Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of fasting and prayer as a means to connect with God and receive His favor, particularly in the context of the 40-day fast leading up to July 7, 2007. He discusses the convergence of two pivotal stories in American history, one from 1967 and another from 1983, both of which highlight the need for a spiritual awakening in the nation. Bickle stresses that God's response to humanity is contingent upon our willingness to respond to Him, and that true power comes from embracing weakness and humility before God. He calls for a collective return to prayer and repentance, asserting that this is the remedy for the spiritual barrenness in America. The sermon serves as a rallying cry for believers to engage in a deeper relationship with God through fasting and prayer.

I'm going to have you go ahead again and turn to Joel chapter 2, a few minutes before we get there. Go ahead and get it ready. Father, we come before you and we ask you for your help. We ask you for your favor. Lord, upon us and our weakness. Lord, we come to you, each one of us, in need and in weakness. You're abounding in loving kindness. You're rich in kindness. You're abundant in strength. So we ask you, God, in your rich kindness and abundant strength to help us. As we dedicate ourselves to you in a special and a focused way. With hundreds of thousands of others this next 40 days. We ask that you would help us in our weakness. In Jesus' name, Amen. When I ask the Lord's help, I'm not asking for help mostly just to endure a 40 day reduced eating period. You know, like, boy, if you would help me, I can make it. I mean, we need help on that for sure. But what I want is our hearts to be connected at a new level. We need a supernatural connection at the heart level in the activity of the Holy Spirit. That's what fasting and prayer is all about. It's not about seeing if we can do the marathon. Hey, I did one. It's not about that. It's that we are longing to position ourselves by God's invitation. It's by his invitation to receive a divine encounter. And I don't mean just dynamic ones. There might be a few of those that a few of you have. But even the small ones. But it is an encounter that our hearts would be different in the next six weeks. I'm going to take a few moments and share a little of the story. The story that God has us on as a spiritual family. I'm going to review a bit of last week. Some of you were not here. But others of you that heard it, I covered so much. And I think these stories are so important to have clarity. And even with clarity, to be reminded of it. So I'm going to cover a bit of that. I'm going to add in a few different ones. And add some different things in as well. And then tomorrow at noon, we launch it. 40 Days of Fasting and Prayer. Our spiritual family here, IHOP, is involved in two dramatic stories. We're vitally connected to two storylines that are overlapping in 2007. These storylines have both been orchestrated by the Lord. And there's a convergence of them, a dynamic overlap. And so I'm wearing two hats. I'm wearing the hat as a person involved in the IHOP prayer movement that God spoke about in 1983. 24 years ago, he spoke so clearly. And I believe in 2007, it will be a time of a new installment from the Lord. It's not the full breakthrough. I don't believe we'll have the full breakthrough for some years. But I believe it will be a significant installment. So that's the first hat I'm wearing, so to speak. There's a 24-year story that's unfolding. And I believe we're going to receive the next installment in this year. But the second storyline I'm deeply involved in, it's the storyline of God's work in the church in America. God's work in America as a nation. And Lou Engel, the leader of the call, has been telling that storyline. He has been entrusted with it, and he tells it in a very compelling and a clear way. When he tells it, it seems clear, and it's inspiring, which means there's an anointing on him when he tells it. And he goes back to 40 years ago, to the summer of 1967. And the point that I'm making is what happened 40 years ago in America, and what happened 24 years ago in a very limited sense, in a very small sense, those stories, those events of 67 and 83, they have parallel events both in 2007, and we are involved in both of those storylines in 2007. And it's exciting to know that God is leading us, and it's going somewhere that's clear. Of course, we know that anyway, but just when the Lord puts an exclamation point on it, it's nice. Both of these stories are based on Joel 2, verse 15, where the Lord says, In 1983, we called a solemn assembly based on Joel 2, verse 15. That was the verse we used. God raised up Lou Engle to establish a ministry called The Call. And The Call is taken from Joel 2, verse 15. Most of you know that in 1999, the Lord commissioned him to do that, and he called the believers in America to Washington, D.C., and 400,000 believers showed up in Washington, D.C., for 12 hours of fasting and prayer, a day of fasting and prayer. It was a solemn assembly. They didn't announce who the speakers were. They didn't announce who the worship teams were. They said, It's not a festival. It's not a music festival. It's a solemn assembly is what we're coming to. And so from that point on, The Call went on and launched seven total, and then about three or four years ago, the Lord said, Lay the call down. Lay it down. And so the leadership of The Call, I was a part of the leadership of The Call back then, we believed it was right. So we just laid it down, just laid dormant for three or four years, and now the Lord has stirred it up again. He says, Now begin The Call again. And start in Nashville. And it looks like there will be 100,000 in the stadium just by the number of responses of people that have signed up already on the Internet, because