"Oh brother pray; in spite of Satan, pray; spend hours in prayer, rather neglect friends than not pray, rather fast, and lose breakfast, dinner, supper and sleep too - than not pray. And we must not talk about prayer - we must pray in right earnest. The Lord is near. He comes softly while the virgins slumber... I find true what Samuel Rutherford wrote: 'A bed watered with tears, a throat dry with praying, eyes a fountain of tears for the sins of the land are rarely to be found among us.' "- Andrew A. Bonar

Amidst all kinds of activities and pursuits that monopolize our time, God is clearly inviting His people of this generation to have a mighty impact on the world. Yet, are we aware that the work, which consists of making Christ known all around us and throughout the world, is humanly highly impossible by our own strength and capabilities? Such a demanding challenge requires that we should devote ourselves entirely to the transforming GRACE of God. The culture of our day, in the world as well as in the Church alas, encourages us to be satisfied with the comfort and benefits of materialism. Our society is influenced by a philosophy of pleasure, self-sufficiency, and self-indulgence - but for how long? Consequently, let us confess with tears and despair that even our Christian lives neither exhilarate the fragrance of Heaven, nor do they radiate the anointing of a Life which only emanates from a holy passion for Jesus and a life hidden in Him in earnest prayer.

Oh, could we actually understand, as Habakkuk who once exclaimed, "O Jehovah, I have heard the report of thee, and am afraid: O Jehovah, revive thy work in the midst of the years; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy," (Habakkuk 3:2 ASV) that to rise above this growing general mediocrity and the laodicean condition of the church requires much more than merely good intentions made up of organizations, diagrams, plans, strategies, projects, teachings, meetings, conferences, works, all of them being too fleshly! Our great and greatest need today is that of a true REVIVAL in which our uncompromised passion for the Lord Jesus-Christ will be revived, and an extravagant love for the lost and the unreached will be quickened. Indeed, only a total abandonment to Jesus-Christ will make us men and women who will change the world by PRAYER, by the effect of God's grace alone!

Hence, regular prayer watches will find their place, as God’s appointed means for seeking the Lord and letting ourselves be seized by a fresh vision of His reign and a burden for a deeper work of GRACE, REPENTANCE and FAITH. Earnest and lasting prayer will necessarily produce the following fruits:

• A total abandonment of our lives, desires, dreams and ambitions to the lordship and total control of Jesus-Christ;
• A happy willingness to set ourselves apart to be exclusively devoted to the glory and reputation of Jesus-Christ, made evident by the marks of a holy Christ-like life;
• A holy dissatisfaction with regard to a status quo religion, which dissatisfaction will lead us to a burning vision of a genuine Christ-centered revival within the Church;
• A supernatural love and burden for the lost and the dying, which will be manifested through a sacrificial willingness to go and preach the Good News to all languages, tribes and non-evangelized nations of the world.

C ould we have the same outlook on the condition of the Church and the world and feel the same affliction as Jeremiah the prophet once did when mourning before the hecatomb in which his people were plunged: "And he hath made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together. Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yea, her prophets find no from Jehovah. The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they keep silence; They have cast up dust upon their heads; They have girded themselves with sackcloth: The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. Mine eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured upon the earth, because   of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city." (Lamentations 2:8-11)?

If we have such a contrite heart, then tears will run down our eyes and we will be brought to our knees and cry out to the Lord DAY AND NIGHT so that He restore His glory among us by a revival whilst everything seems but desolation around us: "Their heart cried unto the Lord: O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; give thyself no respite; let not the apple of thine eye cease. Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street." (Lamentations 2:18-19)

May we become fully aware that a true revival cannot be imprisoned within institutional organizations, because the Holy Spirit is grieved when man seeks to control Him and trap Him within his traditions; that a manifestation of the Kingdom of God in all its power and purity cannot melt with vain human efforts and methods, but only results from the SOVEREIGN GRACE of God. Are we thus eager to answer now the call sent out by the Lord to make prayer a lifestyle and the first priority until a travailing spirit and anguish are reached? May the Holy Spirit of God illuminate the minds of His people so that we may understand the invaluable promise of God who was committed by His covenant of faithfulness towards His saints to preserve a remnant Church which will HUMILIATE herself, SEEK HIS FACE and TURN AWAY FROM HER SINS (2 Chronicles 7:14), and "restore all things". The Father seeks to pour His pain and His burden in hearts moved by a deep despair and who stand in the gap. We can see this watchman’s ministry described in substance but allegorically in the book of Nehemiah, who was a man of revival:

