Mike Bickle emphasizes the profound role of the Holy Spirit in prayer, highlighting that the Spirit intercedes for us in our weaknesses, enabling us to connect with God in a deeper way. He challenges the notion that prayer is merely a necessary task, presenting it instead as a vital expression of the resurrection life that believers are called to experience both now and in eternity. Bickle encourages the church to embrace a 'forerunner ministry,' which involves laboring for future breakthroughs while remaining grounded in present realities. He illustrates this with examples from biblical figures like Noah and David Brainerd, who exemplified the spirit of prayer and intercession. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a commitment to live in the power of the resurrection, actively seeking the Spirit's help in our prayer lives.

Romans 8, verse 26. Romans 8, verse 26. Likewise, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we should pray. We do not know what to pray for as we ought. But the Spirit Himself makes intercession through us. With groanings, one translation says, too deep for words, or the New King James what I have here says, with groanings that cannot be uttered. This is one of the great ministries of the Holy Spirit to the church. This is one of the dynamic realities for which the resurrection was to release to human beings on this side of eternity. On the other side of eternity as well. Because the thing that's so interesting is that prayer in the power of God is a reality in eternity for the redeemed. Prayer is not something we tolerate on this end, and then we abandon and discard when we finally meet Him face to face. But prayer is the way the Trinity has related to each other from eternity past. When the Holy Spirit by the power of the resurrection brings us into the prayer ministry, we are entering into the relationship and the relationship principles and reality of the Trinity, of the Godhead, of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the most amazing thing to me. As an intercessor, some years ago when the Lord made it clear to me or began to awaken me to the fact that prayer was not something we're tolerating, a necessary evil on this side of the grave. And then finally when we graduate, we can discard this unseemly dimension of the Word of God. This, ah, why do we have to bother with this, Lord? I remember as a new believer and as a not-so-new believer how difficult prayer was and how strange it was that we were called to it. To me, I remember the day when I said to the Lord, who invented this idea? Who would run their kingdom this way? This is odd to me. That we're sitting in a room telling you what you tell us to tell you and somehow everything's supposed to work out of that relationship. That doesn't make any sense to me. If I was running this kingdom, I would do it differently than that. But one of the most, ah, this, I'm saying a simple statement, but I want you to hear this. It's a very, very, ah, it's a big statement. That prayer, anointed prayer, is one of the most practical manifestations of the resurrection. And that was one of the reasons for which Jesus went to the cross was to bring human beings on this side of the grave into anointed prayer. We think of prayer often as that which releases the power of the Holy Spirit because the power of the Holy Spirit is released on the other side of prayer. But it takes the power of the Holy Spirit in the prayer process. A people anointed in prayer are under the unction of the resurrection life already. And I would like us to rethink about prayer as more than a necessary evil. And I know that we do. But I'm just saying in the general sense, and certainly that's what I struggled with to get to a place where I really embraced this as a lifestyle. Because I had to shift over. I had to, like, what meaneth thou this? You know, why am I doing this? At the very center of our mandate here at Forerunner Christian Fellowship, at the International House of Prayer at our missions base, and I want to say it again, I say it all the time, everyone that's a part of this fellowship, whether you're on the staff full time or not, you're a part of our missions base. And everyone that's a part of our missions base on the staff, those that have raised their own support, are a part of this fellowship. It's one reality to us. Some people talk about, well, we're going to join the missions base since now that we joined the church. I said, no, if you're in this church, you're in the missions base family. You're a missionary. Every congregation in the earth is a missionary church. Whether they know it or not, they were called to be missionaries. We're just putting language to that which is fundamental to the very constitution of what the church is. But anyway, I want to focus in on a particular thing about this fellowship, about this missions base, which is synonymous. It's what I used the term last night, I've used it through the years, is breakthrough Christianity. I was speaking at the conference last night that ended breakthrough Christianity. It's the Christianity that embraces the foundational mandate of the kingdom and then has a mandate in addition to it. I'm going to say it again. When I talk about breakthrough Christianity, that is central to why we exist as a ministry