The Watchman's Conversation with God

From your Watchman to you, an Aaronic blessing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW4YB6fVvJo

READERS COMMENTS:

Thank you Watchman.  Gotta tell you, the last time she and I communicated she told me to never bring up the subject of God again or she would never have a relationship with me.  I stopped for a few weeks and then your article came thru and God nudged me to send it to her.  Well she called me and told me that she and her friends in Italy decided that she was a deist.  We talked about that and I started quizzing her.  She evidently read that article and said that yes she believed Jesus was the Son of God, died and rose again because " mom, why would anyone die those horrible deaths had they not witnessed His resurrection?  She was very passionate about it and kept repeating it.

So thank you for sharing, Al, I think it was that article and the fact that xxxxxx  elevates smart people that she finally got it.

Keep them coming!

YSICJ,

K

Hi Watchman, 

I read your article about Habukkuk, and i have been there.  i have also been guilty of wanting the judgment to come to this nation because she is so deserving of it. The Lord has rebuked me for this, and has told me that i must be praying for mercy during judgment, b/c if He does NOT have mercy, there will be nothing left but cinders in America - if justice is served, the nation will be utterly wiped out.  He has instructed me to pray for the salvation of the people of our nation, and i believe that these prayers are efficacious, and that some people will be saved who would not have been if i did not pray daily for the people of our nation.  

Though He delays the judgment, He knows what He is doing and we must trust Him on the timing of it.  Whether it is tomorrow or two years from now, He is just. More people are waking, and more are praying.  i pray that only His judgment comes upon us and none of the enemy's plans, for the enemy will make the evil that befalls this land so much worse. Just like the Babylonians went far beyond what God required of them, so would the tool He uses to punish us this time, unless He stops it. So i pray daily that He stops them from overdoing it.

Please join me in praying for mercy for our nation, though we do not deserve it. I use Daniel's chapter 9 prayer for Israel, for the pattern of one of my prayers, along with deliverance prayers to pray for our nation. I have attached this prayer, hoping that Daniel's wisdom and humility will be pleasing before the Lord.

But i understand exactly how you feel.  He has instructed me not to pray for the judgment to come on this nation, but to pray for mercy, for when it begins, it will be terrible indeed, and His mercy will result in more being saved, not less.

I appreciated your article, thank you for writing it.

Blessings to you brother

Diane

Modified Daniel Chapter 9 Prayer for the USA

In answer to the Lord’s question:  Will you stand in the gap?Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and impassioned plea, with fasting, mourning, and ashes on my head.  And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, "O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His agreements with us and provides mercy to those who love Him, and to those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done depraved and immoral acts, and we have rebelled, by callously disobeying Your laws and Your judgments.  Neither have we listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our President and our Congress, our Courts, to our churches, our elders and all the people of the land.  O Lord, morality and uprightness belong to You, but we are ashamed, everywhere in this land--all the citizens of the United States are ashamed, all the residents of the cities and all the states are ashamed, those near and those far off, in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, countries where you have scattered our sons and daughters, because of our unfaithfulness, and all the wrong-doing we have committed against You.  We are all ashamed of ourselves.

 "O Lord, appalling shame falls on our nation, on our President, our Congress, on our Courts, and on all our citizens, because we have all sinned against You.  We thank God that He is merciful and forgiving, though we have rebelled against Him.  We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to obey His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets.  Yes, all of the United States has transgressed Your law, and has departed, refusing to obey Your voice; therefore all the curses and the oaths written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out on us, and on our nation, because we have sinned against You.  And You have confirmed Your words, which You spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us great disaster; for under the whole heaven, nothing as disastrous as what has befallen our nation at this time has ever happened to it before.

 "As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not turned to prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth. Therefore the Lord has kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for the Lord our God is blameless and upright in all the judgments that He decrees, because we have not obeyed His voice.  And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of many nations with a mighty hand, and made Yourself a name, in this land--we have sinned, we have done horrible wrongs without a thought and without care, smirking and prideful the whole way, and scorning Your help!

