by Gwen Shaw

Several years ago, when my husband Jim and I went to Israel to join in Israel’s 50-Year Celebration as a nation, the Holy Spirit spoke to me one night as I was standing on the small deck of our hotel room, looking out over the city of Jerusalem. I had not been able to sleep, so I had come out there to pray for Israel and the peace of Jerusalem.
After praying for Israel and Jerusalem, I began thinking about the spiritual condition of the Church back in America; my heart was troubled for the state it is in. I asked the Lord, “What is the matter with the Church? Why is it not like the Church of Christ in the nations where I have preached the Gospel all my life?”
The Lord answered me, “My people don’t know how to pray!”
I answered, “I know, Lord; they don’t know how to pray. How can I teach them to pray?”
He said, “It’s too late now. It’s too late to teach them how to pray. But you can teach them to weep.”
You don’t need to have any training or lessons on how to weep. You only need a broken heart. And I believe that God is going to have to break our hearts, so that we can feel His broken heart.
Pray for God to Give You a Heart to Weep Like Jesus Wept
I remember an old man by the name of Charles McCoy who came to the Orient at the age of eighty to do missionary work. He became a missionary in his old age. He preached in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and even in India. He died in his hotel room one night in Calcutta.
His prayer and cry to God was, “Lord, break my heart with the things that break the heart of God.”
I am praying that God will break our hearts so that we will feel the burden of the Lord in our lifetime.
As Jesus was carrying his cross on that bloody “Via Dolorosa” (the Way of Sorrow), the women of Jerusalem were following with the crowd, and weeping for Him, because they loved Him. He saw the tears that they were shedding, and as He felt their broken hearts His heart grieved for them. Even while He, Himself was suffering so terribly, His heart was filled with compassion for the Daughters of Jerusalem. He turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children” (Luke 23:28).
Jesus, being the Prophet that He was, could see into the not so far away future, when in 70 A.D. the powerful Roman Army under the command of General Titus would destroy Jerusalem and much of Israel in a cruel and ruthless way. He saw the terrible things that these women and their children would soon suffer.
We know that Jesus had already been weeping for Jerusalem, because as He was returning to Jerusalem for the last time, Luke records that as He stood on the crest of the Mount of Olives, looking down on the city, He began to weep for it. “When the city came into view, He wept over it. ‘If you had only recognized this day, and everything that was good for you! But now it’s too late. In the days ahead your enemies are going to bring up their heavy artillery and surround you, pressing in from every side. They’ll smash you and your babies on the pavement. Not one stone will be left intact. All this because you didn’t recognize and welcome God’s personal visit’” (Luke 19:41-44, The Message).
On another occasion, in Matthew 23:37-39, He cried out, “Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets! Killer of the ones who brought you God’s news! How often I’ve ached to embrace you the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn’t let me. And now you’re so desolate, nothing but a ghost town. What is there left to say? Only this: I’m out of here soon. The next time you see me you’ll say, ‘Oh, God has blessed him! He’s come, bringing God’s rule!” (The Message).
Tonight the Holy Spirit is weeping for the whole world. The whole world is weeping, and God, Himself, is weeping for it.

Demons Are Trying to Take Control of the World Through Terror

God rules His kingdom through love. Satan rules his kingdom through fear.
I have been reading the reports of young men who are being captured by the Moslem terrorists who threaten to cut off their heads if the nation they are serving under does not withdraw from Iraq. I look into their terror-filled eyes in their pictures, and I think, oh Lord, what horror and fear they must be suffering as they face a torturous, slow, agonizing death!
The evil spirits that our young men and women in the military are facing in Iraq and Afghanistan are the same ones that Israel has been fighting since their nation began. The cruelty and the suffering that Israel is going through, as their young men and women are cut down in their youth, did not burden us until we began tasting the same thing. Now we are going through what Israel has been suffering. It is time for us to weep!

