This is an article by Lou Engle, the founder of one of the organizations we are linked with here. This is one of the reasons we are here...and a taste of what we are doing.... -heather
40 Days for 40 Years There are moments in history when a door for massive change opens, and great revolutions for good or evil spring up in the vacuum created by these openings. In these historic moments key men and women and even entire generations risk everything to become the hinge of history, the pivotal point that determines which way the door will swing.
The rebellious generation of the 60’s seized its moment, and history crashed into the deep abyss of drug addiction, sexual immorality, hatred for authority, and a rejection of the law of God. 1967 was a culminating and defining moment in that rebellion. In 1967, 100,000 young people, aged 15-25 flocked to San Francisco to experience the hippie movement. This mass convergence was sparked by the hit song, San Francisco, (Wear a Flower in your Hair). Once there, they experimented with LSD, pot, casual sex and Eastern mysticism in what became known as the “Summer of Love.”
When these newly recruited Flower Children returned home at the end of the summer, they brought with them new styles and ideas, flooding the cities of the US and Europe with a message that opposed authority and scorned conservative morals. This counterculture rebellion was fueled by music and art, and it rapidly shifted global culture.
For 40 years we have been falling headlong into a black moral morass in America and all through the west. We are reaping the waves of destruction in every sector of our post Christian society. Can America survive another 40 years? We are declaring NO! A thousand times NO! Unless a massive spiritual shift occurs at this moment our children will live under an antichrist system and Godless enculturation that will bring about the demise of America, as we know it.
But God has a prescription for such a massive shift and it is revealed in the power of the great transitional 40-day fast. God in His sovereign control over the parade of history delivered the Israelites out of Egypt. Longing to release a moral code that would give foundations for righteousness, for time and eternity, God summoned Moses to a 40-day fast on Mount Sinai. In that fast all of history changed and the law of God was delivered from heaven to earth. And if America is going to return to God it must recover that law again as its foundation for truth.
Elijah, at the height of Jezebel’s cultic dominion over Israel fasted 40 days, broke the spell of Jezebel off of his own life and received a mandate to anoint the next generation. That fast unleashed a movement that toppled Jezebel’s regime of hell, which perpetrated the destruction of family, the killing of innocent children, the silencing of the voice of God’s people and the widespread culture of sexual immorality. The fruit of that fast culminated in the utter destruction of Baal worship in Israel.
Also in the fullness of time the glorious gospel era was born when Jesus fasted 40 days and those who sat in darkness saw a great light. Clearly the 40-day fast is heaven’s great transitional prescription, moving nations from failure to fulfillment of promise. Is it any surprise that when Jesus was to enter into His great sacrifice where death would be swallowed up in victory, Elijah and Moses appear with Him on the Mount of Transfiguration. All three of them were together as the 40-day fasters. They presided over the great transitions of history.
When the Israelites were poised to move into the Promise Land, spies were sent out for 40 days. When they returned carrying an evil report, a whole generation was infected with unbelief and they turned their back on the Promise Land. God’s sentence on that generation was, “And your sons shall be wanderers in the wilderness for 40 years and bear the brunt of your infidelity until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land 40 days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely 40 years, and you shall know my rejection.” (Numbers 14:33-34) It was 40 years of judgment for 40 days failure.
Conversely the great prophet Ezekiel received a 40-day prayer assignment for a 40-year failure of Judah’s iniquity. “Lie again on your right side, then you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah, 40 days I have laid on you a day for each year.” (Ezekiel 4:6) It was clearly 40 days prayer for 40 years of failure.
When Jesus fasted 40 days and was tempted of the devil he quoted from the book of Deuteronomy saying, “It is written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” And again, “You shall not tempt the Lord thy God” and again, “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you worship.” Jesus in His victory over Satan was quoting the book of Deuteronomy, the portion of scripture delivered by Moses to the generation who failed in the desert. Jesus in His 40-day fast was clearly identifying with that passage of scripture and that generation that came out of Egypt. As an intercessor in His 40-day fast he was fulfilling what a generation had failed in for 40 years.
