I confess that I (David) love this time of year, especially with young children.  This is probably the first Christmas season that our kids are old enough for all three to truly enjoy our family times (though I think they caught on to the idea of gift giving, or receiving, much earlier).  Having children is one of the most rewarding and exhilarating things in life.  Esther is now 5, Ezra is 3, and Jono is 20 months old.  As much as I love my work with the prayer furnace, my first passion, other than Christ himself, is my wife and children.  There is a sampling of pics from our family at the end of this post!

YEAR IN REVIEW

I will try to give an overview of some of what has been happening in our lives and ministry over the last season.  This will probably be more of a “Fall in review” since many of previous updates focus on the previous months, and I will certainly only be able to cover a few highlights.  Our prayer room is still vibrant and burning.  We have about 100 staff at the prayer furnace, and prayer and worship goes 18 hours per day Monday through Friday.  We just completed our largest internship ever. Watching the transformation in these lives is remarkably fulfilling, but not without its share of difficulty.  Our school is also continuing to grow and I am so excited about the next year or so as we develop and expand our curriculum and programs for the College of Sacred Scripture which trains theologians in the experiential context of day and night prayer. We hope to expand our full-time student base and add multiple degree programs within the next year.  I continue to teach multiple classes and preach and lead worship on Friday nights on a regular basis.  Ashley and I have also been leading a house church which is an exciting experiment that has been rich as we seek to simply live in Christ according Acts 2:42-27.

The prayer room during one of our midday intercessory prayer meetings

This Summer I was able to participate in some amazing gatherings for youth and children.  God loves all generations, and the coming awakening will reflect that. But we, at the Prayer Furnace, in our daily prayer times, feel increasingly to pour ourselves out for children and youth.  I know that so much of my life is for these young ones to come into their fullness.  That is the nature of fathering, isn’t it?

We (FPF) held our first ever children’s camp and youth conference this past July and August.  The children’s camp was in conjunction with IHOP-KC and Lenny Legaurdia.  Hundreds of children from around the east coast attended this 4 day camp.  We all learned so much.  There is something of a new breed of children’s ministry that is developing.  At this camp, I was blown away watching the children learn to worship, pray, meditate on the word, and heal the sick.  They have the same Holy Spirit that adults have.  We plan to do this event again next year.

Signs and Wonders Camp 2011

Our high school youth conference was also about 200 youth strong from all around the region.  Powerful deliverance broke out with a number of kids coming to Jesus.  I (along with others) spoke at the gathering and we presented these youth from the region with high vision for life in the Spirit and prayer as well as strategy for effecting their campuses.  I also traveled with Randy Martinez to Atlanta, GA for another youth conference with Vanguard network of churches which was powerful.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

During our prophetic worship and creativity conference this September, we recorded a live worship recording.  So, Ashley and I expect to have a new, live worship recording which will be released most likely at Awaken the Dawn in May.  This recording will be “live” in every sense of the word, but it will be all original tunes.  Some of the songs will be a rough given their live context, but we hope to capture that unique dynamic of a live sound with the prophetic worship and spontaneous components.

THE NATIONS

In September, Ashley and I traveled to Colorado Springs to participate in the 65th Anniversary Global Summit of Every Home for Christ which is led by Dick Eastman.  Mike Bickle (from IHOP) and Loren Cunningham (YWAM) were special guests at this gathering.  God is dynamically knitting together the prayer and missions movements at this time.  The missions movement is actually embracing day and night prayer as a central focus of their strategy.  Every Home for Christ plants about 75 churches per day globally and YWAM is even bigger than that.  They have both acknowledged that they need day and night prayer to complete the great commission.  Here in Fredericksburg, God is continuing to burden us for the nations.

We had a profound encounter with some dreams about the Muslim world and Israel recently.  One of our leaders saw in a dream the earthquake which recently happened in Turkey before the earthquake happened.  In the dream, he heard the voice of God say “who will build the house of prayer in Turkey?”  Shortly thereafter the exact scene that he saw in the dream was in the headlines with a baby being lifted from the rubble alive.  That is but one example of how God has been clearly speaking to us about Turkey, Iran, the Muslim world, and Israel.  We signed up for day and night prayer primarily because we love the presence of God, but it is amazing how in the place of prayer God invites us into his heart and we start to care about things that did not move us at all previously.  Prayer is partnership with the Holy Spirit.  Intercession is intimacy.  We will probably have teams going overseas soon as well.