in the mind of God. Central to why we exist, why God started IHOP, which is the same thing as why he started this missions base and the FCF. It's all one reality. In my heart, it's one reality. And I believe in the heart of God, it's one reality. The reason God started this fellowship was that we would have a way to function in the foundational mandate of Christianity plus something in addition to it. We never, ever graduate from the foundational mandate of Christianity, the main and plain of Scripture. Every one of us are to embrace and walk out the main and the plain mandates of Scripture. But the main and plain of Scripture, which is our glory, it is not our limitation. We have something in addition to it. And it's what we've used the term for years, the forerunner ministry. The forerunner ministry. It's going a brief step ahead of some others to labor for that which is around the corner. The forerunner ministry. John the Baptist was a forerunner. He was one brief step, I mean, just ever so slight ahead of others. Not of all the others, because there were other forerunners. To focus on, to labor on that which God is going to release a minute later, just the next season. We are laboring with focus on that which is around the corner. It's not here yet. That's the essence of the forerunner. We labor for that which is yet the next season. And many people can't bear that. They cannot bear to labor for that which they cannot see immediately in front of themselves. And I appreciate that. The Lord hasn't called them to it. And I would say that many people don't have grace to labor for that which is future. They can only labor for that which is immediately in front of their eyes. Again, I have no complaint about that. I totally understand that. That's certainly how I functioned for years. And the Lord got a hold of me and said, I want you to labor for that which is in front of you in the present tense. But I want to add something in addition to it. I want you to labor for that which is not yet. So we're functioning on two different levels as a people. We cannot let go of the present to only labor for the future. We cannot let go of the future to get consumed in only laboring for the present. It's a tension. Admittedly, it's a difficult tension. We tend to overdo one at the expense of the other. I do. Most of us in this room, we tend to get so into the present. I'm talking about among us here. Fully understanding our future meant that we're to labor for the future, and we lose sight of the future. Beloved, if you lose sight of the future, if we lose sight of the future as forerunners, then we lose our place in the future. We really do. Our role is to labor for breakthroughs that are yet ahead. The company that builds the dam says, There's no rain. Why are we building a dam? And the guy says, Trust me, it's really smart that we're building this dam. We're going to need it in a strategic way when the floods come in the days ahead. Noah built an ark. He labored for yet another day. But when that day came, he was really glad he had the ark. You build a dam, you build an ark for a reality that is yet ahead. Well, it goes the other way, too. We can get so focused on laboring for the future that we let go of the present, the immediate that's right in front of us. And I don't believe it's certainly not an easy balance. It's not a perfect science how to do this. And I find in my own personal life that I'm moving one direction or the other, and I don't think we'll ever do it 50-50. It's not that kind of deal. But I believe in some seasons the Lord will allow us to go one direction, in other seasons the other. And then in a minute it comes back to the other direction, and in a minute we go back to the other one. And it's kind of like the pendulum is moving amongst us. There is no perfect moment of balance. But you cannot understand this ministry. I'm talking to the locals now. I know we have a few visitors from the conference still. But you cannot understand this ministry without understanding our primary calling as forerunners. This ministry does not make sense if what you want to do here is a little bit more of what you did somewhere else. We are not called to do a little bit more of what we did somewhere else. We are called to labor with a focus, to labor with a focus on what is yet future. That is contrary to nature. It's odd. It's difficult. It's even offensive sometimes. But more than offensive, it's just plain old difficult. Like, now what? We're praying and laboring for a breakthrough that has not yet come. You cannot understand what Forerunner Christian Fellowship is about if you do not understand this mandate to be a forerunner. And everybody that's a part of this, we're involved in it at different levels. I agree, in different functions, in different assignments. But we're all called to be in it together. You cannot understand who we are if you do not understand that mandate. We labor for the present. It's the mandate of most groups, but we have a fierce commitment to labor for the future. It's not a small thing. It's a fierce commitment. It's not the all that we do. We do labor for the present. But something so dynamic, so terrible, so wonderful, so filled with glory, so filled with crisis and pain is ahead of the human race, for the whole human race. It's