half the people don't even do that. And we just know by those numbers it's going to be a tremendous response, although the response is encouraging, that's not the point. What we really want is a response from heaven. But heaven responds to people on the earth. That's part of God's government. See, the Lord stirs it up on the front end. He initiates. He stirs. He inspires. The Lord convicts. He gets our attention, so He starts it. Then we respond to His initiation. Then He responds to our response. So the Lord's operating on step one. He initiates it. We respond, that's step two. But then step three is His response. And some people have a wrong idea about step three. They think God is going to just do what He's going to do anyway. Beloved, the Bible is emphatic about this. God responds to our response. There are things He would do that He does not do if the people of God do not respond to Him. There are many blessings. There's a quality of life in the Spirit that God has for individuals and for nations that they do not enter into because they don't respond to Him. And there's moments like the summer of 2007 where hundreds of thousands of people are responding and fasting in prayer on 7707, on July 7. They're responding and fasting in prayer. And I tell you, the Lord will respond to that response because He knows He was the one moving on the front end. He was the first mover. He moved first. We responded. Then He responded to our response. So He receives the glory and the credit for it. But don't be so focused on the Lord's activity that we minimize the absolute necessity of us obeying Joel 2, coming to Him and rending our hearts and fasting in prayer. A lot of folks have a very inappropriate understanding of the sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God is a very important doctrine. God has all power. But they have an inappropriate understanding of the sovereignty of God and how it operates. They think because God has all power, it doesn't really matter what we do. God's going to do it anyway. That is a really wrong non-biblical idea. It's presumptuous. Because we believe God has all power, we assume that it doesn't really matter what we do. God not only has all power. He also has His love. And in His love, He restrains Himself till we rise up in love and respond to Him because He wants a love relationship. So His power is not the problem. It's His love. He says, I love you so much. I'm not going to move until you move towards me. Then I will move and help you move towards me because I want this relationship based on voluntary love. So He's not just a king with power. He's a bridegroom filled with desire for His people. So He'll starve His people off the couch, so to speak. I mean, so much of the body of Christ are couch potatoes. He goes, I will starve you off the couch by not acting till you arise. Finally, we wake up and go, okay, okay. And we encounter the Lord. He goes, I truly, I would not move in this way until you rose up. I want your attention. And so if we trust God to do our part, and we call it the sovereignty of God, that's not the sovereignty of God. That's called presumption and error. God will not do our part. And we can't do His part, but He will not do our part. If we don't do our part, then an element of what He wanted remains just that. It's something He wanted, but it does not happen. And this is a corporate reality as a nation, and it's also an individual reality in your personal life and in your family. What you do really matters. It really matters what we do these next 40 days. Well, Lou Engle and the call, and many ministries with him now, are calling America to a 40-day fast, 40 years after the summer of love, 1967. And the number of ministries that have jumped into this with a sense of conviction by the Holy Spirit is it's alerting. I mean, it's like I'm alerted by the response because this is not an easy thing to do. Many people call dramatic things, but the amazing part about this one is there is a response. The Lord's hand is on it, and the people are responding. The TV networks, the major TV networks that are based in America but have a worldwide reach, they are emphasizing this 40-day fast. They're having different ones of the call leadership team on to call the nation to the 40-day fast, and they're showing it over and over and over. I mean, all the major TV networks are doing this, the Christian TV ones, and so that's an encouragement. There's a real groundswell of response. Well, in the summer of 1967, a lot of us remember that summer. I remember it vividly. I was about 12 years old, but I was really kind of like, wow, you know, and the guys came out with long hair. The long hair, it touched their ears, and we talked about the long hairs because it touched their ears. We went, wow, and the Beatles were out there. We thought, this is weird. And we look at the pictures now, and yeah, we thought, gee whiz, you know, they came right out of the military, you know. Well, it was the summer of 1967, and an unusual thing happened, a very negative thing happened in America. About 100,000 young adults, about age 15 to 25, they flocked to San Francisco, and they hung out for a summer. I mean, 100,000 for a three-month camp, a three-month conference, and the title of the conference was Forget God and Do Anything You Want and Be Bold About It. That was the message of that three-month conference, and they bought into it. They experimented with LSD. That was a new thing for America nationally. Obviously, there were a few people doing it, but it did not become popular until 1967. LSD, and it was the new craze around the nation with young people. They experimented with casual sex, just anybody, anywhere, anytime, for any reason. Now, there always were a few doing that, but it became popular in our culture. They experimented with Eastern mysticism, all these