Mike Bickle emphasizes the biblical foundation and significance of being an intercessory missionary, explaining that this role is deeply rooted in both the Old and New Testaments. He encourages believers to embrace their calling with dignity and commitment, highlighting the importance of prayer and worship in fulfilling the Great Commission. Bickle reassures that the lifestyle of an intercessory missionary is not only valid but essential for spiritual growth and community revival. He urges listeners to understand their unique place in God's plan and to remain steadfast in their mission, despite challenges and weariness. Ultimately, he calls for a collective movement towards continuous prayer and worship as a response to God's calling.

If you didn't get the notes, go ahead and raise your hand up, we'll get them right to you. Anybody coming in didn't get them? I get a lot of questions about different ones saying, you know, what exactly is an intercessory missionary? What do we do and where do we get that in the Bible? Is it in the New Testament or is it just Old Testament? What are we supposed to say to somebody who's asked us about that? Now I'm going to equip you to be able to give an answer to somebody who asked you that question, as well as when the enemy comes and troubles your heart, I want you to have a thus says the Lord, it is written from the word. Go ahead and raise your hand again if you want the notes. Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus. And Lord, I ask you just to revive us in our commission before you, the dignity and the destiny you've given us individually and together as intercessory missionaries. Lord, I ask you for the groups all over the earth, thousands of groups that are raising up intercessory missionaries, using different terms or using that term all over the earth. And we thank you in Jesus name. Amen. Well, the good news for those that have asked me, and I've had it asked many times, is this really a biblical occupation? And the good news, it's profoundly biblical. Not a little bit biblical, not an obscure verse, but profoundly biblical. It's in the Old Testament, it's in the New Testament, and there's full agreement between what God is saying in the two testaments about the value of what we call the lifestyle of the intercessory missionary. So you don't need to be intimidated by this when somebody asks you. Some of you have been intimidated. I don't know, we're kind of a little strange at IHOP, it's a little weird, I don't know where we get it. And I don't want you intimidated nor confused, but more than that, I want you to be able to answer from the Bible. Not just to your own heart, that's where it starts. These verses strengthen my heart. Because just in the weariness of life and the weariness of the task, I ask the question many times, Lord, why am I doing what I'm doing? And it's the written Word of God that strengthens me. And I want you to be able to tell your friends, I want you to be able to encourage a discouraged intercessory missionary from the Bible. Not just, oh, hang in there, bro, but actually open the Bible and show them why they should persevere, if this is the calling on their life. I don't mean just somebody from here, because we have more and more connection with people that are seeking to do this full time all over the earth. And another reason I want to equip you with these, and we're just going to go through most of this pretty quick, because I just want to give you the ammunition, although I'm going to take it a different direction than some of you are familiar. If you look at some of the verses, we're going to go a little different direction than I've normally approached it. But I want you to have a, thus says the Lord, it is written to the enemy, when the enemy comes to tell you you're wasting your time, that there's better things for you. And if this is the will of God for you, it doesn't mean it's easy. The fact that there's grace in it doesn't mean it's easy and there's no attack. The grace dimension means there's a yes in our spirit, and we want to keep doing it, but it doesn't mean it's easy. I find this job, 13 years into it, the hardest ministry assignment I've ever had is doing the intercessory missionary job here at IHOP. It's far harder than it was pastoring for the near 25 years before I started IHOP. Okay, let's just get some working terms. Paragraph A. When I use the term an intercessory missionary, and there is no final definition. Whoever uses it can define it the way they want to, but that's true of many positions and functions in the body of Christ. That's true of senior pastor. That's true of a children's ministry. That's true of reaching the poor. You can define those many different ways, because what I have written here is that the job titles and the detailed descriptions of ministry are mostly not in the New Testament. The values are in the New Testament, but the actual titles themselves are not in the New Testament, most of them. But as long as the values are upheld in a biblical way, the titles are interchangeable through the generations, through the centuries, and all the different cultures. And so what really matters is where are the values behind this term, where are the biblical values behind this term called intercessory missionary? Now an intercessory missionary, the way I use it, it's those that do the work of the kingdom from a place of prayer and worship while embracing a missionary lifestyle and a missionary focus. I'm going to say that again. We do the work of the kingdom from a place of prayer and worship. Now in our context, we ask everyone that's full-time to be in the prayer room four hours a day. Four hours a day, six days a week, and one day where you're just away in personal time and family time in the fullest sense of the word. But we do the work of the kingdom from the place of prayer and worship, and we're embracing a missionary lifestyle. And a missionary focus. That's what I mean by an intercessory missionary. Meaning, I'll get to this in a few moments, but we use Anna over the years, but Anna would be the most extreme expression of an intercessory missionary. Meaning, I don't know, out of 1,000 staff members, we have 700 full-time, 300 part-time, and a whole bunch of other different designations. But of those 1,000 staff members, I don't know that we have 10 Annas in our midst. And my goal isn't to get everybody to try to be an Anna. Anna was in the prayer room 12 hours a day for decades. I don't know anybody who's an Anna in our midst. Ed Hackett's getting close. I see him there all the time. There's a few, but here's my point. People have said to me over the years, I'm not an Anna, and I'd say, well, I'm not either. Anna's the extreme expression of an intercessory missionary, not the standard-bearer. She is the way-out-there