Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of the forerunner ministry in preparing believers for the return of the Lord, drawing from Isaiah 40, which prophesies a voice crying in the wilderness to prepare the way for God. He explains that forerunners are called to help people respond rightly to both unprecedented revival and judgment, which will occur in the end times. Bickle encourages the church to strengthen their spiritual identity and focus, as many will be called to this ministry of mercy to guide others through the coming challenges. He highlights the importance of deep preparation and understanding of God's word to effectively communicate His message in a time of confusion and fear. Ultimately, the forerunner ministry is about making clear the heart of God and connecting people to Him as the bridegroom.

Okay, let's go ahead and turn to Isaiah chapter 40. Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. We ask you, Lord, to release the authority of your word in even the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Lord, I ask you to release the spirit of wisdom and revelation even now in Jesus' name, in the releasing of your heart to your people. Amen and amen. Well, tonight I'm going to continue where I left off last week, talking on the forerunner ministry. Because IHOP's, one of our primary callings, not our only calling, but one of our primary callings is to minister in the forerunner spirit, to prepare people for the unique dynamics of the generation of the Lord returning. And I believe we're in a season where we need to strengthen our sense of spiritual identity and focus, that we know what we're about. We're forerunners, we know what forerunners do, we know why God's raising them up, and we settle the issue that that's a significant part of our mandate here in the IHOP world, the IHOP family. One of the most important and definitive scriptures in the Bible on the forerunner spirit, on the forerunner ministry, is Isaiah 40. This is one of the big ones. Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 40 verse 3, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Now pay attention to verse 5, for the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh, just talking about all the nations of the earth, will see it together. In other words, Isaiah chapter 40, the main forerunner passage, I mean there's quite a few of them, but this would be the central one. This passage is actually talking about the generation of the second coming of Jesus. God's going to raise up men and women that cry out in the wilderness, they prepare the people to respond rightly to the Lord in the unique dynamics that happen in the generation the Lord returns. They build a highway for God. Now paragraph C, we know the passage in John 1 where John the Baptist said this passage related to him, but we have to understand it clearly. John did not say that he fulfilled Isaiah 40 completely, and actually John was only a down payment, only a partial fulfillment of Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah 40 actually describes the forerunner ministry in the generation the Lord returns, not the generation that the Lord appeared the first time. However, the Holy Spirit allowed John to find himself as a down payment and a partial fulfillment of a much bigger fulfillment in the generation the Lord would return. So when you read Isaiah 40, don't write it off as John, but rather we look at John as a model, as a token, as a down payment of that which will be happening on a global level in the generation the Lord returns. So we really need Isaiah 40 for this hour and to form our own thinking and to be inspired and directed by what the Holy Spirit spoke to Isaiah. Paragraph D, now how do forerunners prepare the way of the Lord? Because forerunners are messengers. They're preparing the way of the Lord. They're making a highway for the Lord. They prepare the way of the Lord by preparing the people to respond right to the Lord. That's how they prepare the way of the Lord. They prepare the way of the Lord by preparing people to respond right. And how do they prepare the people to respond right? By making known what God's going to do in that generation and by making known how we're supposed to respond to what He's going to do. And the Lord's going to do two primary things in the generation He returns. He's going to release the greatest revival, an unprecedented revival, a revival that's going to go far beyond the book of Acts, and He's going to release the greatest season or period of judgment ever known in history. So it's an unprecedented revival never seen before, power like it's never been seen, and judgment. Now these two large categories of God's activity, we have to prepare the people to respond right to the Lord by convincing them from the Word of God these two huge realities, the intensity of the positive, the revival, and the intensity of the negative, the judgments are going to happen. Now God raises up forerunners as a ministry of mercy to the multitudes. Many of you have a forerunner calling and you must understand that this, the very fact that God has called you is a statement of His mercy to multitudes that many of you will affect directly and indirectly. And the reason it's mercy to the multitudes is that God is going to cause forerunners to make clear, to make sense of what's going to happen, the intense things are going to happen before they happen. The positive and the negative. And the reason is that when these intense activities begin to happen, paragraph E, people tend to lose perspective and they tend to lose objectivity in the midst of the intensity of what's unfolding. Now the judgment and the revival, both of them reveal and express the love of God and express the wisdom of God. However, when people are in the intensity of the negative as well as the intensity even of the positive, they lose sight of the wisdom and the love of God in it and they get tempted to become offended at the Lord. But what the Lord does is that before the intensity happens, He raises up men and women in many ways through song and drum and writing and preaching, in many ways we'll look at in a minute, and they declare the intense things are going to happen so that people before the intensity, they can open their Bible and if they can find it in the Bible, in the, you know, in the kind of the easy pace of pre-revival, pre-judgment in terms of its global dimensions, and then they can set their heart, they can commit themselves to participate with the Lord in a positive way. Before the intensity begins, they go, yeah, that makes sense. That's the love of God. That's the wisdom of God. That's in the Bible. Yes, I'm in. I'm gonna do it. I'm with you, Lord. And then some years