With all the chaos surrounding President Donald Trump, the impeachment hearings and more, it’s crucial that Christians get a spiritual perspective on our culture. As Spirit-filled believers, we need to know how to pray for our nation—and few know how to do that better than Mike Bickle does. But in order to have that spiritual perspective, Bickle says, we need to understand how what is going on in our nation was prophesied thousands of years ago in the Word of God.
Bickle founded the International House of Prayer in 1999 and has written numerous books on prayer, including God’s Answer to the Growing Crisis. In fact, my own prayer life has been so impacted by Bickle and his teachings that I asked him onto my podcast to shed light on what is going on in our nation prophetically and how we must pray.
“King David gave a prophecy 3,000 years ago,” Bickle says. “It’s in Psalm 2—this prophecy is actually unfolding right before our eyes, particularly in the Western cultures, but it’s not going to be limited to them.”
In Psalm 2, King David writes that a time would come in which kings of the earth would unify and come against the Son (a prophetic reference to Jesus, the Messiah). More specifically, Bickle says, it indicates that the earthly rulers would rally to drive the Word of God out of the culture.
“The fulfillment is at the end of the age when the leaders of the culture, literally the kings of the earth, will come together to scheme and … drive the influence of the Word of God out of the culture entirely,” he says. “We are watching this escalate so rapidly in the last five years, particularly in the Western culture.”
We see this on a regular basis. Look at how the media works so hard to undermine biblical values, making them seem bigoted and unloving. Think of how the political left is striving to legalize abortion and snuff out religious freedom.
But the cultural attack is not confined to the United States. Bickle says it’s happening all over Europe. He says much of it is coming from the gay agenda and the pro-abortion movement. The attacks are focused on the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage and free speech. That’s partially why the left is attacking Trump so hard, Bickle says. They go beyond challenging him for certain troubling things he’s said or done and are going after some of the things that he’s done that actually honor God.
“The radical leftists are challenging the conservative right,” he says. “The conservative right is certainly not in full agreement with the Word of God, but they certainly carry elements of it. And the radical, militant left is attacking that with a vengeance. And some of the downsides of Trump’s past, they’re using that to hit him way beyond anything that is rational or reasonable because there’s a spirit. It’s a demonic attack coming against the Word of God.
“… Many of the pulpits in America are getting shy about that and they’re drawing back from it. They’re presenting a gospel that is sort of biblical but sort of not biblical. And I’m really troubled.”
So how should Spirit-filled Christians respond to such a militant spiritual attack? We need to pray in line with the will of God and what He has promised in His Word.
“I am positive the Lord is going to use this to purify the church and make the church take a stand, even though there will be stigma and pushback and even persecution for taking a stand,” Bickle says. “That’s going to be part of God’s way to purify the church—plus a massive outpouring of the Spirit. I believe millions are going to come to the Lord because they’re going to see people who have hold of something worth dying for.”
That’s the kind of realistic yet hopeful attitude we need to have in this hour. We need to understand what’s really going on—the spiritual darkness that is raging against God’s Word—but we also need to know that our God is mightier than the enemy. He will have the final say, and we have the privilege of praying in accordance with that.
Listen to my full conversation with Bickle to hear more about prophecy that is being fulfilled in our nation right now. And take a moment to share this article with a friend who you know will pray fervently for our nation.
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