The Holy Spirit Is Calling for Weeping Intercessors to Rise Up

No longer is it enough for God to raise up just a small handful of intercessors in every church; the whole Church of Christ in America and the free nations of the world who are threatened by this “cloud of darkness” must turn to God in weeping and travailing for Divine Intervention NOW! Satan’s onslaught against Israel and the Christians must be stopped NOW! If it is not stopped it will spread, and get worse.
It is time to weep a river of tears. If we don’t, if we stay as “dry-eyed” as we are today, it will be like the drying up of the River Euphrates and “the kings of the East” will come marching across to our destruction (Revelation 16:12).
The prophet Joel says, “Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil” (Joel 2:12-13).
The nation of Israel was in a terrible condition because of extreme drought and the daily threat that the evil and cruel “army from the North” would descend on it. It was in that hour that God raised up Joel to prophesy that the terrible condition in which they were living, with people and cattle starving, and fear and hopelessness and the fear of destruction in all their hearts wasn’t the end. The situation was NOT hopeless. It could be averted! There could be Divine Intervention if God’s people would fear him, fast and weep, and seek his face in a spirit of national mourning and repentance for their many sins.
That is where our nation is today. Unless WE fast and pray, and weep before the Lord with true repentance for the sins of our nation, WE ARE FINISHED! There is no tomorrow for our children. We brought them into the world only to die a horrible death. Our lust conceived them, and our lust will destroy them. May God help us, and that right soon! Surely, it’s time to weep!
“Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him?” (Joel 2:14).

Only God Can Save Us Now

Jeremiah, the weeping prophet warned Israel, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved” (Jeremiah 8:20).
The Israelites were agriculturists. They got their livelihood through farming. If the heavens withheld the rain, people starved to death. Every spring they planted their seed in hopes that they would have a harvest that would supply their needs until the next harvest.
They were suffering a terrible drought. There had been no rain. As a result, the summer had come and gone, harvest time was now past, and there were no crops to be reaped, no grapes to be gleaned. They had hoped that this year’s crop would save them; but it hadn’t!
That is where we are now. In spite of the false predictions and the promises of the false prophets and lying prognos­ticators, our economy is steadily getting worse. We are buying products made everywhere but in our own country. Everything: computers, television sets, radios, cameras, cars, trucks, all kinds of vehicles, farm machinery, printing presses, household appliances, dishes, pots and pans, musical instruments, pianos, keyboards, organs, accordions, drums, the gas we put in our vehicles, the clothes we put on our backs — you name it, it has probably been manu­factured overseas, including the illicit drugs our children are killing themselves with.
On top of all that, we import foreign technicians, doctors, scientists, farmers and factory workers to do our work and take our jobs.
And now we have come to the place where we are exporting the jobs that gave us our livelihood, to foreign nations that worship foreign gods. They call it “outsourcing.” Meanwhile, unem­ploy­ment is increasing at such a rate that the only jobs our young men can get is in the army. So we send them off to be killed.
The harvest is past, the summer is ended and we are not saved. Nor does it look like there will be any salvation for us in the immediate future! It is time to weep!
The Weeping Prophet Jeremiah Tells Us To Weep

If we are willing to answer the call of the Holy Spirit to weep, we can learn from the Weeping Prophet, Jeremiah, “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye [listen now], and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women [the women with discernment and the anointing], that they may come: And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion” (Jeremiah 9:17-18).
The Lord is calling for true inter­cessors who weep the tears of Jesus, and not just those who make a lot of noise, and bring forth nothing but “wind.” Many of today’s “prayer meetings” are nothing but discussion meetings — gossip sessions. Of them it can be said, “We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen” (Isaiah 26:18).
Sure, they have a burden. Sure, they feel badly about what is happening when the pastor calls for prayers, but they don’t know how to let the Holy Spirit travail through them; as a result, “they bring forth wind” i.e. they boast about their prayers, their empty prayers that never went into any other ears than those who sat with them and said, “Amen!” God didn’t hear their prayers, because the Holy Ghost didn’t pray them.
Forget about saying nice long prayers. It is time to weep now! That is all the time we have left — and not much of that.