pass and then when those events happen, they're already prepared and what happens is they participate with the Lord instead of resisting the Lord's work and it brings great blessing to their life. Because if they wait, which multitudes of the nations will not have any idea of what's happening and when the good and the bad take place, they'll draw back in confusion and fear and they'll lose perspective. They'll lose objectivity and they'll actually be offended at the Lord instead of open to the Lord and participating with Him. Paragraph F says we're building a highway for the Lord. It's an information highway. It really is. It's a revelation highway. It's a highway built on telling people the information of the unique things that God is doing and the way that God wants us to respond. And when the people receive that information, that revelation, then they agree with the Lord and that's the highway the Lord builds because, I mean, that's the highway the forerunners build because God travels on the highway of the voluntary agreement with His people. Meaning when God wants to heal the sick, He doesn't make you heal the sick. He says, hey, I want to heal the sick and if you believe my word, I'll use you. And we'll say, okay, I want to be a part of that. The Lord says, I want to release my judgments through intercession and worship or I want to stop them and draw them back because prayer releases judgment as well as hinders and draws back and stops and minimizes the judgment of God. It does both. And the Lord says, I want to use you. Do you want to be a part of this? Yes. Well, we have to be in agreement with Him before we can participate with Him. But we can't be in agreement with Him if we're offended at Him and we're confused and filled with fear. And so God wants millions, hundreds of millions to understand ahead of time. And when they say yes, then that, then their agreement is the highway that God travels on. That's the highway that God releases His goodness through, the agreement of His people. Now, what forerunners do is they make sense of what's going to happen in the future before the Holy Spirit releases it. They proclaim now what is going to be emphasized just around the corner. Now, when I say just around the corner, it might be 10 or 20 years, but it's just a minute to the Lord. We are emphasizing now, we are proclaiming now what the Holy Spirit is going to be emphasizing and releasing in just a minute. So that multitudes can hear it, find it in the Bible, agree with it, resolve to obey God in it. And so they're not taken by surprise when it happens. And then they're prone, then they're prepared to agree instead of resist in fear and to draw back in confusion from the Holy Spirit's work. So forerunners will bring new paradigms, a new understanding to a generation of what God has said by the Spirit of the Word He's going to do in that generation. Now, the passage here in Jeremiah 12, verse 5, it's a well-known one. Jeremiah said, if you've run with the horsemen, I mean the footmen, and they've wearied you, how are you going to stay, how are you going to stand with the horses? In other words, if you're running alongside just another guy and you wear out, how are you going to run aside a horse? In other words, if you can't enter in when the pace is slow, how are you going to enter in when the intensity of the situation of the end times builds? In other words, now's the time to begin to enter in with understanding and clarity. If in the land of peace you get worn out, before the intensity begins you're all burned out and offended and worn out, what are you going to do when the floods hit? In other words, this is the hour, we're running with the footmen, we're running, it's the pace is a lot easier to run alongside of a man than to run alongside of a horse. Horse goes a lot faster, can go a lot longer. It's a lot easier to comprehend these things in the time of peace before the floods of persecution, the floods of judgment, as well as the floods of revival break forth. We think revival will be great. No, that's not totally true. It is true and not entirely true. Revival is going to be glorious, but it's going to mess a whole lot of things up. Because see, we're used to Jesus visiting us a little here or there. We're not used to the idea of Him moving in. Because when Jesus visits, that's good to get blessed, a few people get slain in the spirit, a couple of people get healed, a few get filled in the spirit, it's kind of cool, like wow, a few people shook and moved, wow, the Lord visited a little bit. Wasn't that neat? I can't wait till the next meeting. But when the Lord moves in, He moves all the furniture around and requires we live different. And when the Lord moves in, I'm talking about His manifest power, then like in Acts chapter 5, liars get struck dead at the communion table when the Lord moves in. So we think, well, revival's great. Well, you know, right now it's, you know, because we're not quite ready, it's better if the Lord visits occasionally instead of moves in fully. So don't think of revival as just totally the positive and judgment's the negative, because revival will bring a lot of disruption. It really will upset things. Paragraph G, now the forerunner ministry doesn't make sense until the intense events begin, but the forerunners won't be prepared if they wait until the intense events begin to unfold. The forerunners are getting ready a decade or two before the intense events take place. You can't wait, in Noah's ark, you can't wait to say yes to the ark building program after it begins to rain. You gotta say yes during the building project to get on the boat. So the Lord's calling forerunners now, but there isn't an intense revival. I'm talking about the book of Acts and beyond, and there's not intense judgment yet, so a lot of people are going, I'm not really into the forerunner thing. I'll get into it when the intensity begins to happen. That's like saying, I'll jump in an agreement with Noah after the rain starts. When I see it rain, Noah, I'm on your team, but the boat's already, it's already shot, meaning it's difficult, it's difficult to enter into the forerunner ministry after it begins. The forerunners are going deep a decade or two ahead of time. That's what's going on. The wisdom of Noah's ark, of building it, is not clear until it begins to rain, and then it's really clear how wise it was to build that ark. I mean, think about Noah and the ark. 120 years Noah built an ark. Do you know how long it would be to build one project, 120 years? Number one, there's never been a boat that's ever been built. He's the first one to build a boat. So the neighbors, what's that? It's a boat. Okay, what does a boat do? A boat floats when the water is real