weird ideas that they're kind of God and everybody's God and there is no real God, so it doesn't really matter, so let's be God and do what we want. All the different concoctions of religious deception and ideas. Well, after three months, it's not like they all stayed three months, but many of them stayed over the summer. They came back to the cities of America and Europe with new boldness and new ideas, and the media covered it. The media helped them out, and so young people in high schools and colleges all over the land, they heard the report of the liberated generation, and of course, they said, I want to be liberated, and a new culture of sin and a new culture of lawlessness was literally initiated in a summer. It was 40 years ago, and it's been growing. That pollution, that evil garden in America has been growing for 40 years. It was a defining point in America. It was a turning point in the culture of America because people had new ideas with boldness about those ideas, sinful ideas, and they passed them on to others and caused others to be bold. Now, incidentally, two other things happened in 1967. It was a big year. It was a real shifting time in the nation and in the body of Christ. The charismatic movement broke out in 1967, broke out among the Catholics in Notre Dame and various other places, and it broke out among the hippies on the West Coast. Two complete different veins, complete different streams. The Catholics in the Midwest, they were getting filled with the Holy Spirit. They didn't even know the hippies were on the West Coast and vice versa, and the hippies were getting filled with the Holy Spirit, having visions, and the Lord was appearing, and the power of God was hitting groups of people, and the charismatic movement was born in America in 1967, the same time that this youth rebellion culture of lawlessness was born. They happened simultaneous. Interesting. There's so much to say about those. It's a fascinating study just to observe the different things and how they parallel, and we believe that 2007 is, I'll quote Lou, there are people God raises up that are like the hinge of history. I love his terminology. He has such great terms. The door of history, the hinge of history opens and shuts at key moments, at key times in generations, and he goes, we are at the hinge of history right now, and this summer is a time where the door will swing one way or the other. It swung in a bad way. It swung, it swung, it opened in a bad way in 1967. Although the Jesus movement and the charismatic movement, oh, it's really charismatic movement among the Jesus people, among the Catholics, it broke out and it spread all over, and the number of people that were filled with the Holy Spirit that came out of those two streams, I mean, the numbers are just so huge worldwide. I mean, hundreds of millions of people ultimately were affected by this. The Catholic charismatic movement uses the number 100 million Catholics have been filled with the Holy Spirit since 1967. 100 million worldwide, significantly throughout South America. It's really an amazing thing. Well, a lot of things have changed. Well, the other thing that happened in 1967, very historic after 2,000 years and fulfillment of biblical prophecy, Israel gained control over the city of Jerusalem. In 2,000 years, it seemed impossible. The Jews would never control Israel. I mean, the city of Jerusalem, there were so many reasons it could not happen, and suddenly, there was a suddenly in Israel, and of course, you know that God's calendar, his timetable, his time clock, so to speak, his prophetic time clock is rooted in his events in Israel. Israel became a nation in 1948, and dynamic things happened in the body of Christ in 1948. Billy Graham began his ministry, Bill Bright and Campus Crusade was launched in 1948. The Healing Revival broke out in 1948. I mean, there were dynamic things that happened in 1948 when Israel became a nation. In 1967, they gained control of the city of Jerusalem. The Charismatic Renewal breaks out in American spreads across the whole world. I mean, in a rapid way, and I mean, suddenly, it breaks out. Well, there's a lot of turbulence going on in Israel right now, and who knows exactly what's going to happen. We know how it's going to end, but there's all kinds of surprises in the storyline between now and how it ends, and I believe there's going to be some real dramatic setbacks and some real dramatic breakthroughs in Israel as a nation that will surprise all of us. There will be setbacks that, oh, no, it's over, and there'll be breakthroughs, oh, yay, it's finished, and neither of them will be true. Well, it's 40 years later for the city of Jerusalem. 40 years later for the charismatic movement. 40 years later for the rebellion youth culture that has matured in evil across our nation. Go ahead and turn to Joel chapter 2. What happens, what happens when there's no hope for a nation, when there's a crisis in the land that is so great, there is no remedy in the natural? What does God say? God says, call a fast. That's an interesting answer from heaven. We would think the Lord would be more practical. He says, call a fast. You call a fast and turn your hearts? Then my favor is with you? Then you will do so much more with my favor being manifest in your midst than you can ever do without my favor. You need my favor is what you need. That's what the calling of the fast is about. It's positioning ourselves in agreement with God to receive his favor. We need the favor of God upon the people of God in America. The churches are barren throughout the land. Not all of them, but spiritual barrenness. Though the numbers are growing dramatically, the power of the Holy Spirit and the depth of righteousness seems less and less and less in the church. The numbers are bigger, but the power manifestation is less and the commitment to