ISRAEL MANDATE

Last week was one of the most powerful gatherings we have ever held.  It was our first ever Israel Mandate Conference.  The presence of the Lord was tangibly with us.  To talk about Israel biblically is to talk about the summing up of all things in Christ.  Dr. Dan Juster from Jerusalem spoke at this conference.  He is one of the foremost scholars in the messianic Jewish movement globally.  He was refreshingly balanced and God-saturated.  His presentation of Romans 9-11 was stellar.  We also hosted Rick and Patti Ridings from Succat Hallel, which is a 24-7 house of prayer in Jerusalem overlooking Mount Zion.  Rick and Patti have their finger on the pulse of the what the Lord is doing in the middle east.  They brought stories from Israel and Muslim world which were inspiring, prophetic, and insightful.  If you are interested, you can listen to their teachings from the conference for free here.  I especially recommend Dan’s teaching on Romans 9-11.

TESTIMONIES

A few stories from recent weeks:

Last week, some of our missionary staff were feeding families from the homeless community.  One woman had a broken knee.  Some of our staff prayed for her and as they were praying they felt the bone move under their hands.  The woman and her husband felt it too.  Jesus had completely healed her knee.  Weeping, she praised God.

A few months ago, we were praying for people on a Friday night and an unusual miracle happened as the Lord filled a man’s teeth with gold.  He didn’t have the funds to go to the dentist and one of his teeth was in excruciating pain.  Someone in the room said the Lord had shown them that God wanted to heal teeth.  When we prayed for him, God didn’t just fill his cavity, but covered the entire tooth with gold.  This individual is one of the least inclined to exaggeration of anyone that I know.  Needless to say, we spent some time awkwardly looking in a man’s mouth!  Jesus is alive.

24-7 VIRGINIA

Next week I fly out to Kansas City where I will be meeting with a couple hundred leaders of prayer ministries all across Virginia.  In 2010 we launched 24-7 Virginia which simply serves to network praying ministries from around the state to pray day and night.  Right now, there is unprecedented grace for this unity and prayer in Virginia.  Just last week another new house of prayer launched in Northern Virginia. I am working with Benjamin Atkinson to help give leadership day and night prayer around the state.  God is moving in Virginia.

I am constantly reminded of what a privilege it is to be able to do what we do.  It is a tremendous amount of work.  We work with a community of about 100 young adults as full-time students and staff and 200 or more in the larger community.  But, in spite of the work load, I am so exhilarated by what the Lord is doing.  And you all have made this possible.

We are still trusting the Lord every month for our income to continue in this work.  Would you consider making a tax-deductible end-of-the-year gift for our ministry?  It will go to good soil.

To give just click below:

https://secure1.nm-secure.com/theprayerfurnace/go/support

Be sure to write “David Bradshaw” in the box that says “write the name of missionary here.”

Love to all and Merry Christmas.  May your fellowship with Christ be rich this year!

To view the video click here.

Ashley and I count it the highest of joys to walk with Jesus in the this great adventure of knowing him and making him known.  Awaken the Dawn 2011 was another step on that journey.  So much happened.  Many people were healed and saved.  Very

significant for me, a number of the primary leaders of prayer in our state spoke to me (one of them in tears) saying that they have re-signed up for day and night prayer because of this gathering (a mandate they had previously felt the Lord in but they had become discouraged and weary).  One of these leaders told me that “it is impossible to exaggerate how significant this event was” for him and his staff.  I just finished a conference call with leaders from across that state and there has never been more momentum to build day and night prayer in Virginia.  Awaken the Dawn was a catalyst towards this in a significant way this year.  These Awaken the Dawn events are not simply a routine we endure as a missions base.  They are going somewhere and birthing something.  I believe that we are laboring for a grassroots movement for prayer, fasting, and missions that will touch the nations and prepare for the return of Jesus.  Praying and fasting isn’t something we do to feel more “spiritual.” It is about encountering the God-man and entering into his life. It’s about accepting his invitation to join him in what he is doing in the earth. It is a true privilege.