deep. Okay, well, we're not close to water. Well, we're gonna be, because it's gonna rain. What's rain? Because see, up until Noah's time, God watered the ground before Noah from, he watered the earth from the ground up. It had never rained, ever, not once. Oh, so we're gonna have the boat so it can float when the water gets high because the rain's coming from the sky. Good, Noah. Noah, you know, you didn't really pay attention in science class when you're a kid. Water doesn't come from above, it comes from below. Besides that, there's no way to store the water up there. It can't come from the sky. Water coming from the sky was an inconceivable concept. It was completely unprecedented. Now, you got Noah's sons. Now, where I can feel the tension is with the daughter-in-laws when the sons went home to their family for dinnertime for the holidays. For real, I mean, this is cute, but it's real. It really happened. Well, honey, what's your, is your husband still working with his dad with the boat? It's never been a boat before because the water's gonna get deep. It's gonna float because it's coming from the sky. You know, it has been 80 years. Is there any, are we getting close? At 80 years, they're still 40 years out. Noah is cutting wood and assembling it together for 120 years. I mean, I can't fathom it. It made no sense until one day when the rain started. And everybody wanted to vote for Noah to be captain of the team. Everybody agreed with Noah after the rain. Beloved, we can't wait for the intensity of the positive and the negative to become, to go deep as forerunners. We have to go deep now. We have to get the message clear. We have to get connected to the Lord now. We need a decade or two to go deep or we won't have a bold, clear, powerful declaration of the truth. We won't be sure or clear about them. And there'll be many voices that are mocking, but if we have clarity, we can be bold. But we can't be clear if we don't take time to go deep. The Lord's not gonna wave His hand, give everybody the same dream the same night, and He downloads us, you know, with a, you know, 100 gigabyte of information. We wake up the next day, we got all the verses. No, we're gonna get them day by day, line by line, precept upon precept, and it's gonna take time to go deep in this message. It doesn't make sense until the intense events begin, unless the Holy Spirit's drawing you. Beloved, God is calling us as a ministry, as a spiritual family. I've called you to be forerunners. I want you to go deep ahead of time. I want you to embrace the wisdom of Noah, even though the others say, you're talking about things that have never happened before. We're not talking about a revival equal to the book of Acts. We're talking about far beyond the book of Acts. It's never happened before. We're not talking about judgments like the Old Testament. We're talking about the book of Revelation, far beyond any other season in history. There's never been anything like it, so why should we prepare for it? The Lord says, I'll get my forerunners to go deep, and though there will be, I'm trusting God, there'll be a couple million forerunners. I mean, nobody knows the number, and that's a large number, but it's a very small percent of the body of Christ. It'll be a fraction, a fraction of one percent of the body of Christ, and God's called us to do that. He's given us an identity. He's given us a mandate to do that as a ministry, and if He's called a thousand or ten thousand ministries, it would still be a fraction of one percent, but we are going to go after this. We're going to stay steady. We're going to go deep in the Word. We're going to get clarity that will bring boldness in the time of the intensity. Paragraph H, forerunners are messengers. They have a very specific message related to the end times and the end time revival. They're preachers, but not most forerunners are preachers. I believe most of them will not be preachers on a pulpit. Maybe some tens of thousands will be, but there'll be several million forerunners that are not preachers on a platform. They'll be evangelists, artists, singers, musicians, actors, writers. As I said last week, with the technology and the writing and the YouTube kind of technology where everybody can grab something on a film for 60 seconds in just, you know, a moment's time, and in the next 10 or 20 years that technology is going to be so much more advanced. There'll be a 90-year-old grandma that will write an email or will have the little statement on the, you know, on the camera, on the telephone, you know, or tell her cell phone camera that a city or a nation will hear it and it will change them. So don't say I'm not a preacher, so I'm not going to go deep in the message. You may have the email. You may have the three-minute clip that goes around the world that changes an entire nation. You may be sitting there right there with a couple of friends and someone's taping, well, here's what the Lord showed me, and it may be the word of clarity that brings understanding. Instead of that city or nation drawing back in fear and confusion, they have clarity and they stand in boldness and say, Lord, we're with you. We're on your side. It makes sense. You are a God of love and a God of wisdom. It doesn't seem like a contradiction because that's what the devil is going to be saying. It's a contradiction to God's love and God's wisdom. Well, there'll be media, forerunners, marketplace, intercessors, those that are in the prayer room singing and praying that the revival and the judgments are released or the judgments are stopped. Those are forerunners in the intercession. There's the discipleship, the one-on-one discipleship. I believe that most of the forerunners will be, will disciple people one-on-one, the vast majority, whether in the church, the marketplace, the campus, the home. I believe some of the most powerful forerunners will be moms training two and three children in the home or five or ten, whatever. I really believe this. So don't think of the forerunner ministry as only a pulpit ministry. That's a, that's a really wrong concept. Top of page two. Now, I went through this last week and we have the notes on the website and I'm going to stay a couple weeks in a row on the forerunner calling because we need to strengthen this in our, in our foundations and our sense of identity and focus as a ministry, not only as a ministry collectively but as individuals. We need to strengthen this clarity of our forerunner calling. The seven theological premises of the forerunner ministry, we looked at took a few minutes on each one. I'll just take, I'll be real brief on them. Premise number one, the unique dynamics in the generation of the Lord returns. Very, very unique dynamics. It will