just a minute down the road. Maybe a couple decades, but it's just a minute on the divine calendar. And it's the sort of thing that in that day, Ephesians 6.13 calls it, in the evil day. And there's an evil day that's a part of our everyday life when the enemy attacks us, and there's an evil day, an eschatological, historical evil day, the final hours before the second coming. That last period of time, that last three and a half years, yay, that last decade before the Lord returns. It's that evil day when things escalate. So that evil day of Ephesians 6.13 is something we run into regularly. It's when the enemy assaults us in a personal way. But there's an eschatological, there's a global historical evil day that's coming. And in that evil day, we cannot prepare sufficiently. When the flood is coming, it's too late to build the ark. When the rain started coming, Noah can't say, Oh my goodness, I should have got about this 120 years ago. Honey, get the wood, quick, boys. Ham, shem, go get the saw, quick, quick, it's raining. It's too late to build the ark when the rain starts. The ark was built for 100 years before rain ever appeared one time on the earth. Can you imagine the mandate that Noah was under? Building a big boat. What are you doing? All the animals are going to come in it. It's strange. The first zoo in history. We're going to get all the animals in a boat. What's a boat? There'd never ever been, he says, well, there's going to be rain. There had never been rain in history, ever, in hundreds of years. Never was there rain since Adam. The ground was, the moisture came from beneath. Noah said, well, I know it's not scientifically proven, but the moisture is going to come from the top. You've obviously, Noah, have never done your homework. The moisture comes from below. I know, it doesn't make any sense, but it's coming from the top. We're going to build a boat. There was no such thing as a boat. We're going to build a boat to put all the animals in it because the water is coming from the top. How many years have you been doing this? Ninety. How many more years you got? He says, I don't know. It could be a few more. It ends up 100 to 120 years. Picture this guy at the 100-year mark. Only 20 years to go, honey, and the boat's going to be ready. Fast forward. It's day 40 of the rain. Noah, we're really glad you built the boat. It's really good that you built the boat. The scripture says it was for the purpose of the salvation of others that the boat was built. It's not just for self-preservation. It was salvation, the salvation purpose of God. There's a threefold mandate to be a forerunner. Again, the forerunner are those. It's ever so slight step ahead in the divine calendar. It's a very, very small step ahead. It may seem like a big step to us, like it might be 10, 20, 30 years, and that's so big, but it's just a moment. It's a half a second in the divine calendar. We're laboring for that which is yet coming in the future, and it's for the sake of others. It's not so that we can go get a little retreat center and go stockpile guns and food and fight off the bad guys and all hang in there together. It's nothing to do with that. It's nothing to do with that. It's about coming into deep, profound experience with the power of God, with God himself, to bring it to other people for salvation. You cannot understand who we are if you do not understand that's not our only mandate. It's our highest mandate, though. It's our most unique. It's our most pressing. We do have a foundational mandate to do the main and plain in the present tense, absolutely. You never, ever outgrow that, but we can't let go of the future because of the realities of the present. There's three things I think of when I think of this breakthrough Christianity, this contending, this fighting, this laboring for the breakthrough that's yet future. You call it breakthrough Christianity. You can call it forerunner ministry. It's laboring for the breakthrough yet ahead. It's what I'm talking about. Number one, God's going to release messengers. He's going to release messengers. There is a message that is in addition, not in replacement, in addition to, not in replacement of, in addition to the main and plain of Scripture. The message is in the Scripture, but it's a message that is not embraced or understood by the vast majority of even the prophetic preachers. It's a message that would take divine understanding to connect. It's all in the book, but it takes the Holy Spirit's power to connect the dots. It's a message of glory, and it's a message of perseverance in crisis, and a message of glory in the greatest breakthrough in history. God's raising up messengers. These messengers are speaking the main and plain, but addition to, in addition to, and they're speaking with a clarity, with a clarity unprecedented in redemptive history. They have a clear message never ever given in its clarity or in its authority ever in history. It's a message that will have greater clarity and greater authority than even John the Apostle when he received the book of Revelation. It's the book of Revelation connected with the Old Testament prophets with such clarity that even John would say, Oh my goodness, how could I have known that? Old verses, but new lenses. New lenses, new look at old things. Not interested