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Restoring the Moravian Fire
The book starts with the trip that Jim, his wife Michal Ann and a group of intercessors made to Herrnhut (in former East Germany) to recover the fire of prayer that the Moravians possessed back in the 18th century. The Moravians used the text in Leviticus 6:9 and 6:13; that the fire on the altar shall not go out day or night, as their watchword for a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week prayer meeting that continued for more than one hundred years. They went through all kinds of hardship in their desire to spread the gospel and to serve, and John Wesley came to Christ as a result of seeing their faith in the face of great danger. Their prayers birthed what we now know as the modern missionary movement.
In the prayer tower that still stands in Herrnhut (which, translated means "the Lord's watch"), Jim and his group experienced a powerful visitation of the Holy Spirit as God poured out His anointing and impartation to breathe life back into a prayerless church. In God's prophetic calendar for the church (taking the picture from the stations of Moses' tabernacle) Jim believes that right now we are at the place of ministering at the altar of incense before the Holy of Holies where the fire and the incense represent the unceasing prayers of the saints.
God showed to Jim the "multidirectional dimension of prayer", that "what goes up must come down" along the lines of Rev 8:3-5. As our prayers rise to heaven, the angel mixes them with fire from the altar and throws it back down to earth as answers to prayer, as the "lightning of God". He goes on to relate how God showed him Job 36:32: "He covers his hands with lightning and commands it to strike the mark..." and that this is one of the meanings of the Hebrew word "paga", a Hebrew word for intercession (also used in Isa 59:16). As our prayers for areas of need ascend to heaven, they "illuminate the target" for God to strike it with displays of His brilliant presence. Ministering at this altar of incense, so close to God's heart, close to the most Holy Place, is a privilege indeed.
The Priestly Role of Intercession
The author describes how the church is in metamorphosis right now, as God releases us into the role of priestly intercessors before Him as part of the abundant life we have in Him. Jim heard God say to him: "I will release new understandings of identification in intercession whereby the legal basis of the rights of the demonic powers of the air to remain will be removed. Then, in that hour, My people will speak My word and I will fell the enemy." This "identification" is with the hurting ones in the world in which we live, to such an extent that in heart we become one of them by the Holy Spirit. As we confess their sin to the Lord and "stand in the gap" for them, we clear away the obstacles so that they themselves may draw near to God to be saved. We are called to be "holy bulldozers" in prayer to clear the way, like in Isa 57:14-15 as we lift up our eyes and see the fields white for harvest.
Jesus is our forerunner in this, as He laid down His very life as intercession for us, as a blood sacrifice, as our great high priest. We are to carry the our prayers into the Holy of Holies before God, as sweet smelling incense and intercession before the mercy seat in the same way that the high priest of the Old Covenant did annually for the people. This is the right and duty of every one of us as New Covenant priests to our God, to fill the golden bowls before His throne, as described in Rev 5:8, until they are full and then God can respond by pouring His mercies back down upon the earth. We have come to the Kingdom for such a time as this, to not waver in prayer, but to keep on filling up those bowls.
Restoring the Art of Pleading Your Case
"Pleading your case" has a legal implication, of "arguing in a court of law", of "earnest entreaty", in that we have a right to humbly but confidently present our case before Almighty God, to plead for ourselves and on behalf of others (Isa 43:26). He invites us to plead on the grounds that we are "in Christ" and therefore standing on the same ground as Jesus, our chief Advocate. We come before the Judge, to ask for welfare and blessing on His Kingdom, to stand (or rather to kneel) on His eternal promises. We need to know what has to happen in a situation and why, and to enter into His presence confident that thousands have gone this way before us. God is actually prepared to go as far we dare to go. The author cites the example of Abraham interceding for Sodom and Gomorrah in Gen 18, where God shows no sign of anger at Abraham continually reducing the number of righteous that would avert God's hand of destruction. He says, "what if Abraham hadn't stopped at ten, would God have been satisfied with fewer?" .. the lesson here is that "God quits when man quits".