be the most people in history experiencing the greatest manifestations of power, both gods and the devils. It will require, I mean, it's not an accident that the most people in history will be on the planet. They say, those that do these studies, that within the span of one lifetime, 70, 80 years, in that window of time, 70, 80 years, there will be more people alive in that 80 year period than all of human history added up together. That's not an accident. And there'll be a greater demonstrations of power, good and bad demonstrations of power. The devil and Jesus will be demonstrating power. And beloved, it will take a unique focus, a unique understanding and a unique preparation for that hour. God's raising up people 10, 20 years, 30 years ahead of time, who knows the time frame. He's getting forerunners ready now because forerunners aren't raised up in one day. You know, you've heard the statement, I've heard this preacher say this, that a king can be anointed in one day, but it takes a generation to raise up a deliverer. Takes a generation, it takes decades to raise up a deliverer for a nation. A king is anointed in a day, but a deliverer is formed over decades. It's true, John the Baptist, 20 years in the wilderness for two years of public ministry. And he thought it was a brilliant expression of God's wisdom. He was not offended by that. 20 years of feeding on the word for two years of ministry that he dies. Lord says, yeah, but those two years, the unique dynamics of the first coming of the Lord, we had to have somebody with clarity to make sense of what was happening to the nation of Israel. Second premise, the revelation of the Father. Third premise, three faces, three facets of Jesus' beauty, three faces of His personality, a passionate bridegroom, a powerful king, a righteous judge. Those are the three, bridegroom, king, and judge, three faces, three facets of His personality that will be very, very important to come together. Premise four, three unprecedented activities of the Holy Spirit, globally restoring the first commandment to first place, the great harvest of a billion plus, and the judgments, releasing the judgments of the book of Revelation. I mean, there's never been anything happened in history like those three things happening simultaneous. The fifth premise, this is important for us right now. Fifth premise is really what I'm really focused on. A premise is God is raising up the forerunners ahead of time in the wilderness. It takes a clear sense of mandate and identity to stay focused for a couple decades to get ready. One of the premises of the forerunner ministry, it takes years to develop a forerunner. Now a lot of people will kind of jump on the bandwagon at the end and help a little bit, but God's looking for men and women that have depth of clarity so they have a boldness that will be necessary for the hour. The boldness, and I'm not talking about a boldness in terms of their delivery or their personality, I'm talking about their unwavering. Again, I may be a 90-year-old grandma with her email. She won't back away. It's clear and it's bold. Well, honey, there's no way that's going to happen. That's never happened before. I don't care. God said it. I believe it, and it will happen. So the fifth premise is the fact it takes years to raise up forerunners. So forerunners must be focused. They must have a vision that the majority do not have, that the multitudes are unaware and unconcerned, but the forerunners are clear and focused ahead of time. That's one of the premises. Premise six, they must live a fasted lifestyle. It's not enough to get the message clear. Fasting, and there's five different types of fasting in the book that we have in the bookstore on the rewards of fasting that myself and Dana Candler wrote, talk five types of fasting. It's not only food, but it includes food. I want to encourage you to check that out. Fasting accelerates our ability to receive more. And the fact the forerunners are aware of how much is in the end time prophecies about the end time prayer movement. The forerunners are focused on the end time prayer movement, building it, not just attending it, not just praying in their personal life. They are building the prayer movement across the earth. There is more information in the word of God about the end time prayer movement than most activities that are going to happen in the end times. I mean, it's not number one on the list, but it's high up on the list. It's like I love to tell the potential students and interns at conferences, we have info meetings, that the house of prayer is like a greenhouse where the young tender plants can grow in an optimum environment of a house of prayer. And it's the house of prayer environment. I don't mean ours. I'm talking about in general, the house of prayer environment that is the optimum environment for quick growth. Forerunners, forerunners are calling and helping the house of prayer movement to be built. It's critical that it's built. I'm not just talking about they pray. That's part of the fasted lifestyle. They're actually as a part of their mandate in ministry, they're encouraging and building the house of prayer in the earth. I believe that's a premise of the forerunner ministry. Okay, let's look at Roman number three, top of page three. John the Baptist is life. John the Baptist is the clearest model of the end-time forerunner because John was the one the Holy Spirit identified with Isaiah 40. You know, prepare the way of the Lord, a voice in the wilderness. John was identified with that passage by the Lord. But that passage, remember, it's about the end-time forerunners. So the very fact that God identified John with a passage that was yet for the future tells you that he is a model from God's point of view. God intentionally wants us to understand John as a model of the end-time forerunner because the end-time forerunner is Isaiah 40 and John was a down payment of it. So we're to look at John's life and say that is what we are to understand is the message and the lifestyle of the forerunner ministry. Paragraph B, Jesus called John the burning and the shining lamp. Amazing that his heart was burning. His heart was on fire for God. He was engaged with God and his ministry lamp was shining, meaning it was clear. It was expelling darkness and confusing ideas. So many today want to be politically correct. They want to be popular in ministry and what God wants is men and women that can shine clear and confront wrong ideas with bright light. He was a bright light. He was not politically correct. He was not concerned with that. He was concerned with it being right, not being popular. And so John, Jesus brings together, John had, he brings together John's lifestyle, the burning