A Prophet Can See What Is Going to Happen If Things Don’t Change

Jeremiah continues: “A voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out. Hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of HIS mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation” (Jeremiah 9:19-20).
Jeremiah, in the Spirit, hears the cry of conquered Jerusalem before it happens. A true intercessor can do that. We can see it BEFORE it happens.
In 1964, I was preaching on the Island of Bali. One night, when I was praying, I saw the terrible massacre that was going to take place in the near future. I saw the streets filled with the bodies of the slain; and in the streams I saw multitudes of floating bodies. I felt the terrible demonic darkness that was about to fall on the island. The next day (Sunday morning) as I was preaching I warned the people. I told them to pray — to call upon the Lord. But they didn’t accept it. They didn’t WANT to believe it. But it happened. Before the year was over a terrible revolution broke out in Indonesia, and Bali was covered with the bodies of those who were slain. Bali has suffered much. Just before I came there, Mt. Agung had erupted and thousands were destroyed by rivers of fire. Dark­ness covered the land for three days. The people hid in their homes, thinking it was the end of the world.
Jeremiah confesses, “We have forsaken the Land.” You ask, “How have we forsaken our own nation?” Every time we let our greed control us, every time we add to our riches by causing our own people to suffer, every time we lay off an employee and hire cheap foreign labour, because we want to get richer, we are forsaking our own nation. We will not get away with it. We are like a big Titanic: when part of us begins to sink, we will all go down together! This whole nation will sink into oblivion. This beautiful, rich America will only be a memory. It happened to God’s Chosen People. Don’t think it cannot happen to us. We are no better.
The prophet Jeremiah continues, “Death is come up into our windows.” On September 11, 2001 the terrorists’ planes flew straight into the windows of the World Trade Centre.
“Death is entered into our palaces [homes], to cut off the children.” Abortion has entered into our homes and slaughtered about 80 million of our beautiful American children.
“Death…has cut off our young men from the streets.” For over thirty years, some of the streets of our great old cities have been like war zones because of our youth killing each other through their “street gang wars,” and the plague of drugs has put many of our kids in the grave.
“Even the carcasses of men shall fall as dung upon the open field.” War never really stopped with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan. It has continued here and there all over the world on battlefields around the world. In World War I 116,500 died; in World War II,  406,000; in Korea 54,200; in Vietnam, 58,000; in the Gulf War 300; and now, according to the latest count approxi­mately 1000 have lost their lives in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and over 6000 have been injured, some very seriously. Their lives will never be the same. Is this not a reason for us to weep!
During the American Civil War, whole fields were covered with the bodies of dead and dying men, with very little medical aid, and often none at all.
And this can happen again — even in America. It is time for us to stop the storm of evil as it is coming like a dark cloud over the land because of our sins, because of our perverse ways, because of our ungodliness, our pride, and our neglect of the things of God. Even in the Church there is a lukewarmness, there is a turning away from God. Many who are supposed to be Christians are turning back to the ways of the world.
Fatherless children are being born every hour. The “Ruths” who are willing to go into the harvest field are few, and the “Naomis” are overcome with their grief, and they have forgotten how to pray. But thank God they still can hear the sound of news that God is visiting His people and giving them bread in Bethlehem!
Get a Hold of the Horns of the Altar

Intercessors, God is calling us! He is calling us to get a hold of the horns of the altar (1 Kings 1:50-51). God promised the Children of Israel that in times of desperation, in times when they were guilty and faced condemnation and judgment, that if they would flee to the Tabernacle and get a hold of the horns of the altar, that God would hear their cry and save their lives.
Even though we are guilty, and even though we deserve judgment, I believe that if enough of us who represent this nation, and who love Israel, will get a hold of the altar, that our High Priest will see, and He will save to the utter­most all them that call upon Him in faith.

