Our brother James said that “you do not have because you do not ask God” (4:2).
Jesus told us that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven,” that “if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven” (Matt. 18:18-19).
Paul said that “no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God” (2 Cor. 1:20).
We ask. We agree together. We learn God’s promises and we speak the “Amen” to those promises in order for them to be released upon the earth.
Several key promises are being fulfilled in our day. These promises should saturate the prayers of intercessors around the world.
1. Israel is back in its land of inheritance. This is exactly what Isaiah, Ezekiel, and others of the prophets predicted (See Isaiah 43:5-6 and Ezekiel 36 and 37).
As we read these promises, pray them and declare them to all the forces of the enemy and to the heavenly forces, the promises come into greater fulfillment.
2. Another promise that is equally strong, the timing very clear and the fulfillment astonishing is that hundreds of thousands of Jewish people have come to receive Jesus as their Messiah in the last forty plus years. It began to happen in force about the time Israel took possession of Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War. (That return was predicted by Jesus Himself in Luke 21:20 and 24). God told Isaiah that the eyes and ears of Jewish people would be closed and their hearts hardened for a season (6:9-10). Jesus and Paul both referred to Isaiah’s prophecy as a reason why the nation as a whole did not receive Him during Jesus’ ministry (See Matthew 13:13-15, John 12:40 and Romans 11:8). In agony, Isaiah cried to the Lord and asked how long Jewish eyes would be closed. God told him they would be closed “until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged,” and until “the LORD has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken” (6:11-12).
The devastation of Israel’s and Israel’s land took place for hundreds of years, but the fulfillment of Isaiah’s “untils” have happened in our day. The Land is no longer devastated, the houses no longer deserted, the fields no longer ruined nor ravaged, and the people are back in force – six million strong. God’s timing spoken to Isaiah is fulfilled and Jewish people by the hundreds of thousands have come to recognize that Yeshua/Jesus is indeed their Promised Messiah as well as the World Redeemer.
The role of intercessors is to understand this and to declare to unseen forces that Jewish people will come to the Lord in our day, since the promise of God has spoken it!
It also helps if pay attention to how these Jewish people have come to faith. Many have had visions, supernatural manifestations, angelic appearances, or even Yeshua Himself has appeared to them. God is opening their eyes, just as God predicted through Isaiah.
Isaiah was not the only prophet who foresaw our day. Hosea (3:4-5) said that Israel would be without king or sacrifice for many days, but would come back to the Lord in the last days. Israel has had no king since Zedekiah was taken to Babylon in 586 BC. They have been without sacrifice since the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Today is the day when Hosea’s words are being fulfilled.
Ezekiel agreed with Isaiah’s vision. He not only saw the valley of dry bones coming to life, but he saw breath coming into the dry bones, and said that when this begins to happen, “Then you (Israel) will know that I am the LORD” (37:6). “I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land… I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you… I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees” (36:24-27). This is being fulfilled before our eyes.
In looking forward to all this, Jesus told leaders of His people that “You will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord” (23:39). In other words, Jesus does not intend to return to earth, to Jerusalem, until there are Jewish people in Jerusalem who are ready to receive Him.
3. The promise of world revival connects to all this. Mission agencies of the world have been concentrating on another word of Jesus: “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations (ethnic groups), and then the end will come” (24:14).
But these mission agencies have not connected world revival to the return of Israel, yet Ezekiel and Paul made this quite clear.
Paul said that “if [Jewish] transgression means riches for the world and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!” (11:12) “If their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead” (11:15). I call this the “greater riches” revival of the world.
Paul also told the Romans that one of their roles is to make Israel jealous (11:11), and that those of us from the nations are to extend mercy to the Jewish people (11:30-32). Ezekiel agrees with Paul’s assessment that there is a connection between God’s work in israel and revival in the nations. Ezekiel predicted that “then the nations will know that I am the LORD when I show myself holy through you (Israel) before their (the world’s) eyes (36:23).
Tod started calling this the “cycle of revival.” As the nations of the world understand God’s role for Israel and begin to pray into existence the opening of their eyes, ears and hearts, as Israel comes into their fullness, they (the Jewish people) become a light to the nations, just as they have been in the past and will continue to be (See Isaiah 42:6 and Isaiah 60:1-3). A Jewish person who has come to faith in His Messiah Yeshua/Jesus is a great testimony to the nations. As that happens, more from the nations will come to know this Jewish Messiah, and will honor God’s host family who have brought salvation to the world, which means that more Jewish people come to faith, which means that more from the nations come to Jesus and honor the nation that brought them salvation, which means that more Jewish people to faith…… This is God’s intention for our day.
The role of intercessors is to understand this cycle of revival, this connection between Israel’s redemption and world redemption, to pray it and to declare it to all of heaven and hell, to speak the “Amen” to the purposes of God in our day.
We ask. We agree together. We learn God’s promises and we speak the “Amen” to those promises in order for them to be released upon the earth.
Blessings,
Don Finto
