Watch and Pray
Day 18
At the beginning of Mark 12 Jesus gives the parable of the vineyard. In this parable (based on Isaiah 5:1-7) Jesus is obviously claiming to be the Son of God and the heir of the Kingdom. And the Pharisees obviously understood it this way. That is why they wanted to arrest Jesus, but dared not attempt it in public because of Jesus’ popularity with the people.
It’s interesting how much of Jesus preaching and teaching was prompted by the on-going controversy He had with the Pharisees. The spirit of religion is a vicious and relentless spirit which can only be defeated by strong doses of the Word and a humble spirit.
I wonder what happened to the young scribe from the party of the Pharisees who had such an accurate understanding of the primacy of love that Jesus was moved to remark, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” Indeed, the Kingdom of God is a Kingdom dominated by love. I hope this young scribe became a believer in Jesus after the resurrection. I have strong reason to believe he did. The book of Acts records that many priests and Pharisees became believers.
The verse that stood out for me the strongest today is in chapter 13, when Jesus said during His teaching on the last days, “watch and pray.”
I think of it this way: Watch the news and pray over world events.
God has called us to reign with Him. This is the meaning of the covenant name ISRAEL. yi-sarah-El. It means, he shall rule with God. God wants you to participate with Him in ruling the world through prophetic prayer. It’s not enough to idly sit back and say, “Well, the sovereignty of God will take care of it.” God in His sovereignty has called His people to reign and rule with Him. We do this in part by prophetic declarations made in prayer. Consider God’s call of Jeremiah the prophet in Jeremiah 1:9-12
“Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth,
And the Lord said to me:
Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.
See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms,
To root out and to pull down,
To destroy and to throw down,
To build and to plant.
Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
‘Jeremiah, what do you see?’
And I said, ‘I see a branch of an almond tree.’ [lit. watching tree]
Then the Lord said to me,
‘You have seen well, for I am watching over My word to perform it.'”
God exercised His sovereignty over the nations through the prophesying of Jeremiah. God revealed His word to His prophet Jeremiah, but Jeremiah had the responsibility of making the prophetic declarations.
There is no issue in the world more critical right now than the issue of Iran.
An Iran dominated by fanatical, demon-controlled ayatollahs and a virulent anti-Semitic President cannot allowed to develop nuclear weapons. It is not just the responsibility of President Bush or the UN or the EU or Russia or China or even Israel to deal with this problem. It is primarily the responsibility of the Body of Christ to deal with this problem through prophetic praying. Watch and pray. Watch the world events and the pray.
Pray against Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.
Pray that world leaders would be given the wisdom and courage to confront Iran.
Pray that wicked leaders would be removed from power in Iran.
Pray for a mighty move God in Iran.
Pray for the salvation of Iran.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
We must be using the keys of the Kingdom to bind and loose, we must be shaping world history through prayer and fasting, we must be influencing world events through prophetic praying. Now is the time to be doing this.
Watch and Pray!