Rachel Is Weeping for Her Lost Children

In Jeremiah 31:15 we read, “Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.”
The prophet tells us that Rachel is once more weeping. It is as though she has risen from the dead to weep again for her children who are lost. Rachel first wept when, after hard travail, she at last gave birth to her second son Benjamin, because she knew that she was dying. It had cost Rachel her life to give Jacob this son. For many years her sister Leah had tried desperately to steal Jacob’s love and to separate them, but she had not succeeded. He had remained true to his beloved Rachel. But, what her sister had not been able to do, her own son was now doing. She was dying. She knew it. With her last breath she named him, Benoni, “Son of My Sorrow,” thereby expressing her broken heart, as her soul departed this world.
Today the Jewish Rachel is weeping for her the sons and daughters of her people, because so many of them are dying in their youth.
And in the Church the praying mothers (the Christian “Rachels”) are weeping for their sons and daughters on the battlefield, and for their spiritually “dead” children who have no time for God, and no interest in hearing about Him.
In Jeremiah 31 it seems like the weeping prophet is hearing the weeping of the mothers whose sons are dying. They are heartbroken because they will never see their children again in this world. They will not be coming home. They will never celebrate their son’s wed­ding. They will never hold their grand­children in their arms.
I believe that if Rachel could take one look into Bethlehem from Heaven, she would be weeping over Bethlehem, and Samaria and Judea and what the world calls the West Bank.
Jeremiah 31:15 says that Rachel was weeping because she had lost her children, “because they were not.” Many say that this scripture was fulfilled in the days of Herod the Great when Herod gave the commandment to slaughter all the boy babies from the age two years and under (Matthew 2:16). It WAS fulfilled then, it’s true, but that cry is still heard today from the soul of every woman who has a burden for her sons and daughters, her grandchildren, and the sons and daughters of the nations who are serving in dangerous foreign battlefields in the midst of those who hate them and scream at them, “Go home, go home, we don’t want you!” and where their lives often are wiped out in a moment of time.
Rachel cries, “Why don’t they bring my son home? Why don’t they bring my daughter home?” In her sorrow, she cannot see “The Cause.” She cannot understand it. All she can feel is fear for her child’s safety, the anxiety that he might be captured and his head cut off, or that her daughter might be raped by evil men — or even worse.
Walk through Jerusalem, after there has been a bomb blast, and a terrorist has blown up a bus, or a market place, or a restaurant, and killed sometimes as many as 20 or more people — blowing them to pieces as if they weren’t human beings! Walk through the street after this dastardly evil crime has been committed, and you will see the flesh of Jews all over the street, on the walls, on the windows, on the ground, body parts scattered here and there, and blood collecting in small pools all over the place, and weep with Israel tonight.
And while you weep for Israel, weep with our soldier boys and girls who are out on the battlefield tonight where their military vehicles are blown to pieces, and their bodies burnt beyond recognition. Weep for them when their flesh is so torn and scattered that those in charge cannot even put them together enough to send them home in a coffin.
If ever there was a time to get a hold of the horns of the altar, if ever there was a time for us to cry out to God to have mercy, if ever there was a time for us to blend our voices together with Rachel, it is NOW!
It is not time to sleep. It is not time to be indifferent. It is not time to party. The Church is partying.

Where Are the Church Prayer Rooms?