heart with the uncompromising clarity in his ministry, a shining light, a bright light. There was no ambiguity in what he said. It was clear what he meant. He meant what he said and he said what he meant. He wasn't hedging. He wasn't hedging himself to hopefully open a door for popularity. You know, some people are just real bold, but they have a wrong spirit. John's heart was on fire with the Holy Spirit, engaged with God and he was a bright and shining light. We can't separate the life from the message. They have to go together and Jesus brought them both together when he affirmed John. It says in paragraph C, top of page 3, Matthew 11, Jesus said, nobody obeyed God more than John. There was no man greater than John. There wasn't one. No man obeyed God more consistently than John did and no man prepared more diligently than John. Why is this important to us? That there was not another man greater than John because John's wisdom can be trusted. The wisdom of his message and the wisdom of his lifestyle can be trusted because Jesus looked at his wisdom, looked at his lifestyle, his message, said his life was burning, his message was clear and then called him the greatest man ever born of a woman. Beloved, we can trust his example to follow it. That's the point. But beware, following John the Baptist will not be romantic. Like, wow, I'm gonna be like John the Baptist. Well, read the whole story before you put it, put that poster up in your room. I want to be like John the Baptist. Do you know how John the Baptist lived and do you know how he died? Well, I want to be famous like John the Baptist. I don't want to live like John or die like John. I want to be famous like John. Well, that's not the same thing as being like John the Baptist. Look what Jesus said about John the Baptist. Israel, they liked him for a while. He only ministered about two years, 20 years of preparation for two years of ministry and Jesus said he was the greatest man that ever lived. Beloved, it's not how long your ministry, it's not how many people receive it because John had a relatively small number of people that even received his ministry. I mean, John made it hard. He didn't have the conference in the main city on the internet. They had to walk five miles out in the desert, bring their food, bring the kids, bring their chairs, five miles in the heat to hear him preach. He wasn't overly concerned with crowds. I mean, he made it pretty hard to get to. Well, John, why don't you just go right in the middle of Jerusalem and just kind of make things better and kind of get your, you know, your mailing list getting going better and I'm for all that kind of stuff, but I'm telling you John's ministry wasn't very big and it wasn't very long and the people who received him for a season turned on him. Jesus said here in John 11, Matthew 11, 18, it says the people ended up saying John had a demon. At the end of the, at the end of the, of the story, they, I'm talking about Israel that was looking for the Messiah, they ended up saying John was demonized and he was dangerous to the purpose of God. So if you want to go the John the Baptist route, there will be significant stigma within the community of God's people because it was the community of God's people that said John was demonized. The people that were not of the people of God, they didn't even care about people being, they didn't have an opinion about demonized. These were the community of God who said he was demonized. The religious people, but John said, but the Lord said, hang in there with John because the wisdom of his lifestyle will be justified one day when he stands before me, it will be clear that John had a right message and a right lifestyle. Jesus said in verse 19, wisdom will be justified by our children, which means John's lifestyle will be openly vindicated by his long-term fruit, his children. That's what that proverb means. His long-term fruit, meaning what God thinks about it at the judgment seat of Christ, then we will see if John was wise or not and God will vindicate him. Jesus said, I personally will vindicate that man on the last day. That's in essence what Jesus was saying because Jesus is the judge on the last day and John, he already got his sentence. I'm going to vindicate you. I'm going to justify you, John. They said your life was too fanatical, didn't make sense. They said you were demonized. It was unbalanced. People didn't respond to it. The political arena rejected you. Jesus says, I vindicate you and I will openly declare it on the last day that you were a wise man in agreement with my heart. And of course, John was killed at about 32 years old. Paragraph E, it says in John 1 verse 22, the priest and the Levites came to him and said, who are you? What do you say about yourself? Very key question. What does the model forerunner say about himself? The man who is the picture of the Isaiah 40 end time intercessors, what does he say? He goes, I'm a voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord as the prophet Isaiah has said. Paragraph E, I believe that John knew from his youth, he knew from his youth that the Bible mandated he was prepared in the wilderness. He says, I'm a voice crying in the wilderness. The wilderness is the place, the voice, the forerunner is prepared, the wilderness. He knew it was in the Bible and the prophet Isaiah, he goes, I know the Bible we're talking about when he's 12, 13, 14, 15, 18 years old. He says, I know I, my preparation season to be a voice is in the wilderness. Beloved, we have to be clear that the Bible backs up that forerunners are prepared with intense seasons of preparation. And there'll be everyone, everyone, you'll have from every corners of the religious community and the church and outside will find a reason for you not to go deep in preparation. And the biggest reason is that if you go deep, they might think that you think they're supposed to go deep. And more times than not, it's not that they care about you doing it because they don't want you suggesting that they're supposed to do what you're doing. I've learned to tell people this is what I'm doing and I don't think you're supposed to do it. Oh, okay, good. Well, I can hear it a lot better. But when I used to tell them what I'm doing, they thought, oh, you think I'm supposed to do that? So that means I'm lesser than because I don't do. And it was so much confusion because they felt judged because people feel pressure when others break out and break open into deeper things of God. Breaks pressure. They go, ah, are you suggesting I'm supposed to go deeper? Are you suggesting I'm wrong? Is that what you're doing by your lifestyle? Are you really thinking you're right and I'm wrong? Is that what's really going on? I'm not even