This was also the first year that we ran a children’s ministry during some of the evening sessions of Awaken the Dawn.  One leader of a house of prayer in Washington DC told me afterward that his 10 year old son spoke in tongues for the first time during the conference and told his dad that he felt God’s presence for the first time in his life and was now sure that he had his own walk with Jesus.

BOB JONES AND THE THREE TENTS

Bob Jones, an established prophet and now a friend, shared at Awaken the Dawn his vision, which the Lord had given him, about the coming youth revival.  In his visionary experience, he saw three tents and thousands of young people.  The three tents were dedicated to praise, prayer, and prophecy.  As he was sharing, it occurred to us all that we had that exact scenario at Awaken the Dawn.  We had a tent (the main tent) for praise, we had a prayer tent which served as our prayer room and went 12 hours per day with unbroken prayer, and we had a prophecy tent where we prophesied over 700 people in 2 hours!  Bob told us prophetically that this was just a beginning that there is a youth movement coming that will lead to 1 billion youth coming in to the kingdom in one huge wave.  I believe that we are in the beginning stages of this movement.  Bob has been prophesying about this movement for over 30 years.  To hear more about this, listen to Mike Bickle talk about this movement and the dramatic prophetic history connected to it by clicking here.  As my dad said in his book, we are being caught up in the whirlwind of God.

THE SPIRIT OF ELIJAH

There has been a lot of talk about the “spirit of Elijah” in the church in recent years.  Fundamentally, the “spirit of Elijah” refers to God’s plan to raise up a people that will embody what Elijah walked in (Mal. 4:5-6).  The prophet Malachi says the most unusual thing about this end-time move of the Spirit:  that the hearts of fathers will turn towards their children and the hearts of the children will turn towards the fathers.  In a time of unprecedented lawlessness, God was going to raise up families as his strategy to demonstrate his personality to the nations. Towards this end, we are sensing more than ever, to begin to use our best resources to pour into children and youth.  This summer are we are bringing in what I believe is the most amazing children’s ministry in the nation at this time.  Lenny Laguardia from IHOP-KC will be joining in Fredericksburg to do a signs and wonders camp.  This event will be from July 20-23 at Fredericksburg Christian High School.  These camps are absolutely amazing in that they train 6-12 year olds to walk with God, hear his voice, heal the sick, and essentially to do everything that adults can do.  And they have a blast doing it.  For info on this amazing event click on the image below.  We are also doing our first youth conference with Jesse Engle, a reassembling of Hope at Hand, and many others will be with us as well August 12-13.  Go to www.theprayerfurnace.org for more info on the youth conference.

THRIFT STORE

The Prayer Furnace is embarking on a new exciting initiative this summer.  We are opening a thrift store in our current four mile fork space (5099 Jefferson Davis Highway Suite E Fredericksburg, VA 22408).  This store will have a three-fold purpose.  First, it will be a valuable source of funding for day and night prayer.  Second, it will be a tangible resource to lower-income families in our region and provide a context to interact with them directly.  Third, we will use the store (which we are currently stocking) to develop our vision of a storehouse for the poor and disaster relief supplies.  We even plan to purchase a bailor to ship resources all over the world.  If you would like to donate anything to the store please email info@theprayerfurnace.org.  We can even pick it up from your house in our new boxed truck!

OUR SITUATION

Friends, I want to make something of an appeal to you.  Ashley and I are seeking to humble ourselves right now.  We cannot continue in this ministry full-time without a very significant increase in what we are currently making monthly.  So, would you pray about supporting us on a monthly basis.  We are re-evaluating everything right now and asking the Lord for his wisdom.  We truly believe that we are supposed to continue to give ourselves to this ministry full-time in this season.  We need 30-40 people to give $25 or more per month to continue.  Will you be one of those people? We are so extremely grateful for all of your prayers and also for those of you who have given in the past and those who are giving currently. Thank you! We do NOT take you for granted!

