|
Welcome To Gateway Worship Center |
| Revival |
| Intercession |
| Worship |
| Kids Page |
| High Places |
| Check Point |
| Links |
| Israel Links |
| News Links |
| Study Links |
|
|
|
|
|
|
PRAYER POINT
 |
Intercessory Letters An Intercessory Addition to CheckPoint
First Edition! |
“Yet…”
Written by Esther Dummer
June 2, 2004
“How?”
“How is He?”
“How will it happen?”
“How is God going to do it?”
“How is the harvest whitened?”
“How is He going to save the city?”
“How is He going to break the strongholds?”
“How is He going to wake people up to their sins?”
“How is He going to stir the Church out of its apathy?”
“How is He going to reveal His Power and Glory in our day?”
“How is He going to get their attention so that they will listen to Him?”
The strongholds you are facing look like “an incredibly large mountain” looming before you. You know that it is your job to “speak to the mountain and cast it into the sea, but it is so huge!”
“How will God ever answer a prayer like that?”
Isaiah 19
Verse 1
“God has not shown His presence in the city – yet…”
How do I know?
The reason I know is because the “idols are still standing.”
The “heart of the city has not melted – yet…”
Verse 2
There is still peace in the enemy’s camp.
“The Enemy has not turned on themselves - yet…”
Verse 3
The councilors are still speaking – they are still looking to their idols and charmers, seek out psychics and wizards…
“The spirit of your city has not failed - yet…”
Verse 4
You city still sits upon its own throne and rules and reigns unfettered.
“No thrones have crumbled – yet…”
Verses 5-7
You city still has a supply from which it quenches its thirst. Its rivers flow freely. There is no drought. Life around the river of the city looks like it is prospering. There is activity, planting and nourishment that is gained from the city’s river supply.
“Nothing’s dying – yet…”
Verse 8
They are still catching fish of all kinds, reeling them in right and left, for their purposes. They still cast their hooks covered by colorful and attractive lures that many are drawn to.
“Their nets have not failed them – yet…”
Verses 9-10
“They still weave their networks and are still not confused or confounded in their plans – yet…”
“Their networks are not broken – yet...”
“The ponds in which they stock their fish for their own enjoyment are not dried up – yet.”
Verses 11-12
The ‘princes’ of the city are still considered as astute and wise sounding as they stand next to the leaders and whisper in their ears the wisdom of man and devils.
“The mouths of these false counselors have not been silenced – yet…”
Verse 13
The mainstays of the city are still very much in control.
“Their wisdom has not been shown to be foolishness – yet…”
Verses 14-15
Their works are still prospering.
They are still walking upright and the city has not bent its knees in acknowledgement of Jesus Christ as Lord.
“Business has not fallen off – yet…”
Verse 16
The people of your city are strong and fearless.
“They have not been shaken by the Hand of God – yet…”
Verse 17
The city looks at you as insignificant and has no time for you except to snuff at you as you pass by.
“They have not recognized the Power of your Praise – yet…”
Verses 18-20
“So far, there is no altar to the LORD in the midst of your city – yet…”
“They are not crying out unto the LORD and they are not delivered – yet…”
Verse 21
“The LORD is not known in your city and your city does not know the LORD – yet…”
“They are not sacrificing nor making any vows to Him – yet…”
Verse 22
“God’s Hand has not smitten your city – yet…”
God’s Hand has not healed your city – yet…”
Your city has not asked God for healing – yet…”
Verse 23
“Your city is still closed up within itself – self-satisfied, self-confident, self-sufficient, self-focused, and have need of nothing from you – yet…”
“It has not opened its arms to God’s people – yet…”
Verse 24
“The day has not ‘yet’ come when we are recognized as a blessing in the midst of our city – yet…”
Verse 25
“The ‘Day of the Favor of the LORD’ has not blessed your city – yet…”
But…soon, in response to the people who dwell in a land such as yours, who cry out to God…
Change is coming to your city!!!
When God’s presence shows up…Here is what you can expect to happen!
- The LORD will ride into your city upon a swift cloud. The city’s suddenly is going to be upon them, but your years of prayer will have prepared the way!
- The idols of your city will fall at the presence of God.
- The hearts of people will melt at His presence.
- The enemy’s camp will turn on itself.
- The ‘old spirit’ will fail people – no more rallying cry.