level, and if God gives us some Annas, well, I tell you, we want to celebrate them and rejoice in their calling and who they are. So we ask everybody. I mean, we don't ask, we require. It requires good, by the way. We have standards that matter to us. That's what required means. It matters to us that we uphold a standard because we believe the Lord is pleased that we give ourselves diligently and not just hit and miss whenever we feel like it. I'm not interested in raising up a ministry where we kind of plug in when we feel like it. I want commitments that take discipline. When I'm in a bad mood and I'm tired and I don't feel like it, I still want to do the things I committed to. And so most of you really do walk in that, and so there's a certain quality and dignity and nobility that comes with making commitments and doing them when you don't feel like it at all. Well, I have 12 prayer meetings a week. The way we design it, I mean, the goal is, and you can do it any way you want, four hours a day in the prayer room, two hours you're engaged in intercession, laboring for the work of the kingdom, and two hours it's you and the Lord with an open Bible saying, Lord, I want to encounter you in the Bible. I want to encounter you directly. Now, some people don't do the two hours each way. They do one this way. I mean, they'll do it in different hours, and that's the way that they want to do it. But the logic of it is two hours we're laboring and two hours we're receiving. That's the logic of the 12-hour commitment, four hours a day. Now, here at the bottom of paragraph A, the value of spending four hours a day in prayer is so easy to find in the New Testament. Matter of fact, here's the bigger problem. It's a far bigger challenge to find a ministry in the New Testament that doesn't do it. I have people say, where in the Bible does it say to do this? And I go, where in the Bible do you have leaders who don't spend hours a day in prayer in the New Testament? Starting with Jesus, all through the apostles, and a number of others as well. So it is far more normative than strange, but we're so used to prayerless leadership that a little bit of prayer just seems so extreme. But I tell you, when you look at the Bible, face value, New Testament, leadership, I'm talking leadership now, being much in prayer is normative from the New Testament grace biblical point of view. Let's look at paragraph C. I just mentioned that, I won't go through it again. The New Testament doesn't give specific ministry titles. The New Testament gives us values, not ministry titles. You don't find a senior pastor in the New Testament. You don't find a marriage counselor in the New Testament. You don't find a missionary. You don't find that term missionary in the New Testament. You see the value, but you don't find the term. My point is this. You don't need to feel intimidated when someone says, where's that term in the Bible? And you don't want to be defensive and say, where's senior pastor at in the Bible? Where's children's ministry? Where's worship leader? Where's church secretary? Where's maintenance man and the church staff in the Bible? None of those, the values are there, but not the title or the thorough job description, but mostly just the values. Okay, let's look at Roman numeral II. The full-time occupation. Now, we're just going to take a minute on this. There's so much in the Old Testament. Now, some folks say this. If it's in the Old Testament, and it's not reinforced in the New Testament, then it's unvalid. And that's a wrong approach to the Bible. If something's in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, it needs to be nullified or set aside, or it continues to stay as a revelation of what God's heart is. Like, for instance, the animal sacrifices, the reason we discontinued them, Jesus fulfilled them. Some of the rituals that were in the Old Testament, Jesus fulfilled them, so they've been set aside. But there's many things that are the revelation of God's heart in the Old Testament, and God and the apostles were teaching from the Old Testament. Now, you know the apostles didn't have a New Testament, right? The apostles got up and gave a Bible study. It was always the Old Testament. That would have been a strange idea to them that that Bible wasn't valid to them when they were teaching. And so, we find an amazing amount of information in the Old Testament about this full-time occupation of people before God, night and day. Now, lest I lose you, I'll say the qualifier first. Though I believe that that revelation of these singers and musicians that were full-time before the Lord is a revelation of God's heart, and God desires it all through history, but the Holy Spirit has not emphasized it in a major way through 2,000 years of church history, except for a little here, a little there. There's an amazing testimony. There's a golden thread through 2,000 years of groups, I mean, even large groups, who did this for decades. So there's always that thread. The Spirit has whispered it and given testimony that it's on His heart just for the very fact of the groups throughout church history that have done this. But He hasn't emphasized it universally across the whole body of Christ. But I believe, before the Lord returns, that there will be millions of people doing this. I mean, there'll be a billion that aren't, but there'll be millions doing this. The Holy Spirit is speaking more clearly, and He's emphasizing it more powerfully, and it's really on His heart to see night and day worship in every tribe and every tongue of the earth. We believe God wants to have 24-7 worship and prayer in every tribe and every tongue of the earth, not in every building that's a church building, I don't mean that, but in every city and every region, as different ministries work together. And I believe as the Gospel is preached in every tribe and every tongue, we will see 24-hour worship in every tribe and every tongue before the Lord returns. I really do believe this. And that's part of our, something we've taken hold of, not to do it single-handedly, but to do it in partnership with ministries all over the earth. To see the Gospel preached in every tribe and every tongue, but more than that, see the church established that's functioning from a 24-7 worship, again, maybe a hundred congregations working together on it, all of them doing a little bit, but coming out of every city and every tribe and every tongue. Okay, let's look at this main verse, 2 Chronicles 29. You need to know this verse. This is your story. Your story is linked into these verses. And when somebody asks you, you need to be able to pull this verse out and say, this is why, this is one verse that gives me strength, the conviction that God values this kind of lifestyle. That's the point. God values this kind of