SID: I’m here with Mike Bickle, and if you’ve ever heard of IHOP, I’m not talking about the pancake place, International House of Prayer, for 19 years, you’ve had 24/7 worship seven days a week, 24 hours a day for 19 years, and you’ve trained 18,000 students in the three to five-year program, and this all really started when a very strange prophet walked in and introduced himself to you. Tell me about that.
MIKE: Yes, strange indeed. His name was Bob Jones. He’s with the Lord now. And many people know and love Bob Jones. He’s impacted many lives over the last 40 years, but this was 35 years ago. I was 27 years old pastoring a young adult church, just newly beginning it. We had about 500 young people in our church and he came walking in, he was a total stranger, he was about 55 or 60, in overalls, wearing a winter coat, it was about 70 degrees out, and told me, declared to me that he knew my future. The Lord had been given him many visions and dreams. I didn’t believe anything he said. I just thought this man is so strange. And he said, “What you’re going to do is,” he goes, “you’re going to be leading a ministry one day, 24 hours a day, with singers and musicians.
They’re coming from all over the world, young and old. And you’re going to do it 24 hours a day and because God is calling a prayer movement, a worship movement to be combined together. It’s going across the earth. And I don’t mean my deal is going across the earth, but he’s going to do it sovereignly and we’re going to be a catalyst, we’re going to have a catalystic part of this in as many other places as well.” And I said, “Twenty-four hours of singer and musicians? Like why would we do this?” He goes, “Because the greatest revival in history is yet ahead of us and the salvation of Israel, and the Lord is going to raise up this mighty prayer movement in the earth.” Anyway, that was 35 years ago. He told me that day a bunch of things, but he saw smart phones, 35 years ago, smart phones. He said, “You’re going to be moving from your part of town.” We lived in the, our church was in the affluent part of the town. “You’re going to move to the blue collar part of town.”
SID: This was in Kansas City.
MIKE: Yes, in Kansas City where Harry S. Truman lived. I thought that was the oddest, most random thing I heard. He said, “Because Harry S Truman was the man God used to cause Israel to become a nation in 1948.”
SID: Right.
MIKE: And I thought I kind of knew that, but not really. And he said, “You’re going to move on his property and it will be a sign and a wonder because these thousands of singers and musicians, they’re going to be spiritual intercessors for Israel like Harry S. Truman was a political intercessor for Israel in the fact that he was used politically for Israel to become a nation.” That made no sense to me at all. He said, this is 35 years ago now, my first meeting with him and I don’t believe a word he says, just so you know.
SID: Okay, for the record.
MIKE: Just for the record. Although I end up, I’m really wrong and he was really right, for the record. And so he said, “I saw them all over Asia in the rice patties, in Asia, with unplugged TV sets in their hands.” He was seeing smart phones. “And they’re watching the singers and musicians on Harry S. Truman’s property, all over Asia, they’re watching them live.” I said get this man out of my office. So then he asked me, he goes, “Are you a singer and musician?” I said, “No, I’m not.” He says, “Huh, I thought you would have been.” Again, 35 years ago. He goes, “Do you pray for Israel?” I go, “Never.” He goes, number three, he goes, “Are you connected to Asia, because you’re really going to be connected.” I go, “No.” He goes, “So you know nothing of what I’m talking.” I go, “Nothing.” Then he said, “The Lord told me you’d be dull. I didn’t think you’d be this dull.” Twenty-five years later, from 35 years ago, 25 years later, which is ten years ago, of course, I’m in my office. A guy knocked, from a Jewish family, the Goldberg’s, they knocked on our door, and I was talking to a friend and our CFO interrupted me, just my friend, we’re just in a private meeting. He said, “I’ve got a Jewish family up here named the Goldberg’s. They’ve got Harry S. Truman’s property and they want to sell it to us for a million dollars.” I mean, today it’s probably worth 20, 30 million.
I don’t know how much it’s worth. It’s right on the interstate. It’s on land. I don’t even know what it’s worth. And he goes, “They’ll give it to you for a million dollars.” It’s worth so much more than that, do we want it? And I’m telling my friend, my friend said, “We don’t have a million dollars.” And my friend goes, “You know what, you’re not going to believe this. I’m an investor and I do properties. I have a million dollars in the bank right now, liquid. I never have money liquid. I always go from investment to investment. I’ll give it to you tomorrow.” So I said, “Okay.” So we bought the land and the closing day of the land was 50 years to the day that Truman sold it to the Goldberg’s, the Goldberg’s sold it to IHOP. So I call Bob Jones, he’s in his 80s now, I call Bob Jones and he lives over here on the east coast. I go, “Bob,” it’s 25 years later, “we have the Truman property!” And Bob, you know, he’s in his 80s, it was 25 years ago, he goes, “You never did believe me. You never believed a word I said!”
SID: When we come back, he has an encounter with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit tells him to study a book of the Bible that he can’t, he’s not interested in.
MIKE: Not at all.
SID: Then Bob Jones contacts him and says, “You’re supposed to teach on the Song of Solomon.”
MIKE: I went, “Ohh.”
SID: Be right back.