righteousness is getting weaker and weaker. We're in a crisis. Our land is in a crisis. There is no hope. The government cannot fix the youth problem. The government cannot fix the economic problems. The government cannot fix the tremendous increase of the destruction of marriages. The divorce rate, as you know, is increasing so rapidly. And the divorce rate is actually going to level out because people will simply live together and not bother with marriage. So the numbers of getting divorced won't go up, but the numbers of people living together and then changing their mind will rapidly increase. So the divorce problem is not solved, even if the numbers mellow out, because more and more people are just skipping the step of the marriage. Terrorism. There's not a question in my mind. From natural observation as well as Holy Spirit information, both of them, natural observation and Holy Spirit information, there is no question there will be several dramatic terrorist strikes against America soon. Our only hope is the favor of God. The plans are being set in the courts of wickedness for the destruction of innocent lives in our nation. I mean, I would not doubt if it happens really soon, but I believe there will be several in a row. I don't know the timing, but it's so close. It's so close. They're so prepared. I believe we can stop some of this. We don't know the measure, but we know we can make a difference by calling a fast. We have to break a 40-year curse is the language that Lou uses. You know, in the language of a curse, it's difficult to know how much the curse, when it broke, all those kinds of things, to break some real definition on that, but I know this, is that for 40 years, our nation as a culture has been set in sin, and there needs to be a confrontation of that in a turning. We are at the hinge point of history as a nation and as the church in America. I believe we're at the time where the church in America is deciding to be cool and popular or deep and powerful and truly relevant. The book by Oz Guinness, he wrote a book called Prophetic Untimeliness, and he's real involved in the leadership of the body of Christ in the Western world amongst the conservative evangelical movement, and he said there's this craze for the church to be relevant, and his thesis of the book, it's a very profound book, he says, never has the church been more desperate to be relevant and never has the church been more irrelevant in America than right now. They want to be popular, they want to be big, they want to be glitzy, but he said the church is nearly totally irrelevant with its hunger and craze to be relevant. It's a complete oxymoron. It's the complete opposite. The church is nearly irrelevant. Yes, it affects the elections, still, the Christian right, but I'm talking about in terms of the people and the grassroots changing their life because of what the church says and how the church lives. Most people don't even think of the church when they make life choices. The church is not a threat to them. In the days of old, in the book of Acts, the people in the area of the church, they trembled when they encountered the church because God was in their midst and people were struck dead if they rebelled against God claiming to walk with Him. Those days are coming again. Miracles are happening. The paralytics walk. Angels appeared. Prison doors opened. Food was multiplied. It terrified the unbelievers. They came in droves, but they came cautiously and they came with trepidation. They came, but the testimony of the church troubled them because they said, we don't know if the stories are true or false. We have to find out right now. The church doesn't even matter on most people's minds when they decide how they're going to live and spend money. That day is going to change. I want to say that. I want to prophesy that to you that it's an obvious prophecy. That day in our nation is going to change. It really is. The church will become relevant in America before the Lord returns. Meaning, the people will look to the church for real answers and the people will be troubled in their lifestyle because of the way the church lives and what the church says. It will trouble them. They will wrestle in conviction. Should I or should I not? Those people say I should. I don't know. And they will be troubled. Those days are coming again. Well, we're at the hinge of history. Quoting Lou, God's judgments are looming over our land. The sword of judgment is stretched out over America from God. I don't mean just the devil's rage. The devil has his rage too. I'm talking about God's sword is over our land. Things change so quickly in history. We are the most powerful nation in the world in several fronts. We are so confident in our power. I tell you, the Lord is so able to allow an international scenario to be created where America is not at all at the front of the nations in several different ways. Suddenly, overnight, that can happen. And God loves, He loves the people of this land so much that He will trouble the nation to wake them up. I had a very disturbing dream two years ago, September 2005. And in this dream, well, it was more than a dream, I saw angels with my eyes. It was actually awake. It wasn't really a dream. I'm just accustomed to saying that term. It was about three o'clock in the morning. I was awakened and I saw an angel. And let me say it accurately. I saw an angel and he put a trumpet to his mouth. I shared it the day after we had a conference here. He put a trumpet to his mouth like this. And the trumpet did not touch his lips. And I was looking. I was going, what is going on? You know, when something like that happens, you don't know if you're awake or asleep, if you're here or there. I go, what on, wait a second, did I miss something? Did I go to bed last night? Where am I at? And then the angel disappears. And