Dean Briggs (the Dean from the prophet’s word) and I became friends at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (IHOPKC). One day he asked me a question that shook me to the core and crystallized my life calling. He said, “Lou, if you could preach only one message to ten thousand people, and you knew it would be the catalyst for a global harvest of souls, what would that message be?” Tears flooded my eyes because when God touches you in the core of your calling, you feel it deep in the emotions of your soul. Without hesitation, I replied, “I would call the entire planet to a 40-day fast, because before there was ever an original Jesus Movement, there was an original Jesus Fast.” I was stirred to believe that if we would do this, we would see the very results of Jesus’ fast and Jesus’ evangelistic ministry multiplied worldwide. Out of this epiphany moment, Dean and I banded together to write the book The Jesus Fast, which we released in 2016.
One day, as Dean and I were writing The Jesus Fast, Dean suddenly remembered a dream that he had received years before. He described the dream as being the most profound spiritual dream he had ever received in his life. Here’s his dream:
Amidst talk of war and escalating international conflict, I realize I am an engineer on a top secret mission to deploy and detonate an atomic bomb. As I begin to install it in an open field, a grass fire breaks out, forcing everyone away. I dash to safety and begin to circle on the perimeter, wondering how to get closer so I can finish the task. A friend of mine (who happens to be a life coach) is suddenly present, grabbing fire from the ground and throwing it at me and others. As we run in a circle around the perimeter, he follows me on the inside track, in the flames, repeatedly throwing cinders from the burning ground and saying over and over, “Go to the fire, Dean. Go to the fire. Go to the fire!”
I know the bomb has not yet been properly detonated. Finally, I dash forward into the fire, take the bomb, and drive it back into place. As it detonates, an atomic plume mushrooms into the sky. Everything shakes. Certain I will be consumed, I flee, but amazingly I am unharmed.
All of a sudden, the entire sky fills with a message like the largest movie screen in history. Around the planet, nobody can escape the panoramic story of the Gospel told straight from God himself, declaring that what the people of earth have long ignored or mocked is indeed true, but that the window of time to respond is now short. He is coming soon. Judgment cannot be delayed forever. I watch and weep, overwhelmed, for the message in the sky is like Noah’s promise. In the dream, a prophetic word had just gone forth from Mike Bickle that everything was about to change in massive, unpredictable ways, and that we must prepare for it, for the final ingathering of a billion souls was about to launch. Once things shifted, it would become easy to save the lost.
In the dream, I am emotionally overcome and dazed, but I know what I’ve heard is true. As the sky vision fades, I grab the first person to head my way, a twenty-something male. Shell-shocked, he needs no convincing; he just nods, willing and needy for the gospel. I stutter and stumble through a weak, awkward prayer. He mumbles along almost ahead of me, as if the actual prayer were a mere formality because his heart had already made the decision to surrender to Christ. Filled with urgency, I look for the next, and the next. Nearly all are willing. The few that aren’t pass by quickly, knowing what I offer. I weep for them, amazed at their stubborn refusal, but there are too many who are willing and too little time to waste. This is the last invitation.
As the dream ends, signs and wonders are breaking out all around. Miracles of healing. Everywhere, waves of anointing to deliver, heal and save follow the simplest preaching of the gospel. It is the most stunning, apocalyptic dream I’ve ever had; when I woke, I was weeping, with God’s great love for the lost and a sweet, heavy presence of the Lord filling my bedroom. I quickly glanced at my clock.
It was 3:16 a.m. – as in, John 3:16.
As soon as Dean told me his dream, I knew what it meant. In the dream, the atomic bomb represented the atomic power of corporate, extended fasting. The fire surrounding the bomb was the refining fire of fasting that anyone must go through to gain authority in the Spirit. Mike Bickle, founder and director of IHOPKC, was symbolic of the end times and massive, united, day and night corporate prayer. The billion soul harvest was the masses whose eyes will be opened to the vision of the cross because of fasting, prayer, and evangelism. In summary, this dream was God’s unbelievable confirmation to the message we were writing that very day. He was declaring that global prayer and fasting will unleash a spiritual bomb that will break the power of the god of this world who is blinding the eyes of the lost, thus enabling them to see the light of the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ. It will unleash a wave of evangelism and missions as has never been seen. John 3:16 will be the great theme of the earth.
