Welcome back friends!  Those who follow, or who know me personally, know that among my greatest passions is to pray for and speak out on behalf of Israel.  In fact, I believe the Lord has called me to be a watchman on the wall, speaking the truth about Israel and shouting a warning to Christians (and others) to be ready for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.

With that as God’s call, Isaiah 62 is a passage of Scripture I pray through regularly, and that chapter begins with these words:

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
    and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet…

Likewise, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem has established the Isaiah 62 Prayer Initiative that draws prayer warriors from around the world to join in specific prayer points.  Find those prayer points here.

While I certainly encourage you to take part in ICEJ’s Isaiah 62 Prayer Initiative, I am also launching a similar feature I’ll call For Zion’s Sake, to be posted early each month, in order to share thoughts of which the Lord reveals.  There are 12 verses in Isaiah 62, so I will focus on the corresponding verse to each particular month.  This is June (the sixth month), thus we’ll focus this first installment of For Zion’s Sake on verse 6 of Isaiah 62:

On your walls, O Jerusalem,
    I have set watchmen;
all the day and all the night
    they shall never be silent.
You who put the Lord in remembrance,
    take no rest.

The Old City of Jerusalem is a walled city to this day. In ancient times, watchmen were posted on the walls to keep watch against potential enemies.  The picture to the left is a portion of the ancient wall, and you will see strategically placed “notches” in the top of the wall which provided security for watchmen to watch and for sentries to fire weapons.

In a sense, Jerusalem has been secured throughout history by two walls: the actual, limestone walls around the Old City, and the “spiritual” wall made up of prayers from those around the world who stand in the gap for Israel.

Thus, in a spiritual sense, we stand as watchmen on those walls, praying for her safety and security.  Likewise, I believe a watchman’s responsibility is to warn those “outside the walls” that danger lurks.

To take this one step further, please look at Ezekiel 33:1-6.  God instructed Ezekiel to speak to his own people, being faithful to warn them of impending danger (and the penalty of not doing so).  To make that personal, it seems imperative to me to shout the warning to “my own people”…to Christians in America.  We must know and understand the times in which we live, and we must live as though our Lord will return at any moment!  Jesus is coming back…let’s be ready!

Finally, Isaiah 62:6 instructs us to never be silent…to take no rest…in our quest to stand as watchmen on the walls.  Stand faithful in praying for Israel, my friends!