I'm going to talk more about how He showed it to us rather than unfolding the truth themselves. When I look back over the last 30 years, it was 83 and 84, 1983 and 84, where the most dramatic, not all of the dramatic encounters, but there were more in 83 and 84 than any other two-year period in the last 30 years. Dramatic things. And I think I'll be addressing some of those tomorrow night. There's about, I'm guessing, about 30 different supernatural events that took place. I don't know. I don't have the number counted in my brain, but I just had a glance. And I'm going to pick a few of them from 83 and 84 probably tomorrow and just unfold some of those stories. But the second two-year period, I would picture 1997 and 1998, the two years before IHOP started, I believe had a very distinct and significant to the IHOP reality, because that's where the Lord laid clearly the foundation of part of the messaging. I mean, we had a clarity about the grace of God. We had clarity about the message of the cross. We had clarity about the place of the church, the Great Commission, very important main and plain doctrines were clearly in the minds of the people. But it was in 97 and 98 where the Lord began to bring together the beauty of Jesus as Bridegroom, King, and Judge, and that we were to see the cross, we were to see the work of the kingdom, the building of the church, the prayer movement, through the lens of the Word of God, but as the Word of God makes clear that Jesus is the beautiful God. He's not just powerful, He's beautiful. And particularly Jesus as Bridegroom, King, and Judge. So I'm going to share a little bit of my journey, because I believe that my journey was not mostly about me as an individual. Meaning, if there was not a prayer movement that we were a part of, and by the way, the global prayer movement across the earth has many subunits, and we're just one little subunit of many, many prayer movements. There's many prayer movements. I mean, there's dynamic prayer movements in Indonesia, all throughout Asia, in Africa, dramatic. I've interacted with a number of the leaders of what's going on in Latin America, what's going on in Europe, what's going on in the islands of the earth, all throughout North America. It's remarkable how many distinct, dynamic prayer movements, sub-prayer movements like us, that the Lord is raising up, that work together under His leadership for the grand global prayer movement. Well, in terms of our little sub-movement here, under the larger movement, the Holy Spirit, the Lord was leading me in a very distinct and dramatic way, where He intervened in a way that I could not deny, and the folks that I was connected to, we could not deny. And so, the reason He did that, because He was forming the message for a movement. If I was not involved in a movement, these events never would have happened to me. They were not like, God loves Mike, so hey, He's going to give him a couple cool experiences. It wasn't about that. It was, the Lord says, I want you to initially steward these messages, because there was always a community of believers around. We were stewarding them together, and then applying them, and getting them established in the lives of others. Paragraph A, we'll just start real simple. The forerunner message includes proclaiming, I want to add the word, the beauty of Jesus. It's the beauty of Jesus as bridegroom, king, and judge. As a bridegroom, He's a God with desire, burning desire. Many believers are not acquainted with the God of burning desire. That's a new idea to people who love Jesus, many people, ourselves included. The idea of Jesus as a king with power. Now, most of us are a little bit familiar with Jesus, the king with power. And the reason I say little, I include myself when I say just a little familiar, because in the western world, when we think of the king with power, we think of mostly getting our sins forgiven, getting healed, and getting some supernatural finances and a few doors open that bless our life. And that is the power of God. But the power of God is far more than blessing our lives. A lot of folks, they think of the king as the one that has resource to bless their individual life, make their life more comfortable, make their ministry a little better. But the king with power is far bigger than that. It does involve supernatural finances. It does involve physical healing. It does involve the great harvest. But it involves much more than that. But there's a third dimension, Jesus the judge with zeal. And it's the zeal to intervene in world affairs, to intervene to confront everything that hinders love. The greatest criticism God has in the nations, why didn't you intervene? And all through history, individuals have cried out, where was God in His intervention when we needed Him? Where was, in essence, the judge is what they were saying. Why didn't He break in and make wrong things right? Well, there's an hour of history where He's going to intervene in an observable way, seen by the eyes of unbelievers and believers alike, billions. He's going to break in in an unprecedented way, intervene with zeal, to show He will confront everything that hinders love. And then the outcry will be, why are you breaking in? Why are you taking matters into your hands? And that will be very offensive to believers and unbelievers alike if they don't see that Jesus of the Bible is bridegroom, king, and judge. And so it was in 1997, 98, those two years, the Lord with a small company of believers, I'm guessing about 20 or 30 of us, I'm guessing some number like that, He was forming this message and bringing it together in a sovereign way in our midst. Now this is not a new message, it's a message as old as the Bible. It's been in the Bible from when the Bible was written. But it's new in terms of many believers, they don't think about it, they don't interact with Jesus as a bridegroom, king, and judge. Again, they think of Him mostly as forgiving their sins, healing their body and opening some doors and blessing their money a little bit. But there's so much more that He wants to reveal about Himself in the midst of His people. Well, we're going to go back, paragraph B, and I'm going to be brief on most of these encounters. But I want to give just a quick snapshot of the journey. It began in 1983. And again, I'll probably talk a little bit about 83 and 84 tomorrow. And I'm going to tell some different dimensions of the story that I haven't always told over the years. There are so many dimensions of the story that have not been told publicly because there's never really enough time, even a weekend like this. You know, we have three or four sessions, but there's 50 hours of story to be told. And so it's a good time on the anniversaries to be able to take a look in a little different angle than what's been made known to some over the years. Well, here we are in May of 1983. We call it the Solemn Assembly. Now, a Solemn Assembly is whenever believers gather together for fasting and prayer to seek the Lord. And we've had a lot of Solemn Assemblies over 30 plus years in terms of the ministry I've been involved here. We've had a number of them, but this was the one that God did unusual and remarkable things above any other time that I've ever experienced in my 40 years of ministry and leadership. But it was in this time. I'm leading a young adult church. I'm 27 years old at the time. We have about a 500-member church. We're in the Overland Park area. And most of our congregation was in their 20s. And we went on a 21 days of fasting and prayer because the Lord led us in a very distinct way. And one of the two or three very dynamic things that happened in that 21-day period was the Lord speaking audibly and talking about Psalm 27-4. And what had happened is I was pacing in the room. We meet from 6 a.m. till midnight for 21 days, 18 hours a day. And a handful of folks did the whole 18 hours. And we'd just take naps just right there in the sanctuary. We had about a 700-seat sanctuary, so about half the size of this room just to kind of picture it. And we'd start at 6 o'clock in the morning. No music the whole day except for like a half hour, an hour at night at 7 o'clock. People were just waiting till 7 o'clock for just a little strike of music. It was just raw, rock-pile prayer, 6-0-1. I would get on the mic and start. You know, it'd all be there. And we'd pray straight through for 18 hours, one after the other. You know, devil come out or I'm coming in after you. Binding, you know, very warrior, militant, very cool until day three on a fast when your nerves are a little bit stressed. And you don't want to hear anybody scream anymore on a microphone where the sound is not set just right. Anyway, it was pretty nerve-wracking to be honest. But one day about the middle of it, towards the middle of it, I was walking back and forth and I had Psalm 27-4. This one thing, I desired the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and the house of the Lord. And I start early in the morning and I'm just this verse. All day long I say this verse. And I just don't want to stop saying it. I mean, I did a little bit, but I mean, I just prayed it quietly. I didn't say it ever on the microphone. I probably prayed on the microphone I'm guessing 10 or 15 times a day because I don't know if it was that, maybe 10 times a day because it was 18 hours. And a lot of folks were still a little bit shy about praying on the microphone back then. And so I had to give people the eye, get up on the microphone because everybody knew it was hard to get folks on the microphone in those days. So I didn't pray this on the microphone, but all through the day, Psalm 27-4, this one thing, all the days of my life. And so Bob Jones comes to me the next day and he says, the Lord says yes to your prayer yesterday. I said, great. I go, which one? I mean, I prayed Ephesians 1, Ephesians 3, Colossians 1, Philippians 1. You know, the normal apostolic prayers, I probably prayed most of them at least once through the day just to keep something going on the microphone because, again, it was a challenge to get people to pray on the mic in those days. And I said, which prayer? Ephesians 1, Ephesians 3? He goes, no, none of those. He goes, the prayer the Lord gave you. And I said, well, I would consider those were the Lord in my book. You know, Ephesians 1, that's pretty good. And he goes, no. He goes, I'll tell you the prayer the Lord gave you. He gave you Psalm 27-4. And I stopped and I thought, yeah, he really did all day long. How did you know? He goes, I heard it audibly from the Lord. And the Lord spoke audibly to me. It was like in a dream vision experience. He goes, I heard it audibly. The Lord said, I will establish 24-hour prayer in the spirit of the tabernacle of David. That's what Psalm 27-4 is. And I said, tabernacle of David? I go, that's not what Psalm 24 is. I go, it's something about the beauty of God or something all day, you know, praying prayers or something like that. I go, I don't even know what Psalm 27-4 is really. He goes, no, I'm telling you right now. The Lord is talking about raising up all over the earth is what we understand later. 