- Witchcraft will fail those who have put their trust in it.
- The old watering holes will dry up.
- The ability to live in allurement and glamour will be gone – humility will prevail.
- The ‘networks of the enemy’ will be confounded and broken in their purposes.
- The ‘high-ranking’ strongmen who give evil council to all the leaders of your city will become foolish and animalistic.
- The glue that held the ‘tribes of your city’ together will fail – and things will no longer stick together as seducing liars are unveiled.
- There will be a ‘shake-up’ in the works of man’s hands and they will cease prospering in their own works.
- The Lord will shake your city with His own hand that is poised over it even now.
- You will become a ‘praising instrument’ a weapon of war that will strike fear in the heart of the enemy and the city, so it is time to “tune up!”
- The city will recognize God and build an altar to Him in the midst of the city.
- God shall save them from their many oppressors – bondages of every kind will be broken – chains and shackles will fall off and people will walk free.
- The LORD will be known by your city and ‘they shall know the LORD’ and make vows unto Him.
- The LORD will heal your city after He has shaken it and they have humbled themselves under His might Hand.
- The city will have a new openness, one in which you will be welcomed and acknowledged as the inheritance of the LORD!
Praise The LORD!
My attention was drawn to Isaiah 19 on the morning of, June 2, 2004, at 8 o'clock A.M. I had been pondering the questions that I am posing in this letter and this is where God took me.
Let’s look a little further at our city, from God’s perspective – the city that we have been assigned to pray in the move of God.
Everyone believes that” their city is the hardest” because each of us know the depth of depravity, death and loss that overwhelms our city from time to time. Then there is “a settling back” and everything seems to be okay.
We have our parades,
Honor our veterans of foreign wars,
Attend graduations,
Have babies,
Go to school,
Go to work,
Marry and Give in Marriage,
And
Other such “normal activities,” that make a city feel happy.
But then suddenly
, coming over the horizon is an event or something that causes everyone moments of silence as…
A young life is taken out through alcohol, suicide, or drugs.
We are uncomfortable for a season as we see the fruit of our city’s careless and wild seeds that have been sown into our young people come to maturity.
We watch as the treasures of our family’s future are buried
Tears are shed and everyone goes home for another day.
We hear that a neighbor has been abusing a child and it warps the whole town.
We find that a coach or teacher has molested a student and the awkwardness of that moment is hard to come to grips with as innocence is stolen.
We gasp in shock as something that was hatched in secret comes out in the open.
The secrets of a city are hard to bear when they are shouted from the rooftops, but it reveals to us that “all is not well.”
The cover-up and excuses that are made to help us cope and go on to “veil the truth” of “what really happened in our city.” You all know what I am talking about because I am describing your city, your town, your family.
This is the “tough ground” that you are praying into and trusting God to change – a town that pretends that everything is normal and all right and has no need of God for a long-term commitment.
You have pondered many questions as the years pass one into another and no change appears to be in sight. You look for any clues that there is a breaking in the concrete of your city’s heart and soul.
The strongholds appear to be set in steel and so controlling over people that you truly wonder how God is going to break in upon them.
This is the problem that many of us face as we realize that we are the “odd man out” in our cities and “never invited to play on anyone’s team.” That is really a better deal than we realize, but we do feel left out some of the time when we have tried so hard to reach out to the city and we are rejected in every advance that we make.
It is times like this that we lose perspective and hope in the middle of a seemingly hopeless situation.
We have interceded for many years for the souls of our families, cities, states and nations. Our watchtowers are positioned the harvest field which offers us…
So much hope and yet so many opportunities to lose hope.
There is a very good reason that we are desperate – we have already felt the presence of God come to us in some very powerful ways – all the way from confronting us in our own sin and strongholds to filling us fresh and anew with His Spirit to anointing us for service in the harvest field.
We are so convinced that what we have is the answer to people’s troubles and needs that we desire to see them experience the power and presence of God as we have.
So, we press and we pray and believe that what we are praying is the will of God towards our city, state, nation and loved ones. It is a fact – “God is not willing that any perish, but that ALL come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.” So, we seek Him for the salvation, healing and deliverance of our families, towns, and regions in which we live and onto the nations of the world.
Intercessors know how to press on!
The “Egypt” that is being revealed in Isaiah 19 was a tough place to live.