"They all builded the wall and they that bare burdens laded themselves; every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other held his weapon; and the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, and so builded. And he that sounded the trumpet was by me. And I said unto the nobles, and to the rulers and to the rest of the people, The work is great and large, and we are separated upon the wall, one far from another: in what place soever ye hear the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us; our God will fight for us. So we wrought in the work: and half of them held the spears from the rising of the morning till the stars appeared. Likewise at the same time said I unto the people, Let every one with his servant lodge within Jerusalem, that in the night they may be a guard to us, and may labor in the day. " (Nehemiah 4:17-23)

The Lord now is seeking to transmit the call, the burden, the vision, the determination but especially the prayer full of mourning of Nehemiah. These are some of the main elements, which still remain today the ingredients of a true apostolic revival. Aren't our hearts afflicted in the face of the powerful tide of apostasy and powerless religion invading our churches? In the face of the iniquity which has submerged our cultural, social, moral and religious environment? Our day has largely been contaminated by religious rhetoric full of delusion and by counterfeit revivals. This is hereby the ideal framework in which God alone can glorify Himself by a revival sent from heaven, without the help of any hand. Because it is in God's nature to raise-up in times of apostasy, when the spiritual condition both of the Church and the world seems desperate, men of prayer such as Nehemiah who is a biblical type of a revival apostle and prophet. Are you one of them? Do you want to become one? Saints of God, do you want now to go to your prayer closet, until you are seized by His urgent call sent today to His Church to raise up men like Nehemiah, Ezra, Haggai and Zechariah - in order to rebuild the wall and the ruined House of God rather than to build each one his own house?

"Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will inquire, inquire ye: turn ye, come." (Isaiah 21:11-12)

It is now that God is eager to express His favour towards His children - and the TIME IS SHORT! Shall we be found among those wise virgins who, knowing that the Bridegroom is at the door, and hearing His voice already, and the sound of His steps, and fallen in love with Him, and longing to join Him for the wedding of the Lamb, will have actively watched and prayed with all their hearts until the rising of the day in order to prepare themselves to His impending coming? Oh, that in a narrow fellowship with the Father, in His Son Jesus-Christ, by the Holy Spirit, each of us individually and as a whole indivisible Body, the Bride, we may prepare ourselves with the necessary purification and cleansing of our hearts! And undoubtedly, when we have touched our immaculate Lord and received the full vision of Christ who "fills all in all", much of our thinking, doing, acting and worshipping will be left aside to leave room for the eternal Kingdom of the beloved Son.

Thus, with a desire to answer the call of the Lord Jesus TO WATCH and PRAY, ERM has set up a "prayer watch" on a national scale for specific fields, consisting in prayer grids each divided into time slots covering the whole week. The principle is that each time slot of the week should be occupied by one person, which yields 168 watchmen for each "wall of prayer". May we encourage each other, as disciples of Christ, to be bound together as one soul, to seek Him in prayer and fasting. Spiritual leaders can form in their own churches but also in collaboration with other congregations uninterrupted 24-7 chains of prayer (24 hours a day and 7 days a week). Christians can also organize themselves in their homes to constitute this type of watch. It is possible for you to take part in this prayer watch, which can prevent you from the task of a heavy logistic organization. ERM places at your disposal practical resources as well as targeted subjects of prayer enabling you to inspire your intercession.

Participation in one of these prayer watches nevertheless is reserved to the genuine disciples of Christ who have fully accepted the conditions of ERM, its statements of faith and moral statements, and who have registered as participating members of ERM’s vision. This requirement, if it seems constraining, gives us assurance of the seriousness and depth in the involvement of each participant, since we are seeking men and women who will be committed before the Lord to watch and pray INDEFINITELY UNTIL God sends us the dew from heaven. Fill in the contact form to get in touch with us in the Contact section to obtain more information on this subject.

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