24-hour prayer in the spirit of the tabernacle in the regions across the earth. That's what we understand now. But here's the point I want to emphasize. That back 30 years ago when that word was given, I focused on the night and day dimension. I thought night and day, oh my gosh, 24 hours a day. Because I was picturing 24 hours a day of the prayer meetings we were having. They were horrible. I thought, 24 hours a day? What did I do to deserve this? I mean, this is punishment for sure. Because again, it was just screaming, fasting, bad sound. Our nerves were shot. No music nearly. And I thought, I'm going to do that the rest of my life? And Bob Jones, the prophetic man that I'll refer to many times this weekend, he goes, yeah, that's what the Lord said, but it's going to be very different than you think. And so I only focused on the night and dayness. But here, it took me a few years. And what the Lord was, he was saying night and day for sure. But another thing, he was saying the beauty. Beholding the beauty. And it was years before I saw the phrase, to behold the beauty. And so from the very beginning of this movement, the Lord was emphasizing, it's the beauty of Christ Jesus. Not just his power. It's not just his glory. It's not just his wisdom. It's his beauty manifest in all of those ways. It's the beauty of Christ Jesus. Let's go to paragraph C. Well, about five years go by. In July of 88. So I've got this mandate in my heart. And we put the sign on the wall. That we're going to have 24-hour prayer in the spirit of the Tower of God. We have that sign. And again, I'm thinking of the night and dayness. I'm not thinking of beauty yet. And even some of you, you think about the night and dayness of our mandate. And you haven't really encountered the beauty. The beauty is a phrase that is you hear, but it's not something that's personal on the inside of your heart that's touching you. And I'm not saying that as a rebuke at all. I'm saying that as an invitation. The Lord spoke audibly. He wants the beauty dimension of God to be surrounding all that we're doing. And at various seasons of the 15 years, we touch and lay hold of the beauty dimension. Then other years, we're not as connected with it. I mean, it's always in our language. But I'm talking about in terms of the weight of it by the spirit in the hearts of the people in our community. In some seasons, it's higher. Some seasons, it's lower. But I'm believing the Lord for this next 15 years to have a far greater measure of the beauty dimension of who God is. He's beautiful as a bridegroom. He's beautiful as a king. He's beautiful as a judge. And in other dimensions of His beauty as well. Well, five years go by. It's July 1988. I'm in my office one morning after the early morning prayer meeting. I'm just sitting there reading through some mail. I'm looking at a wedding invitation. And in the wedding invitation, it said Psalm. I mean, it said Song of Solomon 8, verse 6. What a great verse for a wedding invitation. The seal of fire on the heart. Put a seal of fire on my heart. A seal of love, etc. And I thought, wow, what a beautiful verse. But as I read it, the Spirit of the Lord began to touch me in a very unusual way. So instantly. And I began just to say these words, Jesus, set your seal, your seal of fire on my heart. Let me love God with the power of God. Father, let me love Jesus with the way you love Jesus. And I began to weep. I mean, instantly. And the Spirit of the Lord was on me. I go, what is happening here? I mean, it was instantaneously. It goes on about 5 or 10, 15 minutes. And I thought, I'm having an encounter with the Lord. I don't even know what's going on. I don't know Song of Solomon. I don't ever read Song of Solomon. And so I called the receptionist because I'm at the church. And I said, church building. I said, hey, something strange is happening. I went about an hour or two, no matter what. Don't have anybody, no phone calls through or nobody come to my door. I just need privacy with the Lord for a while. Something very unusual is happening. Now, in 40 years of ministry, I've only said that once to a receptionist. It was that day. I mean, I'm sad I haven't said it 100 more times. But that was the only time that ever happened of that magnitude where I had to make that phone call. And so I'm on my knees in Song of Solomon 8.6. Lord, set your seal of fire that I would love you. I would love God like God loves God, by the power of God. And I mean, I thought, wow. Wow, this is the feeling of this was powerful. The phone rings. You know, it's ten minutes later. And it's amazing how quick you can go from the spirit to the flesh. It was like, what? You know, here I am in this dynamic encounter with the Lord, and my flesh is still alive and well on planet earth and active. So I pick the phone up. I go, yes. You know, try to be nice. And the receptionist said, well, Bob Jones is on the other line. He's on the phone, and he just heard the audible voice of the Lord, and he says he has to tell you right now. Oh, okay, that's good. You know, if somebody hears the audible voice of the Lord, that's always good to go ahead and disturb the prayer time. And so I was on my knees reading Song of Solomon 8.6. Lord, put your seal of love on my heart. And so Bob Jones is on the phone. Hello? He says, I heard the audible voice of the Lord just now. He told me he's going to speak to you from Song of Solomon 8.6. I don't even say I'm reading. I say nothing. He said the Lord told me he's going to release the grace of Song of Solomon 8.6 on the body of Christ worldwide. In other words, he's going to just sovereignly touch people all over the world, unrelated to anything we're doing here, just sovereignly he's going to touch people with the love of God because this is a grace for the first commandment, to love God with all of our strength. Really, you could put in that verse, the first commandment. That's really what that verse is about. He says he's going to give a grace. And the reason that's interesting to you, because he's going to give that grace to weak and broken people like us. That grace is available to everybody. And Bob was saying, the Lord just told me there's going to be a grace to enter into Song of Solomon 8.6. Again, the first commandment is what that means in one sentence. And he said, and the Lord wants you to know that you're going to focus on this all the days of your life. Now, it's not focus on the Song of Solomon. Some folks have understood that chapter 8, verse 6 meant the Song of Solomon would be the main book in our movement. The 8th chapter Song of Solomon is a love poem, and it's a good love poem. But the message itself is bigger than that love poem. It's really the first commandment. If I had to describe what the message is from Song of Solomon 8.6 that we are to focus on, number one, that the bridegroom God, Jesus, has burning desire for us. He's not just that power only. He has desire, that revelation. Jesus of the Gospels. I'm talking about the Jesus of the New Testament that we're aware of. That's what this is about. He has burning desire, deep emotions of delight and desire for interaction with us. The second message would be the first commandment first. That we are to proclaim the first commandment as central to the kingdom of God. And the third message would be his deep desire for partnership with us. It's not that he just loves us. He wants to partner with us. He wants to be deeply involved with the release of his kingdom through his people. That is the message of Song of Solomon 8.6. And the reason I say that is some folks, and I've loved Song of Solomon, it's a love poem, think the poem is the main thing and the poem itself is just a vehicle. It's the message of the bridegroom desire, the first commandment first, and his desire for deep partnership. That is what God was saying at that time. Well I was so excited. And I just wept. The tenderness of God. I didn't say anything to Bob. He told me it was a 60 second conversation. Literally about 60 seconds. He goes, bye. He goes, I got to go. He goes, I'm about to go on a ministry trip. I just heard the audible voice of the Lord. He's going to talk to you right immediately about Song of Solomon 8.6. He goes, this is going to be a grace poured out on the body of Christ. Again, not from here. Just sovereignly from heaven. He's going to talk to people about Song of Solomon all around the world. I mean chapter 8 verse 6, which is really the first commandment and the bridegroom message. And you don't have to do the Song of Solomon to do chapter 8 verse 6. Meaning some folks read the whole poem and they go, I don't know about the poem. I go, no, it's Jesus. The glory of Jesus is what we're talking about. It's in the New Testament. It's just not an obscure poem in the Old Testament. Though I'm proud of that poem. I honor that poem. I'm grateful for that poem. Well, the presence of God is resting on me. And maybe 30, 40 minutes pass. I don't know. And it lifts. And oh, I'm so excited. So I call my wife, Diane. Diane. I said, Bob Jones just heard audibly the very verse I was reading. And so I had this kind of, I was a little perplexed. Because I thought my assignment was to do this 24-hour thing from 83. Now here it's 1988, five years later. Now I suppose my assignment is this love seal 1st Commandment. Which is it? Is it prayer? Because I hadn't connected prayer yet with the tenderness and the beauty of God's heart. Prayer was a warrior thing. And the anointing of love was different than the warrior thing. I mean, now we understand it's the same thing. But back then I didn't get it. So I thought, I don't know which is which. But, you know, I'm so excited. And Diane was very excited as I told her that. And then I decided since, you know, I ought to just read the whole book of Song of Solomon. I'd never read it before in a serious way. I'd read it, scanned it a few times to make jokes for the youth group and stuff. But I had never actually, you know, read it. And so I thought, wow, that's cool. So I read it. I was horrified. Horrified. Fragrance, flowers, body parts, perfume, roses. I said, no way. I'm not. It's not going to happen. And I looked at this and I said, Lord, give me like the book of Romans, you know. Give me the life of David. Something, you know, I mean really. Come on, Lord. I mean, my father was a championship boxer. So he was a boxer for 18 years. And I was trained in boxing. And I grew up in the boxing world. I said, I'm the son of a boxer, an international champion boxer. I can't do Song of Solomon. This is ridiculous. And so I was like, it's funny now, but it wasn't funny that afternoon. I was depressed. I said, no, no, this is not going to happen. I mean, I'll do something hard. I'll go to some faraway nation and suffer if you want me to. But I'm not doing this. So I came home that night and Diane, she goes, oh, it's so exciting. She goes, tell me more what happened today. I go, have you ever read Song of Solomon? She goes, oh, yeah, it's amazing. I go, no, it's horrible. And I said, I'm not going to do it. And I