then a moment later, he appears and he takes the trumpet like this and he puts it like this. And it doesn't touch his lips. And I'm staring at it. Then it goes away and it comes a third time. He takes the trumpet, doesn't touch his lips and then it's gone. And I'm just absolutely, you know, engaged. I get up like, oh my goodness. You know, Katrina just happened. And that very day, the very day that this happened, I need to get the actual date down. In San Francisco, the San Francisco response to Katrina, Katrina just happened. And instead of being afraid of the Lord, I mean, when something as horrific as Katrina takes place, a nation says, I don't know, God, if you did it or how it happened, but I'm afraid for a minute. At least I'm silent and I'm trembling. I have to get answers. And the only appropriate answer is to bow low. San Francisco stood up, put their chest out to God and said, we are going to declare gay marriages as legal. That was their answer to Katrina a couple of weeks later. That happened the day of that angel encounter. And I read that in the paper. And it was clear the Lord was saying, when I touch a nation and trouble a nation, America is standing up, putting its chest out to challenge me. It's not good, America. That's not good. And if you read Numbers 10, the trumpet, the trumpet in God's economy has two major purposes, several other ones as well, but two major ones. A trumpet blast was the sound that trouble was coming, meaning the invading army was right around the corner. They blew the trumpet and everyone was alarmed with the trumpet. Disaster is imminent. That's what the trumpet means. It warned everybody. It's the alarm. You know, when the tornado comes and the whole city, that's what a trumpet is. Trouble is a minute away. And the second purpose of a trumpet from Numbers 10 is it was the instrument that rallied the people to the house of God to assemble them. It was the instrument of assembly. They blew the trumpet. It was a different sound and the people gathered to the house of God to cry out in fasting and prayer. And that's what Joel is about. Blow the trumpet. Trouble is around the corner. Gather in the house of God. It's a twofold message. And the trumpet did not touch the angel's lips on all three occasions. But I was very clear what was happening. I am releasing an anointing for my people to gather. I'm going to make it easier for my people to gather together for fasting and prayer. I am going to call them. There are more people receiving dreams and visions. There are more people receiving Holy Spirit promptings and aids to fast and pray. It's remarkable the amount of people that the Lord is talking to on an individual basis. Do it. And some people say, I haven't had a big supernatural experience but I have a desire for it like I've never had before. Where did that come from? The Lord is about to put the trumpet of assembly to His lips to assemble the nation. What's happening right now? Last night, right here in this building, we were involved in the simulcast which we had thousands of people all over America for a prayer meeting. And it was being shown on all the screens. We did it here. Many places across America and again, the major Christian networks are taking that two-hour prayer meeting and they're showing it over and over again in the next couple of weeks. There's assemblies that are happening. We went with the cameras live to all these various places like with Rick Joyner in North Carolina and Bill Johnson in California. Various places and they had rooms filled with people praying and fasting and crying out to God. And we went, you know, five minutes here, ten minutes here, you know, they came here for a little while. We just went everywhere and they're going to show this around the nations. And people are gathering. That was last night. Today, a hundred million people are gathering for fasting and prayer all over the world. Tomorrow, God is putting the TV cameras and iHub so that people all through the night in 200 nations that want to turn on, they can gather with us for fasting and prayer. Tomorrow, we launch an hourly program, a one hour program that God TV is sponsoring calling the nation to prayer six o'clock every morning. We'll be on tomorrow at six o'clock our first program called the Daily Devotional. It's a God TV program but it's hosted by right here in iHub. And we're teaching the people to pray and then the people at iHub we're going down a prayer list of about 15, 16 areas. We're only taking three or four a day and we're helping the people to structure and focus their prayer life so they can have an hour of prayer every morning right there on TV. We just go right down the areas and we teach them how to pray the area. We pray at five or ten minutes. We have the singers with us and we switch to the next area. We're giving them a schedule and a focus. All of this is happening tomorrow. That's being launched. But here's my point. In my little view of things because the Lord's doing much more than I understand, He is gathering people to pray. I mean that trumpet is really going to the lips. But that's not the only trumpet that's going to the lips of the angel. There's a trumpet of warning. Imminent destruction. Well, it's... I shouldn't use the word destruction. I should use the word judgment because judgment is when God troubles the land. Destruction is when the land is no more. And God releases judgments in order to avoid destruction. Destruction is of another order. There have been many empires through history that were destroyed. And the Lord said they'd be destroyed. They will not rise again. They're destroyed. That's it. I am not concerned with America's destruction using that theological nuance. I am concerned with judgment that is painful and will really touch the nerve of this nation. But I believe just by observation and just what I've heard from the Lord over the years that God's... He has His people all over the land who are raising up and we're watching them right now. I mean they're raising up. I mean the body of Christ is truly responding. And so in that sense I'm not concerned about judgment. I don't want to be presumptuous about it but the church is truly responding. It's only a small percentage but still the numbers are several million. I mean they estimate there could be 50 million, some say 100 million people who confess the name of Christ in our nation and they say maybe 50 million are actually born again. I don't know what the numbers are you know how they determine that but that's the number they use in the media. 