devotion, this kind of extravagance. Look what it says. Hezekiah, this is King Hezekiah. Now, Hezekiah is about 300 years after David. Here's what he said. He's putting the Levites in place. From Romans 2, we're here in 2 Chronicles 29. He's putting the singers and musicians in place. And look what he said. Or look what it says about him. He did it according to the command of David. This is 300 years later, and the command that David gave every king of Israel, he said, all the kings after me, thus says the Lord. It's not optional. Thus says the Lord. You are commanded to put singers and musicians in place and pay them where they worship night and day. You're commanded to do it. And that's a remarkable statement. Because, I mean, that's the intercessory missionary. They didn't use the term. They called them Levites. I don't want to use the term Levites. I want to use the term intercessory missionary because it's a broader term because in it is the great commission mandate to preach the gospel in every tribe and every tongue as well. Now, why did David command Hezekiah 300 years after him? I mean, think of 300 years ago. I mean, that's when the command was given. It was still an intense reality in the consciousness of godly people in Israel 300 years later. Why? Because it was a command from God. Here's what God said. David, I command you to command them to do this. David, this is not optional. This isn't your music thing. I command you to command them. Now the question I ask is what was in God's heart? Why would He have so much money given in these generations to fund this? He really cares about this. And again, the Holy Spirit has not emphasized it through the last 2,000 years of church history, but there's regularly a witness of it. And probably the most extravagant that I know, and John O'Hall really knows this stuff as well as some of the others that's really studied it, but in Bangor, Ireland, that's the most dramatic example I know of, that in Bangor, Ireland, they had 3,000 monks at one time. 3,000 monks. That's 3,000 celibate staff members. They're all celibate men. They're all living in one place, and they sang the Psalms. They sang the Psalms before God, and they went on. Now catch this. For 300 years. We're at year 13. 300 years. Do you think that was the arm of the flesh? I tell you the Spirit was helping them do that. And I don't have the exact number down of how many did it in every generation, but it was a remarkable reality. We always talk about Hernhut, because Hernhut's the Protestant one. They're the first Protestants because all the others were the Celtics or the Catholics. But, I mean, Bernard of Clairvaux had 1,000 men. They would worship night and day before God. Where did they get this idea? It wasn't just the Bible. That's obviously the right place. But the Spirit moved them. So what we're doing, we're not the first ones to do this. There's a legacy through history. There's a testimony through history. God does want humans to do this. It's not only biblical, but it's historical. But it's not only biblical and historical. Biblical throughout the Old and New Testament, this kind of value of extravagant prayer. It's historical. 2,000 years of church history keeps popping up. But it's eschatological. It's going to explode in the generation the Lord determines. I mean, it's going to come to fullness in a way far beyond what we imagine. And what is so moving to me, and I say this to move us to gratitude, not to stir up some kind of ungodly prideful attitude, but God has given us this rich prophetic history and said, Kansas City and Grandview, I want you to have a role in this beyond even what you're thinking. So the question of the hour isn't, which some ask, and I have mercy, I understand, I'm a weak man, I get having bad thoughts, but some ask, how much do I have to do to be a part? I go, wrong, really wrong question. The real question is, why do you get to be here? That's the real question. You're asking the entirely wrong question. How did a guy like you get in the middle of this? Honestly, that's the question. It isn't, how much do I have to do so I can stay involved and keep my work scholarship or my missionary statement. That's completely the wrong question. That's the question that somebody asked who doesn't have a spiritual connection to the vision or the revelation. I ask the Lord, though it's hard, and sometimes I don't like IHOP. Does anybody like me sometimes? I go, you know what, I don't want to do IHOP today. I like the vision, I like the people, but the work is wearisome sometimes, and in other days it is not at all. One day it is, one day it isn't. And that's how the grace of God functions. But I take a step back and I go, why would a man like me get to do this? And the Lord would whisper and say, that's the right question. How did you get in the middle of this? Something so profoundly biblical, something the Spirit is emphasizing and bringing to a crescendo, and the generation he, the Lord returns, how did we get in the middle of it? And, beloved, we're not just in the middle of it here. By the Lord's orchestration and the way we're connecting to the world mission leaders, the way we're connecting to leaders across the church, the church leaders, not just the mission leaders, in Asia and Africa and the Middle East and Latin America, I look back and I go, what is going on? And the Lord's, the real question is, Lord, why do we do this? How did we get to be a part of this? And so I want to encourage you, if you're asking the wrong question, to shift the question. And if you say, no, I don't want to shift that question, then my guess is that's an indicator that the Lord maybe really brought you here, but for a season, just to touch your life, to bless you, to help a little bit, but this isn't the place where the Lord really wants you in a long-term way. Because if it doesn't strike you, the privilege of it, and the awesomeness of having a lifestyle that God is smiling on in the midst of a community doing this, that doesn't strike you as amazing, then I really think you're here for a transitional moment to get blessed and to be a blessing. And the Lord says, I really have a place, if you're called to full-time ministry, somewhere else and use what you received here, but move on into that place. Because not catching what's going on and living in the rigors of it is a burden. If you don't get it, but you have to do it, that is a huge burden. I mean, that is just ugh! But when you get it, the things that we're not going to cover, all the things on these notes here, then you've got a very different mindset about it. I mean, again, I ask regularly. It was 30 years ago all this started in terms of my history. I sit back regularly and go, how did a guy like me get involved in this? I mean, it was divine, but it's the same