in somebody's claim to entirely new pieces of information that have no rootedness in Scripture. It's all in the Scripture. I'm not talking about getting some, you know, a group of funny little people on a mountain top trying to get something so unique because they're really striving for their own sense of self-importance. I'm not talking about that. Have no interest in some little elite little group that says, Oh, we understand this. We're the inside group. I'm talking about a message that will empower us to move in the power of God and to embrace martyrdom for the cause of Christ. Not that everybody will be a martyr, but the spirit of martyrdom will be upon the church. Though many will not be martyred, but in their heart they said yes. They said we're in it to the end. No matter what. No matter what. That's what I mean by the spirit of martyrdom. They're in it no matter what. And though many will be protected supernaturally, you just don't know. But there's a yes in their spirit. Anyway, this forerunner ministry has a quality of end-time messengers unreleased in history, never seen in history. Messengers. Number two, this forerunner company, they operate in the spirit of prayer. Oh my goodness, the spirit of prayer. Nothing like it in history. The spirit of prayer. When the power of God comes upon the people of God in a supernatural way in prayer. It's when the rod of authority is loosed through human beings on this side of eternity. Spirit of prayer is something the church has not understood, meaning the vast majority. I understand it only in the introductory sense. I've experienced it at a very introductory level a handful of times in my life. And I'm talking about a supernatural power upon prayer that is given of God to those that are in prayer. One guy just says, well, the Lord knows he's got my address. If he wants me to have it, he'll fall on me. The Lord says, no, I'll fall on you when you position yourself to receive it. Well, Lord, you know my address. If you want me to have spirit of prayer, here I am. And the Lord says, I'll give the spirit of prayer, the most precious operation of the power of God, to those that cannot live without it, those that are not content to live a life without this power on them. And so the body of Christ might present an argument to God. Again, here I am, Lord. If you want me, you got me. And the Lord says back to us, here I am. If you want me, you got me. The body of Christ says, I must have more. Jesus answers back, good. But I must have more. I must have more before I give you more. Because if I give you more before I receive more from you, the more that I give you will end up destroying you. The very more you cry for, you do not know the implications of that more. I must have more to protect you if I'm going to give you more. For there's many, many, there's many perils that follow receiving the more of God. Not to mention the bull's eye of Satan upon the people who have more. That's not even the biggest peril. The biggest peril is the incredible favor and opportunity and prosperity that comes with more that topple some of the greatest men and women of history. They topple under the pressure of all the favor and the prominence and the prosperity that more brings. Not even the devil that knocks them down. It's their own unsettled lust. It's unperceived lusts that are unsettled in their own heart. The Lord says, give me more and I will give you more because I love you too much to give you more without you giving me more. So it's called the spirit of prayer. It's something that we seek for. It's something we go after. It's something we understand its power. I've only experienced introductory bits of it. A handful of times through my years with the Lord. And it's a supernatural power that comes on us that gives us the ability. It's a tenderness of our spirit for sure. But it's more than a tenderness. It's an authority to prevail with God instantly. To prevail with God with instant results. It's an authority to prevail with God in prayer. God gives us the authority but he gives it to those that are not content to live without it. I mean it's people that say I cannot live without it. I refuse to live without this reality. The Lord says cultivate it then. Well Lord if you want me to have it you know where I'm at. And the Lord says if you want it you know where I'm at. Again it's this tension in the body of Christ where we want it to fall on us sovereignly and the Lord wants to give it to the hungry. It's a very opposite concept. We get a vision for it then we go after it. It's called the spirit of prayer. It's the most powerful force on this side of eternity. It is the ultimate expression of the power of the resurrection and the life of a believer. Jesus fully understood when he died and rose from the dead that he was to bring people into resurrection life in eternity but on this side as well. And the problem with our view of the resurrection is that we think of mostly eternity when we think of the resurrection. And God wants us to enter into resurrection life. The benefits, the celebration of the resurrection is in a fasted lifestyle contending for the power of God now. The resurrection is not something we just celebrate its future implications. We celebrate and we go after and we're committed to its present tense