NIGHTWATCH FOR EUROPE: week beginning Sunday December 3rd 2006
‘Could you not watch with me for one hour?’ (Mtt26: 40)
WELCOME TO ANOTHER NIGHT WATCH FOR EUROPE
Thanks for your hard work last week. We realise that some of you found it quite difficult. Thank you for persevering. As you will notice we do try to vary the content of the watch between practical topics and serious theological and prophetic and political issues. This watch is not just a weekly prayer session but a serious attempt to prepare a continent for what is possibly the last great transition in world history.
This week we will commence once again by resisting the devil and then pick up some crucial issues for Europe, then pray into the next section of the prophetic word ‘A time to live in hope’, before returning to use the book of Daniel as our intercessors guide.
If you know of anyone who would also like to receive this night watch prayer bulletin each week, they can subscribe by going to www.passion.org.uk/announcemail and submitting their details on the web form. Alternatively they can email us at admin@passion.org.uk
IF YOU ARE A REGULAR YOU CAN SKIP THE NEXT 2 PARAGRAPHS
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. We are looking to carry on for another two years, while realising that some can’t commit right now for as long as that. We are pleased for you to enlist for as long as you can. If you have to miss an occasional watch it’s OK as the rest of us will carry it. A six-month commitment is probably a good start.
THE CONTENT OF THE WATCH FOR THE WEEK BEGINNING SUNDAY DECEMBER 3RD 2006
1. TAKE 10 MINUTES TO RESIST THE DEVIL AND LIFT UP THE LORD JESUS!
Resist the devil away from your spirit, soul and body. Resist him away from your room, home, street, village, town, city and region. Resist him away from the expressions of church of which you are a part. Resist him away from your nation and the whole continent of Europe. Resist him away from your mind and the mindsets of Christians everywhere.
Declare John’s words in Revelation 12:10-11
"Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.”
2. TAKE 10 MINUTES TO PRAY FOR TURKEY.
As I write the Pope is in Istanbul, protected by 20,000 police. At the same time the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair has warned of the consequences of delaying the process of Turkey’s possible entry into the European Union. Pray for great wisdom for the pope, the Turkish government and the EU leaders at this time. Pray for the Turkish government to resolve their difficulties in facing and dealing with the sins of their past. The whole subject of Turkey and the EU is controversial, including among intercessors! While I personally favour their entry into the EU, the key issue is for Europe to make room for the kingdom of God and to overcome injustice and evil with love and forgiveness.
3. TAKE 20 MINUTES TO PRAY OVER THE NEXT EXCERPT FROM ‘A TIME TO LIVE IN HOPE’
In this section Sue refers to prophetic insight about a season which began on 6th June (6/6/06) which should last for three years and three months until 9th September 09 (9/9/09). (The whole prophetic word is available at www.passion.org.uk)
“I believe this will be a season when the Lord moves to shift us from the often richly blessed but essentially human-orientated standpoint (6: number for human) in which we are established (3x3: number for establishment) to the divinely fruitful (9: number for fruitfulness). And the foundation for this, as for faith itself, is dug out in the quality and discipline of hope.
A key parable is the release of the film “Children of Men”, which the director says is about the possibility of hope in the hopeless scenario of a world with no future because humanity has become sterile. I use this as the parable because it speaks with the voice of the creation to which we are being aligned and into which we are being sown, not to give us glib answers but in order to identify with the futility to which it is subjected and to invest it with the very quality for which it is groaning (Rom 8:20). It may even be that much of the today’s questioning about church activity and practice is in fact the purposeful result of the previous season, as church aligns with creation and begins to reveal futility at many levels. Notice that ‘from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour’ (Matt 27:45).
I believe we should be ready to experience three years of major confusion. It may well even test us in our understanding of the character and nature of our good Father God, but it is that nature which has been so gloriously revived and renewed in us over these years exactly for this reason!
4. TAKE 20 MINUTES TO PRAY AND REFLECT OVER DANIEL CHAPTER NINE
In chapter eight, Daniel had received some more revelation about the four empires that divided world history before the victory of the kingdom of God. Now he had realised that their 70 years of captivity was nearly over and he hoped that the people of God would be able to play their part in the victory of the kingdom of God.
Pray about and act on the following 4 points (5 minutes each)
• He took times and seasons really seriously with prayer and fasting (vv1-3), so should we.
• He took responsibility for the sins of the past and confessed them even although he had not been alive at the time they were committed (vv4-19), so should we.
• God took him and his prayers seriously, sending the angel Gabriel to talk with him (vv20-23), God will treat us with similar seriousness if we act like Daniel.
• God showed him through prophetic use of numbers that the Messiah would totally fulfil the purpose of the temple and sacrifice system (vv24-27). Note that in Leviticus (25:8) seven weeks of years is 49 years, making seventy weeks of years 490 years and bringing us to the time of Christ and therefore the time when the Son of Man would engage the fourth empire: Rome. Europe has been and a spiritual battle ground for empire and the kingdom of God ever since. God wants to bring victory for his kingdom in our day.