40 years are up! Could the church of America in a 40-day fast deliver a nation out of a 40-year curse? We have scriptural precedent to believe for such a turning! Therefore, we are trumpeting a call to 40 days of fasting like Moses, like Elijah, like Ezekiel, and like Jesus. We must cry for mercy for 40 days of prayer with fasting for the past 40 years of iniquity, divorcing God in America, embracing a culture of sexual immorality, hedonism, materialism, abortion, and the rejection of Christ in the public place. But we are also calling for 40 days of fasting and prayer for the greatest outbreak of the kingdom power, in signs and wonders, and spiritual awakening in America that will collide with this present darkness and topple its cultural dominion over our people. Thousands went on 40-day fasts in 1946 and in 1947 the great healing revivals broke out. In 1948 the latter rain outpourings began. Bill Bright and Billy Graham’s ministries were born at the same time, and Israel became a nation. Could it be that the 40-day fast preceded this explosion of power by the Spirit? After Jesus’ 40-day fast the scripture says He returned in the power of the Spirit. Yes the promise of Joel 2:28 is that after the fast I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh…
40 years ago in 1967 the Jesus Movement broke out, a youth revival starting on the streets that swept across the country, exploding in college campuses and coffee houses. People were being saved everywhere. Now 40 years later we are crying, do it again God, way beyond the Jesus movement!
In 1967, in a war and obviously by the supernatural hand of God, Jerusalem was taken and once again brought under the control of the state of Israel. This was a monumental signpost in the shifting of eras. The dispensation of the times of the Gentiles was now beginning to shift to the times when Jerusalem will become the last days focus for God’s activity in the earth. For 40 days we are joining Israel in a 40-day fast crying out to God that they would see there Messiah and that they would begin to receive their greatest spiritual awakening since the days of the Apostles.
Brothers and sisters, moments like these come only once in a lifetime. To miss such a moment could be to miss the purpose of God for a generation. The generation that refused to cross over the Jordan did not know that they had only one day to make the decision, and missing that day meant 40 years in the desert.
Even now we are receiving reports that other countries are calling 40-day fasts. Could we be in a Global 40-day season of fasting like Jesus to see a global outbreak of light when great darkness is covering the earth? Beginning the evening of May 28th we are calling 2 generations to 40 days of fasting and prayer culminating on July 6th to prepare us for 7-7-07, the perfection of time, in a massive national gathering of fasting, intercession, repentance, and worship declaring we want to remarry the Lord. We want to cross over into the promise land of national revival. We want to break this 40-year curse. May thousands seek God in water, juice, and Daniel fasts from May 28th through 7-7-07, The Call Nashville.
What would happen in America if for 40 days we sealed the electronic cultural sewer that flows nightly into our living rooms and spent our strength seeking the Lord? What if tens of thousands of fathers and mothers across our nation fasted for 40 days repenting and cleansing themselves of inward toleration of sexual immorality, pornography, addiction to food and entertainment, and materialism? What if they prayed daily for their spiritual and physical children to see them converted to Christ and freed from rebellion, from addictions, depression, and suicide? What if the young generation fasted for 40 days to be cleansed from lust, media addiction, rebellion toward there parents, believing that a double portion of the Holy Spirit would come upon there lives?
Moses fasted 40 days and mentored a spiritual son named Joshua, which means the Lord saves. Elijah fasted 40 days and threw his mantle on a double portion son Elisha, which means the Lord saves. And John the Baptist fasted in the desert and prepared the way for a double portion son named Jesus, which means the Lord saves. Jesus fasted 40 days and unleashed the apostolic glory of the eternal Son of God into the earth. What If we are preparing a generation for the greatest day of salvation in history? And so, what if tens of thousands of both generations fast together and gather on 7-7-07 for The Call Nashville in LP Field, to cry out to God in a Joel 2 moment for great national returning to the Lord?
The parade of history has brought us into a profound generational landmark, and a great vacuum has opened again. If the church does not seize this moment Muslims will! Antichrist rage will! Sexual perversion will! Anarchy will! But now is the time for key men and women, even an entire generation to risk everything to become the hinge of history, the pivotal point which determines which way the door will swing in America and in the nations of the earth. Its 40 Days or 40 Years! Seize the Day!
We will be launching this fast with a worldwide simulcast on God TV on May 26th. For all information on the 40-day fast and The Call Nashville please visit www.fastandpray.com and www.thecall.com.
