089 - The Global Yeshua Fast

Letter from the Editor
A hallmark of our long-standing prophetic journey of prayer has been the 40-day fast. It has been compared at times to Charles Lindbergh’s long-distance flight across the Atlantic. However, what was once considered a novel endeavor has now become a mass corporate effort that spans the globe. Last year, tens of thousands joined in The Jesus Fast, uniting in prayer for a great spiritual harvest throughout the earth. This year, Lou Engle, along with leaders from multiple nations, are joining together to rally believers to a 40-day fast for Israel and the Jewish people. Today’s Briefing, written by Lou, lays out the prophetic and biblical backdrop to this momentous occasion and the times in which we live.

- Cheryl Amabile

The Global Yeshua Fast

A global call of Ruth: “Your people shall be my people,
and your God shall be my God”

When the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness for the 40-day fast, it inaugurated the first great Jewish harvest of souls. Likewise, it is our eager expectation and prescient anticipation that the upcoming 40-day Yeshua Fast, April 14th - May 23rd (Pentecost Sunday), could become a tipping point for a new day of salvation for Israel and a harvest of souls in the nations of the earth.

A PROPHETIC TIMESTAMP

At the dawning of every new season, every new era, a profusion of prophetic activity begins to break out in order to awaken the church, stir expectancy, and catalyze prayer. So too, prophecies, if judged correctly, stir us in our day to expectancy, prayer, and action. Amos 3:7 declares, “Surely the Lord does nothing unless he first reveals his secrets to his servants the prophets.”

Jeremiah says concerning the prophet, “If he is a prophet let him make intercession.” God reveals his secrets to the prophets so that the church will respond and groan in prayer to birth on earth what God is desiring to birth in heaven. Bible scholar and author Walter Wink once wrote: “When God wants to initiate a new movement in history, God does not intervene directly but sends us dreams and visions that can, if attended to, initiate the process.”

Recently, when the collaboration team of The Send came together to seek the Lord, Christy Brennt, a major prophetic catalyst behind this movement, shared with us a prophetic word that she received several years ago:

In 2004, Christy had a vision in which she saw the Lord filled with great compassion because of five waves coming to the earth: a wave of a great pandemic, a wave of homelessness, a wave of economic decline, a wave of great loss, and a wave of great social unrest. She actually saw the U.S. Capital being stormed and the American flag fall down for a season of time before being raised up again. She even saw that the President of the United States would be silenced. Then, in the days of these waves, God would stir up great evangelism leading to a great harvest.

When we heard this prophecy, knowing Christy’s character, tested prophetic accuracy, and profound life story, our hearts erupted with faith, believing that “Surely these are the days of the harvest!” This stunning prophecy could herald another great event, a new dawning of light in our world’s present darkness. But are such prophecies automatic?

When Daniel understood by the books that the time had come for the Jewish exile to end in Babylon (a time of the salvation of Israel), he did not interpret Jeremiah’s prophecy as a release from his obligation of fasting and intercession. In fact, he set his face to seek God with greater intensity. He understood that revelation demands prayer participation and that a casual approach to the prophetic produces casualties. God had brought the prophet into his divine intelligence system so that he would pray the issue through for the release of the Jewish captives.

In Christy Brennt’s 2004 prophecy and in the following dreams, I hear the sound of another season of salvation in America and the nations. But is there a prophetic key that first must be turned to unlock this day of harvest? Is there a tipping point? Like Daniel, I am deeply stirred to set my face to The Yeshua Fast to turn the keys that can unlock this tipping point.

THE TIPPING POINT

A young Jewish woman named Nava Nieber Murphy, who has been used to stir 40 days of fasting in Israel, sent me a dream. In the dream she and I were in an upper room where the wind was blowing (a reminder of the days of Pentecost.) As we were discussing what God was saying to us, she knew she was about to wake up from the dream and desperately needed to deliver a message to me. Three times she spoke with urgency saying, “You will not see revival in America unless you first pray for the harvest and salvation of Israel!” Immediately upon speaking this urgent word, she awoke from the dream.