implications. The power of the resurrection. That's what will mark the people of God as separate from all others on the earth. We are people that live now in the presence and the power of the resurrection. So that's why I'm wanting to draw attention to the fact it's not just something that's so awesome that we get it when we die because it lasts so long. It costs so much but it lasts so long. We have it forever. But beloved, I want to enter into the power of the resurrection now. That's what we're laboring for. Well, there's three things related to this forerunner mandate. Number one, God's raising up messengers and they have a unique message never ever given in history. They have a clarity and an authority never ever seen in history. It's in addition to the foundational mandates of the scripture. Number two, they experience the spirit of prayer. And number three, they operate in the power of God. They operate in the power of God. There's a breakthrough anointing. There's a breakthrough of power that we want. I talked a little bit about that last night at the conference, at the Signs and Wonders conference. I appreciate the power of God, the level we experience now. I really, really do say thank you. Oh God, I want to be diligent to operate in it now but I have a vision for a breakthrough from the scripture that is so far beyond anything happening in the earth right now. We're laboring for something that's yet future. Jesus opened this realm to us. Romans 8, 26 tells us the spirit will help us. Supernatural activity. For the word help, you might, if you got a pen right, supernatural operation of the power of God. This word help is massive. It's not talking about we're falling asleep and all of a sudden we suddenly wake up a little bit and a little drowsiness lifts in our prayer time. That's not what it's talking about. We're talking about an invasion of supernatural power into the prayer ministry. It's an injection of presence and authority that is a supernatural operation. That's the help capital H. I'm not saying, well I'll just say positive. There are many levels of help that are less than the fullness of help. But it's the fullness of help I'm talking about this morning. The spirit will help us in our weakness. In our spiritual, in our weakness in prayer. Our spiritual lethargy. Our spiritual powerlessness. Our distance from God. He'll help us. He goes, I'll breathe on you and there'll be power. There'll be unction. There'll be clarity and authority on your spirit. Isn't this something that he helps us in weakness? He doesn't say, I'll help you when you finally have ascended then I will help you. He goes, I'll help the weak. I go, I qualify Lord. This is, this works for me. The weak. I'm gonna read a couple of stories. I have a couple of testimonies here. Whoa. I have to make this one work. There you go. I have from three different guys in history. So I'm gonna read a couple of them. To give us a little bit of idea of what I mean by the spirit of prayer. And I'm gonna talk about this more in the days to come. The first man is David Brainerd. Now David Brainerd, hang on let me, trying to manage this. David Brainerd, let me see, page what, 58, okay. Was one of the great intercessors in church history. In terms of, it's publicized. I've read The Life of David Brainerd. It's only six font here. So it's one of those real ancient books. I can't even see it. But The Life of David Brainerd. I began to read as a young man in my early 20s. 20, it doesn't matter. But I was inspired by a preacher, Leonard Ravenhill, used to talk about David Brainerd on his tapes. And I go, who is this David Brainerd guy? And he said the most, one of the most powerful examples of prayer in history. And I thought, well, I got to figure out who this guy is. And I went to the library and Xeroxed a really old, old book on The Life of David Brainerd. He died about 1725, 26, something like that. 1720s. And here's the interesting, he died at 29 years old. And his ministry of intercession was from about age 21 to 29. And he is, his story is told. I mean, there's so many powerful preachers from the 1700s on that were inspired by The Life of David Brainerd. John Wesley, who you know that started the Methodist church and the great, first great awakening that spread across the world. He mandated all of his preachers read The Life of David Brainerd. And so many revivals are traced back to David Brainerd. But I'm going to read just a little bit about his experiences. It says here, on April 19th, he says, I set apart this day for fasting and prayer to God for his grace. I began to plead with God for divine presence. And suddenly I felt the power of intercession for precious immortal souls. God enabled me supernaturally to agonize in prayer. I was quite wet with perspiration, though I was in the shade under the influence of a cool wind. My soul was drawn out very much for the world, for the multitude of souls. I think I had more enlargement of heart for sinners than I even had in prayer for the church. I felt as though I could spend my entire life in such glorious and powerful cries for the lost. I enjoyed a sense of sweetness in communion with my Savior as I gave myself to prayer. I think I never in my life felt such entire wingedness from this world. I never felt so resigned to God than