with you. I just go, Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you. Lord, I'm tired today and I don't like this, but thank you, thank you, thank you. Well, God commanded David. I mean, David was the first one to get the command. I just wonder, I ask the question, Lord, what were you thinking? And maybe something like, oh, I had it in my heart for years, but I needed a man after my own heart to give the command to. And that command has been echoing for 3,000 years through history. The desire was not new in God's heart. The command was new in terms of releasing it into human history. Well, paragraph B, David, he went all out. David had 4,000 intercessory missionaries. Again, they called them Levites. But they were people. They had a sacred trust. They had money, more than we do. But, I mean, David was leading the government. Well, King Jesus says, well, I got more money than David, so don't worry about it. I've got helps coming. Now, listen, they had 4,000 singing musicians. They had another 4,000 gatekeepers, which were the support ministries, so four and four is eight. They had almost 10,000 staff members. What was God up to? Why would he do that? I mean, the first generation exploded. I don't know that any of the other kings after him, I don't know, had more than David did. I don't know. I don't have the numbers in the Scripture. I mean, if they're there, I haven't seen them. I've studied it out a bit. But I think the generation the Lord returns is going to eclipse it. I think there's going to be millions worldwide, millions. I don't mean tens of millions, but two, three, four, five, ten, I don't know. But it's not going to be a little dribble here and a little dribble there. Now, look what it says here in paragraph C. Let's read this, 1 Corinthians 9. The singers were free from other duties. They did not have other roles, meaning they were not down working in the fields, is specifically what it meant. They were employed in the work day and night. Now, somebody in your heart say work. It was work. Beloved, we do it. It's work. It's work to be on that stage. It's work to be in that sound booth. It's work to be in those other offices, the support ministries. It's work for you to stop what you're doing and go in there, whether you're laboring in intercession for whatever burden it is or whether you are just enjoying the Lord with an open Bible, encountering him. Whichever one it is, it still takes work, though there is that touch of God and sometimes more than other times and sometimes not. But I told the Lord I'm in it, whether I get touched at level 10 or level 1. I'm not going to measure. I'm just in it until the end. I'm just doing it. Sometimes I get touched. Sometimes I don't get touched. But I'm doing it without measuring it, and the next day I'm coming back again and the next day I'm coming back again. I made a commitment in 99. I said, Lord, I will do this until the end until I meet you face to face. If nobody shows up, I'll be in this trailer. If you'll give me the money to pay the bills for it, and I will do this. We're throwing the key away, and I'll do this if nobody comes because I'm not doing it because it works, which it is working. I want to do it, and here's what I told the Lord, because it's right. And I don't mean right for everybody, but it was clear to me to do it. I said, I will do this to the end of my life because it's right, even if it doesn't take root. Well, 13 years later, it's taking root. I mean, multitudes are stirred by it, but that's not why I'm in it. I'm in it because it's right to do. I see it in the Bible. I see it in end-time prophecy, and the Lord made it crystal clear to me, do it. Some days are good, and some days are bad, and some days are somewhere in between. Paragraph D. Now, whenever Israel went astray after David. So David's 1,000 years B.C. So there's 1,000 years between David and Jesus. Whenever Israel went astray, whenever there was a reformation in Israel, this is critical, God raised up leaders that put the singers and musicians back into place full-time. The intercessory missionaries were put back to work, the singer musicians and the gatekeepers. There are, well, you can count them, there were seven. There were seven generations, or seven leaders, I'll say it that way, who when things are going bad and they called out to God, they established this extravagant worship. Not that you have to put singers, and I mean every group across the earth, to have to see a revival, to see reformation, you have to put singers, and that's not what I'm saying. But here's what I'm saying. When God from heaven wanted a reformation in Israel, he raised up people with a vision for extravagant prayer and worship before God. And throughout church history, we find the same pattern, though there's different applications. But in the greatest revival in human history, which is still ahead of us, and the greatest crisis of human history, which is still ahead of us, there will be the greatest expression of extravagant worship on the earth, and the balance of the whole earth will be in the balance of the end-time prayer movement. And how did you get involved in it full-time, a person like you? I mean, you certainly didn't deserve to. It's not your dedication, it's not your skill, it's not your anointing, it's because of God's favor on your life. And when I see it that way, it really makes me respond different when the day's weary or the week's weary and the money's low. Well, God never changes. So if that's how he did it in the Old Testament, and again, it doesn't have to be Levites, exactly David's style, but it's extravagant worship and prayer. That's the principle right there. He always raises up extravagant worship and prayer when there's a revival and a reformation. Look at page 2. Well, Solomon, David's son, David dies. And I want you to learn these verses. I mean, I've given these verses out for years, but I never take time to go through them. When I hand them out, I just leave them to go through them. But I don't know that most of you have gone through these verses. I don't know that you could quote these verses if somebody asked you, where is what you're doing in the Bible? And if you're not a singer or musician, well, you're in the gatekeeper category. The gatekeepers are the whole company that kept the sanctuary going with all the systems. Though in our context, everyone that helps in the systems also goes into the sanctuary and helps keep the sanctuary itself by their interaction with God and interaction in the intercession in the sanctuary. But here's what Solomon said. Why did he do it? It was according to the order of his father. What he means by the order, the worship order. David saw a worship order. That's the point. He saw the heavenly worship order. So Solomon said, hey, my father had an open