The Call for California - Sep 25th -

Wednesday, the 24th of September, marked the first day of a call to forty days of fasting and prayer for the state of California. On November 1st there will be a solemn assembly in San Diego at the Qualcomm Stadium where thousands of people will cry out to God for mercy on our state and on our nation. God is calling watchmen of all ages and social statuses to the wall of intercession in this urgent hour.

Whether or not you are aware of it, the spiritual condition of California is at RED ALERT right now. The sphere of current politics is a window into the spiritual darkness that is accumulating over our state. Recently the Supreme Court of California legalized homosexual marriage. Currently a bill is awaiting acceptance that will commemorate every May 22nd as a day to celebrate the life of Harvey Milk, a politician that is known for improving the rights of homosexuals in various ways. After the court legalized homosexual marriage the mayor of San Francisco boasted, "As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation. It's inevitable. The door is wide open. It's going to happen whether you like it or not. This is the future and it's now."

This statement was prophetic in the worst way. When sin is legalized, the boundary lines of iniquity shift. What once was a deviant marginal activity becomes accepted, publicized and broadcasted with honor. Besides this, recent events in the state of Massachusetts show that there is a further agenda behind activism for homosexual marriage. It will go on to affect the educational systems. Soon our children will be indoctrinated to believe that a girl “marrying a princess” or having two Daddy’s is perfectly right and normal. Voting YES on proposition 8 will help counteract this progression of darkness.

The Bible clearly teaches that homosexuality is a form of sexual immorality, and by legalizing gay marriages we are embracing it and calling sin a good and proper thing. God loves the gay community and therefore is calling them to repentance; He does not condone their behavior in any way. We love them as people but cannot accept the sin as “okay.” Even as Christians, when we lose our discernment and do not identify sin as evil our minds actually become warped and we gradually fall into delusion. The very fact that many Christians in our generation are questioning whether abortion is wrong or not is proof of the delusion that has set in on our nation because of legalized iniquity. What was once unthinkable is now accepted and honored. Continue to pray that men and women struggling with homosexuality get radically saved and delivered.

The mayor’s statement is also significant because California is truly known as an “apostolic state” in the natural and in the spiritual realms. He is right; as California goes, so goes the rest of the nation – for good or for evil. Our state is a forerunner state and has unbelievable power to affect the country and even the world in a way that few places can. Now is the time to pray and ask God to fulfill His destiny for our state.

If we have heard the devil's mocking voice through the mouth of politicians, we have heard God through the mouth of His prophets. For "surely the Lord does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7). For the past few years I have been watching with awe and fear in my heart as more and more prophetic words have come streaming in from respected men and women of God around the world concerning our beloved state. The words have been getting increasingly more specific and severe. About four years ago a woman named Rachel Hickson flew into the Central Valley of CA from England for a worship conference and gave specific words over the destinies and anointings of the Northern, Central, and Southern regions of California. I still remember her exhorting us with tears in her eyes, pleading, "Come on California...As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation."

More recently I heard a man from Kansas City named Allen Hood share his encounter with the Lord on the 33rd day of the 40 day fast for America last summer. In this vivid experience during a dream, he saw Jesus behind a judge's bench. He ran up to Jesus with joy in his heart and asked if revival would come to the nation now that they had fasted and prayed. Jesus looked down and opened up a green folder on the bench, and then looked back up with grief and emotion on His face. He said, "Allen, what about the drunkenness of California?" He asked that question to him again and again. "What about the drunkenness of California?" Allen fell on his face and began to cry out for mercy. As he did, he saw a scale start to move behind Jesus. On one side was the word "judgment," and on the other side was the word "mercy." The more he prayed, the more the scale began to tip towards mercy. He could feel the pleasure of Jesus as he continued to pray for mercy. Right when the scale was exactly between judgment and mercy, he woke up, and one phrase struck his spirit like an arrow: "Who knows if He will turn and relent...?"

This past summer Corey Russell came to the same conference in Central CA and informed us with sobriety, "The eyes of the world are on California right now." The following month, in July of '08, I received an email with a word from Wendy Alec, the co-founder of God TV. She had a vision of massive devastation coming to California, specifically to San Francisco. There was also a promise of an outpouring of the Spirit, specifically for the LA area where the Lord had seen a faithful remnant of intercessors.

I do not share these words just to scare you, but to give you a bird's eye view of what the prophets have been speaking about our state. The eyes of the world are truly on California – has there ever been a more urgent time to contend for the very place that we live? In the book of Revelation Jesus urges us over and over again to "hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Rev. 2-3). It may be that these forty days of fasting and prayer, culminating at the beginning of November, are a climactic season in what the Holy Spirit has been doing and saying for years. I don't know about you, but I am in! I want to participate with God in my generation; I want to fight for love and truth with every ounce of my being. I want to be awake so I can hear the call of the Spirit in this hour of history.

Dear friends, let us repent for pursuing our own ambitions and over-indulging in entertainment in such a critical moment in history. Let us ask for spiritual awakening in our lives. I am doing this in my own life. Prayer, fasting, and the Word are not just disciplines for the super-spiritual - they are God's gift to every believer so we can actually be alive on the inside, inebriated with divine love and wide-eyed with revelation, yoked with the Spirit and agreeing with the Father.

If the eyes of the world are on California, why wouldn’t we, the residents of this state, pray for it? Let us pray for the recent Supreme Court ruling to be overturned and vote yes on Prop 8; let us pray for the salvation and deliverance of many sexually broken people; and let us pray for mercy and not judgment on this state. God always has a remedy, no matter how dark the circumstances are, and it is never too late when there are intercessors that are willing to stand in the gap and cry out for mercy.