To give just click below:

https://secure1.nm-secure.com/theprayerfurnace/go/support

Be sure to write “David Bradshaw” in the box that says “write the name of missionary here.”

We love you all!

Running for the prize,

David and Ashley

www.awakenthedawn.net

I hope you can all make it to this event!  I truly believe that you do not want to miss it.

We are also doing a 21-day fast before ATD from April 16-May.  During this time our prayer room will be going 24/7!!

That’s all for now.  More info to come!

Love to you all.

As I sit here to write, I am overwhelmed by all that the Holy Spirit is doing in our region.  I have just returned from a 4 day tour that included six universities in Virginia.  It was the 24-7 Virginia Campus Strike and it included nightly solemn assemblies of intense prayer, worship, deliverance, and awakening.  Hundreds of students gathered on these universities.  It was electric with the presence of God.  A few stories:

One young man on VCU campus was literally on his way to commit suicide last Friday and was walking on campus to follow through with his plans.  He was approached for prayer by one of our team and, after refusing and continuing to walk, he was chased down by another of our team and opened up.  His girlfriend had just aborted his baby and his family was falling apart at home.  He was at the end of himself.  God rescued this young man on Friday.  One of our team prayed with him, he gave his life to Jesus, and was filled with the Holy Spirit.  Numbers of other students wept on the campuses as they encountered God.  Our team open air preached, prayed, and prayed some more.  There is nothing quite like running with a team that is bold as this team and that has also given themselves to prayer, fasting, and the word so that they are full of the spirit of revelation.

Every night we spoke on the revelation of Jesus coming to the universities and the call to “build the wall” of intercession and worship on the campuses.  Watching the response to this call honestly blew my mind. Dozens of ministries committed together to build 24-7 prayer in Virginia.  These students and other ministries around this region are really going to do this.  This is real and we get to do it! Virginia is going to pray day and night because Jesus is worth it.

On Wednesday, on UVA campus, Holy Spirit spoke to one of our leaders that he was going to show him that day who will lead 24-7 prayer on that campus.  He had had a dream three years ago about a 24-7 prayer movement on UVA campus.  He walked into the cafeteria building and saw a young man across the room.  The Holy Spirit spoke to him.  That was the person.  Turns out, the young man was reading about the Melchizedek priesthood at that very moment!  Our leader told him the dream from 3 years ago.  That young man was totally blown away and we prayed with him.  This trip was apostolic in that sense.

….AND MORE HEALING

Last Friday night, a man came to our Friday night meeting at the Prayer Furnace with a disease similar to leprosy.  He had soars on his body.  One of our staff laid hands on him, and the sores totally disappeared.  He was so shocked he couldn’t even talk.  You just don’t get used to this kind of thing (hopefully).  The reality of Jesus is what is going to transform a society.

I share these things to point to the reality of Christ in his people.  Prayer and fasting is primarily about encountering that which we already have, but are too dull to experience because of our “unrenewed minds” (Rom. 12:2).  I am more convinced now, after the last few weeks, than ever that prayer works, that God works.  God is raising up a house of prayer which is a house of encounter.

SPIRIT OF ADOPTION

This weekend is our first ever “Spirit of Adoption Summit” at the prayer furnace.  It is right that we stand against the genocide of abortion, but God has a plan.  It is called the “spirit of Elijah”.  He is simply turning us towards the children.  This summit is about an adoption movement coming to our region combined with day and night prayer.  So, if you are interested in this at all, then please come join us.  Randy Bohlender from the Zoe Foundation will be speaking at the summit.  For more info click below:

CONTINUED OPEN DOORS

Ashley and I are also excited to be leading a new house church.  This is a group of about 20 people that are meeting weekly to eat, pray, fellowship, and study the scriptures.  Last week, this gathering “blew up” with the presence of God.  I am so honored to be a part of this.

We are also about celebrate Jono’s first birthday.  Can you believe it?  With our three kids, life is never dull.  This is our greatest joy.