vision, revelation of some sort, I don't know, and he put the Levites in place, and they had a duty, they had a job description, and the place of duty put job description. And the duty was enough for each day, meaning it was a day's work, the duty was. They didn't just sing, I'll quote on the platform using our context, I'm sure they had something like a platform, probably far more illustrious than what we have because they had 4,000 singers and musicians. They had practices. They had to learn music. Now remember, when David's doing it, they're not going to the Bible to sing the psalms. David's writing the psalms in the prayer room. I mean, David was like a Justin writing a song, and it's just a good song, and the years later, we find out, hey, that was a song from heaven. Like, how did we know back then? David was David to the people of his generation. I mean, they liked him. David became really cool years later. So they're singing. They're practicing. I mean, they're stealing each other's drummer and bass player. They're doing everything that some people do. I mean, they were just folk. They had sound acoustics they had to work with. I don't know what it meant. They didn't have very good heating or lighting. I remember the time for the month, I mean the week, back in, what was it, 2001 or whatever it was, where for one week, the lights went out because of the ice storm, and it was freezing. And we kept the fire on the altar. We came in. You couldn't play guitars. People had gloves on. It was like freezing. You could see your breath when you would breathe in there. We put lanterns in there, and the bathrooms didn't work. Everything was broken. And I tell you, when they had gloves on strumming, you know, it was pretty tough. And we went heavy on the tambourines. It's the only time they ever let me have an instrument in the whole time. I mean, when the crisis came, my hour came. I mean, I had an instrument. We had lanterns, and we had coats on and blankets on, and the night watch, and freezing. And afterwards, I had a little fun with people. I said, Oh, so you want to go back to David's day? Well, that's how David did it. They did it with lanterns and no running water. They went, Ugh. They had this, David, it'd be awesome. Well, there was a little rough spots in the David generation. Let's go down to paragraph 11. I mean, paragraph H, I'm sorry. See, when I don't wear my glasses, that looks like 11. I could swear that's 11. Lou, does that look like 11 to you? Lou says it is. Okay, go to paragraph 11. Okay, I'm sticking with it. Hezekiah stationed the Levites with the instruments. Here it is, according to the command. It's a command that's passed down for 1,000 years. The command is in the consciousness of the people of God. Josiah, paragraph 1. Josiah, right after there. Okay, I'm done with that one. Look what he did. He's following the instructions of David. I mean, Josiah's 600 B.C. David's 1,000. That's 400 years later. They put the singers in their place according to the command that God commanded David to command them. Beloved, intercessory missionaries are all through the Bible. They didn't call them that, but you can call them what you want. Every generation and culture through 2,000 years of church history has all these different titles and they got different phrases in India and Africa and Latin America and the islands. For 2,000 years, wherever the gospel has gone, as long as the values are in place, it doesn't matter what the term is. So when someone says, Where's that term? and you feel challenged and you're getting scared, well, again, there's not a senior pastor term in the Bible, but the value and the principles are there. Okay, so Rebobel, same thing. He obeyed the ordinance of David. Look at all that. They paid the singers. I mean, Rebobel's 500 B.C. Paragraph K. Now we're at 400 B.C.-ish. Nehemiah and Ezra. Still, they're putting the singers there because of the command of David 600 years later. Beloved, was this thing burning in God's heart? Yes. Did it ever change? Was there a day where he said, Well, now that I poured out the Spirit, I guess I don't want worship and praise ascending from the earth. No. The new covenant did not nullify God's desire for this. It's a different expression because the gospel was going forth in a different way, but as it's taking root in the nations of the earth, it's 2,000 years later, and the setting is in place for the greatest worship movement in human history. Beloved, there are more singers and musicians on the earth now. I heard a man say this. I'm guessing it's true. He said there's more singers and musicians on the earth, secular as well as spiritual, on the earth now than all of human history added up together just by the sheer demographics of the human race. There are more guitar players on the planet earth than any time in human history. You know, it's not biblical to feel sorry for the devil, and I don't, but the devil is financing millions of kids learning drums and guitars through all those other versions of music, and then the Spirit comes and captures them, and then they use that instrument to bring destruction back on the devil's kingdom. The devil funded the early days of it, and God grabbed them, anoints the person, gets them saved, and we've got millions of guitar players and keyboard players and singers all over the earth. The Internet has created this new reality. There will be millions and millions of singers and musicians, more music than any time in history. The devil's going to seize it, but the Holy Spirit is going to do it far more intense than the devil will. Beloved, what are we a part of? We're in the early days of something that's far bigger than us. It's a sovereign move of God. We have our role in it. It's worth what we're doing. He's worth it, and it is worth it. It really is worth it, though the day-to-dayness of it is like it was in the days of old. It's every day, okay, I've got to, like, make a decision to gird the loins of my mind and to interact with the Lord and to really lock in with Him. Okay, let's look at the value of night and day prayer in the Old Testament. Well, first it starts in the famous Revelation 4 and 5 scene, night and day. You go, wait a second, that's the New Testament. No, it was revealed in the New Testament, but you don't think that those living creatures just started in the New Testament, do you? They were doing that long before David was. Beloved, that was happening long before David, so that's where we start. So here in the Old Testament, I'm just going to give you a 1, 2, 3. B is what I just gave you, the whole David thing, but that's a key point. Just as you're going down the list, I want you to learn these simple points so you can say them to people. And again, we have this on the Internet, this document, so you can take it, put