When I went to China as a missionary in 1947, every church that I ever attended had a prayer room. We called it the “delivery room” because that was where our “mothers in Israel” prayed through for their children. We couldn’t possibly backslide! They knew it right away if there was anything wrong. They began praying and travailing for us, and we heard their wailing in the prayer room and we would feel so miserable.
But today the Church tries to keep their youth by recreation and social programs. They claim that their church is “Seeker Friendly” and no one will be uncomfortable.
The Church is backslidden through­out the world. We have drifted far away from God. What will it take to return to our First Love?
When I came back home from the missionary field after serving God in China and the Orient for 23 years, and I saw the beautiful new edifices that are the churches of today, I would look for the prayer room, and all I found was beautiful stainless steel kitchens and “Fellowship Halls” for their popular Church Suppers. I would ask, “Where is your prayer room?”
They would answer, “We didn’t include it in the plan.”
Somehow, a whole generation had lost the vision to pray. Somehow a whole generation went back into the dark ages. And I am telling you it is getting darker all the time!
Because we didn’t pray, they took the Bible out of our schools. Because we didn’t pray — the gays and lesbians started marching on our streets, mocking us and flaunting their corrupt, pernicious, malicious sinful lives, inspired by reprobate minds, influenced by the demons that once ruled Sodom and Gomorrah — and caused its destruction.
Because we didn’t pray — our Supreme Court Judges passed laws permit­ting doctors to kill our babies in our wombs, and get paid for it with our tax dollars.
Because we didn’t pray — there has been a revival of Satan Worship and witchcraft so evil that many of our children have been abducted and offered as sacrifices to the devil. Molech, is alive and well in America.
Because we didn’t pray — porno­graphy has become rampant on the screen, in the theatre, on the Internet, and even on the family television shows. Uncleanness and filth fill the minds of many until they are driven by the demons of lust and perversion.
Because we didn’t pray — our educational system has become the poorest in history. Many graduate without being able to read.
Sport has replaced knowledge and higher learning, and even music. It is the idol of our people.
Because we didn’t pray — most of our churches are empty.
We could go on and on. The picture grows darker every day. Beloved, we need to grab hold of the horns of the altar and cry out in agony to God for Him to intervene NOW. Prayer is the only thing that can change this nation. It is impossible to legislate holiness and righteousness. We have gone too far. There is no turning our nation back by passing laws. Only the mercy of God can change the hearts of wicked, demon-possessed men and women who have willingly become captives of Satan. It is what a backslidden nation wants. They WANT to sin. They LOVE their sin.
Nevertheless, I believe that if the Church begins to weep between the porch and the altar, God will hear from Heaven. He will answer our prayer. Oh, yes, it may be through great revival or great judgment, but in the end, the prey shall be taken from the mighty, and the captive delivered. “Thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children” (Isaiah 49:24-25).

Mothers of the Church, Teach Your Daughters How to Pray
My Bible says to the women of our churches, “Hear the word of the Lord, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation” (Jeremiah 9:20).
God is commanding you older women who still know how to travail and weep for souls, not to lay down this vital life-saving call of God and these gifts which He has given you, but to teach our spir­itual daughters and our neighbours (the other women of the Church) how to tra­vail again, like we used to in the old days.
Too many pastors discourage this kind of praying. They don’t understand it. How can they understand travail? They never had a baby. They never gave birth in the flesh, how can they understand how to give birth in the spirit?
We women were born to travail. This call is to us; let us rise to the occasion! “Let our eyes run down with tears and our eyelids gush out with waters.” (Jeremiah 9:18) And let us make haste to answer this call of the Spirit before it’s too late, and all hope of deliverance is lost forever.
Beloved, we need to weep. And be­cause I am a mother in Israel, and I read my Bible, I know that my Bible says that we older women have the respon­sibility of teaching the younger ones to weep.
There is a promise to those who weep. God says to Rachel (the mother of all intercessors), “Thus saith the LORD; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy” (Jeremiah 31:16).
The day is going to come when you can dry your tears. Your work will be rewarded. Hard praying is work! Praying isn’t just lying down prostrate on the floor and waiting on God. This is what I see many doing when a prayer meeting is called. When I see people settling down comfortably on a soft carpet during prayer meeting I am very suspicious that they might just be using that opportunity of “looking spiritual” while they take a quick “holy nap” as they are being entertained by beautiful “anointed” music on their tape player! Many of us are guilty of “lazy praying.”
No mother is resting comfortably when she is in travail. She is crying out for deliverance.
When you get lost in the spirit of prayer you won’t even hear the music any more. You are busy fighting demons, and you are getting hold of God. You are travailing, and you are in agony of soul. It is like you are having a baby, because you are fighting for new life in the Church; you are crying out for God to breathe His breath of life back into the Church.
The Church has given birth to many “still-born” babies who seem to have no spiritual life in them. We intercessors are responsible for getting the breath of the Holy Spirit into these Church-infants.
You know what happens when a baby is born; if it isn’t born with a cry, you spank it. Tonight I am spanking you. We have to get a hold of God, handmaidens and servants. It’s back to the altar again! It is back to our knees again! Back to the birthing stools! We have got to get that baby born alive!
If God doesn’t raise up a new gen­er­ation of intercessors, we will have death in the camp. This ministry was born by prayer and fasting, and when we stop praying we will die, inch by inch. It was born by fasting. We did not fast to lose weight. We fasted to get the anointing of God upon our lives and equip us for end-time prophetic ministry.
If your reason for fasting was for any other purpose, it was wrong. Forget about being a handmaiden and a servant. You didn’t have a meeting with God. You only had a meeting with your religious vanity. The first thing that happens to offend you, when you see that the rest of us are not perfect (as you think you are), you will turn and run from us. Unless you mean business with God, unless you want His holiness and righteousness, unless you want to truly live by the Law of the Love of God in your heart, it is better you go now.
I know this is hard preaching. But I love you. And as a spiritual midwife, I will spank you because I want to hear you cry out. I want to hear that there is a sign of life in you. A lusty cry is a sign of good health. A sickly baby can’t cry. Premature babies can hardly cry at all. But if it has a good yell, it is a healthy baby. We need some good “yelling,” screaming newborns, so the world will know there is life in the Church.
God promises us that if we will travail, “they will come again from the land of the enemy.”
That is what God did for Israel. That was what God did when Israel began to pray. He began to bring them back. It was only through prayer and intercession that Israel has won every battle she has fought. And what happens to Israel, happens to the Church.