said, I have to because I know I'm going to. But anyway, over time, I just started reading it just on a regular basis, not liking it at all. Because I couldn't see Jesus in it. Because I'm a Jesus guy. And I have to see Jesus and I have to see the New Testament gospel in it, or I'm not interested in it. And over time, I began to see the New Testament truth and the glory of Jesus in that love poem. Because that love poem, it's easy to find many New Testament truths in it. But anyway, I began to really touch the heart of Jesus in a whole new way. So the Lord ambushed me in 88 with the revelation of the Bridegroom God, just the beginning of it. And again, some of you, you've been here for years. And you know the language, Bridegroom God. But it's not a part of your conversation with the Lord. Meaning you, if somebody asked you, is Jesus a Bridegroom, you could say yes. But it's not something in the private place of your heart you talk to him about or in the light of. And again, my point isn't, boy, aren't you missing it. My point is the Lord has more for you. The Lord was zealous to show us. I want to help you see this message as a movement. I want you to steward this. Meaning not only us, many movements will steward this. Because the church in the end of the age will be in her bridal identity, the spirit of the bride crying, the whole body of Christ is going to see this. But he wants us, as well as many other ministries in the earth, to take this as a point of emphasis. Jesus, the Bridegroom God, the God of desire. Paragraph D, the essence of the Bridegroom message. Jesus' beauty. Jesus' emotions. Jesus' commitments to us. And our response of wholeheartedness back to him. That's the essence. It's the first commandment first and the revelation of the heart of God and the beauty of God. Well, Paragraph E, the next year, 1989. Again, I'm giving you kind of a couple of the early installments where the Lord's positioning my heart in a way that was very different than I was accustomed. This Bridegroom thing in 88, it took me a few years to get in sync with it. I mean, for a couple of years, it was like, I just don't really want to do this. If there's any way out of this, now I look back and I say, Lord, thank you that you were patient with my resistance. I had no idea how beautiful the glory of the man Christ Jesus in his burning desires. I had no idea the measure of his beauty. Well, Paragraph E, it was October 89, a full year later. Noel Alexander, who you saw on the video, one of my dear friends and partners in intercession for years, the Lord spoke to him early in the morning and told him that he was to speak on Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, the first commandment, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart. In a very specific way, God led him to that passage and the Lord says, I'm going to move on this passage. This is very important. And I don't think anyone had ever talked on the first commandment in the first five years of the church here in Kansas City. I don't think I ever did. I might have mentioned it once in passing, but I've never heard a message on the first commandment. Never really heard anybody talk about it. I mean, didn't know any books on it. And so Noel comes that day and says, I'm supposed to talk on the first commandment. The Lord stirred me up in a dramatic way this morning. I won't give the details, but I'm like, okay, good. First commandment, that's biblical, that's good. Wow. Because, you know, I was more postured on Jesus is a warrior. He's a king with power. You know, let's destroy the devil and his kingdom. Let's take over, you know, all that the enemy has seized. Let's free and liberate the captives, which is still a very important emphasis in my heart. But I didn't have the love God with all of your mind and heart. I thought, of course we love you, of course. I mean, why wouldn't we love you? I mean, but it's not something we actually talked about or thought about. So Noel says, I have this message and the Lord told me very clearly this. He wants this emphasized. Okay. Again, it's probably the first time I've heard a first commandment message ever. Probably. I mean, I haven't thought it all the way. I might have heard one and forgot. So Noel gets up and he says, the Lord really told me to do this this morning. He wants us to start emphasizing this. And he gets up and he says, you, he says, hear O Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart. And he takes a moment. He goes, hear O Israel. Love the Lord your God. And when he said it the next time, a bolt of lightning struck the building. I mean, and the whole congregation, they screamed. The whole congregation screamed. I mean, it was terrifying. We didn't know what happened. It was like a bomb went off. It wasn't like, you know, ding. It was so loud, like an airplane hitting the building. It went boom like that. And everybody screamed and hollered. And people fell down and some people cried and others looked around. We didn't know what happened. But the Lord was saying, back in 1989, he goes, I want you to know. I meant it. I want this verse, this truth emphasized. Because Noel said, God wants us to start emphasizing this truth, the first commandment. And when he declared it the second time, hear O Israel. Love the Lord your God. Boom, this lightning hits the building. And never for a day after that did we doubt that God wanted the first commandment in the very culture of everything we did. I said, I'm a first commandment guy first. I'm going all the way. I'm going to let that lightning thing, I'm going to be on the good side of that lightning thing. It was at that time we began to understand that it was not only the first commandment, God really wanted it first. Again, this is a brand new reality. And because God is thinking of IHOP, not only IHOP, but he knows there's going to be this movement of singers and musicians and songs of the Lord and a forerunner message that has to be rooted and grounded in beauty and in love. He knows this. Well, it wasn't just an issue of the first commandment, but it was an issue of the intimacy with God focus of worship. That was a very important thing he was saying in 1989. Very specifically, I won't tell that story right now, but it's related to John Wimber and the Vineyard Movement. That's what God particularly anointed them in. Intimacy with God in worship. And we were just deeply interacting with them in 1989. And the Lord was saying, I want an intimacy with God focus on worship. We're not limited to intimacy with God. I don't mean only. Because there's many dimensions of worship expression that is in the Bible that's very important. But this would be a primary thing. And when I look back over 15 years, it is. And folks come and visit IHOP. And that's one thing that kind of confuses some folks when they come. They go, you know, I've had a number of leaders go, well, you know, it's kind of neat. I mean, I see a lot of sincerity. But it's kind of like, it's kind of wimpy. You know, I've heard a few of my friends tell me. Some of my devil come out or I'm coming after you friends. You know, the guys I used to pray with. And they said, it's kind of like a little wimpy. You know, it's like, Jesus, I love you. He loves me. I love you. I go, ugh. And I said, well, I think it's probably, I mean, we're growing in it. But I think it's a little more important to the Lord than you might understand. But it is. The Lord really wants this dimension in our midst. And there will be seasons where we'll walk in greater measures of it. And other seasons that it probably won't be the same measure. And things ebb and flow in the Spirit. But the Lord emphasized that day. That was a famous day in my mind. October 29, 1989. When the Lord says, I want the first commandment engraved in the foundation of this movement. And I didn't understand all that back then. But looking back over, you know, near 30 years, I get it. 25, 30 years later, I go, okay. That's when the Lord underlined and highlighted this. Okay, let's go to November 1995. It's November 1995. I'm having a prophetic dream one Sunday morning. And in that dream, I'm standing on a big platform. Which I understand now is the Kansas City Convention Center. Because it's that building. It was a vast building with 20, 30,000 young people in it. Now this is, you know, back in 1995, paragraph F. 1995. So I don't know about IHOP yet. I mean, we've got the sign on the wall. We're going to have 24-hour prayer. But I don't really know when we're going to do it or what it's going to look like. And certainly I have no vision for the, you know, the One Thing Conference. And so, but I'm in that building. Clearly. You know, when we went down there, I said, oh, this is the building. Thousands of young people. And I'm preaching. And I hear the audible voice of God cry out like thunder. And He says, call them Hephzibah. Tell them the Lord delights in them. Call them Hephzibah. And then I would, although when the Lord said it, it's like everybody could hear it. I assume I could hear it like thunder. There's a massive crowd. But I said, Hephzibah. The Lord delights in you. And the emotional makeup of people in the room was supernaturally transformed under the power of that message. And lives were radically changed. And the message of God delights in His people, even in their weakness, would be the foundation that would give them confidence. That would embolden them to be partners that develop that partnership with God. And many, many powerful things would happen. But in the power of that message, that lives would be instantly transformed in some cases. But probably usually progressively transformed by staying with it. But the Lord spoke this so powerful in this dream. So I wake up from the dream, and the power of the Spirit is resting on me in a very remarkable way. Now, I'm going to say that about 10 times probably over the weekend. Because maybe I won't give you all the examples. But over 40 years, I'm going to probably mention all the examples where it happened. So it seems like every other day this is happening. But that's happened about 10 times in 40 years in a distinct way. I'm just giving you the stories one after the other. But I come out of that experience knowing with certainty. God wants the message. God delights in you. Now, He doesn't want it to embolden compromise. We're not to hear God delights in me, and then be emboldened to be passive. Well, He likes me so much, I'll just live in sin. You know, let boys be boys. It's not that kind of thing. It's His delight and enjoyment of us in the process of while we're growing. That no matter how broken, no matter how much bondage, no matter how bad the history, the Lord says, I enjoy you. I enjoy the relationship. I delight in you. That's what's going to deliver you is the knowledge of my delight. It's not I'm going to delight in you after you're delivered. I'm going to delight in you as the mode of delivering you. Now, the reason this is so important because this, all of our messaging needs to be tempered in the tone of this message. We could call for radical obedience and