your name on it, change it, and use this information. Top of page 3. Now this is one of the most significant passages for the occupation of the full-time singer-musician intercessor in the New Testament. Now you say, what? Sounds like it's in the Old Testament, it's Isaiah. Isaiah's prophesying about a New Testament time frame. Isaiah 62 is a New Testament declaration. It's happening, the things that he prophesied would happen in the living memory of the people who see Jesus with their eyes at the end of the age. These are New Testament believers he's talking about. And he says this about them. He goes, let me tell you, God's going to set watchmen in place. Watchmen are the intercessors. They cry out night and day. He says, here's what they'll do. They. Now who's the they? It's New Testament, end of the age, intercessor worshipers. That's who the they is in context. This is New Testament. They, they'll never be quiet. These are individuals. They're not just corporate ministries. It is corporate. But it's individuals that do this hours a day. It's biblical. It's the annas. And there will be annas all over the earth. Again, I don't know how many. I think it will always be the minority. But some of you are annas. I mean, all of us are intercessory missionaries if we're called here. But some of you in the most extreme way are the annas. The others of us, we do some intercession every day and we do some worship every day. And then we do the work of the kingdom most of the day. But here's what the, here's what happens. They'll never be quiet day or night. Now Isaiah speaks right to them. He prophesies. He goes, you, you guys who the spirit is talking about, don't be quiet in your generation. Now these are actual individuals as well as corporate ministries. He goes, don't ever be quiet until Jesus makes Jerusalem a place of the earth. That means the second coming. That's, that's, the timing is the second coming because that's when Jerusalem's a place of the earth. He said, there's going to be a company of people all over the earth that will be alive at the second coming. That's the group he's talking to that will do it night and day. And to do it night and day, it has to be an occupation because it is their livelihood. So when someone says, where's intercessory missionary? Well, it's all over through the, through the David passages we looked at. But Isaiah, they go, yeah, that's Old Testament. But Isaiah is talking about New Testament believers who see Jesus with their eyes when he returns. That's who he's talking about here. Paragraph D, we looked at this passage many times, but I'm not sure how many of you know this passage really. Isaiah doesn't just talk about the individual intercessions that will go night and day. Now he adds music to them. And you can read this on your own, but he describes seven different places around the earth. From the coastlands to the islands to the cities to the villages. And he says, here's what's going to happen. They're going to be singing. And in verse 13, all over the earth, this worship movement is going to come forth. And in verse 13, Jesus will go forth like a mighty man of war. This is a second coming. This global every tribe and every town worship movement is going to result in the return of Jesus in the sky. This is another prophecy to the people that are alive when Jesus comes. These are two prophecies to new covenant end time believers. Now some folks say, well, I think just one day they're just going to start singing. I go, they're not going to be anointed singers in a vacuum. That's not the rule of the kingdom. The rule of the kingdom isn't that we do nothing with God, nothing with God, nothing with God. And suddenly we turn out excellent and anointed on Monday and we've never done it before. That's not how the kingdom grows. These singers and all the tribes, they're on the mountaintops, the islands, the major cities. They're in the Arab Islamic villages. You can read that later. These singers, they're not just in a vacuum suddenly popped out one day and sang on the day of the second coming. They've been pouring themselves into this for some time. We don't know how much time, but it's not in a vacuum that you can be sure. This is what we're a part of. We're training young people in the early days. We're at year 13. I mean, I think we're going to see year 20, 30, 40, maybe 50, maybe more, maybe less. I don't know. But we're at the early days with the technology and what's going on. And we've got so many prophetic words that have been supernaturally confirmed of training young people in the earth. But the Lord doesn't want us to train them to do what we don't do. He wants us to train them to do what we do. We're not just giving them information. We're imparting the grace we live by. And when we do it, half the time we feel it, half the time we don't feel it, half the time it's something else. We're tired sometimes. We don't feel like it. Somebody's mad at us. Our emotions are all whacked out. Our brain's crazy. But we're doing it. That's how humans do it. And then sometimes it's phenomenal. It's opposite of all of that. And, again, I don't measure it. I just do it. I quit measuring a long time ago. I said, if I'm going to do this by how good I feel and how much power I see, I'm going to get really thrown off. I'm doing it because it's biblical. It's historical. It's eschatological. And it's personal to my life. You told me to do it. So, man, I love to feel it and I love to see the power and I love to see the increase. But if I can't measure it, I'm not even going to go there. I'm just going to keep doing it no matter what because it's right to do. Now look at paragraph G. This is the verse on the wall in the prayer room. But this is an amazing verse. He tells the sons of Zadok, he said, because you kept charging that worship sanctuary, again, no electricity, no running water, no sound system, no Starbucks coffee, no higher grounds, no CDs, no one thing conferences, no lots of stuff. I mean, it's tough back in those days. He said, because you kept charge of that sanctuary. He says there's going to be a blessing. When he says that they'll come here to minister to me, he's talking about it. He goes, in the millennial kingdom, the fruit of your decisions in your life back in 500 B.C. will actually impact you and your offspring in the age to come. There's a continuity, a connection between what I'm doing, what you're doing, and what my sons and granddaughters and sons and sons and sons, it will actually touch them in a way. And this is where God says, I want you to know it's bigger than your generation. That's an amazing verse, but they kept charge of a sanctuary. Well, where's it at in the New Testament? Paragraph A, and you know this, so I'll just run through it and skip some of it as well, because it's pretty