The Yom Kippur War

During the Yom Kippur War of 1973, I was in Germany. When Israel was suddenly attacked on all fronts on their most holy and awesome day of the year, the Day of Atonement, when all of Israel is observing the day with fasting and prayers in their synagogues, we were not too worried; we were all confident that this would be no problem for Israel. Surely God would help her defeat her enemy in a few days, like He had in the Six Day War in 1968.
But it didn’t happen! Israel had been caught by surprise, because they had not heeded the warnings that their military intelligence had given them. And so they were unprepared when suddenly the powerful, Russian- backed armies of Syria, Egypt, and even Jordan, were making steady advances on little Israel. Young men were dying on every front.
We were watching the news on the German television. Every hour it looked worse for Israel. “We have to pray,” I said to my fourteen-year-old son, Tommy. If we don’t pray, something terrible will happen to Israel. He had always been a powerful intercessor; from the time he was very young, the Holy Spirit would move him to pray with great travailing until God would lift the burden.
We went into the bedroom and got down on our knees. After crying out to God for some time, Tommy said, “Mommy, I had a vision. I saw black demons in the sky over Israel. They are fighting the angels who are dressed in white. There is a big war in the heavens up there. Mommy, we’ve got to pray harder; we’ve got to pray harder!”
We immediately entered into more intense prayer and intercession for God to intervene in the heavens. We knew that if the battle could be won in the heavens, it would be won on earth. As we continued praying, “Oh God, save Israel! O God, save Israel!” the vision returned to Tommy. He began to see the demons being defeated by the angels who were fighting for Israel. We started praising the Lord, and shouting the victory, until he saw the last demon destroyed.
We watched the news anxiously. The next day, the tide had turned in the heavens; Israel was now marching on Damascus. The Syrian soldiers, for reasons unknown, had suddenly left their army tanks and fled from the battlefield. The Israeli soldiers at first thought it was a trap, but when they looked closely they saw that the tanks were ready for use, they got into the tanks and started chasing after the fleeing Syrian soldiers. In the Sinai Desert Israel captured thousands of Egyptian soldiers, and chased the rest of them back across the Suez Canal, on their way to Cairo. It looked like the whole region would fall to Israel, when suddenly the Russians began objecting vehemently in the United Nations, demanding the war to cease and Israel to withdraw her troops from foreign soil!
I am not saying that Tommy and I were responsible for Israel’s victory. I am simply telling you that God, in His grace, let us see what happens when people pray.
Satan Has Infiltrated Our Ranks