commitment, but it must be through the lens of Hephzibah. I delight in my people, the sincere ones. Weak and broken, but sincere. They want to walk with God. Their history isn't good. Their spiritual fruit is not there, but God delights in them. And that's the mode of which He will deliver them. So the Lord speaking this in this dream like this, wake up the power of God on me. And notice this in Isaiah chapter 62, verse 4. The Lord says, you shall be called Hephzibah. Hephzibah means the Lord delights in you. That's what it means in English. The Hebrew word Hephzibah or the comparable Hebrew word there. For in the same way that a bridegroom enjoys his bride, so God rejoices. But the word God enjoys His people is the idea. God doesn't just tolerate us. He enjoys the relationship. Notice verse 6. I've set watchmen on your wall, intercessors. They'll cry night and day. See, we locked in for years, I did, and others I was working with. We would start always in Isaiah 62, 6. Night and day prayer, Isaiah 62, 6. And in this encounter with the Lord, He's telling me you can't start night and day prayer in Isaiah 62, 6. You've got to go back to verses. Because if you don't know God calls you Hephzibah and He enjoys you, verse 4 and verse 5, you'll never sustain verse 6. You'll never sustain verse 6. And I have lots of folks over the 15 years and they come and say, hey, how do you do night and day prayer? And mostly what they're asking, they're asking for the structure or they're asking for mechanics. And I often, the answer I give sort of perplexes them sometimes. I go, let's turn to Isaiah 62, 6. You do night and day prayer, yeah, that's what we want to know. I go, you want to know the structure. You want to know the theology. You want to know the mechanics. Yes. How do you do it? How do you raise the money? How do you motivate the people? How do you train them? I go, Isaiah 62, 6, night and day prayer begins in chapter 4 and chapter, I mean verse 4 and verse 5. I go, do you cultivate the understanding in your people of Hephzibah that God enjoys them? And often they go, no, I never really thought about that. And I say, without verse 4 and 5, the understanding that God enjoys them, they will never sustain intercession, verse 6, night and day. So it was only in that hour of November 97 that I connected. The Lord delights in you. So up to this point in time, I'm looking back over it. First it's 1983, God says, do the prayer gazing on beauty. Psalm 27, 4, have a beauty focus. I don't get the message at all for years. Again, back in 83 when the Lord said Psalm 27, 4, this one thing I do, I behold, I'm in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold His beauty. I only saw all the days of my life in the house of prayer. That's what I saw. But clear back in 88, the Lord says, beauty. The very first word, beauty, is critical. Then a little time goes by, not 5 years, 1988, the Lord says, Song of Solomon 8, 6, first commandment, bridegroom God, first commandment, bridegroom God. That's kind of the same as beauty. They are all one big thing. Beauty and bridegroom God, first commandment. That's 1988. 1989, the lightning strikes, first commandment. Emphasize the first commandment in the culture of the ministry and even the intimacy of worship. That's 1989. That sounds good. So now 6 years go by, 1995, the prophetic dream. Tell them I delight in them. So whether it's first commandment, bridegroom God, beauty of God, God delights in us, those are all integral messages that really are all overlapped. It's kind of like one diamond with different facets to it. But all of those, when I look back over the years, I am so grateful. I go, Lord, you were very intentionally leading in a very distinct, specific way to establish a culture, a paradigm that we would, that the 24-hour prayer ministry could only thrive in that context, could only thrive in that context. So from 83 and then on to 88, you know, all the way to 1995, it's okay, I got beauty a little bit, not much. I got bridegroom a little bit, I'm getting it. Okay, first commandment, okay, God delights in me. That feels pretty good, God delights in me. Because even when I talked about the first commandment, I didn't have the God delights in me part. It's like I love God, God loves me, but He doesn't really like me that much. He loves me. Well, He has to. He died for me. He loves me. I got the contract to sign. He's got to love me. Well, let's look at Roman numeral 2. Then the transition at 1997, 1998, things really pick up. Because I've got these four to five experiences already in the history, already forming my understanding of the glory of Jesus. And, again, all of these are New Testament realities. Regardless what verse God highlighted them, they're all found strongly in the New Testament. I mean, nothing is more dynamic than John 15, 9, when Jesus says, I love you in the same intensity my Father loves me. I mean, nothing ever is beyond that verse. I mean, it is the most radical statement ever declared in the human race, in my opinion, nearly, is God, Jesus loves me like the Father loves Him. I mean, that's all of these verses rolled up in one with a volcanic explosion out of the lips of Jesus. So these are all New Testament glory of Jesus realities, and that's important to understand. Okay, I'm pastoring the church, and I've been pastoring the church now about 16 years. At this time, it's 1996. And what had happened, let's look at paragraph 8, is that God set the stage three years earlier. I had this very, very powerful prophetic dream in 1993. And in this dream, I'm on this platform with Benny Hinn. I don't know Benny Hinn. I mean, I know who he is, but I don't know Benny Hinn. I'm on this platform with Benny Hinn, and there's thousands of people, maybe 20,000 people. He hands me a microphone, and I'm standing right at his right hand. He hands me a microphone, and I declare something on the microphone to 20,000 people, whatever the number is. And in the dream, I said to myself, I'm in transition. I'm in transition. I didn't know what that meant, but I'm in transition. So I come out of that dream in 1983. I tell this to my friend, I mean, to our leadership team, probably five or ten times, you know, in sometimes formal settings. I told the whole story, but then two or three leaders together, they tell me that Benny Hinn dream again. It's 93. I tell it throughout 94. I tell it in 95. It's very moving, and it's a little perplexing, because I don't know what I'm transitioning to. I just know I will be in transition. So three years go by, and I've told the dream maybe ten times to our leadership team in various capacities. So the dream's really marked me. It's something very clear, and I'm very aware of it. So what happens in November 96, three years after I have this dream, and again, I've told the dream about ten times, and I'm in Toronto, Canada, and I'm with John Arnott, and he has a conference going on there, Catch the Fire. There's about 5,000 people in his conference, and the Holy Spirit's doing remarkable things in this conference. And then a man named Ken Gott, he comes to me. He was a good friend with Benny Hinn. He says, Hey, Benny Hinn is in Toronto just five or ten miles down the road. And Benny Hinn, he goes, We're good friends, and he would like to meet you. I told him, You're here? Would you like to meet him? Sure. Yeah, that'd be cool. And so the next morning, I go with Ken, and we go backstage before the meeting. I meet Benny, and the auditorium's getting full, and they're getting all ready. And so I talk to Benny for about a half hour, first time I've met him, and it's an interesting conversation. And he goes, Hey, you're welcome to stay for the meeting. I've got a seat on the front row for you. I go, I can't for a while. I'm part of another conference down the road, as you know, and I need to be a part of that. So I go and sit on the front row, like a big, you know, the Kansas City Convention Center kind of context. And a few, maybe an hour into the meeting, Benny's hand says, I would like Mike Bickle to come up here and greet us. I'm like, okay. You know, I always like a little bit of warning, but since I never give my friends warning, I guess I deserve it. So I come up, and he points to the stairs, so I come up that stairway, and I come over here, and I'm in the exact position that I am in that dream for three years ago. Now, I haven't figured it out yet, so I'm walking up there, and I'm about to say something, and I'm going to, you know, and if ever somebody calls you on a platform to greet, don't take over 15 seconds. I mean, just, I mean, be, have dignity and take 15 seconds. Don't give them your, you know, I wasn't supposed to give them mikebickle.com and give the vision. Don't do all that stuff. You know, just be polite, bless the Lord, and sit down. So I was going to say, isn't it amazing? John Arnett's 5,000 conference, you know, a couple miles down the road, Benny Hinn 20,000, the Holy Spirit is magnifying Jesus, amen. I was going to sit down. It's going to be 15 seconds. So I take the microphone, and I'm going to say, isn't it amazing? And instead of it, I prophesied. Now, when it just, I just said it, and I heard it for the first time. And that happens occasionally, but I'm not always that sympathetic when somebody tells me they do that to me. I go, whatever, why don't you just kind of get your head into that first. But it does happen occasionally, I have to admit it. So I get up there, and I'm going to say, isn't it fantastic, the 5,000 people down the road honoring Jesus by the Holy Spirit and 20,000 here. And instead I go, the Holy Spirit is raising up intercessors all over the world, and the Holy Spirit is preparing His church for, and I don't know exactly the words, but something like this, for a prayer movement that's going to usher in. And I go on for about 30 seconds, this blurb, and I go, amen, and I go sit down, and I thought, where did that come from? But I knew it was the Lord, and I'm sitting down on the front row, and I said, man, I've done this somewhere. Where did I do this? Now, I've never met Benny, so it wasn't Benny. Where was I on a stage? And I'm on the front row, and he's ministering and healing the sick and all this, and it hits me, it's the dream that I've had three years ago, that when I'm on that stage at Benny Hinn, I'm again, just like in the dream, he hands me the microphone just out of his right side, and I say something over it, and in the dream I said, I'm in transition. So now three years later when it happens, I'm back on the front row, and I go, I'm in transition. Oh, my goodness, I just prophesied the house of prayer movement, not for the earth, for me. I'm not even interested in doing the house of prayer movement, to be honest, at that point in time. But I prophesy, it's really my own prophecy that I'm giving, sort of, type thing. Because when I look back later, I'm the one that was marked by those words. So it's 1996, so I go to the meeting, you know, I go back to the 5,000 conference, and so that night, one of the guys is preaching, and the place is so enthusiastic and so responsive to the