Please do pray for us as we have urgent need of an increase in our monthly financial income right now.  Your support is SO appreciated and enables real eternal fruitfulness.  Thank you all!

⁸ Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in Him…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, ¹¹ if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.  ¹² Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. ¹³ Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, ¹⁴ I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. (Phil. 3:8-15)

NEW BUILDING

December 3 we moved into a new building for our Friday Burn Service and events.  For now, the prayer room will remain where it is at the Fredericksburg Bible Institute. This is a significant move for us.  We now have space for hundreds and potentially even over a thousand at this new venue.  Right now the Holy Spirit is moving.  Hundreds have been gathering every Friday night from as

worship in the new building

far as a two hours away.  I believe that this new building will be a great resource to the region as we are able to hold more regional gatherings, large prayer meetings, and encountering God gatherings.  I can’t help but think that the stage is being set for an awakening, not just in our ministry, but around the region.  A good deal of work actually went into this building.  We built a stage, a massive wall, a new sound system, etc.  May the Lamb receive his reward through this labor.

PRAYER: MOVING TOWARD  DAY AND NIGHT

The prayer room is center of all that FPF is called to be.  We believe that within a year we will be going 24-7 with mostly live worship teams.  Most importantly, we anticipate speedy justice and the presence of God.  Just filling a schedule is not our goal, but creating a context for the presence of God to be manifest in the region and justice to be realized burns in our heart. Corporate prayer and worship is this context, as it has always been historically.  A great missions movement has to flow from a nucleus of sincere prayer, God encounter, and intercession for justice. Singers and musicians with a prophetic spirit shift the atmosphere of cities.  This is no striving at all.  There is no question when we position ourselves in this kind of pursuit God moves, God responds, God does it all.  God has done it all.

SOZO

Last weekend was our “Sozo” event.  We believe that we are in the generation that will witness the greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit perhaps in history.

Duncan Smith

This event is focused on preparing and releasing this awakening, which is nothing more than the revelation of Jesus in our region with power.  We had such a sweet time.  Duncan Smith, who leads Catch the Fire Raleigh and worked as the primary leader alongside John and Carol Arnott in Toronto for years, joined us for this event and there was more of a convergence of the streams then ever before in our gatherings.  Duncan is an amazing speaker/teacher.  His revelation of our oneness with Christ is unlike anything that I have ever heard taught.  Understanding our identity in Christ, the fullness of the Spirit who is one with our spirit, and the affection of the Father simply swept us off our feet.  One person told me afterword their face hurt from smiling so much.  This is amusing, but seems to me to be a logical response to the gospel.  One thing about Sozo this year:  there were many, many healed.  On Saturday night we spent hours praying for everyone that was sick or injured.  There was literally a line of well over a dozen people that were totally healed who told there story from stage, and many others that didn’t share publicly. Arthritis, severe back pain, headaches, bone injuries from accidents, a deaf ear opened, and more.  The great part was this was not a meeting of “healing evangelists”, but it was just normal people praying for one another.

Sozo

David at Sozo

WHAT’S NEXT – THE BUS AND A MOVEMENT

We are looking strongly towards the future.  As I mentioned, we plan to have a night watch established within a year.  We are hosting a children’s camp with Lenny LeGuardia from IHOP-KC this summer (tentatively July 20-23) and Awaken the Dawn 2011 in May.  In February we are hosting a banquet for a missionary based adoption agency which funds adoption and works against the injustice of $30K that it costs for a child to find a home.

Someone also just gave us a full-size school bus.  Bob Jones had a prophetic experience in which a bus represented the prayer movement.  I believe that God is setting the stage for a grass-roots  movement in this region, especially reaching young people and establishing day and night prayer and missions.  We are planning to send “strike teams” to various cities around the state and nation.  We are also laboring with 24-7 Virginia to establish 24- 7 prayer all across the state (www.24-7virginia.com).  Pray for us as we run this race.

