Tactical Prayer for the Salvation of Israel

What does it mean to “pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is written in heaven?” There are many Christians who do pray for Israel but they are only concerned about praying for the salvation of the Jewish People. When others pray for different things concerning Israel, those prayers are often criticized as being soulish or carnal. However in my mind, praying only for the salvation of Israel in broad terms does not take into consideration the steps the Lord will use to get there.

Intercessors for Israel has always prayed for the salvation of Israel but we have concentrated our prayers in the political and security realms as well as for the return of the Jewish People to their biblical homeland. We believe that this “prophetic evangelism” is our mandate from the Lord and that there is more to praying for the spiritual redemption of Israel than many people understand.

“Prophetic evangelism” means doing our small part in praying for the means through which God will do His much greater part to save the Jewish People.

The scriptures are clear that there are many different callings in the Body of Messiah.

There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.
1 Corinthians 12:4-6

We are praying strategically for God’s purposes to be fulfilled in the salvation of His People and the revelation of Himself to a dying world. We are also praying tactically for the ways and means the prophetic Word tells us that He will use to accomplish this purpose: the return that of the Jewish People to their land; the restoration of that land both physically and nationally; and its survival in the midst of a hostile and numerically superior enemy.

Praying for the Government

Almost every book in the Bible talks about politics in one form or another: kings, rulers, laws, wars, punishments and social inequality. It is also clear that praying for government is not an option but that it should be a priority for God’s people. We take very seriously the injunction in 1 Timothy 2:1-4 to pray for those in authority over us.

Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

The scriptures also make it clear that the principle of government is from God. However many believers throughout the ages have interpreted that to mean that all government is from God and thus must be blindly obeyed and honored. That is not a biblical principle. 1 Timothy 2 states that the purpose of government is to give us a life that is quiet and peaceable with godliness and reverence – an atmosphere that will be conducive for the Gospel to go forth and for men to be saved. Romans 13:3-4 says rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil…For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.

This gives us the godly standard for government: one which rewards good and punishes evil. When we have a government that rewards evil and punishes good then we know this is not a government that meets God’s standards. This does not give us a license to rebel or do our own thing. Our first response should be to pray for that government that it would come into line with God’s framework for godly government. There may come a point when that government not only does not get better but gets worse. God may then lead us to pray for a change of government. In Jeremiah 23 God judges the evil shepherds of Israel and promises not only to remove them but to give Israel shepherds after His own heart. Aren’t our government leaders the “shepherds” of the nation?

It is clear that good rulers are a blessing to the people and bad rulers are a curse. King Hezekiah is a wonderful example of how a godly ruler led his people closer to God and spared his nation from defeat and occupation from an enemy.

At the beginning of his reign he cleansed and repaired the Temple. He called the Priests and Levites to consecrate themselves anew. He brought the sacrifices back to the Temple and re-instituted the Passover. The people of Israel responded to Hezekiah’s reforms by going out and breaking down the sacred pillars, cutting down the wooden images and throwing down the high places and altars in Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh. His righteous actions touched a chord in the heart of the people (2 Chronicles 29-32; Isaiah 36, 37).

Aliyah

Praying for aliyah (the return of the Jewish People from exile to their biblical home in Israel) means praying for the Lord to fulfill His word and bring about their physical return to the Land of their biblical inheritance. It also includes preparing the country for their return and making it an attractive place for the Jewish people to live.

Some people think that persecution is the only thing that God will use to bring the Jewish People home but the scripture says: ‘Behold, I will send for many fishermen,’ says the LORD, ‘and they shall fish them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.’ (Jeremiah 16:16) A fisherman catches his fish by offering them something tasty and appealing to entice them to bite the hook. A hunter on the other hand chases the animal until it either escapes or is captured or killed. God uses both to bring His People home and while we have entered the season of the hunters there is still some time left for fishing.

Many have expected the hunters in the Former Soviet Union to drive the remaining Jewish population home. But at this point aggressive anti-Semitism has become the hunter of the Jewish People in France and the U.K. persuading some that they have no long term future in those countries.

Israel is weathering the current global financial meltdown better than most Western countries. That in itself is drawing Jews from Western nations as well as Israelis who went abroad for work to return to the Land of Israel.

Security

We pray for Israel’s security and well-being for a very simple reason. In order for “all Israel to be saved”, she has to be alive and living as a nation in God’s appointed place for her in His creation!

For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean.
Ezekiel 36:24-25

While the scriptures are clear that God would bring His People back to their Land we do not have all the details about how this will happen. We can see throughout these last 130 years that the scriptures are being fulfilled but perhaps not the way we would want or think. Israel has returned to her land and been reborn as a nation through much sacrifice, pain, suffering and war. Yes, war! We live in an unredeemed world and war is still part of human history and God shows Himself through it all.

King Hezekiah is a good example of a spiritual man, who took the security of his nation seriously. When war was on the horizon, he prepared his nation by looking to the Lord first but also taking practical steps as well.

After these deeds of faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and entered Judah; he encamped against the fortified cities, thinking to win them over to himself. And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come, and that his purpose was to make war against Jerusalem, he consulted with his leaders and commanders to stop the water from the springs, which were outside the city; and they helped him. Thus many people gathered together who stopped all the springs and the brook that ran through the land, saying, ‘Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?’ And he strengthened himself, built up all the wall that was broken, raised it up to the towers, and built another wall outside; also he repaired the Millo in the City of David, and made weapons and shields in abundance. Then he set military captains over the people, gathered them together to him in the open square of the city gate, and gave them encouragement, saying, ‘Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid nor dismayed before the king of Assyria, nor before all the multitude that is with him; for there are more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles.’ And the people were strengthened by the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.
2 Chronicles 32:1-8

Even as Hezekiah acknowledges the help of the Lord, he prepares the people for war. He is not presumptuous but does his part knowing that salvation will come only from the Lord. In the same way we not only pray a generic prayer for the Lord to protect and keep Israel, we often get quite specific in our security requests before the Lord.

Global Perspective

There are some in the Body who are opposed to almost any prayers for Israel because they have never understood Romans 11:28-29: Concerning the gospel they (the Jewish People) are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. They are quick to proclaim that God’s gifts and calling to them are irrevocable but they refuse to acknowledge this truth to the very people that the scriptures are speaking about. They fail to understand that the salvation of Israel in the Land of Israel is a herald of the return of the Lord as it says in Acts 3:19-21,

Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Yeshua the Messiah, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

The restoration of Israel is the evidence that the Word of God is true and that He is who He says He is. Ezekiel 36:23-24 says that God will sanctify His ‘great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land.’

The New Testament expresses this worldwide proclamation of the reality of God through the salvation of Israel asking if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (Romans 11:15)

Rather than being a stumbling block as some would have us believe, the return of the Jewish People to Israel, its rebirth as a nation and the salvation of the Jewish People is an indisputable “proof text” that the Word of God is true and that God is God, a keeper of covenant and the same yesterday, today and forever. Truly God’s restoration of Israel in our day is a powerful tool of evangelism.

While we can mine the scriptures to very great depths and receive revelation for our own lives and applications for holy living, yet we must never ignore or minimize the importance of a basic fundamental interpretation of the scriptures. It is this truth - that the scriptures mean what they say - which forms the foundation for our intercession for Israel’s people, leaders, land, security and well-being.

We are taking the prophetic Word as God’s blueprint for His promised meeting with the Jewish People and through our prayers setting the stage for this momentous occasion when He will remove the veil from the Jewish heart and reveal Himself to them.

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 12:10

And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The deliverer will come out of Zion and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins.’
Romans 11:26-27