Lord. The guy gave a very powerful message, and he said, okay, we're going to receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit. So 5,000 people stood up, and I mean, they were so ready to receive the Holy Spirit. If you've ever been to a Toronto conference, when it's time to receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit, you'll know what I mean when I say enthusiastic. They were enthusiastic, I mean, excited. Then this guy, Mark DuPont, he walks up on the platform, takes the microphone away from the preacher, the guest preacher, and they're all good friends. He goes, I've got to do something real important. He goes, everybody sit down. I thought, oh, what a drag. I mean, talking about quench the Holy Spirit. And I'm on the front row, and I'm thinking, wow, that was gutsy. What's he doing? And he says, well, he goes, and he was their main prophetic voice for years, a lot of credibility, that's why he could do that, because he had a very good track record of accurate prophecies. And so everybody sits down, and everybody gets quiet just for a few minutes. He goes, we're going to have ministry time, don't worry. So we're down there, and again, that morning was Benny Hinn. So here it's that night. He goes, Mike Bickle, come up here. I go, ah, two times in one day. What is going on? I didn't really go, ah, but I did inside. So I go, what? I come up there. Now this man does not know I slipped off to Benny Hinn's meeting. He's not even aware of that. It's like a very different context. And he stands, and he says, I'm sorry, we're holding the ministry time. The Lord says we have to do this. He got John Arnett and the other leaders came out and said, we have to prophesy over you before we have ministry time. I thought, okay, cool. He says, thus says the Lord, you're in transition. You're in transition. It's a whole new thing. It's a whole new assignment. It's a whole new, and he says about five things. And then they all, you know, pray for me. Then I go sit down, and I go, I am really in transition. That's what, wow. So I come back. And another thing that's going on in that meeting is that in that conference, again, it's October 1996, is that Bill Bright, the leader of Campus Crusade for Christ, Campus Crusade and Youth with a Mission, YWAM, are the two biggest mission movements in history. They both have 25,000 staff members. There's nothing like it, those two in terms of size. And most of you know the name Bill Bright, one of Billy Graham's best friends for all those years. And Bill Bright's with the Lord now, but he started Campus Crusade, 50 years he led it, 50 years plus. Bill Bright's in his 80s, and Bill Bright, one of the most respected men of God in the nations, in his 80s, calls a 40-day fast. I mean, a guy in his 80s that's one of the premier spiritual fathers of a generation calls a 40-day fast. So the leaders at Toronto were talking about this 40-day fast. They said, it's starting in January, it's October, we have three months to get ready. And so they were talking to me, hey, would you get all of your people committed to this? And I'm a little ashamed of my answer. I said, no, no, I don't want to do a 40-day fast. And the guy goes, one of the main leaders of Toronto goes, and that movement goes, what do you mean you don't want to do a 40-day fast? I go, I don't want to. He goes, that's a horrible answer. I says, well, that's my answer. But hey, I will pray for you, and I know the Lord is with you. And this guy, a few of them got me together. They called it fellowship. I called it pressure. And they said, when one of the premier fathers of a generation, which Bill Bright clearly is, Bill Bright and Billy Graham and two or three others would be in that category, a father in the nation, after 50 years, the largest missions ministry in history, calls fasting and prayer for the harvest, three or four guys, and you're not going to do it? I looked up and I go, because he's a spiritual father. Yes, you're right. Just out of honoring a man of that stature, I'll do it a little bit. Not just for 10 days, that's it. They go, 10 days? I go, hey, 10 days, that's a long time. So I committed to 10 days. Okay, so I come back to Kansas City. And I'm going to do this thing for 10 days. And so it's January 1st. And, you know, I'm like you. I don't like fasting. And I didn't have a lot of grace for fasting. And I saw it in the Bible, and I'd done it through the years, never liked it. And I thought, 10 days. Okay, and I preached it to the church, and most of the people in the church kind of, I guess they felt my unbelief and lack of enthusiasm. 40-day fast, I'm going to do 10. You guys want to jump into part of it with me? I guess it wasn't very compelling. I guess I didn't cast the vision very well. Well, I go on this 10-day fast, and I get grace. And I'm going on a 10-day water fast. And I don't like water fast. I like the other type. And so I said, I'll just do it 10 days and be done with it. And just kind of complain a little bit while I'm doing it. And at the 10-day mark, I just have energy. And the Lord's meeting me and visiting me. I go, okay, huh. I'm going to go 10 more days, I told the team. I said, you guys can break it now if you want, but I'm going to go 10 more days. They go, okay. And so I do 10 more days. And, you know, this is new territory, this kind of stuff, you know. And at 20 days, I'm done. But I get this energy of the Lord. I mean, there's these moments, they happen very few times in your life, where the Lord is on you in a transition time, and there's a special moment. I don't encourage people to go on 40-day fast unless the Lord really does something remarkable. I mean, some folks glorify those. And I don't want to exaggerate them, glorify them. I don't want to make them the big thing about what the kingdom of God is. But there are those moments in a person's life where the Holy Spirit's in it. Well, anyway, at the 20-day mark, I'm ready. I've already got all my meals planned out. I'm breaking it here. You know, I'm going to Dairy Queen. I mean, I'm going to go to the health shop. So 20-day mark, I just have this energy, this excitement. I said, okay, this is it, 30 days. And I told my wife, 10 more days. And so the team is kind of getting a little worn out because they're not all having the same grace. And I go, I don't know what's going on. I'm almost apologizing. I go, I don't know. I just feel different. I've never had this happen. It's the only time it's ever happened, by the way. And so don't go make a doctrine out of this, and don't try to make this happen because it's, you know, this isn't a glory story to go make a doctrine happen. I'm highlighting there are moments in a lifetime of a 50, 100-year lifespan where there's dramatic things that happen. And this is one of them. Well, 30 days, I felt the same as I felt on day 10. I had energy. I had no desire to quit. And so I went the whole time. And so finished it after 40 days and never had done anything at that intensity ever before. And I don't ever plan to do it again. And again, it was a one-time kind of thing at that level. And so that season that I was resisting, that 40 days ushered, did something. It shifted my life in a very dramatic way. And I'm not going to, I don't want to talk about that right now because I want to get to one or two more points and then bring this to an end and pray for you. But again, I'm not magnifying fasting. But some folks are so into not fasting that fasting has been thrown out of the kingdom of God. And fasting is a part of the kingdom of God. It really is. We don't want to exaggerate it, but we don't want to ignore it. We don't want to trust in it, but neither do we want to put it down. We want to just obey what the Holy Spirit does because fasting is a part of radical shifting times in your life. And I look back 15 years ago, I guess that was 17 years ago. I've never known a time like that in my 40 years of ministry like that season right there. Okay, let's go, let's look at top of page 2. Top of page 2. November 30th. Okay, now I've just come back from Toronto. Just come back from Toronto. I haven't done the fast yet. The fast is still a month or two away. I'm still grouchy about the fast. Don't have much confidence that I'm even going to do it. I'm going to maybe do 10 days and cheat during the 10 days sort of thing. So, November 30th. I have a very, very important night right here in this building. In fact, right over there. Not that it matters. Don't go stand over there and see if something will happen. It doesn't work that way. But it's just my nostalgia remembering over there. We had a Friday night prayer meeting from like 10 o'clock at night, something like that I think, to 5 in the morning. It went to 5 in the morning. I don't know when it started. But I went to that all night prayer meeting every Friday night. And I liked it. And it was not dynamic, not amazing, nothing like that. But I liked it. And so, this one Friday night, about midnight, I was standing and walking over there. And I would pace, just like I do now. And if you're going to pray all night and you're not used to being up all night, you've got to pace to keep going. Lots of coffee, lots of pacing, and the Holy Spirit. Between pacing, coffee, and the Holy Spirit, the whole thing worked. So, I would be pacing over there. And I'm thinking, okay, Song of Solomon. Song of Solomon. The beauty of Jesus. The beauty of the King. So, I make this statement. Walking over there, I go, Jesus. I just say it randomly. You are so beautiful. And the Holy Spirit comes on me instantly in a way that I feel it discernibly. I mean, it's just that when you feel His presence all over your body, and you have that sense of it's almost like chills sometimes, and electricity, just a little bit. It wasn't overly dramatic, but very distinct. I went, wow. And then I said, Jesus, you are so beautiful. And the Holy Spirit came on me again. I said, wow, two times in a row. That's amazing. I mean, I haven't had like a statement where the Holy Spirit came on me twice in a row. That doesn't happen very often. And then I went up, walked a few moments, like 30 seconds, something, and I said, Jesus, you are so beautiful. Again. I said, what's going on here? Then I did that nonstop for five hours. Every about 30 seconds or so, I said, I was almost, I didn't know what was going on. I had to wait 30 seconds or a minute, nothing, feel nothing, feel nothing, feel nothing. I go, Jesus, you're beautiful. Swoosh. I went, wow. And I was just like, I do not know why you're doing this, Holy Spirit. Because I've said, Jesus, you're beautiful, many times, and I didn't feel nothing. And it goes on and on and on. And I am mystified. And what the Lord is doing, He's emphasizing something. And it's about this movement. It's all 5 o'clock in the morning. I go, when the prayer meeting is over, the all-night prayer meeting, I go home and go to bed. And I wake up at 8. You know, sometimes if you stay up all night, you'll wake up early, you know, and then you're tired later. So at 8 o'clock, I wake up. And I just want to see if it still works. I go, okay, okay, that