thinking about you. I'm thinking about going deep in God. I'm not thinking about you. Paragraph two. One crying in the wilderness. He knew his identity in ministry was to be prepared in the wilderness of fasting and prayer. The forerunner is always prepared in the wilderness. Always. We'll get to that in a moment, what the wilderness is. John said he makes straight the way of the Lord. The word straight is the word, I mean, the idea is clear. Make clear. Now, this is one of the most difficult things about John's life. Well, the wilderness thing is pretty intense. The make clear, that means no compromise. That means politically incorrect, it often is. Making it straight means making it clear. It's a lot easier to hedge these things. Now, I tell you, beloved, it's easy to be clear inside of this context. We can be bold and clear here, but it's harder to be bold and clear out there. The Lord's telling me, and he's telling you, get enough clarity where you're clear when you say it. Make it clear. And it's not just, don't be confused, like, get your notes clear. There's a bigger, there's more weight on it than that. It means don't draw back and make it softer than it's supposed to be. Doesn't mean you're harsh, but it means we say what it says. That's what forerunners do. They make it clear. They make it straight. I look at that, and I go, ugh. I remember, you know, telling the story that I'm in the van with the Knesset members, you know, the Israeli government. So, I'm in a big meeting in New York City. We're honoring Israel. We have all these chief rabbis and authority figures from Israel, the Knesset, the government. They're over, and it just so happens the way that the travel arrangement works, because we're at this hotel. We're all going to the big place, the big meeting hall. It's a fancy kind of night, and all the dignitaries are there. And so, they put me in the van. There's one empty spot. I'm traveling alone. There's six Knesset members and me. They all speak Hebrew. They're all part of the government, like the Senate of essence. They speak English. None of them, as far as I know, none of them are believers. I don't think. It was pretty clear. I mean, it didn't seem like there were any believers in that car. I'll say it that way. Pretty free spirit. Some of the things they were talking about doing after the meetings and what they were bragging about was clear. Some of it, they said in Hebrew. Some of it, they said in English. I went, whoa. So, we're there driving. Now, I'm going back and forth to three, four meetings. We have a couple dinners, and for the next two days, I go on every meeting, and it's about a 15, 20 minutes back and forth, me and them. So, they asked me, and the only guy, stranger in the van, what's your name? Mike. Hi, Mike. What do you do? What do I do? I run a bookstore. Well, I do. I'm in property development. We have Hearn Hut. I'm into education. We got a couple of Bible schools, music academies. I'm running a coffee shop. I mean, we're really entrepreneurs out in the marketplace. Bookstores. They said, what do you do? Unbelieving, calloused to what I believe, and I told them what I did, and they went, oh. Well, the guy said, the main guy, I'm not a religious guy. Then he asked the question, what do you think is going to happen in Israel in the future? I go, who? Who? Me? Me? Yeah, haven't thought much about that. No, I didn't say that, but I thought, where's my notes? Where's my boldness? Where's? Hi, bro. How you doing? Tell me about your family. Now, what do you think is going to happen in Israel in the future? Well, I'll give you the answer at another time. Well, I put a little out there. Should have said more. Okay, paragraph F. Let's put it this way. I am committed to do better next time. How's that for an answer? Okay, you're with me. Now, I told him a few things. I didn't tell him everything, but I remember in that situation, I remember feeling like, whoa, I didn't expect that. I remember the same thing happened. I sat with a U.S. senator one time, and he asked me boldly at a private time. He goes, what's going to happen in Israel from the Bible's point of view? And he was talking real positive about everything getting better and how peace was coming. It's going to work. And he said, what is going to happen? I didn't expect that question. And again, same thing. I'd said some of what was going to happen, but I had a whole lot more handouts I didn't give him. But I remember just those two experiences, that it's easy not to make it as straight as it needs to be. That's the point. Now, I'm normally the hero of the stories I tell about myself, but in these two, I'm not, I'm not the hero of the stories. Paragraph F. God wants forerunners to be a voice, not just an echo. A voice. He wants us to be a voice, not just to repeat what others say. It's okay to be an echo for a while, but a voice are the ones that believe it and go deep when nobody's watching. They stay true to it. An echo, we just repeat what someone else is saying, which is okay. I've echoed other people's truths, and I echo truths today. I hear something from someone else, I echo it. That's cool. But I want it to be real. And a lot of times, while I'm echoing it, it becomes real in the process of telling it. So I'm not, I'm not against echo. So much of my ministry has been an echo. It's been repeating what I've heard, and that's good. I just think that's being teachable. But the Lord says, I want more. I want it to get a hold of you to where if everybody else denies it, you will stay true to it. Four applications of the wilderness in the Bible. The wilderness talks about a posture of heart. There's four complete distinct applications of the wilderness for when it says, I'm in the wilderness. But the one that John is talking about, it's, it's a wilderness lifestyle. It's the lifestyle of prayer and fasting in the Word. Misty sings a song that the way of God is in the wilderness. And it means in this first sense. Now you can have a worldwide ministry and be in the middle of everything, but live a wilderness lifestyle. And that's where the voice comes out of the wilderness, the lifestyle of the wilderness. But then there's another type of wilderness. It's the spiritual condition of a church or a city or a nation. The dryness before a breakthrough. Now Israel was in a wilderness of dryness needing a breakthrough, while John the Baptist was in a, a lifestyle of wilderness confronting their wilderness spiritual condition. Then there's the wilderness, the difficult circumstances, unusual pain, a season of pain before the promise of God is released. You can speak of the wilderness that way. All these four are very distinct. And then there's the actual geographic location of the wilderness. So