What happens in Israel happens in the Church. Just when we think everything is peaceful, the enemy is lying in wait at the borders, preparing to attack us. And what is more dangerous, is that in many instances he has already infiltrated our ranks, and we don’t even know it. He has seized control of many of the anointed ministries and some of what used to be our greatest and most power­ful churches. I know it! I have seen it happen! And oh, how it has grieved my heart! The devil has his puppets, and the saints don’t recognize them.
The devil infiltrated some of our big, old denominations, and passed ungodly church laws that encourage sin. Sodomites are ordained into the ministry, and performing “marriages” of two people of the same sex. He has demoralized our high government officials and made them fearful of the vocal loud-screaming segment of our society who demand their “rights” so that they too are passing new laws that permit the “marriage” of two people of the same sex. Fear and pride of office, greed, compromise and cowardice has made many great men fall.
On top of that, some so-called “Christian organizations” are using their non-profit privileges to organize persecution and defamation of character of righteous men and women of God who have served the Lord all their lives with great sacrifice and dedication. Holy ministries that are trying to do the work of God in an honest and humble way are being attacked by malicious and false rumours and lies, trying to destroy their reputation by men calling themselves God’s watchmen, or His intercessors, when all they are is the devil’s advocate. Most of them are not truly born again nor are they filled with the Holy Spirit; instead they are possessed with religious demons parading as angels of light. They have become enemies of the Cross. The people who believe them have no discernment, and soon become victims of Satan’s deception and lies, and before long they fall away and turn from the way of truth and holiness, because they have grieved the Holy Spirit until he has left them.
The devil is often hiding in the midst of our most holy convocations, secretly making his subversive plans on how he can destroy the works of God. And some of these phony “false brethren” are even hidden inside the very leadership of our greatest ministries. These people are like soldiers who kill their own. The military call it “friendly fire” because, in their ignorance, and by thinking they are doing the right thing, they destroy their own brothers and sisters in Christ. They become the devil’s tares in the midst of the “garden of the Lord” through flattery, and by ingratiating themselves to the anointed leaders who are too often deceived by these “plants” of Satan, because they work hard and are gifted in what they do. And the leaders, who are being worked to exhaustion, think they are a “god-send” because they are there to take over when no one else is. Its all a part of the big, overall plan to get control.
Others join a particular ministry, and while they are friendly with the leadership, and seem to seek to please, they are tearing down the work of God by inside criticism and fault finding that causes misunderstandings and con­tro­ver­sies. This grieves the heart of many in leadership when they hear that one of their own staff criticizes his or her co-workers to outsiders because he or she has some personal grievance.

Wake Up Church! We Are On Orange Alert!

It is time to wake up and realize the Church is under a great attack by the most powerful satanic forces of all time; our nation is under attack and in peril, and the whole world is at war. We are on “Orange Alert,” and it is not a false alarm! If there is peace in the country, it is only a temporary truce. What you are going to do for God, you had better do NOW. You have to get the job done in between wars, in between rioting, demonstra­tions, terrorists blowing up railroad stations, airliners being blown out of the sky, and the borders of the nations closing down. You have to seize hold of your kairos moment, and get to that nation when God opens the door, before it is closed. If you say, “I don’t think I will go this year, I will wait, and go next year,” you have missed it! Our opportunities to preach the gospel in some nations are only for moments of time. We had only a window of op­por­tunity for Iraq. The same is true of many other nations.
Israel was caught off guard in the Yom Kippur War. And we are also off our guard, because we are not aware of the workings and moves of Satan. And we are not listening to the warnings of the prophets of the Lord who are even now trying to wake us up and warn us of the terrible things that are about to befall us unless there is a drastic change through a great national revival and turning back to the God, Whom we have forsaken in our pride and arrogance.
We have become immune to the sin all around us. We have even become “politically correct” in our preaching. It is as though the devil has given us a little vaccination, or drugged us, and we think we have immunity; and while we are in our dazed condition, he is making inroads through our chief justices and our own liberal men in high government offices. A Pentecostal pastor in Norway has been sentenced to prison because he preached the Biblical truth that Sodomy is a sin. The Government of Canada has passed a law forbidding preachers to preach against the sin of Sodomy. They call it bigotry and homophobia. If I am a bigot for preaching against sin, God is one too. And if I have homophobia, God has it too!
In our half-awake state we elect and put into office leaders who are under appointment by Satan for the destruction of our nations. We, ourselves, cast the vote that puts them in office because of our pride, our self-confidence that we can’t be wrong, and our ignorance. We elect fools into high places who promise us great things and don’t stand by their promises.
And yet, God says, “And there is hope in thine end, saith the LORD, that thy children shall come again to their own border” (Jeremiah 31:17).
When we cry out until God hears our prayers, the tide will turn in the heavens, and when it turns in the heavens it will turn here on earth. Every victory won in the heavens is won on earth. If you can move the heart of God, God will move His Almighty Hand on your behalf.
God is moved by our tears, for “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16).
God says, it’s time to weep. When we weep, the captives will be delivered, and God will save our children!

