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WATCH FOCUS - Israel Our Example: Purim and a Parade!


PURIM: On display in our courts compromising citizens’ rights to the global scene where Israel is on trial for waging a just war for their survival, justice is under judgment. The story of Purim in the Bible is a universal lesson in the triumph of justice. Corruption and cronyism prevailed in the king’s court. A vile man of great power and favor, Haman, used his position to destroy his political enemies…until he was exposed, and God came to the aid of His people. Haman would end up on the rope he devised for others. Esther rewrote the laws written against her people.
 
We position ourselves in intercession as Esther, identifying boldly with the covenant people of God, inviting the King of Glory, Lion of Judah, to come and dine at the table of worship and thanksgiving we spread for Him. As He is pleased to receive our adoration, we make our appeal that He overturn the plans against His people here and in Israel. 
 
When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry; And came even before the king's gate … he gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given at Shushan to destroy them, to shew it to Esther and to charge her that she should go in to the king, to make supplication to him, and to make request before him for her people. And Mordecai told Esther: “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” “And so, I will go to the king, and if I perish, I perish!” Queen Esther found favor in his sight, and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. Then Esther went near and touched the top of the scepter. Esther 3-5.
 
Just as Jesus is difficult to ignore, Israel is anointed to expose heart motives in men and nations. God is using Israel to expose the hypocrisy of many nations and turn their judgment against His people back on His enemies’ heads. Jesus foretold a day when justice will prevail. “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.  All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’” (Matthew 25:31-33, 40)
 
A PARADE: Paul reckons all humanity the enemies of God prior to conversion. In 2 Corinthians, he calls to mind the Roman Triumph, “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere” (v.14). Alluding to the spectacular celebration honoring a victorious general, it was an enormous parade through the heart of Rome designed to display the glory of the conqueror and give thanks to his god for the victory. The whole city would turn out. Historian Josephus says, “It is impossible to describe the magnificence of them” (Jewish Wars 7.132). It included plunder taken from the enemy, victorious soldiers, captured soldiers, and leading officers of the enemy in chains being mocked by onlookers. Augustus boasted, “In my Triumphs nine kings or children of kings were lead before my chariot” (Acts of Augustus 1.4). The climax involved a sacrifice to the Roman deities and the execution of captives. Christian churches worldwide celebrate the parade of Palm Sunday when Jesus entered Jerusalem prior to His sacrifice and was hailed by the city as Messiah. “Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: “Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ Hosanna in the highest!” Matt. 21:9.
 
We cry “HOSANNA! King of Glory come in!” 
We pray complete defeat for Israel’s enemies.
We pray exposure and removal of every judge, attorney, DA, and public official using their office for political means, corruption, and injustice.   
 
Psalms 69 and 109 are ‘imprecatory’ psalms, invoking judgment, calamity, or curses on the enemies of God. Psalm 69 includes the prophetic cry of Christ from the Cross:  “They also gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Let their table become a snare before them, and their well-being a trap.  Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see; and make their loins shake continually. Pour out Your indignation upon them, and let Your wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their dwelling place be desolate; let no one live in their tents. For they persecute the ones You have struck and talk of the grief of those You have wounded. Add iniquity to their iniquity and let them not come into Your righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.” (Psalm 69:22-28)
 
And Psalm 109: “Do not keep silent, O God of my praise! For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful have opened against me; they have spoken against me with a lying tongue. They have also surrounded me with words of hatred and fought against me without a cause.  In return for my love, they are my accusers, but I give myself to prayer. Thus, they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love. Set a wicked man over him, and let an accuser stand at his right hand. When he is judged, let him be found guilty, and let his prayer become sin.  Let his days be few and let another take his office…Let the creditor seize all that he has, and let strangers plunder his labor. Let [their sin] be continually before the LORD, that He may cut off the memory of them from the earth; because he did not remember to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart. As he loved cursing, so let it come to him; as he did not delight in blessing, so let it be far from him. As he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment, so let it enter his body like water, and like oil into his bones.  Let this be the LORD’s reward to my accusers, and to those who speak evil against my person.”

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Previous Watch Focuses   
 
PURIM: On display in our courts compromising citizens’ rights to the global scene where Israel is on trial for waging a just war for their survival, justice is under judgment. The story of Purim in the Bible is a universal lesson in the triumph of justice
For days now our intercession is interwoven in a sound of SINGING! When King David returned the ark to its place, they sang as they brought it home on their shoulders!
Our watch focus this week begins with God’s promises from scripture that His will shall be done on earth.
“He went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, and there, the camels were coming.” Genesis 24:63
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