straightforward, but if you don't have it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, you're not going to answer it to people, and you're not going to have it to answer to the devil when he comes to lie to you. Or when even an IHOP person comes to you and says, why are you doing this? Where is this in the Bible? You'll say, I'll tell you exactly where it's at in the Bible. We've got some folks in our midst that say, I don't really get all this stuff. I'm not really into that. I'm kind of into the music, but I'm not really into this keeping charge of a sanctuary and an intercessory missionary. And what I'm saying is it's biblical, and we don't have to be intimidated by any of that kind of dialogue at all. You can stand steady and give a biblical answer. Well, Jesus in paragraph B, he's quoting, I have no doubt, he's quoting Isaiah 62. But here in Luke 18, when he says, night and day and justice, I have no doubt in my heart he is referencing Isaiah 62 and Isaiah 42, the two passages I just commented on, because that's what those two passages, Isaiah 42 is justice, Isaiah 62 is night and day prayer, and Jesus is the one that told Isaiah these things. And if you read Luke 18 in context, Luke 18 is answering, is the end of the sermon that started in Luke 17. Luke 18 is the final point of a sermon on the end times that begins in Luke 17. Jesus is talking about end time generation, the generation of the Lord returns. He even says it in verse 8, when the Son of Man comes, and that's what he's been talking about in Luke 8, 17, and now here in Luke 18. This is a reference to Isaiah 62 and Isaiah 42, the two verses I just looked at. One focused on justice, one focused on night and day prayer. Look at the end of paragraph B. If you want to know if it's New Testament, Jesus, when Jesus talked about the generation the Lord returns, look at the very bottom of page 3, the last sentence, when Jesus talked about the generation the Lord returns, this has always amazed me, the activity he talked about most was continual prayer. He didn't even say preaching. I mean, I would have thought he would have said, in that day, make sure you preach and you never back down. And certainly he does say that, and there's verses that back all that up. But when you take all the times Jesus talked about the end times, and you take what he says to do in light of it, it's prayer every single time. It's that Isaiah 62 reality. I mean, I find that remarkable. I look at that and I go, Jesus, you know, they say, you're the greatest pastor ever, and I believe it. But there's chaos and revival breaking out across the earth. Don't you think you should give us a little bit more of the book of Proverbs stuff, like go store this and go take care of that and make sure this is organized? All you do is tell us, keep prayer meetings going. Like, isn't that a little bit unrealistic? And I can imagine Jesus saying, I'm a really good pastor and I'm really smart, and if you do that, the other stuff will fall in line. Trust me, if you do that, the wisdom will come from the Spirit in that context. Beloved, this is the wisest way to spend your life. Again, we try to measure it. My money's not doing real great. Some of my family thinks I'm crazy. I'm a little weary. I don't feel it like I should. And I don't know, maybe I'm just, you know, I'm not going to be at the one thing conference on the stage. Maybe it's not worth it anyway. Beloved, throw that stuff away. It's an amazing reality what God has called you to. Top of page 4. Well, the person, well, there's a couple people that highlight the first coming of Jesus, but Anna's one of them. It's a woman doing the night and day Isaiah 62 thing. Now, again, Anna is the extreme intercessory missionary. So when someone says, I met an Anna, I say, that's great. I don't think 99% of IHOP is an Anna, but we're still intercessory missionaries. Because our definition is we do four hours a day. Half of it we're laboring. Half of it we're receiving and crying with an open Bible and we're just loving. And we do some labor and some love back and forth and all the other ones too. Well, Paul did night and day prayer. Beloved, besides Jesus, you don't get higher than Paul. He did night and day prayer. Right there you can see it. Notice what Paul told the widows. He goes, any of the ladies, your family's gone and your husband's died, join in to the night and day prayer thing to the day you die. Lay hold of the grace of night and day prayer. Paul, that's a little bit rough. I mean, what about these ladies? I mean, he says, tell them to get a hold of that. I'm sure the application is different for everybody, but wow, that's a pretty intense subject. Jesus valued paragraph D. I have three or four examples. The Mary of Bethany. Here's this young gal. She's sitting at his feet. The apostles are criticizing her. In the Mark 14 version of it where they have the oil pulling out. The apostles are saying, Mary, you're overdoing it. And Jesus rebuked him. He said, leave her alone. I mean, we're talking about the main guys didn't get it on the front end. A girl did. This young girl got it first. And they kind of woke up. And Jesus said, don't you dare criticize her for this. And there's people that criticize this kind of extravagance. Beloved, we don't need to apologize for our intensity. We don't need to kind of dumb it down under the doctrine of grace. The grace of God will ramp it up to red hot, holy abandonment to the Son of God. I want grace that ramps it up, not dumbs it down. I'm not interested in that false grace message. I want the one that sets me on fire. Mary of Bethany, Jesus said, leave her alone. And then he went on beyond that. I'm putting two examples, the Luke 10 and the Mark 14. He said, what she did is necessary. Ooh, that puts it in a whole other category. And it's good. My book, it's good the way she's living. And it's necessary. And just to put the icing on the cake, it will never be taken from her. Even in the age to come, the blessing of what she's doing will be on her, even forever. She will never lose what this is about, ever. Even in the resurrection, she won't lose it. She'll never lose it, ever. Wow. I like Mary of Bethany. That sounds like something I want to do. Cornelius. An angel appears to this Roman soldier. I'm talking about a tough job. I mean, a Roman soldier. He's not born again yet. I mean, he has no Holy Spirit. He has no worship music. He has no good coffee shop. He has no Bible. Here's this Roman soldier, this crusty old guy sitting there with three Roman soldiers, having prayer meetings with no Holy Spirit and no Bible and no prophetic activity. Talking about a hard prayer meeting. That guy stayed with it. The angel shows up in Acts 10. Shock of his life. An angel. But it's not just the angel shocked him. It's what the angel