NIGHTWATCH FOR EUROPE week beginning Sunday June 22nd 2008
‘Could you not watch with me for one hour?’ (Mtt26: 40)
WELCOME TO THE NIGHT WATCH FOR EUROPE
I am compiling these guidelines in Kinshasa, Congo where I am with European and African colleagues for the culmination of the European African Reconciliation Process. We have found the brothers and sisters here well prepared and ready for this historic event for our two continents. Recognising that God has mandated us to stand in the gap for Europe they are full of faith and expectation in the strength of which more than a hundred expressions of the church of Kinshasa will gather in the main Cathedral here together with political leaders of the city and nation. Many embassies will also be represented by their designated officials, and it seems that everyone will at least send their national flags. The culminating ceremony of repentance and reconciliation will go out on national television. If you receive this email in time to pray for the ceremony on Saturday June 21st, please pray for us between 10.30am and 1.00pm. The time is the same as British Summer time, one hour behind France and GMT. Otherwise please pray through the particular points below as usual during the coming week in order to undergird the ongoing impact of the event. The Congolese leaders are convinced that the European delegation is here for two reasons, firstly to bring the process of repentance to fullness by standing together for European sin in the Congo and secondly to bring words of prophetic restitution and blessing to the land and to the continent of which it is the heart. The content of this week’s watch will focus exclusively on this initiative because we believe it to be a key for the resurrection of the work of the kingdom of God in Europe and the transformation of Africa.
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If you are receiving this material unexpectedly it is because someone has suggested that you may be interested to join in. If you do not want to keep receiving it please inform us immediately and we will stop sending it to you. We want to let those of you who are newcomers know that we are very pleased to have your partnership in this watch. We are simply asking for a commitment of an hour a week some time between 9pm and 6am whatever time zone you are in.
We will send you a brief outline for prayer each week according to the prophetic direction coming from the contemporary prophetic movement in Europe. You will not always agree with everything in the watch material. Go with what you can and trust the Lord to help you with the rest. This Nightwatch began in November 2003 and we are looking to carry on until the end of September 2008 after which there will be a transition into a different form of intercessory support. If you have to miss an occasional watch it’s OK as the rest of us will carry it. We are ready for eleventh hour workers for this final three months!
THE CONTENT OF THE WATCH FOR THE WEEK BEGINNING SUNDAY 22nd JUNE 2008
1. TAKE TIME TO PRAY AND REFLECT OVER THE FOLLOWING REVELATION GIVEN TO CONGOLESE INTERCESSORS (15 minutes)
Africa was buried in a hole in the ground, someone had dug down and lots of people standing round the edge looking into the hole. As they prayed and worshipped God, a locked coffin in which Africa was buried rose up to ground level. An African and a European stood by. The European had the key to the box. The European handed the key to the African who opened the box. As the prayer and worship continued a map depicting Congo at the heart of Africa emerged from the box and expanded into a map of the whole of Africa. The map grew legs and began to run shouting ‘I’m free, I’m free!’
Pray that our repentance and prophetic words of restitution and blessing will return the key to Congo and Africa as a whole. Pray that what Europe has locked up economically and politically will be released to Africa. Pray that Europe’s racial prejudice, protectionism and dominance will come to end and be replaced by a genuine partnership.
2. PRAY INTO THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE CUTTING OFF OF HANDS (15 minutes)
Many of us have been rightly shocked and horrified at the practice of cutting off the hands of child soldiers by recent African terrorist armies. But this began at the initiative of Europeans in the Congo Free State (that became the Belgian Congo in 1908) as a means of threatening Africans who would not work. Hands of unwilling workers or their children were cut off as common practice to show the determination of the colonial masters to work the land and the mines. In the scriptures the hand stands for the practical outworking of power and authority. The presence of God cut off the head and hands of the Philistines’ idol (1Sam 5:4). Jesus said that it would be better to cut off your own hand than to cause another to stumble (Matt 18:6-8). But Europeans who professed Christ cut off African hands.
Take time to meditate and repent over this. Some of the most important ways of prophetic restitution will be the repudiation of all European neo-colonial control over Africa, the rescinding of European authority and the reinstatement of the power and authority of the people of Africa over their lands. Spend time praying and reflecting on the implications of this.
3. PRAY FOR GOD’S WAY FOR REPARATION AND RESTITUTION TO BE MADE TO AFRICA (15 minutes)
Our African colleagues, like the Gibeonites in 1 Samuel 21: 4 who said “We have no concern of silver or gold with Saul or his house, nor is it for us to put any man to death in Israel” are not asking for reparation, restitution or blood. What they are looking for is genuine reconciliation through the cross and prophetic words of blessing and the full restitution of political, economic and spiritual authority over their own land. But as Europeans we must face the fact that our continent has been built on the wealth of Africa and we cannot avoid facing our responsibility before God to restore what we have taken.
Pray for the same impact of the presence of Jesus and his kingdom on the Christians of Europe that Zaccheus experienced in Luke19:8 "Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much." Pray for opportunity and language with which to challenge the churches and governments of Europe to move beyond the sense of being benefactors to the responsibility to restore what we have effectively defrauded.
4. PRAY THE BLESSING OF JOSEPH OVER AFRICA (15 minutes)
When Joseph was taken to Africa he made it his land and his home, just as the Israelites later did in Babylon when the Lord told them to make the destiny of the city their own destiny. Pray Joseph’s blessing over Africa today.
"Blessed of the LORD be his land, with the choice things of heaven, with the dew, and from the deep lying beneath, and with the choice yield of the sun, and with the choice produce of the months. And with the best things of the ancient mountains and with the choice things of the everlasting hills, and with the choice things of the earth and its fullness, and the favour of him who dwelt in the bush. Let it come to the head of Joseph, And to the crown of the head of the one distinguished among his brothers. As the firstborn of his ox, majesty is his, and his horns are the horns of the wild ox; with them he will push the peoples, all at once, to the ends of the earth. And those are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and those are the thousands of Manasseh." (Deut 33:13-17)
IN HOPE OF A RESURRECTED EUROPE AND A TRANSFORMED AFRICA,