was so amazing last night. And I said, I'm in my bed at home. I go, Jesus, you're so beautiful. And swoosh, the spirits. I go, what? You're beautiful. Swoosh. You're beautiful. Swoosh. I went, ah! So I get in my car and I come over here, just in the same place, which is dumb. I didn't need to do that. Because it was just that special little memory. And for a couple hours, I walked back and forth, empty sanctuary. No one's here now. You know, the prayer meeting is over. And I just spent a couple hours. And over and over, every time I said it, every time, 100% of the time. Never had anything like that before or since of that magnitude. So I'm really mystified. I'm telling my little team, you know, of a few of them, going, I don't know what that was. I hope that happens again. It hasn't. I really wish it would happen all the time. It was just that one night. And so then, a week later, or later that next week, I get a letter in the mail. And, you know, I'd been at that all night, Friday night, all night prayer meeting. And, you know, actually it was Saturday morning. And I get this letter from this lady who lives over by the airport, North Kansas City. And she said, I had a dream of you last Friday night or early Saturday morning. And I had this very powerful dream. And in this dream, the Lord told me that He was going to open up the revelation of the beauty of Jesus to your heart in a new way. He said, so last Saturday night, the Lord was, He wanted you to know that He was going to mark you. So she has no idea what I did last Saturday night. And I said, wow, this is so remarkable. So I'm reading the letter five days later that she had of the dream I had that night. She had it throughout the night. She said it was just a very strong, powerful dream. I think she had it a couple times through the night or the dream went on and on. And the Lord says, tell Mike Bickle I'm going to visit him and reveal the beauty of Jesus to him. And I want him to proclaim the beauty of Jesus. And so that night, I look back at that glorious night, November 30, 1996. Again, I haven't done that 40-day fast yet, so it's not related to that. That's the next thing that's on the calendar. And I said, okay, Lord, this is a little bit like way back in 83 when you said the night and day prayer, Psalm 27 for beholding the beauty of the Lord. Paragraph D. Paragraph D, May 7th now. It's six months after this 40-day fast. And the Lord is doing something in that two-year period in a very tenderizing way. I don't want to talk too much about it, not because it's all so private, but it would just take too long to say it. And I'm in Assisi, Italy with my beloved wife, Diane. We're there in 1997. It's a 20-year wedding anniversary, and we're in Italy, in Assisi, Italy, because our good friends are showing us around. And it just so happened that they said, hey, we've got a place to stay. We thought it would be pretty novel. It's St. Francis of Assisi's monastery. It's called the St. Francis Monastery in his town. It's the one he started. Well, that's kind of cool. I mean, they're really not big on comfort. A lot of monks are there, so you're not going to really have all the channels on the TV. I mean, they don't have anything there. It's just a pure, raw monastery. So we went there and spent a couple days there. So on May 7, 1997, and of course, May 7 is such an important day, and some of you have connected that date throughout the prophetic history. It keeps showing up. May 7 does. And so that night, I have this, I can't sleep all night. And so what do you do in a monastery far away in Italy somewhere? And again, their monastery, there's this little room, you know, with stone benches. You're just sitting there. I mean, just everything is like stone and concrete, you know. Comfort's not their big thing. And so I'm just sitting there, and I looked at a few books in this room, and they're all in Italian. And there's one book by St. Francis of Assisi that's in English. I go, okay, it's about, you know, 100, 200 pages. I said, I'll read it. I'm up here. I can't fall asleep. So I read this man's story. And in the context, I'm reading. I'm staying up all night. The Holy Spirit begins to talk to me. And this is where the Holy Spirit gave me John 3 29. Because St. Francis, he's known for the poor, but St. Francis was raising up a movement of messengers. That was a sub-theme in the book. It wasn't the main point of the book, but it was a sub-theme. That he raised up a, not church planters. They didn't start churches. They didn't become, you know, the head priest of a parish. Something like that at that time. They were messengers. And when I read that, the Holy Spirit spoke to me so clearly. Says, I'm going to use you. You're going to be a part of raising up messengers. Not the same message of him. Not many differences. But the idea of a movement of messengers. And the Lord tells me that it's John 3 29. Now John 3 29 is the verse John the Baptist used. And when John the Baptist called himself a friend of the bridegroom. And the Lord says, I'm going to raise up 10,000 messengers. That have the, in the spirit of John the Baptist. That means the dedication. That doesn't mean they go live out in the desert with no electricity. That's not what I mean. But they were wholehearted. Their dedication, they were giving themselves fully to God. In the will of God for their assignment of their life. But it would only be that they were like John the Baptist. They were dedicated. Again, not the same lifestyle. But the intense dedication was the idea. The spirit of John the Baptist. But it's more than that. That there would be like the message of John the Baptist. Not exactly his message. But John the Baptist prepared the first coming of the Lord. Prepared the people to understand the coming of Jesus. And the Lord spoke to me clearly. And he says, I'm going to raise up messengers across the earth. Many different streams and many different movements. But I'm going to use you to raise up 10,000. I mean, there's a million messengers that need to be raised up. But he was saying, I'm going to give you a stewardship to raise up 10,000. You know, out of that million or 5 million or 10 million. I don't know the number. But it's millions of messengers he's raising up in the body of Christ. All through the different ministries. So the number is quite small. But he says, I'm going to give you grace to raise up with others. We had worked to train and equip 10,000 friend of the Bridegroom. That would be their orientation to the Lord. They would see Jesus as the Bridegroom King and Judge like John the Baptist did. They would not just see him as King and Judge. But Bridegroom King and Judge like John did. And he says, I'm going to raise up 10,000 of them. And that was in Assisi, Italy on May 7th. And it was a very dramatic night. And I'm not giving the details. Then it was the next month at the conference in July 97 where I spoke that. And that's the one that Alan refers to a number of times. He came to that conference as a young man. And I said, God's going to raise up 10,000 John the Baptist friends of the Bridegroom. Because it's just a month or so after I've had this encounter. No one even knows what it means. But I said, he's going to raise up messengers. They're going to be radically dedicated. They're going to prepare the way of the Lord. Again, there might be a million or 10 million messengers in the body of Christ doing this. But he told me that he would give grace. And to equip and empower and strengthen 10,000. Not just preachers. But preachers that would lock into the Bridegroom King and Judge reality. Let's go to paragraph E. Just a couple more moments. I know I'm going a bit long. But that's what anniversary celebration story tellings are about. But I won't go much longer. So then, July 97. That's when I have the conference that Alan again talks about. Maybe 5,000 come to the conference. I called John the Baptist. And scores of young people came along. As a matter of fact, a number of our leaders. Maybe, I'm guessing 10 or 15. Maybe the number is wrong. Were marked in that conference. And they became future leaders of IHOP. And so, Alan, where's Alan at? 5 or 10, 10 or 15, 10 or 20 leaders were marked in that context. And that was, again, straight out of the Assisi, Italy time with the Lord. But I get this prophecy from Rick Joyner. He sends me a note in July of 87 at the same time of the conference. He goes, Hey, Mike. I've got a word of the Lord. And Rick, I've seen him have accurate prophecies over the years that have been very helpful. And he says, I want to tell you something. He goes, the Lord's going to visit you in the next period of time. Very near future. He goes, your life is in transition. He uses this transition phrase again. And I'm not using this. I'm not saying this publicly. Even though the one man in Toronto, Mark DuPont in Toronto used it publicly. I didn't even come home and talk about it. I just said, no, I'm not going to use the transition word. The Lord has my address. He can find me if He wants me in transition. He knows right where I'm at. And so Rick says, you're in transition. And the Lord's going to visit you in the next very short period of time. And He's going to talk to you about your life mandate. Then a month later, matter of fact, it was a three week period of time at the end of August and September. I have three encounters with the Lord. One, two, three. And there the mandate was crystallized in that period of time. But Rick Joyner gave it to me a month ahead of time. He goes, very soon. He's going to make the mandate clear. He's bringing you through a transition. He's going to clarify it to you. Pay close attention. Now when the Lord gives you a prophecy, that He's going to give you a prophecy. In other words, He's saying pay attention. So Rick was prophesying to me saying, you're going to get some download very soon. Pay attention. Don't take it lightly. Take it to heart. So in August and September, a period of three weeks. And I have the dates right there. I have three things that happened in three weeks that bring this thing to a real conclusion in my heart. And it's about the fact of Jesus as a bridegroom, king, and judge. And again, it's these two years before IHOP starts. He's wanting this message to get clarified. And again, the first couple years of IHOP. This everything was, I mean, everyone was talking about bridegroom, king, and judge. As the way that we see the main and plain message of the grace of God. The gospel of the kingdom. The gospel of grace. Those main and plain messages. We were to see Jesus in those truths, but through the grid of bridegroom, king, and judge. So August 29th, 27th. I get, which I'm only going to comment one moment and move on. I get Isaiah 40, verse 3, in a dream. The Lord says, you're going to be in a Isaiah 43 ministry. Tells me clearly in a dream. You're going to be in a ministry preparing the way of the Lord. And again, I may not see it in my generation. It may be I'm preparing those that will prepare your children. And your children may see it. I don't know when the Lord's coming. I