What God has promised. Our condition. His work
It is staggering to consider, what God has declared He would do and what He has promised to bring to pass. It is also extremely challenging to view our present condition as a people. Just live here for a while, and you will understand.  Given these things, our faith is challenged, and we continuously cry to the Lord for a revelation of Himself and in His Word, so that we might be enabled and strengthen in our faith, to go on praying in a meaningful way. (There is plenty of praying, the kind of which is utterly useless and a waste of time - His and ours…)

Thankfully, God has not left us without an answer to our need. He has not only told us what He will do but also how He will do it. He has shown us how He will bring us from where we are, to where He is, to where He is taking us.

Read Ezekiel 37:24-28  This is one of the places where the Lord has revealed what He will do. It is beyond amazing to realize what He has planned. Is it speaking of the actual return of the Lord and His dwelling among us?  Is this the fullness of the restoration of all things? Surely we can pray into this promise without having to figure it out.....Instead of getting a headache thinking about it, we can adore Him and let the scriptures bring us to a longing for Himself and for the time He will be Here! I can’t imagine what it will be like to have Yeshua as King of Israel in reality! Can you?

Read Micah 7:2-7 as a description of our condition today. What was true then is also true today. 

What will bring The Change? What will God do to effect such a colossal change in the hearts of the whole nation? What can possible God do?

Read Zechariah 12:10 and Zechariah 13:1
Zechariah 12:10  “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.
Zechariah 13:1 “In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness"

That’s what God will do! 

Firstly, it will be by the Holy Spirit! True repentance comes from heaven, it is initiated in the heart of God. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Repentance. It is His turning to us, that enables us, yea even compels us to turn to Him. Let us be clear on this — Israel’s turning to God begins in Heaven, in God’s motion towards His people!

Secondly,  He will pour out the Spirit of Grace and Supplication. One Spirit but two distinct things: One - The Spirit of Grace - is the Spirit of God revealing to us His Love, at the cross;  it is the love of God in the crucified Messiah, In Yeshua. We will see Him whom we have pierced. This is how God by the Holy Spirit will bring conviction on this nation. (John 16:8)

Thirdly, that Spirit of Grace that comes and opens our eyes to see, The One whom We have crucified, will also be the Spirit of supplication, of beseeching. He will raise in us a mighty Cry: “Have Mercy on us Son of David!” Oh, what a Day!

• We thanked God and acknowledged His Goal and plan
• We thanked God for His love and faithfulness to our nation!
• We acknowledged our sense of unworthiness as a nation and a people for such Faithfulness, Grace and Love.
• We acknowledged our sinfulness and condition as a nation (we agreed with God in His description of us.)
• We prayed for that promised outpouring of His Spirit of Grace and of Supplication
• We begged God to break our self-righteousness by His mercy
• We thanked Him for His Mercy and Love
• We asked that He would hasten the day and not contend forever (Isaiah 57:16)
• We prayed that our people will be so convicted by the operation of the Spirit that they will flock to that fountain of cleansing (Zech 13:1), that is, acknowledge their need for the Blood of the Lamb of God
• We prayed that the Lord would give, especially the religious, a great revelation of His mercy
• We asked for a divine dissatisfaction in the hearts of those who are content with mere religion and outward observance, and mere writings and legends of men
• We asked that the Lord would stir many in this nation and give them a longing for mercy, a hunger for grace.
• We prayed much for the outpouring of His Spirit upon this nation.

We prayed for the Body of Messiah

• We prayed for the many who have come to faith but have no revelation of the cross
• We prayed that same revelation that is to come upon Israel, to come now upon the Body
• We prayed for the breaking of self-righteousness in the Body of Messiah
• We prayed that the believers in the Land may feel their need for the Blood of Messiah, every day, every hour.
• We prayed for a great thirst for the water of life (Spirit in John 7:37-39)
• We prayed for a craving for the Word in the Body, in the congregations, in the hearts of the believers
• We asked the Lord to convict us of the ways of the world and of the flesh

We prayed for the nations around us - in a protective/redemptive way
While we stand firmly before the Lord to protect our nation from the evil desires of the nations around us to annihilate us, we also pray for the redemptive plan of God for those nations, in the process of the restoration of Israel.

