According to Kansas City-based International House of Prayer founder and evangelist Mike Bickle–who played a major role in the August 6th “The Response” prayer event that served as the de facto kickoff event for Rick Perry’s presidential bid–in the near future Jews who refuse to convert to Christianity and move to Israel will be pursued by “hunters” sent by God and can expect to be thrown into “prison camps” and “death camps” (see embedded video footage, from Bickle sermons)
IHOP Kansas head Bickle says that “the most famous [heaven-sent] hunter in recent history is a man named Adolf Hitler”, and has claimed that Jews collectively are “under the discipline of God because of… perversion and sin.”
In Mike Bickle’s view, a lucky one third of the world’s Jewish population to survive the apocalyptic persecution he predicts will “get radically saved and become lovesick worshipers of Jesus.” Bickle has expounded these prophecies, which he claims are clearly described in Biblical scripture, in multiple sermons from 2004 through 2009.
As a newly released AP News story acknowledges, IHOP head Mike Bickle played a substantial role in Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry’s August 6th, 2011 The Response Prayer event.
Bickle deployed several of his ministry pastors to help lead organization of the event and occupied the stage longer than any other speaker at The Response, while musicians from his Kansas City IHOP “worship team” provided a top-notch musical accompaniment to the event. Bickle has boasted that his Kansas City IHOP live-streams its events to partner-”Houses of Prayer” across the United States and around the world.
[video, below: Mike Bickle claims Bible predicts “work camps, prison camps, and death camps”, and warns that Jews who refuse to move to Israel and convert to Christianity will be pursued by “hunters”, of which Adolf Hitler was one. See here for longer version of video. Note: Bickle's “20 million” population figure is inflated; there are closer to 15 million Jews on Earth.]
Mike Bickle was not the only prominent evangelist to speak at The Response who promotes or has endorsed the idea that Hitler was a divinely-sent “hunter”. Also speaking was Texas megachurch pastor and Christians United For Israel head John Hagee, whose political endorsement of presidential candidate John McCain was dropped by McCain in May 2008 after an audio recording surfaced, from a late 2005 sermon in which pastor Hagee explained the Jeremiah 16:16 theme of “fishers and hunters” and declared that Hitler and his Nazis were “hunters”, sent by God to chase Europe’s Jews toward Palestine.
Bickle has also expounded the “fishers and hunters” idea from Ezekiel 16:16 (see transcript, below) at his 2004 “Israel Mandate” conference, in a talk introducing Messianic ministry elder statesman Don Finto–who also spoke at length during Rick Perry’s August 6th, 2011 The Response event. Finto is one of the current and former apostles, from C. Peter Wagner’s International Coalition of Apostles (ICA), who dominated The Response.
As described in an August 3, 2011 story published in the Texas Observer, Wagner’s apostles have prayed over and anointed Rick Perry who, extending the favor, chose Wagner’s ICA apostle Alice Patterson to oversee organization of Perry’s The Response event (as told by C. Peter Wagner to Terry Gross, for a Fresh Air/NPR interview aired October 3, 2011.)
Wagner’s ICA is one of the biggest apostolic networks in the New Apostolic Reformation, in which Mike Bickle has served as a prophet (in Peter Wagner’s Apostolic Roundtable and Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders – ACPE). Bickle has co-authored a book with Wagner on prophets, and partners with ICA apostles around the globe in his “Israel Mandate.” One of Bickle’s IHOP ministry co-directors is Lou Engle, and IHOP shares its Kansas City campus with The Call, founded by Engle–who, like Mike Bickle, has served as an ACPE prophet.
As described in a new story, by Rachel Tabachnick, in Michigan political magazine Dome, Engle is planning to hold one of his The Call stadium rallies, this November 11th, 2011, in Detroit, Michigan.
While Engle’s The Call rallies have more typically featured strident rhetoric against homosexuality and gay marriage, as well as legal abortion, the events also promote other NAR concerns–such as the promotion of Messianic ministries, which target Jews for conversion, and the need to triumph over Islam.
The Call’s website states that Detroit was chosen for the 11-11-2011 event because the city, “has become a microcosm of our national crisis — economic collapse, racial tension, the rising tide of the Islamic movement, and the shedding of innocent blood of our children in the streets and of our unborn.”
[transcript from Mike Bickle talk, Israel Mandate conference 2004, introducing Messianic ministry speaker Don Finto]
“Let me tell you, these 20 million – less than 20 million Jews worldwide, there’s about 5 million in Israel, about another 15 million worldwide, a little bit less than that–those 15 million, God is going to bring them all back.
They will, the 2/3 will die in the rage of Satan and in the judgments of God and the 1/3, every one of the 1/3 will be in the land before it’s over and they’ll be worshipers of Jesus.
Now the Lord’s bringing back multitudes now to give them a chance, to give them every opportunity to say yes to salvation and the land. He’s bringing them back from everywhere, all over the lands.
Now, listen to what the Lord said in verse 16. Now, he says this to the Jewish people, these 20 million, I mean the 20 million total – 15 million around the Earth, 5 million in Israel now – ballpark numbers, of course – verse 16, he says, “I am going to send many fisherman, says the Lord, and they shall fish for them. And afterwards, I will send hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill, out of all the holes of the rocks, and I am going to bring them back to my land.”
The Lord says, “I’m going to offer two strategies to Israel, to these 20 million.” He says, “first, I am going to offer them grace, I am going to send the fisherman.” Do you know how a fisherman lures? I mean, do you know how a fisherman does their thing? – They have the bait in front, luring the fish. It’s a picture of grace.
The hunters are opposite. Instead of luring them in front, hunters drive with fear, from behind.
The Lord says, “I’m going to give all 20 million of them the chance. To respond to the fisherman. And I give them grace. And I give them grace.”And he says, “And if they don’t respond to grace, I’m going to raise up the hunters.”
And the most famous hunter in recent history is a man named Adolf Hitler. He drove them from the, from the hiding places–he drove them out of the land. Beloved, our prayer ministry is part of the fisherman ministry.”
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