 "O Lord, according to all Your decency and uprightness, I pray, let Your anger and Your fury be turned into a righteous judgment on Your nation which You established, this place established for Christians, and by Christians; because of our sins, and because of the iniquities of our fathers, the nation and this people are a reproach to all those around us, and we cause shame to be piled on Your Holy Name.  Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servants, and our supplications, and for the Lord's sake cause Your face to shine on this nation, which has been devastated.  Turn away further judgment unless it results in a massive turning to You, O Lord, and pour out Your Holy Spirit on our nation. Turn us back to You and to Your Word.  O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the land which was established as a praise to Your name; for we do not present our pleas and prayers before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies.  O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your nation and this land that are established for your people, so that we again bring honor to Your name."

In Jesus’ Name we renounce any hold on the US by seducing or perverse spirits and renounce any sexual and spiritual binding over the United States, and we renounce any authority we have given to those spirits when we submitted ourselves to them.   In Jesus’ Name we renounce any bonds of hatred we have against anyone and take back all authority we have given to them or to the spirit of hatred.   We forgive, bless, and release them.  In Jesus’ Name, we renounce any authority we gave to a lying spirit by supporting the lies, listening to the lies, actively passing on the lies, or compromising with the liars, and we renounce any bonds the lying spirit has over the United States.  In Jesus’ Name, we renounce all authority we gave to the spirit of antichrist, the spirit of bondage, the spirit of divination, the spirit of error, the spirit of haughtiness, the spirit of jealousy, all perverse spirits, all seducing spirits, and all spirits of fear.  In the Name of Jesus, we renounce any known or unknown covenant, agreement or commitment that was made with these spirits or people representing them.  In the Name of Jesus, we take back all authority we lost as a result of paying for occult services, or secretly treasuring them in our hearts.  In the Name of Jesus, we break any curse over the nation and over our leaders and declare it null and void.  In the Name of Jesus, we break all bindings that these spirits have placed on the United States.

Pour out your Holy Spirit on this land, on our President, our congress, our courts, our state and local leaders, our citizens, our children, and our churches.  Seal this work in our land and help us to take back this nation as a righteous nation.  Let us not be found in the camp of the unrighteous.  As any disaster is allowed in this land, protect those who respect your Name from harm, and cover them with your wings. 

Your Watchman found the prophet Habakuk fascinating because I have been having exactly the same conversation with God that Habakuk had. I have been depressed about the state of our wicked nation and the world and several times a day I ask Yeshua to come back and stop the incessant violence and wickedness in the world. 

The prophet Habakkuk wrote about the same time as Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel. It was just before the Babylonians swooped down upon Judah and God punished the Israelites for their idolatry. The Jews were carried off in 586 BC after 19 years of siege and failed diplomacy. As they left, the Babylonians destroyed the city and the Temple, taking its priceless artifacts along with their captives to Babylon for 70 years of servitude. All this had been foretold by Jeremiah from Jerusalem and Ezekiel from Babylon, where he and Daniel had been held as hostages since the early stages of the conquest.

Habakkuk’s message differs from the other prophets in that it consists solely of a dialog with God. It opens with Habakkuk’s complaint that God would allow so much evil to prosper in the land without doing anything about it.

In response, Habakkuk learns that God is finally going to act, but has chosen the Babylonians, a people much more evil than the Israelites, to do the job. He can’t believe it. Sure, Judah deserves to be punished, but how can a righteous God justify using such an evil force as Babylon against His own people? Instead of being judged themselves, the most depraved and unjust nation on Earth is going to be rewarded with the chance to punish God’s people. How is that fair? Now Habakkuk’s really upset!

Throughout Habakuk gets the benefit of God’s perspective and finally, as is always the case when man questions God, winds up apologizing.

While the prophecies of Habakkuk were largely fulfilled in the Babylonian conquest, there’s a striking similarity between conditions in Judah in 600BC and those in the Western World, especially America, today.

Commenting on Israel’s history, the Apostle Paul said, “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.” (1 Cor. 10:11) In other words, events in Israel’s history had the dual purpose of instructing them through experience and us through observation.

I believe it was Mark Twain who said, “The only time experience is the best teacher is when it’s somebody else’s experience.” This is exactly what God had in mind for us, to learn from Israel’s experience. And that includes the events of Habakkuk’s time.

Someone else said that those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it, so as we go through this study let’s remember that, like ancient Israel, much of the West at one time claimed to believe in God and pledged our fidelity to Him. But now we’ve denied that belief in large part, and have withdrawn our fidelity.

Like Israel we began by first tolerating and then following other gods. Like Israel we started out by including them with Him in our worship and moved from there to excluding Him altogether in favor of them. As we’ve done this, our system of justice has failed and evil is triumphing over good all too often. In short we’re as ripe for judgment as they were.