said. Cornelius, your prayers are a memorial before God. They'll be remembered forever. My prayers? Angel, have you been to our prayer meetings? We have no instruments, no Holy Spirit, no Bible, no prophetic activity. Three or four old crusty Romans sitting around. That moved you? The angel said, God said he will remember it forever. I mean, the shock of his life. I mean, the angel shocked him, but the message double shocked him. Look at the apostles. Well, the apostles finally got a hold of what young Mary, this young, late teen, early 20s girl had. They gave themselves continually to prayer. Acts 6. Beloved, you will find a much greater challenge finding ministries that don't do hours a day of prayer in the New Testament than trying to prove it's biblical. Prove to me where it's biblical to be a leader and not do it. That's where the onus would be. Now, I don't take that out there and put it on people. But my point is this. When I get challenged, I'm not remotely intimidated by those challenges because I know the Bible. I mean, a little bit of the Bible. I got these verses in my heart, and I don't have to move by anybody's kind of bold proclamation of how dumb it is what we're doing because I have the word of God, and it's anchored in me, these verses. And I just, I don't want to be arrogant, and I don't want to be condescending, but I don't have to move at all, and I don't have to blink or turn away. And I love this calling. My question is, how did a guy like me get this calling? My question isn't how come I have to do so many hours. My question is, how did I get involved in this? How did God let me in on it? Paragraph E, the very fact of night and day prayer in church history. I already mentioned it. It testifies that the Spirit values it. I mean, the 3,000, you know, in Bangor, Ireland, 300 years. I mean, 3,000 was probably the most, but for 300 years it continued. Somebody says, well, you do this new thing. I go, well, not really. We're putting more music in it, and we've got electricity, and we've got the technology. And, yeah, and we have the bridal paradigm that the prophets prophesied, but they didn't really, weren't involved. We've got a couple dimensions that they didn't have in history, but it's the same value of extravagant prayer worship. Paragraph F, the Holy Spirit's raising up the greatest prayer movement in all of human history, and we're on the beginning of it. I don't mean just us. They're all over the earth. The guys in Asia, and the guys all through Europe, and our team here from Poland, and Dwayne's down in Brazil, and right now we're emailing, and things are happening, and things are coming together, and all around the world it's happening. And I look at it, and I said, Lord, this is amazing. We're at the beginning of a revolution. I don't know if that's the right word, but an explosion of the worship of heaven and the songs being loosed into the generation where there will be more music than any time in human history. Probably more music than all of human history put together when you take the bad and the good types of music. The great conflict at the end of the age will be two different worship movements. There will be a state-financed, hear me, a state-financed Antichrist worship movement with really good singers and musicians, and they will have a presence of power. It will be a dark power, but people will cry and tremble and get healed, and they will be really good and really skilled, and they will be financed. And I've got good news for you. The Jesus Prayer Movement defeats it 100% with no problem. Well, paragraph G, just to bring it right down, subjectively. I mean, I'm not doing it just because God said it subjectively. That's gigantic. It's in the Bible. Not again, not that everyone has to do 24-7 in one building. I don't believe that at all. I believe we want to see 24-7 in regions. But the Lord spoke audibly. Beloved, He spoke audibly. You say, well, that was to you. No, when God speaks audibly 30 years ago, He's still on the same sentence. He lives in eternity. I mean, 1,000 years from now, He's still on the same sentence. It's not like the Lord goes, that was a minute ago. That was a half a minute ago. He had you in His mind when He said that. I mean, when God speaks audibly, and God brings together 10 or 15 supernaturally undeniable events together, and you're in the middle of it, how did you get here? And what should you be responding with? And again, I think the response is, we're doing this regardless what it feels like. We're not measuring anything. It's a privilege beyond measure. But it's not just a privilege I get to do it. And I say this with great tenderness. I get to do it with you, meaning I get to do it with people that want to do it. I mean, if I wanted to do it with me and eight people, that would be cool. That would be a privilege. But doing it with 1,000, a couple thousand, I mean, where on the earth can you get a couple thousand people all in one building, in one area that want to do this? And I go, this is amazing. I mean, I would have done it with eight of us. But I like it way more that you're here. It's just so much more dynamic with all of us doing this thing together. Well, 90 seconds more. Why do we do this? Number one, we want to minister to God. I mean, we're in there. We're worshiping. We're joining the choirs of heaven. We're loving him. He's worthy. On earth like it is in heaven. Not as good on earth, but we're doing it with all of our heart. Number two, we labor. Power is released, even though we can't always link it back to the prayer meeting that happened because we can't measure normally. Sometimes you can, but you don't measure prayer by weeks and months. You measure prayer by decades. You really do. The testimony of history, if you want to see if prayer works measured in decades, though there's clearly dynamic prayer requests that happen instantaneously. That's what I mean. You pray for someone and a great thing happens in an individual sense. But I'm talking about shifting nations. And I'm not interested in measuring it today. I want everything answered today and tomorrow at the latest, but I'm not throwing away my testimony because I know that God measures prayer across the whole large scope of people, and he measures it in a different way. We grow in intimacy. I mean, we sit there and it's I love you, you love me. I love you, you love me. Sometimes I feel it, sometimes I don't feel it. I love you, you love me. And we do it to grow in revelation. I want to know what that Bible means. I want to know your wisdom, your ways. I want to feel and love you, but this is different. I want to know what it means. I want to know what the end time plan looks like. I want to know what bridegroom, king, and judge is doing, because I want to partner with you. Amen and amen. Let's stand.