Renewing a Call to Pray

It is time to rally the troops and seek God. This year is historic.
The great serpent has coiled himself around the globe, and who shall set the world free from him?” This was the question asked in the 1800s by the British Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon, known as the “prince of preachers.” If the serpent had a strong grip in Spurgeon’s day, what can be said about our own? Is the grip of the enemy the reason a new breed of radical, fierce, yet humble intercessors is emerging on the scene?

Commentator Matthew Henry, a British clergyman in the 1600s, once stated, “When God intends to do great mercy for His people, the first thing He does is to set them a-praying.” I once heard the fiery evangelist Leonard Ravenhill declare, “At God’s counter there are no ‘sale days,’ for the price for revival is ever the same—travail!”

This all sounds rather intense today in light of the fast-food mentality that has permeated much of the body of Christ. But the principles are the same in every age: Prophetic prayer precedes revival.

In every generation God raises up forerunners and intercessors. Like John the Baptist they beseech heaven and exhort earth to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord and His purposes in their generation. In our day, too, the Lord is raising up radical, prophetic intercessors.

Last fall I was in a meeting of the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders convened by C. Peter Wagner and Cindy Jacobs. We began to intercede for Lou Engle, founder of a movement among youth named The Call, when prophetess Sharon Stone from England released a piercing word directed toward Engle.

She declared that “7-7-07” would be “the day when the scepter of the Lord is lowered and an invitation for the new youth army begins.”

Engle had been privately planning to call a national “solemn assembly”—The Call Nashville—on that exact day in the Titans Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee. The Lord confirmed His word to him through Stone.

Little did this group know I had previously prophesied to Engle that The Call movement would go dormant for three years and then would be resurrected in an hour of crisis in the nation. That is exactly what has happened.

At The Call D.C. in September 2000, some 400,000 youth and adults assembled on the National Mall in Washington and worshiped and prayed for 12 hours. Engle then held The Call assemblies in several other cities and stadiums.

It is time to rally the troops and seek the Lord again. This year, 2007, is a historic generational marker. This summer we celebrate 40 years of Jerusalem’s being a united city under Israel’s domain as well as the 40th anniversary of the start of the Jesus Movement.

Yes, we have come to a strategic time when the scepter is being lowered again. It is time for the hearts of the children to be turned to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers to be turned to the children.

In 1997, I had an ecstatic visionary experience in which I prophesied, “Out of the belly of the Promise Keepers Movement will come forth a youth extravaganza that will rock the nations.” Though I have not yet seen this word come to pass, I still believe as strongly as the day I received the revelation that the promise will be fulfilled.

It is time for prophetic watchmen on the walls to sound an alarm. It is time for a new youth army to rise up. Join me and thousands others in seeking the Lord through prayer and fasting at The Call Nashville on July 7. Remember, prophetic prayer always precedes revival!