may see it. I may not see it. I don't even care. I just want to be about preparing people to understand Jesus. Bridegroom, king, and judge. And I want to prepare the next generation to prepare their children. And the Lord can come, you know, He'll come any time that He wants. Okay, then paragraph F. So I have the first encounters. The August 27th dream. The Lord says, Isaiah 40, you're going to have a forerunner ministry. But He's talking about IHOP. Even though IHOP doesn't start for another year. He's talking about IHOP all the way through this. He's not talking mostly to me about me. He's talking to me as the point person, that catalytic leadership role for IHOP to start. And this would be the message of a movement. So it's on paragraph F. September 3rd. I'm over at one of the prayer, our daily prayer meetings we're still having. Because IHOP is still about a year away or so. A little bit more than a year away. And I'm there on a Wednesday morning, September 3rd. And I'm praying. And suddenly the Holy Spirit in this, again, it's happened maybe 10 times in 40 years. And I've told you about all of them tonight almost. And so the Spirit of the Lord comes on me like wind and fire. And what I mean by, I have burning. Intense burning that lasts for like a couple hours. Burning like fire. Burning like electricity up and down my body. And that's happened once or twice at that level. And I'm thinking, and wind. I'm feeling like a wind current. And I'm looking around to see if the vents are on. Did they move the vents? I go, where's this air current coming from? Because I always kind of check out the natural stuff first. And no, no fan. I think, okay, what is this? And I said, it goes on for like a couple hours. And as I'm reading, the Lord gives me these three verses. Revelation 2.17. Revelation 3.12. And Revelation 19.12. They're all about the name of the Lord. And I'm not going to break this down. I've got a little bit on the notes there. He's just talking about the beauty of God. Bridegroom, King, and Judge. So this fire up and down me. And I said, what's going on here? I've got my eyes closed. And I feel this wind current. Very unique. Again, maybe a few times in 40 years this has happened. Revelation 3.12. I mean 2.17. Revelation 3.12. These verses. These three verses. Over and over. So a man named Terry Bennett. He's on the other end of the prayer room. I don't know him. I shook his hand a time or two. I didn't really know him. He writes a note. He gives it to a friend. The friend hands it to me. Terry Bennett doesn't come talk to me. He just hands the note. The man brings the note to me. He says, I see an angel next to you. He's pouring out fire on you. And the wind of the Lord is blowing around you. I'm going, okay. That's right. And the Lord is talking to you from Revelation 2.17. 3.12. And chapter 19. The same three verses. And when I look at this. I look up. He's already gone. It's the very end of the prayer meeting. I go, the fire of the Lord. The air current of the Holy Spirit. And these exact three. I go, how did this man see this? And later I talked to him. Many months later. And I said, what did you see? He says, I saw the angel with my eyes. He was pouring like a bowl of fire on you. And the whirlwind of God was blowing around you. And he was marking you with those three verses. Those were the three verses that I was spending hours on. And I was against the wall. I'm just a skeptic enough. I'm against the wall in a corner. So nobody's behind me looking at the Bible verses I'm reading. I always check out those kind of things. Okay. Paragraph G. So I'm touched by that. And that's so significant. I'm not going to spend time. I'm going to end with this one. Two weeks later on Wednesday again. Not that Wednesday is the big deal. But it just happened to be twice on Wednesday. Now this is the third encounter I've had in three weeks. Rick Joyner said, The Lord's going to give you direction in the next few weeks. And I have three of them in three weeks. Here they are. One after the other. So now I'm in the corner again. In that prayer room. The same thing happens. It's the next time it happens to me. Again, the three or four times this has happened at this level. Fire burning up on down me. I go, This is like two weeks ago. Wind blowing around me. I look around again. There's no air currents. I go, What is going on? Nobody knows it. I don't make any noises. I'm not one that does anything to where you could. If you're sitting ten feet away from me, as a ruler, you can't tell anything is happening to me. And I don't do that on purpose. My point is I want to encounter God, not make a point about nothing. I'm trying to talk to Him. And so I'm just mostly just talking to Him and interacting. No one can see anything. I'm getting deeply impacted by the Spirit. Fire and wind. But the Lord is speaking to me from Isaiah 63. And in this verse in Isaiah 63, and I read it for a couple hours. Because this wind and fire has me so alerted. And again, it's happened two times in two weeks. You know, maybe three or four times in 40 years of this level. But two times in two weeks. So I'm reading this verse. And it's Isaiah the prophet talking. And it's describing the second coming of Jesus. Isaiah 63 is about the second coming of Jesus. And so Isaiah asked the question, as though he's at the end of the age. Asking the question that's going to be asked by the nations. This question will be the premier question that's going on. And here's the question. Who is this man who's coming up from Edom? And his garments are dyed from Basra. Who is this man who is glorious in his apparel? His clothing is glorious. But he's traveling in supernatural strength. Meaning he's moving in the power of God. He's a man, but he's more than a man. Who is he? He has unusual strength. He has very glorious garments. I mean he has divine garments on with the power of God in them. But he's coming up from Edom, which is modern day Jordan. The nation right next to Israel. It's modern day Jordan. And Basra is the capital of that ancient nation. So he's marching into Jerusalem. Just outside of the land. Marching into the land is what this is describing. But he's more than a man because of the glorious apparel. It's more than human apparel. And he moves in supernatural power. Amazing strength. So now the man speaks. It's Jesus, the Messiah. He goes, well it's I. I speak in righteousness. I'm mighty to save. I'm revealing my power to deliver Israel and I'm going to deliver the nation. I'm moving in power. That's what you see. Then, verse 2, Isaiah asks the next question. He goes, well, Messiah of Israel, I have a question. I mean you've got great power, but why are your garments red? You look like you're treading in a wine press. Most of you know what a wine press is. You know, if this whole platform was a wine press, let's say 3 or 4 feet deep in the ancient world. They would put all the grapes in a big vat. Many times it would be a stone vat. And a handful of people would get in and they would march, stop on the grapes 2 or 3 feet deep. And the grape juice would splatter on their garments. And their garments would be all red in grape juice. So Isaiah goes in verse 2. Why are your garments all red? I mean, you're so powerful. Why do you have red splattered all over you? You look a bit undignified. Here you're a man of great power, a king. But you have splattered stains all over you. That's weird. So, verse 3, the Messiah, Jesus, He gives His second answer. He says, well, I'll tell you. I have trodden the wine press alone. And the wine press, clearly from many other passages, talks about the judgments of God in the end of the age. Clearly, that's what He's talking about here. I don't want to take time on that. But the idea I want to focus on alone. He goes, I've trodden the judgments of God. Meaning, I'm destroying the Antichrist armies. I'm destroying all the kings of the earth in alliance with the Antichrist. With my mighty judgments as I'm marching into Jerusalem. That's what's happening in Isaiah 63. He says, and from the peoples, or from the nations. Put the word nations there. Nobody would stand with me. Therefore, I've trodden the Antichrist empire. All of his evil kings and their mighty armies. I have trodden them myself without the help of any other nation. Without the help of any other army. Without the help of any other king of the earth. I did it myself. I trampled them in my fury. All this is described in the book of Revelation. Then Jesus lets them know what this grape juice stain on Him really is. He goes, it's their blood that is sprinkled on me. It's not grape juice. Not grapes. It's the blood of my enemies. Because Jesus, as a real man. Fully God, fully man. He's coming down to the earth. He's going to march into Jerusalem. When all the kings of the nations are surrounded in Jerusalem. To destroy Jerusalem. And destroy the Jewish people. And Jesus, as the greater son of David. He's going to literally. He's going to touch down on the earth. And He's going to march in as the greater David. And liberate the city of Jerusalem. He'll be the greater Moses. The greater Joshua. The greater David. The greater Elijah. All wrapped up in one. And those second coming things. All those events. So He goes, actually. I am literally up close and personal. I am destroying them. And their blood is on my garments. This is literal. This is not figurative. This is not a poem. This is actual. Many Bible verses back this up. He goes, matter of fact. It's not grape juice. My robes are stained with their blood. Now Jesus, in the book of Revelation. Has blood on His garments. In Revelation 19. It's not the blood He shed at the cross. It's the blood of His enemies. Here's why He has blood. He is not ashamed. That He is executing His judgments in fierceness. Now the body of Christ. We're ashamed that He does that often. He's not. He goes, it will be on my garment. It is a badge of my zealous commitment for love and for justice. I'm not even removing it. I'm letting that badge be on me. I am zealous for righteousness. I am zealous for love. That's the point He's making. This is literal. It's going to happen. Then He goes on and describes a little bit more in the passage. So I'm reading this passage. I got the fire of God burning up and down me. A couple hours. Again, this is so strange. Wind of God blowing around me. And the Lord begins to speak to me. And He says this. Look at paragraph 4 on. Notice that Jesus is treading the winepress. Which means the judgment of the nations alone. So the Lord was saying. The passage is really what says it. He says, I did it alone in verse 3. No one would help me. He means there was no other king. No other government. No other army that would partner with Him. Every government and army backed away. He said, I'll do it alone. So I heard the Lord say to my heart. Not will I help Him in the war. Nothing like that. He'll do all that. Will you agree with me that this is my love. This is my justice. Would you agree this is righteousness. And my power to deliver the nations. Will you agree? In other words. Would you not be ashamed of