when John was raised in the wilderness, I mean the voice, it means several things. It means number one, he lived in fasting and prayer, the posture of heart. Number two, Israel as a nation was in a wilderness time and the voice was in the wilderness, even if he was geographically in the middle of Jerusalem, he was speaking in a wilderness season of history. He was still in the wilderness. His difficult season, he was in prison. The voice was still sounding forth even though he was in prison. He did not back up. He was in the wilderness and that resets. And he lived in the Judean desert in the wilderness. So in all four ways the voice came out and sustained in the wilderness context. Top of page four. Last couple moments here. John's view of his life and ministry and his paradigm of Jesus. He, this is the most important verse. John talks about his own heart. It's the only time in the Bible he taught, he opens his heart and he talks about his heart. He said, he that has the bride is the bridegroom but the friend of the bridegroom stands and hears him. He rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This joy of mine is fulfilled. Now there's three basic themes going on in this passage and I have it laid out there and you can read it more in detail later. Theme number one, paragraph A. John is describing what Jesus felt emotionally. He says about Jesus, he who has the bride is the bridegroom. He's giving an insight into Jesus and how he felt. He said this Messiah, this messianic king is more than a king. He has more than power and authority over nations. He's more than a king. He is a bridegroom king because everybody knew the Messiah was a king. But the part that people were not clear about, he was more than a man with power. He was a man with deep feeling. He says number one, he has a bride. He has the bride. The bride was in Jesus's heart when he was ministering. The bride is in his heart now. We're not just talking about a king with power. We're talking about a king with deep feeling. And that's the paradigm of Jesus that the forerunner is communicating. He is a bridegroom. It's not just that he acts like a bridegroom where he goes to the wedding ceremony at the end of the age. Then once the wedding's over, he goes, hey, that was cool. Now let's get down to business. He didn't just act like a bridegroom. He didn't go to just a bridegroom ceremony. The core of his being, he is one forever. He has deep feelings forever. So this was a radical new paradigm of the messianic king. He's a bridegroom king. He has deep feelings about the one he's redeeming and leading. Like they thought, wow. Now it's not just interesting that John said it. John is clearly the model of the Isaiah 40 end time forerunners. All forerunners must have this reality of the tenderness of Jesus's heart for his people. He has them in his heart as a bride. Not just, he didn't just save them. They are a bride to him. And he isn't just attending a wedding. He is a bridegroom at the heart level forever. He never changes. Now John, paragraph B, he switches over to theme number two. He's going to describe his own ministry now. He's moving off of Jesus. Now he's talking about his own. He says, the friend of the bridegroom stands and hears him. He's going to talk about his ministry as a friend of the bridegroom. We're going to find out about his focus and his style of ministry. Then he's going to talk about his lifestyle. He stands and he hears. He calls himself a friend of the bridegroom. Now as a friend of the bridegroom, it means he's the best man in the wedding. So his focus of ministry is as the best man in the wedding. Now remember, the Jewish wedding would go ideally for seven straight days. They'd have a big celebration each night. And it ended at the final night. So it was a long ordeal. I mean, there's a whole lot involved. The friend of the bridegroom, his goal was to serve the bridegroom and the bride to make sure things went well so they could connect at the heart level. They were serving them to make things go well because the point of the friend of the bridegroom or the best man is to see that everything is moved out of the way, that they connect, that they receive what one another's embrace. This is a ministry focus and a ministry style. Friend of the bridegroom. We don't want a ministry where people are enamored with us. We want them enamored with him. I mean, what would a friend of the bridegroom be where he meets the bride on the side and tries to win her affections from the bridegroom? But a whole lot of ministries, they function this way. But the true forerunner ministry will be a friend of the bridegroom ministry. They have no interest in garnering the affections of the people for themselves. They are in it to connect them to him in love. You know, one of the things I've really cared about, and I've said it a time or two lately, but I'm just so proud in the right sense of this community. I've had people come over the years and one of the main statements I hear, people say I get touched by the Lord and this is good, but one of the big, I mean, I hear that a lot, but one of the statements I hear regularly from leaders, they come in and they go, I don't see any hype on the platform at all. It's amazing. Just nobody is up there, you know, with their little idiosyncrasies, their signature moves, their kind of stamp on things to be them and they're kind of their own. Everybody knows who they are and they stick out. I'm all for different personalities and all that styles and that kind of thing, but over the years it has been an amazing testimony of the people and mostly young people in this community. There is not a desire, whether preaching or the healing rooms and the prophecy teams are on the platform of the music, to make sure you're the center of attention. It's an amazing, it's a miracle because there's such excellence in this place on that. Here's our desire. They come in the meeting and it happens. A guy just told me today, it was beautiful, come in the meeting, no prayer room, they worship. They're there, you know, two o'clock, four o'clock, six o'clock, eight o'clock, a.m., p.m., doesn't matter, it's a couple hours, so they're on their way out and they're crying. The guy says, hey, who is the worship leader? Let me see, I don't really remember that one guy, gal. I don't know, you know, I was writing, journaling and crying and the Lord was touching me. I'm not sure who the worship leader was, but boy, that one guy really sang and that other gal and all that one, oh, I was so moved. I didn't really look up. I was so moved. I was so enthralled by the Lord. So when they go into the prophecy teams, they're not enamored or preoccupied with the prophet of God, but with the God of the