Angus Buchan has called for one million Christians to gather for prayer on the 22nd April 2017 to ‘call upon The Lord to bring justice, peace and hope to our beloved South Africa‘. Why should we go?
Let me say up front that I support this initiative, and the reason I am not going is because my wife and I are caring for our two small granddaughters so our son and daughter-in-law can go.
In Old Testament times, the whole nation of Israel was sometimes called to assemble, either to hear what God had to say to them or to intercede in a time of national calamity. The New Testament people of God responded to crisis in the same way. When the authorities commanded Peter and John to stop preaching about Jesus, the Christians assembled and ‘raised their voices together in prayer to God’ (Acts 4:24). This was their first response to crisis, but not their only response. Listen to how they concluded their prayers:
“Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” (Acts 4:29-30) In other words, they asked God to empower them to speak His Word and then to do what they couldn’t do and perform a miracle! And God responded straight away by physically shaking the place where they were meeting and by filling them with power from on high.
Why then should Christians go in their hundreds of thousands to the ‘It’s time’ prayer gathering?
- A huge gathering like this represents the church across the nation and declares with one voice “Almighty God, we are dependent on you. We can do little without your intervention and we acknowledge this.”
- There is the request on behalf of the whole church; “Father God, please speak to us and to our nation for we are desperate to hear from you Lord.”
- There is the urgent plea of “In Jesus mighty name, please come, Holy Spirit of the living God, and fill us with power from on high so that we can proclaim your Word with boldness and effectiveness.”
‘“But for you who revere my name, the sun (Son) of righteousness will rise with healing in its (His) wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things,” says the LORD ALMIGHTY’. Malachi 4:2-3
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2 thoughts on ““It’s Time!” prayer gathering… why?”
I have serious concern that loose standing scripture verses are used to promote a good but not God ordained activity as if to cajole God into something His Word never says. “if my people…” is strictly refering to Israel, and nothing in Scripture makes it applicable to Christians. God is now in us, so we don’t need assemblies to make God’s presence come down, He is in us and is present in us. In Acts 4:24 they did not call an assembly. They went back to their people and prayed for their ministry that was threatened, not their inconvenience. Scripture says for individuals to repent and turn from their wiket ways. Personal holiness as Christians. Will the nations sinful ways be repented of? Will the paganism be confronted, the selfish ways, the seeking of pleasure, the hatred of righteous ways? Will idolatry be repented of or is it trying to intimidate God with numbers?
Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
Luke 17:20-29 NIV
http://bible.com/111/luk.17.20-29.NIV
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Just a few remarks:
+ There surely is some connection between the OT people of God and the church, and so 2 Chr 7:14 is a legitimate biblical rallying cry to call the church to corporate prayer.
+ I don’t think that personal ‘convenience’ is on the hearts of those going to Bloemfontein on Saturday, but rather a deep concern for our nation and for the effect that social economic and moral degradation has on the church’s ministry and the people to whom we minister the Gospel. 1 Tim 2:1-5 ‘I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth’.
+ I don’t see the Christians gathering together for prayer as representing the nation so much as the church within the nation. Will the nation repent? Well, we pray that the government, that does indeed represent the nation, will repent.
+ I do not think that the organisers of the prayer meeting have any desire to ‘intimidate God with numbers’ – this would be foolish and futile.
I think that we should be uniting in prayer at this critical time and not be overly concerned with trying to double-guess the motives and biblical correctness of the leaders of the prayer gathering who quite clearly believe that they are acting in response to the strong prompting of the Holy Spirit.