END OF THE YEAR REQUEST

Friends, I don’t do this often, but we would so appreciate any end of the year gifts to our ministry.  We are trusting God month to month for finances to do this ministry.  Even at this time, we are in significant need as our reserves have increasing been exhausted.  So, we would appreciate your gifts (tax-deductible) very much.  Thank you!!  Just click below (NOTE: PLEASE WRITE “DAVID BRADSHAW” IN THE MEMO BOX ON THE ONLINE GIVING PAGE!!):

Merry Christmas from the Bradshaw Family!!

So much is happening right now.  This is an exciting and challenging season on every level.  I will try to give a synopsis.

REVOLUTIONARIES

The Prayer Furnace now has about 100 full-time staff and interns most of whom are young adults.  This particular group of about 30 interns are quite exceptional.  A number of them just came to Jesus in the last year and a few in the last few months (at least one after starting the internship).  We just baptized 20 of them last week.  I think that we were all weeping at the river to be honest.  Some of these interns literally may not be alive except that God broke in in the last year.  Their baptism was a privilege to witness.  God has delivered them from addictions and perversion.  At this point, they are some of the most amazing intercessors and evangelists that I know.  And they are learning to know Jesus.  They are praying day and night.  They are revolutionaries.

Along those lines, we are now praying and worshiping 90 hours per week in the prayer room.  I believe that these interns are the some of the fruit of this primary labor of love.  God clearly called us to build a wall of intercession for deliverance of the 96 per cent of the youth and young adults of this nation that are unchurched (or in many cases “post-churched”) especially the homosexual community.  We are contending for the splendor of Jesus to be made manifest in this nation. Revolution baby!

VA TECH

Many of you remember the massacre on VA Tech Campus a few years ago.  Last month, a team about 60 from FPF traveled down to the campus for the first ever outdoor solemn assembly to pray for life and a student awakening on the campus.  This event was so profound.  I was privileged to be the final speaker as we prophesied over the campus.  At the end of the event, we commissioned

Speaking on VA Tech Campus

about 50 students that felt called to raise up a day and night prayer room on the campus.  They have been going for it since we left.   Right now prayer on university campuses is exploding across America.  I am hearing stories regularly  from many universities.  In fact, this past Friday night at the Burn Service there were students from universities across the state and we prayed and commissioned them for revival on their campus.

SUDDEN BREAKTHROUGH

Sometimes it seems like there are seasons of sudden breakthroughs.  Right now we are in a season of breakthrough at the prayer furnace for healing.  One of our staff burned her hand two weeks ago.  It was a second degree burn.  A few people prayed for her.  Six hours later, right after someone prayed for her, the burn was completely gone.  It was like baby skin.  This was a real miracle.  See the pics below.

A few days ago, we were praying in the prayer room for break- through on the streets that afternoon.  Right as we were praying, I got a text message from one of our staff saying that he had just prayed for someone at the bank who had severe arthritis and had not been able to walk without two canes for many years.  She immediately threw the canes down and began running around her car.  She was totally healed.  She was healed while we were praying for breakthrough in the prayer room.  Last week, chronic back pain of 13 years was totally healed.   Honestly, there are many other stories from the past few weeks.  The staff missionary that healed the lady at the bank just sent me an email mapping out a plan for revival in the Fredericksburg with preaching Jesus, intercession, and signs and wonders.  This so encourages my heart.  Things are moving.

MOVING

Speaking of moving.  We are moving our Friday night Burn Services to a new larger space in November.  This is much needed and long awaited.  We are going to be using the worship center of New Seasons United Methodist Church.  This is massive provision for us.  We are building a new stage for this.  This building will literally seat hundreds.  We do need to buy a new sound system for this move.  We need about $3000 more to complete this system.  Would you consider helping with this?  This system will be an investment in the long term growth of the prayer furnace since we will be able to use it for events for many years.  This is a real need and it will enable us to host these large regional prayer, worship, and ministry gatherings which have impacted so many.  If you want to give, click on the link below and be sure to write “new building” in the memo line on the website! I will post more info on this move when it gets closer.  We will also be hosting Duncan Smith from Toronto (John and Carol Arnotts right hand guy) again in this new space on December 9-10.  For more info on that check out the prayer furnace website in the next few days: www.theprayerfurace.org.