50 million some say 100 million but if a million raise up and say yes that's enough to turn a nation and beloved I can see a million from where I'm standing right now in our nation saying yes. I'm excited. I'm excited because the million are responding. I'm troubled because the judgments are coming. I'm not thinking that destruction is our problem but judgments will touch the nerve in the lifestyle of our nation and I believe we can stop some of the judgments some of them cannot be stopped meaning we've gone too far. There will be an element of judgment no matter what. He will trouble our land. Well when there's no hope for a nation when there's no remedy in sight what do we do? God says call for a fast. Call for a fast I mean what a strange thing but beloved it's so simple everyone can do it but it's so simple that very few actually do it. Everyone can fast and pray and turn their heart. It's that easy. You don't need a degree. You don't need three weeks of training. You don't need money to do it. You don't need a special gifting to do it. Anybody can turn their heart and fast and pray. Anybody can. It's so simple anyone can do it but it's so simple very few actually bother with it. We're going to Joel in a second but I want to go to 1 Corinthians 1 verse 27 1 Corinthians 1 verse 27 It's a passage I use over and over again and in this passage it says I have it on the PowerPoint God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. Now the foolish things it's I think it's better to say it this way the so called foolish things the things that the natural mind calls foolish fasting and prayer and turning to God from the heart is foolish. Does it make sense? Well that's so weak. It's weak and foolish but God has chosen these things that men call foolish and even the church calls these things foolish much of the church. They don't always do it in their language they do it in by emphasis. They do it by the fact that there's there's nothing on their agenda that calls people to weakness. Most of the church is calling people to strength. Have more. Have more money have more honor have more pleasure have more stuff. God is calling the church to weakness it's not the opposite of those things necessarily but he's calling us in our weakness to repent that's weakness because strength stands up and does it's own thing. Repentance is weakness it's embracing it's foolish to people but God has chosen look and it says the weak things of the world to put to shame the mighty things the mighty things of the nation will be humbled by the weak things of this nation and the weak things is embodied in the prayer movement it's not only the prayer movement but it's embodied in the cry prayer is weak. When I take my my morning or my evening I have X amount of time like everyone does we have the same amount of time and I use it to tell an invisible God what he tells me to tell him Lord I have better things to do than to sit in a room and tell you what you tell me to tell you I'll do it for an hour Lord says no I want you to do it for 40 days hours a day I want you to do it as a lifestyle Lord I don't think you're getting it I have a lot I can offer you I have a lot to do it's important Lord says that's good yeah I agree with that you have a lot to do it's important you have a lot to offer me here's what I want you to do sit in the chair and tell me what I tell you to tell me and don't eat and so prayer is an invasive it's invasive to our schedules I mean the most powerful commodity that we have well there's several I would put as the most is our time for me to take my time to tell God what he already knows I don't want to do it in the natural he says you have to do it this is the remedy for America is my people telling me what I tell them to tell me tell me the obvious tell me what I promised agree with me tell me how good I am tell me that you love me tell me the obvious and I will transform your heart I will connect you to my heart and my favor will be restored upon you in the land as simple as it is tell me the obvious God you are good say it again you are good say it again say it different you are holy you are smart you are powerful you are good you are holy you are smart you are real smart you are the boss I will obey the Lord says keep going this is good this is really good you are the boss you are the boss that's the Lord you control my life we're saying the obvious he doesn't need to hear it it's connecting our heart it's like it's like the analogy I like to use it's like reprogramming a computer program you know each line of code is rewritten a million lines of code just make up a number our inner man every time we say it to God it's like a line of code is rewritten and we have to do it a million times the Lord says keep telling me keep telling me I'll do what you say you're good you're smart you're loving you're holy you're good you're smart you're loving you're holy I love you I love you you love me I love you I love you you love me he goes come on keep saying it keep saying it Lord I've been doing this for a month well just do it for 50 more years and you'll be in good shape Lord I have so much more to do Lord I