Prayer

Oh God, we ask you tonight to save our children in the battlefields of the world, especially in the nations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and wherever they are.
Lord, we ask you to reach out Your Almighty Hand to Israel, in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, where the courageous young settlers with their families are so bravely standing in faith trying to fulfill the prophecies of the Scriptures that promised them that You would bring them back to Israel in the last days, and that they would “build the old waste places and raise up the foundations of many generations” (Isaiah 58:12). Lord, they have heard your promises of olden times concerning these days, “Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and shall eat them as common things” (Jeremiah 31:5); and now the nations of the world are against them. Even America, and their own government are opposing them, and are their worst enemies. My God, they are standing on the promises you gave Father Abraham! Save them! Protect them!
We pray for our President. My God, we ask You to turn him around and stop him from putting pressure on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to clear out the Settlements. Have mercy upon us, for we know America will be judged if we sin against Israel. Even our Christian President will lose his office if he goes against Israel. Give him a visitation in the night. Walk into that White House, Walk into No. 10 Downing Street, my God. Walk into the United Nations; walk into our government buildings, O God!
People, start calling on the Lord, right there where you are. Get a hold of God right where you are, now. Let “babies” be born in Zion tonight.
Almighty God, move by your Spirit! Yes, my Lord! We hear Your call for weeping, and we weep between the porch and the altar (Joel 2:17).
Oh, Jesus! Oh, My God! Save this world! It is going to Hell, my God! There is confusion in high places. Straighten out the minds of men; put them in line with the purposes of God.
Have mercy on America! Turn us around, My God! Turn us around and we shall be turned!
Oh save our nation, My God! We are a lost people! We are a lost people! We have lost our covering. Oh God! Oh God! They can’t stand your name! They can’t stand the name of God! They want to take it out of everything: out of our slogans, “In God we trust,” “one nation under God”! Let those slogans stand for all eternity, my God! Don’t let the enemy have success in removing Your name off this nation.
Lord, stir our souls this day! God is in this place tonight! He is in our midst tonight!
We are not going to cover our sins. We are not going to pretend we are white sheep when we are black sheep. We are calling for mercy. We call for mercy! Because the mercy of the Lord endureth forever! Oh, yes, Lord! Yes, My Lord! Oh Yes, My Lord! Oh Yes, Jesus!
Oh Messiah, come! Come, Messiah, come! Come! Come! Come! Come and put order in our land! We are a confused people. We are a transgressing people. Separate the tares from the wheat. Come, Wind of God, and blow away the chaff. Blow away the chaff! Let the Wind of the Holy Spirit blow!
Oh, My God. You have brought us together. My God you have filled this place with your people. Oh God, make this a praying convention. Let our tears be mingled with the blood of the [Huguenot] martyrs. Mingle our tears with the blood of the martyrs. And let them be brought to the Altar by the angels of the Lord as an offering to You, My God, tonight. Yes, My lord! Yes my Lord! Yes My Lord! Oh, My Lord!
For too long we have been praying five minute prayers, and we wonder why our prayers don’t shake Heaven. We cry out to God for a ministry of prayer. It is time now for you to send a great revival. Come, and sanctify the Church! Set the Bride on fire for God! Put Holy Ghost compassion back into the men and women of God! Help us to see how lukewarm we have become; and give us back our first love.
Get our hearts ready for the next great move of God! Amen!

Copyright 2004 by Gwen R. Shaw