There would have been no Christian that would have lived in that place and not felt the tormenters whip upon their back. If you go back in time and reconsider the Children of Israel that had dwelt in Egypt from the time of Joseph to their Exodus, and study the way of life for them, we still have it fairly easy. They cried out as the hard taskmasters made life tougher and tougher for them.
Now come into the modern day and look into some of the “restricted countries,” where the Christians live and see the conditions that they are serving God under. They are being treated as less than an animal – people to be despised and beaten down - just as Israel was in their days in Egypt.
Wherever there is persecution or chains placed on the believer, there is intercession.
The cries begin to ring toward heaven and God does hear the voices of the oppressed, even though it may seem that nothing is happening.
“He IS going to show Himself strong in response to the cries of His People!
God had dealt with Egypt in Pharaoh’s time and had delivered the Children of Israel from them through several curses that plagued the land of Egypt.
By the time God got through with them, they had been reduced to powerless to stop the “church of their day” from moving on to possess the “promise land” of their era.
Now, in Isaiah we see Egypt at the end of the ages, a time in which God is going to deal with it as a nation. It is interesting to note that they had no say in the matter – they had not asked for God to visit them or heal them or shake them or any such thing.
“It is a fact – some things are God’s idea!”
- God always finishes what He started.
You may be beginning to think that God has forgotten your town or family and are wondering if your prayers have reached heaven, but rest assured, God has not forgotten you!
He has a “set time” for everything. (Ecclesiastes 3) His plans are perfect and right on time for the “Ways and Thoughts of God” are higher than mankind’s ways and thoughts.
We want it right now and God knows that our “right now’s” would lose lives rather than save lives. God is into redemption purposes and everything that He does is with that in mind.
Even when disaster strikes a place, redemption comes out of it.
We sometimes want to make everything about the devil and what he is doing, but rest assured, God has a strong hand in your city. He is willing and able to go to great lengths to answer your prayers if you just keep pressing the mark and raising the bar higher and higher in prayer.
God has not lost sight of you or the prayers that you have prayed and are praying!
Change IS coming to your city!
Change is coming to your nation!
Change is coming to your state!
Change is coming to your family!
God Bless the Faithful Watchman on the Wall of the Church!
For the Love of Souls,
Esther Dummer
Addendum
Dear Friends,
I am titling these letters, “PrayerPoint’ because of the content of the message that God has given me. In writing these, I find that God stokes greater fires of intercession in my own heart and church. I pray that these will also grip your heart for deeper intercession and also serve to broaden your sight to new horizons for prayer over your city for revival and the harvest. These letters will be titled as such:
Prayer Point
Intercessory Letters
An Intercessory Addition to CheckPoint
These will not replace Checkpoint or PowerPoint, but be a format all their own. Pray for me as I write and add this to the ministry that God has laid upon my heart. Would you also spread the word to others who may benefit from the messages that God is giving?
This newsletter is dedicated and written as an instruction and encouragement to a powerful and focused group of people who have devoted their life to a life of prayer for the Church. It is written to incite them to move forward with decisiveness and purity. It is written to stabilize and align the errant things that are occurring in intercessory and church circles. It is written to break new ground in understanding our own hearts.
I would also like to take this time to say thank you to those who have
subscribed, those who have forwarded these messages or photo copied and passed
them on to others. Also, thank you to those who have written encouraging words
to me. They are greatly
appreciated.
NOTE: This material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed an interest in receiving this information for non-profit use only.
"Check Point" and "Power Point" is an online newsletter published by: "Esther Dummer." Permission is hereby granted to copy and distribute for non-commercial purposes. Consider duplicating, in its entirety, as published, and distributing to friends, relatives, pastors or your church congregation, or forward via email.
It is my delight to have those who desire to use these messages to further God’s move to do so.However, copying for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited.
All Rights Reserved.
If you wish to be placed on Gateway's mailing list for further newsletters, send us an email at harvester@charter.net and enter "subscribe Check Point" in the subject line.
Your email address is never shared or sold to anyone
Please feel free to copy this and pass it on as posted or forward to others.
If you have received this as a forward, then do not reply to the forward, but send a direct email to me or I will not get the subscribe, but the party who forwarded it to you.To comment on this article, please email me at, harvester@charter.net I am always interested in hearing from you