Some words, true words from God, have sticking power. They hunt you down as if a personality were behind them. Welcome, Holy Spirit. This prophetic dream has hounded my heart now for more than a year. If the dream is true, and if many attest to it and are mobilized to engage in The Yeshua Fast, it could in some measure become a tipping point for the salvation of Israel, and a fulfillment of Paul’s words to the Romans.

Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? Rom 11:12-15

The fullness of the acceptance of Israel will be like “life from the dead” to the Gentiles, a worldwide harvest of souls, both Jew and Gentile! Notice Nava, representing the Jewish people, had to give me the word before she woke up. Before Israel’s awakening, the church must fast and pray for her salvation. Jesus’ 40-day fast that opened up the days of the first Jewish harvest was not an anomaly, it was a prototype! Once again, we believe the Spirit of God is driving the church into Yeshua’s 40-day fast for the lost sheep of the house of Israel and to break open the way for another great wave of harvest for the globe.

THE GLOBAL RUTH CALL

Preceding Nava’s dream, we received a concurring revelation in the form of a “Ruth call” in a hotel in Jerusalem in 2007. For years I have been pondering its message. My prophet friend and I were speaking at the Onething conference in Jerusalem. While there, he dreamed that we received a phone call from four Ruth’s:

• Ruth Prince (the wife of Derek Prince who loved and lived in Israel and taught profusely on the prophetic destiny of the Jewish people) - representing the church’s embrace of Israel’s end-time purpose.

• Ruth Heflin (an amazing prophetess and worship leader who lived and ministered in Israel for 26 years) - representing the presence of the Lord coming to Israel;

• Ruth Graham (the wife of Billy Graham) - representing the 1948 establishment of Israel as a nation and the corresponding 1948 worldwide explosion of evangelism;

• Ruth (from the biblical account of Ruth and Boaz) - representing a global churchwide covenant saying, “Your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God.”

A second dream immediately followed the first dream. In this dream, my friend saw Dutch Sheets and I calling for a global, spiritual “Aliyah.”

The dream interpretation came clearly to us. At the time, we were mobilizing for TheCall Nashville 07/07/07. We understood the dream to mean that the days would come when the four Ruth’s, the global gentile Ruth bride, would receive a call from heaven, a call of united global fasting to turn her heart affections, passions, and prayers to Israel and to the Jewish people saying, “Your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God.”

We felt from our study of Ruth that the gentile bride of Christ in this fast would find and deepen her first love for Yeshua as she seeks refuge under the wings of her Kinsman Redeemer. Also, we understood that though we are not able to make natural Aliyah (where the natural Jews return to their homeland of Israel), many in the gentile church would experience a global spiritual Aliyah, in which they would marry their hearts to Yeshua, the Jewish people, and land of Israel. We perceive this to be preparation for the last days when the One New Man will welcome the Son of David as He comes to set up his kingdom throne in Jerusalem.

This “Ruth Call”, as we understood, would come in the time when Romans 11:12-15 would begin to be fulfilled, and the Jews would come to Christ in fullness. Such a movement would be like life from the dead for the whole world, a massive worldwide spiritual awakening. We also believed that this Ruth Call would come at a time of growing anti-semitism and that this fast would, in a measure, restrain the anti-christ and anti-semitic spirit arising in the earth.

Recently, while flying to meet with the leaders of The Send, the Lord suddenly spoke to my heart, saying, “When Ruth begins to glean in Israel’s field by praying for her salvation, then she will begin to reap the full gentile harvest blessings of the Kinsman Redeemer in the line of Boaz, Yeshua, the Messiah himself.”

Thus, we look forward to The 40-day Yeshua Fast with great anticipation. We hope you will consider joining us April 14th - May 23rd in what could be a historic moment of preparation for the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. As you prepare for the fast, we invite you to (1) sign up at The Jesus Fast to receive inspiring exhortations, videos, emails, and testimonies to encourage and equip you in the fast; (2) subscribe to The Briefing to stay abreast of our real-time prophetic intel for strategic intercession; and (3) join with intercessors around the globe in Israel’s first Virtual House of Prayer.

By Lou Engle