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Watch Focus - Watchman, What of the Night?


Passion Week is rich with revelation and encouragement. The events of those seven days in Jesus’ life carry universal significance for each of us. Jesus’ triumphal entry signifies celebration of truth and testing of hearts. While some hail Him as King, many change their allegiance before the week is out. Jesus pauses before a spiritually slumbering city and weeps for her. While His own are caught up in the jubilant feast, His assassination is being plotted behind the scenes. Jesus’ righteous zeal comes loose the next day. He confronts the hypocrites who commercialize His Father’s house of prayer and drives them out with a whip. On Tuesday, Jesus sits His disciples down and tells them of the catastrophic ransacking of Jerusalem to occur in their lifetime. He gives specific signs by which they will know to take their families and move to safety, all the while speaking of His final triumphal return to that city to judge the whole world. Wednesday, Judas makes a deal with the devil and offers his friend up for a price, then they have their last supper together. The city is filled with celebrants recalling the great exodus in anticipation of Messiah’s overthrow of the Roman occupiers. Little do they understand the manner and means of the deliverance at hand. But the One girded in a servants’ towel would lead them. On Friday, He confronts the powers of heaven and earth, spiritual, religious, and political. He is tried, convicted, and crucified. An earthquake rocks the city. The sun goes dark at noon. The world and the adversary think they have prevailed. Silence overtakes Shabbat.
 
Then Sunday comes! He is Risen!
 
“See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic. I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding place.” Isaiah 28:16-17.
 
Until Jesus comes, the world will suffer similar scenes from passion week. We will have Sundays, Mondays, midweeks, and black Fridays that leave us astonished. Know for certain that Sunday is Coming! The King is working out His plan. Those who look for Him will rejoice. Our watch focus this week is for discernment and patient prophetic perseverance in the purpose of God for all who call on Him. Isaiah prophesied the captivity and return from Babylon and the fate of the nations involved two centuries before it happened. He speaks of a mysterious voice seeming to come out of nowhere calling for watchmen to take their place in the gate, and, rightly discerning the hour, raise their voice like trumpets and midwives of God’s plan.  
 
“Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.’ Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.” Isaiah 35:3-6
 
As we celebrate the Risen and Reigning Only True King, we embrace the events of our day in our personal lives, in our national political life, in the nations, and in Israel with ardent prayer as watchmen. We recognize while in the dark of night, morning light will surely come in its time. We rejoice that One of us has overcome death and He will reign until He has subdued His enemies. We pray for salvation to be revealed in Israel and in Gaza. We pray for complete victory over Hamas and for rescue of the hostages. We pray God’s justice is meted out to all who oppose Him and every unrighteous ruler in America be quickly replaced with God fearers. We pray blessing and a season of miracle intervention on all who trust in the Lord and look for His salvation. We pray the Risen One come quickly to His temple!
 
“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:28-31
 
Isaiah sees and describes Jesus’ passion and victory 700 years before it takes place:
“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.  We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.  After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Isaiah 53:1-12
 
“Go and tell this people: ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Isaiah 6:9-10 
 
“I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting. Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.” Isaiah 50: 6-7 
 
“He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken. In that day they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.’” Isaiah 25:8-9
 
“And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” Isaiah 56:7

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Previous Watch Focuses   
 
Passion Week is rich with revelation and encouragement.
PURIM: On display in our courts compromising citizens’ rights to the global scene where Israel is on trial for waging a just war for their survival, justice is under judgment. The story of Purim in the Bible is a universal lesson in the triumph of justice
For days now our intercession is interwoven in a sound of SINGING! When King David returned the ark to its place, they sang as they brought it home on their shoulders!
Our watch focus this week begins with God’s promises from scripture that His will shall be done on earth.
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