me as the judge. Everybody likes Jesus the King. Particularly if He gives them money. Heals their body and makes their life happier. Folks. Jesus the Bridegroom. Well He gets. The Bridegroom gets a little invasive. Because His burning desire. He wants all of you. Not part of you. The Bridegroom starts moving in. He wants our thought life. He wants our words. He wants our imaginations. He wants everything. Bridegroom is invasive. People go. I don't want the Bridegroom. That's a little intense. King. Give me some money. Heal my body. Make my ministry better. I can do that. Bridegroom moving in. That's a little invasive. But judge. That you will confront sin on a global level. And the way you're going to. The body of Christ is very. Not all the body of Christ. By any means. Many are embarrassed by this part of Jesus. You know. Jesus is kind of like. Let's hide that. You know. That alcoholic uncle. You know. When the neighbors come. Let's put him in the back room. And lock the door. Let's not let that Jesus be known. Let's let the Jesus that's a King. That's the one only. So Jesus was saying. Will you agree with me? I will be alone in terms of the governments of the earth. But I want a people that will agree with me. That won't be embarrassed. And I was saying. Yes Lord. Yes Lord. I will preach the Jesus in red. Because the Jesus of the song of Solomon. He's presented as dazzling. And radiant. And white. It's like white dazzling garments. I go Lord. I have preached the Jesus in dazzling radiant white. But I will preach the Jesus in red. And I'm weeping. And the Spirit of the Lord is touching me. And it's such a powerful moment. And this goes on for a couple hours. And again. I'm sitting at the back of a room. In a corner. Nobody can see anything I'm writing. What I'm doing. So this man. Terry Bennett. From two weeks ago. Who sent me the note. When he said. I saw the angel of the Lord. Putting fire on you. And I saw the angel of the Lord. With the wind of God. Giving you those three verses in Revelation. He was perfectly accurate. The exact three verses. He comes up to me. Again. I don't know it. He taps me on the shoulder. He goes. I so apologize. He goes. I can see the Lord is touching you. And because I had tears coming down. But I wasn't saying anything. I had been there for a couple hours like that. He said. I have to tell you one thing. He said. The same angel that visited you two weeks ago. Wednesday. That I saw. Pouring fire and wind. He's doing it again right now. You feel fire and wind. Like two weeks ago. Don't you? I didn't answer him. I just looked at him. He says. But this time. He told me to tell you. He's speaking to you. From Isaiah 63. And he says. Will you proclaim the Jesus in red? And I looked at him. He didn't know the passage. I didn't even say anything. I just looked at him. Tears in my eyes. I just said. Thanks. I didn't even say. Thanks. I just kind of nodded. And he moved on. And so the Lord is saying. Hey. I have made this clear to you. I don't want you backing away from me. I want my beauty as a bridegroom. I want my beauty as a king. I want my beauty as a judge. That the gospel of grace. The gospel of the kingdom. The power of the cross. The grace of God. That message would be proclaimed with great authority. But with the man Christ Jesus. In his beauty. His beauty. The love of God. The fiery seal touching the heart. The delight of God. The Hefzabah revelation. But the king with power. Power over finances. The great harvest. Justice. The God of. The Jesus of red garments. Zealous for love. Removing everything that hinders love. And beloved. These were the main points that the Lord was highlighting. There's a few more. But this is enough. Way more than even one session can bear. But I wanted you to touch these. Not that you can keep a hold of them just from tonight. But that's what you have the notes for. But the Lord is saying to IHOP. You can't really do the message of IHOP. I mean the mandate of IHOP. Without this foundational message in the culture. And in the foundational understanding of the people. Not that everybody will be focused on this 100%. But some of you will be focused on this 100%. Many of you might not be. But you will be supporting it. You will be celebrating it. You won't draw back in fear or timidity. Because of the stigma that goes with bridegroom, king, and judge. There is no contradiction in him. He is the same God. Bridegroom, king, and judge. He doesn't suspend one attribute to exercise another. And this is critical to the IHOP mandate. And at the 15 year mark, I'm saying yes Lord. Again. Amen. Let's stand. Now I realize that was so much. That like 15 encounters. And I'm just asking the Lord to mark your heart. Maybe to get this DVD or catch it on archives and watch it again. And maybe let the Lord highlight one or two of the passages. Don't try to like grasp it all in one context, you know. But I just wanted to inform you of it so you could go, okay. I got to go deep on this verse. I want to know more about this verse. Amen. Well I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit to touch us now. We need a recommissioning. We need a restrengthening of this. Like 15 years ago. It was very strong in our foundation 15 years ago. Now I want to call up anybody that's saying in your heart right now. I believe I'm called to focus. Not just to support. Because many of you will support it. But others of you, you're to focus on this forerunner message. That's to be one of your primary focuses in the kingdom. And if that's you. And you would like prayer. I want to call you to come and stand before the Lord here. Just come up to these front lines. You're saying, it's new tonight. But hey, I think it's me. It's me. Or maybe you used to have a handle on it. But you've lost your handle on it. It slipped away just through the years and the distractions. And you're saying, Lord, I want to recommit. I want to recommit to this. Bridegroom, King, and Judge. Bridegroom, King, and Judge. And here we are, Lord. Father, I thank you. I thank you, Lord, that you have led so specifically by the Holy Spirit. The formation of part of the messaging. Again, this isn't our whole message. It's part of our messaging. We just preach the gospel, the main and plain doctrines of the New Testament. That's the main and plain message of everybody. Great commission building the church. That's what he's about. The gospel of grace. The gospel of the kingdom. But Lord, we're saying yes to the forerunner ministry. Beloved, you're not prepared as a forerunner in a minute. It's over years you get prepared to this truth. But we need to recommit at this time to go deep in the next five and ten years in this subject. And I'm going to ask others in the room that you've said yes to this message over the years. I want you to be my prayer team if you would. I'm going to just ask only those that feel this calling over the years to come and lay hands on folks. So maybe it's only ten or twenty of you. If you would come and I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit to come and rest on us. Just as the music's playing, I'm going to just wait on the Lord for a few moments. Holy Spirit, we ask you to release your power right now. Holy Spirit, I ask you to release your power right now. I ask you to mark the hearts. I ask for the wind. I ask for the fire. Lord, release the wind of the Spirit. Not that we need the manifestation for the marking of the heart. But I ask you for the wind of the Spirit. I ask you for the fire of God to mark hearts right now. The manifestation of your presence resting on people all over this room. Lord, release your glory. Hephzibah. Mark them with the Hephzibah message. Hephzibah. Mark them with the Hephzibah message. The lightning struck the building. You shall love the Lord your God. Strike them, God, like lightning with the first commandment message. Song of Solomon 8.6. The seal of fire. Seal of fire on the heart. Seal of fire on the heart. Dreams and visions about the seal of fire. The Word of God coming alive. The seal of fire on the heart. The seal of love. The beauty of the Lord. I'm going to declare what I said that one night in November 86, 96. Jesus, you are so beautiful. Oh, what a glorious night. For five straight hours. The Spirit bore witness. You're so beautiful. It's about you, Jesus. You're beautiful. Lord, might the beauty of the Lord fascinate, capture. May you capture them by the beauty. The beauty realm of God. The beauty of the Lord. Jesus, you're so beautiful. Fire. Release your glory, Lord. Release your glory, Lord. For Jesus it ran. God, I ask you. You said that you would do this ministry alone. No government of the earth would stand with you. But will your people stand with you? We say yes. We join the great chorus of the nations. Of believers from all around the earth. We say yes. Together with them. We will stand with you as your people. We will stand with the Jesus in red. We won't back away. It's offensive. But we love your seal for love, Jesus. We love your seal for righteousness. I ask you, Lord. Let this release fire. Fire. Fire. It's going to wait a few moments. The instruments keep going. This is amazing music. Release your power right now. Mark the heart. Mark the... Friends of the bridegroom. Friends of the bridegroom. The Lord is raising up. Friends of the bridegroom. Will you be a friend of the bridegroom? Will you be a friend of the bridegroom? Preparing the way of the Lord. The Lord may prepare you for several decades. Before he fully releases all that's in his heart for you in this message. Maybe it's sooner. Maybe it's later. We don't know. I ask you. Mark the friends of the bridegroom. Mark them with that reality. Lord, I thank you for this history. Right now, we're the seal. The seal of love. The seal of freedom. Bridegroom, King and Judge. Baptize our heart with fire. Lord, I ask you, release your power. Mark the friends of the bridegroom tonight, Lord. Mark them in a new way. God, the revelation of the bridegroom. The revelation of the bridegroom. The revelation. The impartation. The impartation tonight. Come with faith. We want to see your beauty. We want to see your beauty. The glory of the gospel. Christ Jesus. The power of the cross. Baptize our heart. Baptize our heart with fire. Lord, release your glory. Release. Let's have our team to go pray for the folks over there. Over there in our west wing, over there. We want everybody at least hands laid on them at least once. With your Holy Spirit tonight. Revelation that marks our heart. The Lord says, will you be a friend of the bride? The Judge. Are you embarrassed of the Judge? Do you love Jesus, even the Judge? The King and the Bride, he wants your all. Come and fan the flame. In this spiritual family, Lord, we have need of your help. The beginning of this IHOP 2.0. Come and fan the flame. A new beginning, Lord. A new season. A new chapter in our history together. We trust you. Use us as messengers. Fire. Fire, Lord. A new beginning, Lord. A new chapter. Fire, Lord. Fire. We trust your leadership, Jesus. We trust your leadership. We trust your leadership, Jesus.