The Lion's Market
Many have been concerned about our nation, in light of the prophetic words about an economic shaking in the fall. In response to these words, we took a team of our prayer generals to New York City for a time of strategic prayer.
Around the turn of this century, the Lord gave me a remarkable prophetic word.
For the Lord says, “There is coming a day when I will raise up the Lion's market, and it will be greater than the bull and the bear, and I will have the lion's share.”
Like many prophetic insights, we did not really understand the scope of the word, nor how it could possibly come to pass.
October 2008
Then, in January of 2008, another economic-related word came to me during a worship service: There will no more business as usual! I realized that the economy was going to shake, and the results would possibly be worse than the Great Depression that began in 1929.
I knew that I needed to mobilize our prayer army to avert a national disaster that could potentially leave people waiting in soups lines, desperate for food.
Uncertain as to whether or not we could completely stop what was coming, we began planning to take prayer teams to Wall Street in New York City on the same day that the market formerly crashed—October 29, 2008.
Before we could go, the market crashed on September 9, and since that day, there has been no more business as usual—not only in the United States, but around the world!
In October 2008, our teams went on a prayer journey to significant economic sites in New York City. They fervently prayed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The traders were welcoming and glad we had come to pray. They felt vilified by the crash and were hurting.
We prayed for past and present corruption to be exposed. One of our assignments was to pray at the Federal Reserve Bank, that they would have wisdom for handling the crisis.
Later, we partnered with the Global Day of Prayer, and I wrote a prayer guide to be used at stock exchanges around the world; many major cities and economies were covered in prayer.
Economists are still studying the events of 2008 because, even though the world shook, the US never went into complete recession.
April 2015
Seven years later, we heard the Lord speaking to us to return to Wall Street. A number of prophecies have been given about the potential for another economic shaking. It was time to mobilize the troops for prayer once again.
This time, we felt we should connect with our prayer general for New York, Jody Wood. We were unsure if we would be able to pray on the trading floor again, but at the last minute, God opened the door.
On our first day in New York City, we made a trip the 9/11 museum—a deeply sobering moment for all of us. Our prayer generals interceded for protection and healing for the soul of the nation. We walked past buildings still charred from the blasts of that day, saddened to see that, after fourteen years, the city is still rebuilding.
During the Ground Zero visit, one of the most poignant moments was standing in front of the large steel beams, somehow formed into a cross by the fire. In the midst of horrific national tragedy, the Lord reminded us that He was still there, watching over us and comforting hearts over the loss of irreplaceable family members—a sign of hope standing against the terrorists’ wish to destroy us all.
We met with our state generals for a strategy meeting. We grappled with the question of how to pray to turn aside an economic judgment, in addition to laying the foundation for what God had spoken to us about the Lion's Market being greater than the bull or the bear.
For advice in this regard, we turned to counsel from Jerry Tuma of Cornerstone Financial Services, who also assisted us in developing the prayer strategy back in 2008.
In prayer, we came to understand that the Lion's Market was actually the insertion of biblical economics into the financial system of the nation. It has been prophesied that modern-day Josephs will arise and take their place in society to implement God’s plans, reforming the nation back to a biblical worldview and fulfilling the part of the Great Commission that calls us to make disciples of nations. (You can read more about this in my book, Reformation Manifesto.)
We also realized that, through prayer, we needed to "uproot" laws put in place that would restrict the growth of a free-market economy and pray that God's modern-day Daniels would field new legislation to reform laws.
Additionally, with the new world of lightning-speed buying and selling, we prayed against what is known as a "flash crash"—a rapid, deep fall in security prices over an extremely short time period. We also asked God to expose corruption in these kind of transactions and any other transactions being made in the worldwide financial systems.
These represent the broad-brush picture of our strategies, although by no means includes them all. As in 2008, we would wait to see what would transpire as we made prayer journeys later in the day to the Federal Reserve Bank, Federal Hall, the NYSE, and the statue of the bull right up the street (or, as some have called it, the golden calf because people from around the world rub its horns for luck. It is called guerrilla art as it was not commissioned by Wall Street, but just "appeared" there one night.).
At the stock exchange, we were given a tour and were delighted to meet some fellow believers who pray together for the exchange and for each other. This was greatly encouraging to us.
We met at the bull and prayed for the Lion's Market to emerge with biblical economics and the transfer of wealth. We also prayed that God would shake the market in a way that would bring a course correction and avert another Great Depression for the future.
As always, we are grateful for the mercies of God.
We had a prayer meeting at Federal Hall, where George Washington was inaugurated and our first congress met 226 years before. The hall is an impressive structure, catty-cornered to the NYSE. Earlier that day, musicians in colonial garb played the fife and drum, and an actor dressed as George Washington read his inaugural address that evoked Almighty God.
As we gathered to pray and commemorate Washington’s historical inauguration, we had a deep sense that we stood on the shoulders of giants as we cried out for freedom of religion to remain in the land. Our forefathers paid for such freedom with their blood and hammered our Bill of Rights together with iron-clad, irrevocable declarations that now seem in danger of being done away with in our time.
We made our Appeal to Heaven with the flag that George Washington had hung from the Navy ships—those same words emblazoned across the top. We humbled ourselves and cried for a return to the covenants our forefathers made, and we invoked the name of the great Peacemaker for our nation that is seeing rioting in the streets from the pain of racism. We felt the weight of knowing our society has turned from the loving Hand of God who had made us a great people, and we believe that His powerful presence will once again shake our nation with another Great Awakening from sea to shining sea.