In Micah 7:16-17 is one of the places in scriptures that show clearly that God’s restoration of Israel brings awe and a fear upon the nations around here. See Isaiah 2 as well - There, God rebukes the nations, but the end result is that they come to hear the Word of the Lord. The same is expressed in Ezekiel 36, you can find it there.

• We prayed much for the protection of Israel from her unfriendly neighbors: Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran and Syria in Syria, etc….
• We declared the Lord has brought us here to Life and not unto death
• We prayed the Lord would not let the nations prevail in their demonic schemes
• We acknowledged that the nations around us are bound by the darkness of Islam
• We asked for the Light to come, in redemptive judgment and in mercy 
• We remembered the many believers in such nations as Iran and Syria and Lebanon
• We prayed that the nations will know that the Lord He is God alone!  
• We asked the Lord to use the natural disasters to turn many to God (severe drought in Iran, Locusts in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries in our region)

We prayed for our upcoming elections

• We asked God for Mercy! Oh how we need mercy in this whole business of government! 
• Lord you see the need within the Land
• Lord you know the unrighteousness and corruption
• Lord you see the poverty 
• Lord you see the political “market.”
• Lord you see the need to open the country to Aliya (immigration) and absorption
• Lord you see the need as far as defense goes
• Lord the Government is upon Your shoulders — chose the leaders you want in all departments… make this government serve your purpose for this nation, including your promises to bless the people and give them a hope and a future! 
• Regarding the soon to be revealed Trump plan for the Middle East, we prayed: Lord save us from our friends...

Thank you for standing with us. May the Lord refresh you in the Word, and may He, strengthen your Faith and establish your Hope in Him!

Blessings from Jerusalem,

Sin, Redemption and the Grace to come
Every praying person, or group, need to continually come back to the Word to be refreshed in understanding, re-aligned with the mind of the Lord and to be re-inspired to pray.

We read Isaiah 59, an astounding chapter in that it begins with an excoriating revelation and rebuke of Judah’s sins and corruptions, but ends with mighty salvation and outpoured grace that continues to flow right through the next chapters; so powerful are the flow of grace and mercy! 

And wherefore the change? In one word: Messiah! 

Is. 59:16  He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor;  Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained Him.
Is. 59:17  For He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head; He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.

On these verses, JFB comments: “…namely, to atone by his righteousness for the unrighteousness of the people. “Man” is emphatic, as in 1 Kings 2:2; no representative man able to retrieve the cause of fallen men” “no intercessor — no one to interpose, “to help . . . uphold”
His arm — (Isaiah 40:10; 51:5). Not man’s arm, but His alone (Psalms 98:1; 44:3). 
his righteousness — the “arm” of Messiah.1

And while these verses describe the victory of the cross, the next verses are a prophecy of the future, of this outpoured grace. 

Is. 59:19 So they will fear the name of the LORD from the west and His glory from the rising of the sun, for He will come like a rushing stream which the wind of the LORD drives.
Is. 59:20   “A Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,” declares the LORD. (NASB)

He will come like a mighty rushing stream driven by the Spirit (see Acts 2:2) He will come to Zion as Redeemer. (This verse is quoted in Roman 11:26-27) His glory will arise in the earth  (Isaiah 62:2), He will judge the nations (Isaiah 59:18), He will arise over this nation in great light and glory (Isaiah 60:1). And best of all, He will save His people, He will redeem them from their sins, He will reconcile them to Himself, and He will abide in their midst. His presence, once again, will be the covering of His people. They shall dwell and live before Him. They will behold His beauty, they will taste His Goodness and Mercy and will live in His presence. 

What a prospect is this?  It just underlines the disaster that Sin is! It only fills the heart with longing for That Day! We long for the Day that He will come to wash our sins away! Oh for the prospect of His Presence filing this land! 