prophet. They leave and they go to the parking lot, get in their car. I don't really remember who it was who said that really cool thing. All I know is my heart's on fire because I visited those people. That's the friend of the bridegroom spirit. It's, it's a, it's a grace of God the Lord has on us. I don't mean we can't excel more than, I don't want to overstate it, but it's an amazing reality. I, I just, I literally, I just, I see no hype. Now let me make this clear because I said this one time a year or two ago. A couple guys thought no hype meant they went comatose. They thought no hype meant if they had a heartbeat that somehow that was hype. No, no, I'm not meaning getting, you know, have no energy. That's not what hype means. It means trying to make something happen that draws attention to yourself. Man, we want energy and life. That's not hype. That's not hype. So a couple of them went comatose. They had to kind of like wake them up a little bit. I don't want to be hype. I go, yeah, but you're still supposed to be alive. Just don't draw attention to yourself. Do it with all your vigor, with all your energy. So that's not hype. So don't mix those two things up. It's talking about the focus and the motive and the style of so much that happens. It is a true friend of the bridegroom style. Now he goes on and talks about his, his dedication. He says, I stand and I hear him. To stand, as I said last week, we talked about this for a moment, to stand meant to stand in the presence of the Lord. The priest would stand before the Lord. It means this aggressive going after God. I will stand in the counsel of the Lord. I will be in the word. It doesn't mean standing versus sitting while you're in a prayer meeting. That's not the point, but it means this aggressive attentiveness we're talking about. John the Baptist was talking about his own life. He didn't mean he was standing that moment. He meant the last 20 years I've been standing before him, pressing in and the routine and the mundaneness of life. I've stayed pressing into him. So I've stood before him. Wow. What a statement to hear means. Jesus said that he, that has ears, let him hear it means to respond. Hearing in the new Testament means respond with follow through. And he says, I hear I've been responding. And then John goes on paragraph C, the final, he now he describes his joyful, emotional impact because he heard the voice of the bridegroom. He said, it's the bridegroom's voice that make, it gives me joy. Beloved, how do we hear the bridegroom's voice? Not just audibly. That's nice. You might hear the audible voice of the Lord once in your life, maybe more, but that's not what it means to hear the bridegroom's voice means that we have revelation of it. The primary way we get it through just the focusing on the subject of the bridegroom God, when we study the scripture, we read books, we study the scriptures, we hear songs, we, we are involved in the art and the drama around the subject of the bridegroom. And in that way we grow in revelation of his voice. And here's what John said. It's his voice. The voice of the bridegroom gave me joy. Now this is the most remarkable thing because he's living in the difficulty of a desert lifestyle. I'll just end with this. I mean, the Judean desert, how do you have joy there? No, for real. I remember I was all excited about John the Baptist. I was about 18 years old and I said, man, 40 days, I'm going to do it. I was in college, got a jug of water, told everybody. So of course, only so they could pray for me. I'm going to go out in the wilderness, 40 days, me and God, jug of water, blanket. It's awesome. They were, whoa. I marched out. Boom. It's great. Here I am, hour one, walking back and forth. Hour four, still walking. Okay. Hour five, I sit down. Hour eight, I'm still sitting on the rock. It hurts. Hour nine, I lay down. Hour 12, you know, a day or two, I'm hurting everywhere. How are you supposed to do this? Then it's hot. Mosquitoes are biting me. Forgot to bring the spray. Then it's nighttime, hot, mosquitoes, little noises around. I'm out in the woods like, uh-oh. Next day, feel rotten. I can't rest anywhere. Three days later, I'm bitten. I'm sweating. I'm dirty. I'm hurt. I'm sore from, I can't sit anywhere. I mean, you try to go out in just a raw wilderness. I came back, marching back in total defeat. Marching back from, well, it's 37 days ago. Oh, forget it. That was a, that was, must be the devil. That was warfare. So, a year or two later, I got cured of that bad experience and tried it again. Same thing. Mosquitoes, bugs, no fan. I said, man. So, when I read this verse that he rejoiced, I remember those two times in the wilderness. Man, what I, you know, I go, I like it, man, just at home, my recliner, little Starbucks, little fan, little air conditioning, little web stream, you know, my computer. Now, that's fasting, man. I mean, that's cruising in the wilderness. Anyway, let's stand. Beloved, the voice of the, the voice of the bridegroom can touch you in the wilderness of life or in the wilderness. I, this is the way our hearts will be engaged is the bridegroom God. Let's have the worship team come up. This is the answer. John found the answer. The wilderness is by engaging the God who is exhilarated in love with you. That's the way our spirit gets exhilarated. I'm going to invite anyone to come forward. You're saying two types of people. You're saying this is new, but I think this is who I am. I'm a forerunner. I don't know which one, the media, the preaching, the writing, the singing. I don't, marketplace. I don't know. I'm a forerunner. My heart says yes. I want to invite you to come up. First time where it's connected with you. Say, I want to identify myself with this. Then the second group is the people you've had a hold on this, but it's been a few years and somehow it slipped away. I don't mean you renounced it. It just kind of, you lost it, got off the screen. You're saying, no, I need to re-sign up to be a forerunner. And that's what this ministry is about. We are a forerunner ministry. I want to invite you to come up if you would. Come stand on these lines. I'm going to ask people in the room, as they're coming up, just come stand on the lines. Those of you that have been confirmed in your heart, you know this is your ministry, forerunner ministry. Say, no, I know it. I'm not where I want to be, but I know it's who, I know it's who I am. I want you to come up and pray. We're going to ask the Lord to release the grace of the forerunner. We want this thing to increase. Beloved, John was 10, 15, 20 years old. He knew he was called to prepare as a voice for even years down the road. He knew it even in his youth. Forerunners today are going to have that same clarity.