have so much more to do it's important what I'm doing he says sit in the room and tell me what I tell you to tell me tell me the obvious about myself and then tell me the obvious about what I promise to do break it in America release your power say it again break it in America release your power do good things get rid of the bad things good keep going just do it 50 more years we're re- we're re- re-writing lines of code in our inner man the Lord is marking our spirit every time we say one of those phrases we're being renewed we can't feel it it's like peeling the onion it's so subtle but God's marking our spirit every time we sit in that room we simply just agree with who He is that's worship or we agree with what He said He would do that's called intercession we just agree with Him and the music helps it a lot because not just because it's pleasant because there's a God has chosen music to release power on it and it pulls us in He says I want you to do this for your whole life your whole life and I promise you that this weakness will put mighty men and mighty nations to shame if they don't submit to me that- this is what it's all about go to 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 9 it's called weakness 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 9 it's weakness and Jesus appears to Paul you know Paul has the thorn in the flesh and Jesus appears to him and He says my grace is sufficient for you after Paul prayed 3 times and it wasn't 3 when Paul said he prayed 3 times it didn't mean he prayed at 1 o'clock and then he prayed one more sentence at 2 o'clock and another sentence at 3 o'clock it means he prayed for 3 intense seasons it wasn't 3 utterances it was 3 entire seasons He goes 3 times I set myself apart and I gave myself to you to ask you to heal me to take this thorn this messenger of Satan from buffeting me and the Lord says yeah I heard you He goes my grace He's not talking about His forgiveness right now because grace means power forgiveness is an element of grace it's a secondary dimension forgiveness is mostly in the arena of mercy when we talk forgiveness mercy is the big issue mercy is a subunit under grace grace is really empowering and it includes forgiveness theologically but the strength of grace is the fact that he puts power on our life he says my power is sufficient for you and then he gives him one of the greatest insights into how the kingdom of God is run he says Paul let me tell you something my strength is made perfect when you're weak my strength is made perfect what a sentence perfect strength my goodness I mean do you want perfected strength one translation says my power is perfected Jesus is talking to him face to face Paul I want to give you perfected strength I mean what a sentence from the God man I mean face to face whoa he goes yeah he goes well here's the problem Paul the arena and the only arena of which I give perfected strength the only arena is weakness and the weakness here is not sinfulness he's not talking about moral weakness he's talking about spiritually we put ourselves before him and fasting and prayer and repentance and that is weak and we trust him to do what we cannot do with our own hands he says if you position yourself in weakness I will give you strength if you do this the whole prayer movement is a call to voluntary weakness it's not sinfulness he's not saying if you sin more I will give you more power that's not what he's saying the fact when Paul was persecuted he was hit with rods he was beat up and he did not quit and he did not retaliate but he marched right back into the city and preached Jesus beloved that's weakness because when he marched in I tell you his flesh was not wanting to go back in that city in the city of Lystra in Acts 14 he was stoned and they left him to be dead and it says that he got up he kind of shakes this thing off probably takes a day or two off he turns around stoned they thought he said he marched right back into the city and preaches and they're going that's the guy we thought we killed and they go to the heavenly scene I'll just quote the verse without looking at it 1 Corinthians 4 9 Paul wrote this himself he goes God has exhibited us before angels that the angels are looking at us just amazed he said even the angels look at us and they're amazed at the dedication of Paul the angels said this is he said we are a spectacle before angels what a sentence a spectacle to angels Paul where did you get that idea a spectacle to angels I mean if one of our folks got up and prophesied yay we are a spectacle to angels I'd say come on bro let's sit down and get our theology straight I mean where did Paul get that the Lord showed him this angels are watching and we're on display when we walk in weakness because the angels are not accustomed to human beings embracing voluntary weakness human beings bail out when weakness is before them they always go to the high water they always go to strength they always go to the way for more comfort more honor more power more options they never go the way of meekness where they sit in the chair and tell God what he says to tell him they skip their meal they say no to their sin they're kind to the weak they don't use their power over people that's called weakness it's a sermon on the mount of Christianity the Lord told Paul I'll give you power if you live in weakness well Lord will you give me power real fast if you give it to me fast I'll put a bandaid of weakness and I'll be weak for about a year and I'll put the timer on because if a year happens and I don't get power I'm dumping that thing the Lord says that's not weakness you're tolerating me for your own agenda that's all you're doing weakness doesn't mean that we kind of we try it for a year or two beloved God is calling us for the rest of our lives to embrace weakness and to leave it to him to release