
"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.
Back
|