We prayed for Israel's redemption

• We prayed first for the redemption of our nation
• We prayed into the verses in Isaiah 59 acknowledging our state and asking for redemption
• We prayed for the Lord to confront our nation with its sins
• We prayed for the Spirit to come like a mighty rushing Wind (see John 16:8)
• We prayed for the Lord to bring Israel low spiritually (sense its need)
• We prayed for God to give Israel a sense of its spiritual bankruptcy 
• We prayed for a revelation of the crucified Messiah to our people
• We thanked God for the cross of Yeshua
• We asked God for forgiveness (as representing the nation) for our idolatry 
• We asked God to give Israel a divine dissatisfaction and with it a longing for God Himself
• We asked God to give people in the land an insatiable curiosity regarding Yeshua
• We asked God to bring us to brokenness and neediness in the things of God
• We asked the Lord to bring Yeshua up, into society as a subject
• We asked God to pour out His Spirit on us according to the promises in the Word (See Joel 2:28, Ezekiel 37, etc.)

We prayed for the Body of Messiah in the Land

• We asked for the grace to set Yeshua as our chief Joy
• We acknowledge how worldly we have become as a Body
• We asked for revelation in the Body of how much we need Yeshua
• We asked for a renewal of the spirit of gratitude in the Body 

Some of the prayers we prayed: 

• You desire a grateful heart
• Show us how to Love you so we can pour our heart out before you
• Teach us how to listen to you
• Teach us how to wait on you, how to sit at your feet and wait on you
• Give us grateful hearts for the forgiveness of our sins
• Give us the heart to make Yeshua and the cross central to our lives and the life of the congregations
• We submit ourselves to you, have your way, we surrender our plans for the future to you
• Take the reins of our life into your hands
• Let you Spirit operate fully in our life
• Carry out Your plans for each one of us in the Body
• Give us a fresh revelation of Yourself dear Lord

We also prayed for the coming elections
We noted how, as usual, the campaigns have turned into mud slinging and ugly name calling. People seem to hope for a party that will fix everything and is different than all the others, only to be downhearted after the elections that it is all more of the same. 

Oh, how we need God’s intervention. 

• We all cried out to the Lord for mercy on Israel
• We put before the Lord many of the different issues regarding the need of this nation: social and economic, security, the big question of the future of the Palestinians, the political sellout to the Orthodox (religious) parties.
• We prayed for the right people in office, those who would further God’s agenda for Israel at this time: “whomever he wished, he set up; and whomever he wished, he put down.” (Daniel 5:19) Although this is said of Nebuchadnezzar it is truer of the Lord, who can put in office anyone whom He wishes, whenever He wants. (Luke 1:52 and Daniel 4:37)

Thank you for standing with us. 

Blessings from Jerusalem,


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1. JFB commentary

“I write not for those who want a “bottle” (“I have fed you with milk”) but for those who want to battle. My heart is at rest—but I am restless for revival. I have peace—but yet am at war against principalities and powers and against everything in the Church that clutters up the blocked channel through which revival could come. I am not alone, thank God, for many saints long for Christ’s appearing—first in the power of revival, and then in majesty in the skies. To them, I write these simple words, for such they are. May God bless them to your hungry hearts.”  (Revival Praying, Leonard Ravenhill)

My heart is stirred up. I am longing for God’s interventions, for His appearing, for His mighty arm to be made bare. Ravenhill’s words, above, describe my hearts condition. “My heart is at rest—but I am restless.” I don’t want “a bottle” but to “battle” for the purposes of God on the earth. 

My heart cries out with the prophet’s 

“Oh, that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence! When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence. For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.” Isaiah 64:1-4 

I wonder how long it will be till He comes to deliver us from our adversaries, till He restores us to Himself. Until  He descends in clouds of Glory, till he overshadows us with His Presence. 

Psa. 74:10  O God, how long will the adversary reproach?  Will the enemy blaspheme Your name forever?
Psa. 90:13  Return, O LORD!  How long?  And have compassion on Your servants.
Psa. 94:3  LORD, how long will the wicked,  How long will the wicked triumph?


Indeed, How long?!  

Matt. 8:25 Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”

This verse is usually taken negatively, as the disciples should have had more faith in the “sleeping” savior". But for us, now, this cry can be a cry of the heart to the Lord to “stir himself awake” and save us. 