power some of the power will come through your hands and some of the power will come through the hands of the guy on the other side of town but it's your prayer that released it and God when you stand before him will make it clear well Lord I only want power if I can trace it back to my hands praying for people I don't want to do something in America and the power breaks out in Texas I want to do it I want to do it in my sphere the Lord says oh so you're back into strength again you want your thing and so you're going to endure the way of the kingdom so you can be the chief guy again right? no that's not what I mean Lord quit putting words in my mouth well then good but don't worry about it embrace weakness with no time clock and never look back do it 50 your entire adult life do it your entire life and never measure it and trust me with it ah no I want a guarantee well you want your strength no trust me because faith is weakness too we trust the invisible word of God so I'm going to I'm going to get strength yes but it may not be my hands that heal that sick guy it may be the guy in another state yeah I'll pay you well when you stand before me I'll make sure that you and I talk about it and I'll link it back to your life before me well I'd like to see the breakthrough in my hands in this life well I know but I know what I'm doing just Paul you want power embrace weakness and that's what the fasted lifestyle is it's a call to weakness we're going on 40 days it's like it is weak it takes time to do this to sit in that chair and tell God the obvious he goes uh huh okay like do it a little bit more than I've been doing it nah do it a little bit more than a little bit more for 40 days Lord I've got a lot going on with God TV and I've got a lot of handouts to get done and a lot of things to get organized well that's okay just let some of that stuff kind of lay aside yeah but people will be mad well that's okay you'll be fine but I won't look as good that's okay too I won't have as much that's okay too that's fine just do what I tell you I'll answer you in my time well would you show up a few times he goes no I'm going to be invisible most of the time hmm will you make sure it happens through my hands no no I'm going to use the other guy a lot of times and sometimes yours and sometimes I'll use them to pray and I'll release you and sometimes I'll release you to pray and I'll release them in power don't worry about that I have it all organized I have great accounting in heaven all my books are up to date you'll get the credit for it don't worry about it you'll get the credit in the long term just be weak I want you to voluntarily embrace weakness this is the offense of the cross in the body of Christ is weakness see the offense of the cross outside the body of Christ is you're sinful and you need a savior and the unbeliever one type of unbeliever says how dare you say I'm sinful and need help that's an offense another kind of guy says you bet I'm sinful I need big time help but so once we settle that and we know we need help then the next problem is inside the church as kingdom the next offense is the same thing weakness we take our strengths our time our money giving money is voluntary weakness that's why God calls us to give our money when I give my money away I give my buying power to another I'm giving my strength away he goes you have to not because I need your money I need your heart God could raise up money anywhere He needs the heart He says I want your money I want your repentance I want you to bless your enemies I want you to go without food on occasions and I want you to sit in a chair and tell me what I tell you to tell me tell me the obvious and I want you to do that a lot in the next 50 years and that is an offense to the body of Christ because the body of Christ wants to keep their money they want more of it they want to keep their honor they want to deal where their honor is guaranteed to double they want to keep their comfort and they want to guarantee their comfort is going to double and the fasted lifestyle has no guarantee of any of that it's like ugh Lord how am I going to get Americans to buy into this I mean we're the American gospel is very different than the New Testament gospel it's this hybrid thing you know this kind of morphed over time into this weird concoction of religious ideas with Jesus' name in it a little bit much of what's happening is not the gospel even though it has enough biblical language to be applauded it's a hybrid it's a mutation is a better word it's mutated into something bizarre it's a mixing of a bunch of ideas and it went bad and so to stand in this nation as a people and declare the fasted lifestyle not to them first we do it ourselves because we have no right to call people to the thing that we're not embracing he says yeah I want you to do it I say well this is kind of an odd assignment Lord in a culture that values strength and comfort and looking good and having more he says that's okay I put you here Jesus do what I tell you well they won't like it well that's okay too just do what I tell you I'm smart remember you've been saying it in your worship times you're smart God you're smart I'm smart so just do it my way oh yeah but that was just worship Lord I mean let's be practical now I mean this thing God has us I'm talking about the kingdom of God not just I'm not talking about IHOP per se but let's just throw IHOP in there he has us in a catch 22 I mean there's no way of escape if we escape and do our own thing then it's just this run of the mill type thing we're all bored with if we don't escape we're in the vice grips of the gospel just like oh this is like not exactly what I wanted to do but it's the only way forward because it's the gospel amen let's just end with that you can read Joel 2 on your own I promise you we'll cover it again many times