Additionally, Ashley and I are still under our needed budget for monthly support.  Will you help us with this ministry?  We need about $500 more per month to cover living expenses as missionaries.  If you want to give to us (even just one-time) you can do so by clicking the link above and writing “David Bradshaw” in the memo box.

Thanks for reading.  More later.

www.24-7virginia.com

Someone said recently that one can tell where the major thrust of powers and principalities is focused in a culture based on the amount of rage against truth in a given area.  I am struck by the intensity of rage against those who hold to the basic biblical position that homosexuality is, in fact, sin and that marriage is, in fact, designed to be between a man and a woman.  A good friend of mine recently said, “a sword is coming” to the church in America.  He was referring to what he believes is a coming move of persecution of the church.  In first passing, this sounds extreme.  But under a false definition of justice and love, many are raging at those who are standing for the liberation of those in bondage to sexual perversion, saying that we are hateful bigots.  I acknowledge that there are hateful people out there that are opposed to gay marriage.  But my experience with the church has shown that many, if not most, of those engaged in resisting this ideology of false justice are motivated by deep love, often weeping over those steeped in perversion.

A few years ago, I had a profound encounter with God in a dream.  I saw a church meeting.  The message was good.  Then I realized the whole room was filled with gay couples.  I woke up the next morning and saw two well-known Christian leaders on TV promoting gay marriage.  One of these leaders mentioned in the news interview a very specific detail of their life.  The next day I shared the dream and the interview with our team.  Ronnette, a good prophetic friend of mine, was shocked, because that same night she had dreamed about the same Christian leader that was on TV.  In the dream, the Lord told Ronnette the exact same detail about the leader that was shared on TV and the Lord spoke to her that when the leader died there would be an onslaught of sexual perversion in the church.  The leader died one day later.  Sobering.

Lou Engle was with us in Fredericksburg a few months ago.  He is under the burden of the Lord in a profound way right now.  This is a real challenge for him because of the intense persecution he has been under, even from within the church. The Lord has charged him to boldly resist the demonic ideology behind this movement of sexual perversion and contend for liberty for those who are in bondage.  Many in the church are afraid to speak with any boldness about homosexuality and sexual perversion.  Most often, the subject is ignored.  However, in working with young adults over the last few years I have discovered that things are changing dramatically right now.  I have been shocked to discover the majority (and this is not an exaggeration) of the young people that I know, that have grown up in church, have already experimented with sexual perversion or are in full bondage.  We just cannot afford to ignore this issue.

I share this because, though it is not the most comfortable issue, the Lord has made it so clear that we must engage in this spiritual battle.

We must be bold in our confrontation of a demonic ideology.  This is the greatest challenge.  This boldness is two-fold.  First, we must maintain that sexual perversion is sin and marriage is not between members of the same gender.  Second, we must be clear that in Christ is real deliverance and compassion.  In Christ, there is real grace.  The blood of Jesus has real power.  Grace is not just forgiveness, but the power of the Spirit to transform and transfigure people.  There is hope in the sense that sexual sin is not more powerful than the gospel.  Sometimes it only takes a moment, sometimes it is a longer process, but grace is abundant, extravagant, exhilarating, and abounding.  Grace is in the person of Jesus.  This is more than dogma.  This is not a political position.  This is the hope of glory within us.

We are contending for third great awakening which is nothing more than the revelation of Jesus with power.  I, for one, have not given up on this dream.  This dream lives in my heart constantly.  That is why we are “building a wall” in intercession day and night.  This is our mandate.  More and more, in the prayer room, there has been grace to really stand for those who cannot.  If we don’t stand, who will?   And who knows, maybe while we are at it, we will be able to strike a blow to the pornography industry itself (which has more money in southern CA than all professional sports in America combined).  Or maybe God will begin delivering those women and children being trafficked as sex-slaves by the millions globally.  This begins in day and night intercession.  It is walked out in daily compassion.  When I see the boldness of those under the influence of demons, I find myself asking, “where are the dread champions of justice that will deliver a generation?”  Well, they are weak and sincere, but I see them emerging right now.  It is time to stand.  Come on!  All things are possible.