Psa. 44:23-26 Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off forever. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression? For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth. Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies’ sake.

Do you know how to cry to God as the sons of Korah did?  Or as Isaiah? 

Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over? Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. Is. 51:9-11

Such cries of hope come out of a desperate heart, a heart which feels the need. Such desperate cries come out of hearts that have been touched by God, by the Spirit and have been set on fire. Such cries come out of the desperate, the suffering, those to whom the world is dead and whose hearts are filled with deep longing for His reign.  

Lot, who lived in Sodom, was “vexed” (2 Pet 2:7) by the moral conditions of Sodom, but never prayed. He was worn out and distressed by the situation, but there is no record of Him crying out to God for Sodom. It was Abraham’s prayers that actually brought deliverance to Lot, in the midst of judgment. 

• Do you long to be personally revived and be fully awakened to God? Cry out to Him!
• Do you long to see your church aflame in God? Cry out to Him! 
• Do you long to see people in your church, go all out in loving God? Cry out to Him!
• Do you long, with us, to see many saved? Cry out to Him!
• Do you long to see your church understand God’s coming grace to Israel? Cry out to Him!
• Do you long to see Israel gathered from the ends of the earth to the land of Israel? Cry out to Him! (Anti-Semitism is up 74 percent this year in France, and the same is trend in the UK, Germany.)
• The world is becoming unsafe for Jewish people. Cry out to Him to bring them to Israel!
• Do you long, with us, to see the deliverance of Israel from her enemies - Cry out to Him!
• Do you long, with us, to see Israel delivered from her sins - Cry out to Him!
• Do you long, with us, to see the acceptance of Messiah by Israel? Cry out to Him to remove the veil.
• Do you long, with us, to see the Holy Spirit so poured out that all of Israel cries out in repentance? - Cry out to Him! 

May your heart be stirred to call upon the name of the Lord. 
May you be awakened by the Lord to, as those five virgins who made themselves ready. May you be awake and alive to God, and may you be stirred up to battle this mighty battle of prayer, till He comes.


Blessings from Jerusalem,

Golan Heights
While on a prayer tour in the Golan, we noticed the massive amount of stones in the fields, as you can see from the picture. To make these fields arable, the rocks have to be removed. This takes much work as you can imagine; multiple times of plowing and removing, plowing and removing stones, until the soil is ready to be sown! 

We noted that although the Lord has already pronounced blessings on the land (See Ezekiel  36:8-12), we have to toil to bring the blessing to the fullness of expression. The blessing is there, but we have a part also! 

We were inspired to “plow” in prayer for the Lord to remove the “stones” from the spiritual fields of Israel, to make her fruitful for God.

We asked those present in the prayer meeting to name “stones” that we could pray for the Lord to remove. 
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These are the “stones” we prayed the Lord would take out from Body of Messiah

• Lack of consecration
• Self-Righteousness - clothe us with your garments, O Lord - Isaiah 61:10 Remove stones of Self-righteousness and clothe us as a bride adorned with humility. Wash and cleanse us and reveal the cross of your love to your children
• Stone of compromise
• Stone of indifference to sharing the gospel
• Unbelief
• Sin (covetousness, pride, envy, anger, adultery, impurity
• Sexual compromise
• Cares of this world
• Fear and distrust of God

(It is hard to pray this way, isn’t it?  One would rather pray more positively, it feels better. But no doubt, farmers would rather not have to sweat taking stones out of the ground either.) 

On the positive side, we remembered what one farmer in the Gaza Strip told us before they were evacuated. When we visited there, we were astounded to see huge celery plants growing in tiny pots. When we asked about it, the farmer told us that the soil there was impoverished, but that that made it easy for them to drip nutrients via a computer, to each pot. She also shared with us that when the first settlers came to Gaza after the '73 war, the locals thought they were crazy, that nothing would grow there as the soil was so poor. But the settlers responded by saying, "The God who brought us back to the land, will bless this land." They believed in the promise of blessing of the Land, but also worked hard to see it come to pass.

So as you can see, it's not only necessary to take stuff out of the ground, such as stones, but also to put into the soil things that would make it rich. Prayer works in similar ways too… 
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