I do not believe it is a coincidence that a powerful force (ISIS and al Qaeda) from the very region on Earth that spawned the Babylonians, a force we consider to be much more evil than we are, has arisen with the stated goal of judging God’s people both Jew and Christian? Or is history repeating itself? If it is then the Prophecies of Habakkuk could have easily been written for our time as well. Let’s find out.

The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received. How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted. (Habakkuk 1:1-4)

Indeed, in our day the wicked prosper and I wonder why! As it was in Habakkuk’s time, concerned believers bemoan the current state of affairs in the world wondering why God puts up with it. They witness the break down of family, the increase of violence, the systematic perversion of justice, and the seeming triumph of evil over good, and shake their heads in bewilderment.

“Look at the nations and watch- and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own. They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor. Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a vulture swooping to devour; they all come bent on violence. Their hordes] advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand. They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they build earthen ramps and capture them. Then they sweep past like the wind and go on— guilty men, whose own strength is their god.” (Habakkuk 1:5-11)

Many wonder if the dramatic increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters is signaling God’s displeasure, but very few have defined the sudden rise of Islamic terrorism and ISIS as a judgment from God. Even considering the possibility provokes the same question from us as it did from Habakkuk. How could a righteous God use such an evil force against His people? And yet in the past He’s used the Egyptians, the Philistines, the Assyrians, the Romans, the Germans, the Russians and others, all godless in their time and all evil in their motivations. The only difference is that He came right out and told His people He was using many of those others, and so far as we know He hasn’t said anything like that about Islamic terrorism. (Of course the terrorists have said it, but nobody believes them.) Again I ask, is it just coincidence or are we supposed to draw conclusions about this from history? I believe we’re just like the people of Habakkuk’s time in that we wouldn’t believe it even if we were told.

O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler. The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad.

Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food. Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy? (Habakkuk 1:12-17)

Surely the Lord couldn’t be behind the rise in terrorism. He’s too pure. He couldn’t possibly condone that kind of evil, could He? But somehow, like the tentacles of some giant yet invisible octopus, Islamic terrorists have slithered into every western society and according to some have positioned themselves undetected like moles underground at our most vulnerable points, awaiting the signal to strike. And we admittedly have no certain defense against what will surely be a devastating attack. “It’s inevitable,” we’re told. How did they accomplish this? Will the Lord really permit this to happen to his own people?

The terrorists do not acknowledge "The One True God" as their benefactor after they strike. They do not proclaim Yeshua as their God. They give the credit to the one they worship, Allah the moon god. They offer prayers to the moon god because he brings them the victory.

The Israelites expected God to protect them from the Babylonians. They convinced themselves that He would never permit any harm to come to them, even as the Babylonians were camped outside their gates. They were His people, after all. Never mind their unfaithfulness, their lusting after false gods, their disrespect for the fatherless, the down trodden, the widows. Never mind that they only gave lip service to their beliefs, that their worship had become form without substance, ceremony without meaning, that they sacrificed their children to Molech in the name of prosperity, and worshipped the idols of the harvest and Baal.

It’s different now, we say. But is it? We sing, “God bless America” playing lip service to our relationship while our sins pile up to the heavens just as theirs did. We have sacrificed 60 million babies to Molech via abortion and feel no shame about it. And even now, as our leaders admit the inevitability of further attacks and as our countries suffer storms and earthquakes and the threat of pandemic disease, are our churches and synagogues full of repentant worshipers, praying as Habakkuk did, “In wrath, remember mercy”? (Habakkuk 3:2)

For over 50 years Christians have looked with concern on the plight of Israel while Islamic enemies periodically tried to wipe them off the face of the Earth. Now the fight’s come to us, just as they promised it would, and we seem surprised. We don’t even consider that this might be another, stronger warning from God.

A few conservative preachers call terrorism an attack on our religion, but not even they suggest that it might be more than that. They join the secular voices demanding stronger fences on our borders, bigger weapons in our arsenals, more drone attacks and tighter and tighter restrictions on our populations, but where are the voices calling for repentance from our lifestyle, or for mass prayer vigils in our auditoriums and stadiums? Are we already so far gone that God has spoken to them as He spoke to Jeremiah. “So do not pray for this people (the U.S. and the West) nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. (Jeremiah 7:16)