when I'm under the power of prayer. This day was my 24th birthday. I wanted to wear my life out for God and his glory. I had so much fervency given to me in intercession. I enjoyed a sweetness of power of prayer for the lost that I'd never known before. I'd spent two hours in secret duties. He's talking about prayer. I was enabled, more than ordinary, to agonize for immortal souls. Though it was early in the morning, I've skipped a couple days. Though it was early in the morning, the sun was scarcely shining at all. My body was completely wet with sweat. I felt the power of God to press for the meekness and the calmness of God to break in upon those that needed to know his name and salvation. At night, I was exceedingly melted with divine love. I had such feelings of the blessedness of the upper world. He goes on and on. Now, you might read that and say, oh man, that seems really cool or maybe even a little exaggerated. But the life of David Brainerd is characterized by the negative. That's one reason I quit giving his life to young people because if his biography is 300 pages, 200 of the pages, he talks about his sin and his barrenness. And so it's so negative that you've got to find the positive in it because in the Puritan mindset in the days of old, they were really into that. So there is no exaggeration in this. He was so much more focused upon his barrenness and his weakness in the book that when he has these moments of breakthrough, you've never seen anything like it before. Anyway, I'm going to continue. It's a supernatural power. What happened in his life on the back end of these meetings? What happened the day after these intercessory meetings was nothing short of the book of Acts with the power of God. He was a missionary to the Native Americans that were just tucked away in the mountains and the hills in the 1700s. And he would go through an interpreter and preach to them and the power of God would descend upon these Native American tribes. There's nothing like it in the history of America in terms of the power of God. The numbers were small but the power was unprecedented. He goes on and he said, a couple of days, it's a month later, he goes, I'd spent this day in fasting and prayer. I had little power and little power in prayer earlier today. But near the middle of the afternoon, suddenly God broke in and enabled me with power to wrestle ardently in intercession for my absent friends. And just as it was that night, the Lord visited me again marvelously in the power of prayer. I think my soul never was in such agony before under the power of the Holy Spirit. I felt no restraint at all. I felt the treasures of divine grace were opened up to my heart. I wrestled under the authority of God for my friends who were absent. I wrestled for the ingathering of souls who did not know the Lord. I wrestled for the multitudes of poor unbelievers that were distant from God. I had such agony that from half an hour at noon until it was near dark, I had labored. My body was wet with sweat throughout the whole day and the afternoon. And yet it seemed as though I had wasted the whole day on nothing but this. It came to me later that night that as my dear Savior bled drops of blood for souls, surely it was good that I could sweat natural for them. I had ardent longings for God that day. And the power of God broke in. And again, I'm not giving the examples of the power of God that broke in, but just a little peek at the experiences that He had. The point being, there was a supernatural activity of the Holy Spirit that would break in upon Him. I'm going to end with this, is that we're laboring for a spirit of prayer. And that spirit of prayer has not been released upon us. Just a little here, little there. But I know we're in the right position. We're in the right place and we're doing the right thing. We don't have a lack of the spirit of prayer because I think that we've thrown off the invitation God has given us. I believe there's a timing in it. I believe we're postured and we're positioned right. But there's more that God has for us. It's not going to be this way. And can we hang in there till the end? No. There's going to be a breaking in of power upon the messengers. There's going to be a breaking in of power upon the singers and the musicians and the intercessors. There's going to be a breaking in of power upon the prophets and those that are praying for the sick. And there's going to be such an invasion of the authority of God upon us. That's what we're about. That's what we're laboring for. Honestly, that's what the resurrection is about on this side of the grave. Entering into this reality. And though on Easter Sunday morning is what we do on every day. We want to celebrate the resurrection. But not just the fact of it. That's a good thing to celebrate in and of itself. But because of the fact of it we want to commit ourselves to live in the fruit of it. Yes, the fact of it is worthy of celebration. Forever we'll celebrate the fact of it. But I want to contend, I want us to be a people and we're doing it. Where we fight to enter into the fruit of the resurrection. We're not just celebrating it. We're contending for the fruit of it now to break through in this time. Amen. Let's stand. For more free downloads from Mike Bickle, please visit MikeBickle.com