The biblical definitions of an intercessor are delineated as follows: An intercessor is one who:
The intercessor pleads promises in the Word of God on the following bases:
Restoring the Watch of the Lord ("Little Keys Open Big Doors")
In 1991 Jim heard the following from God: "I will restore the ancient tools of the Watch of the Lord that have been used and will again be used to change the expression of Christianity across the face of the earth." We will be constantly "watching", like the biblical watcher on the wall, for the enemy and his plans, in order to repel him, and for God and what He is doing, in order to invite Him. When Jesus talked about "the last days" He made frequent use of the word "watch", which literally means "be vigilant and awake, watchful, usually around the clock". One Biblical basis is Matt 18:19-20, where small groups of people are seen as gathering and agreeing together, with Christ in their midst.
The "fire on the altar that does not go out day or night" is a picture of the Watch and was the watchword of the Moravian believers of Herrnhut (in Saxony, in former East Germany) who kept that 24 X 7 prayer meeting going for over 100 years. They discovered that the "little key" of round the clock intercession opened the "big door" of sending forth 300 missionaries to the ends of the earth. Their prayers fuelled the great awakenings in England and America in the 18th century.
Jim describes his journey to the Moravian watchtower, and of how he was handed a literal key to the tower by a man who had faithfully guarded the key for many years. There as God restored to him and his party the ancient anointing, He asked, as in Eze 37: "son of man, can these bones live?" God was referring to the dead prayer life of the church into which He seeks to breathe fresh fire and anointing. First Jim and his group repented for the sins of the past that had quenched the spirit of prayer and for how the modern-day church has dropped the baton of prayer, then they ascended the tower. They were hit by two violent gusts of wind, and each time were overcome by waves of intense intercession and "birthing travail", whilst the Spirit of God possessed and clothed them as He prayed through them. God then gave them the faith for a release of grace for a "house of prayer for all nations" and for the Watch of the Lord to be released first to 120 cities across the earth, and then to 3,000.
Restoring the Path from Prayer to His Presence
God spoke the following to Jim: "I will teach you to release the greatest weapon of spiritual warfare, the brilliance of My great presence". Christians today need to be aware of and to practise the presence of God, that same presence that dwelt in the Holy of Holies and which distinguishes us from all other peoples on the earth (Ex 33:14-16). The glory of God that is the manifested presence of God, of the Immanuel "God with us", is the raw power that we need in spiritual warfare. The Moravians practiced for 100 years the perpetual offering of fire on the altar and the same incense that was mixed with the fire produced the smoke that filled the Holy of Holies where God's presence dwelt and where His glory was the only light. These people, under the leadership of Count von Zinzendorf, recognised this key and embarked on their prayer watch, praying without ceasing, little realising that it would continue for so long.
Prayer itself is not a technique or a methodology; it is communion with a Person, however the ingredients of the Biblical incense are a fascinating picture of the qualities of prayer. This incense was made up of four parts, as follows:
Stacte : a sweet spice made by baking a tree resin until it came forth. Its name means "to ooze or to drop forth" and is a parallel of the act of prophesying, where the revelatory "rhema" word of God oozes or bubbles forth from the stored up "logos" within.
Onycha : an aromatic powder produced from a particular type of mollusc shell that was ground finely, and when burnt produced a sweet fragrance. This parallels God's working of inward humility and brokenness into our lives, even the times when we feel like we've been ground to a pulp in warfare, but which rises as a sweet fragrance to God.
Galbanum : an aromatic bitter gum resin, the word means "richness or fatness", implying that it comes from the choicest part. It is the oily substance used to hold the other elements together. It speaks of the goodness of God that brings unity among different "camps" and beliefs.
Frankincense : is a resin that produces a white dust as it dries. It implies purity and the righteousness that is imputed to us by the death of Christ on the cross, by the blood that cleanses from all sin.
All the ingredients had to be freshly purchased and mixed, not stored up, which signifies our day by day, fresh walk with God, not relying on the victories and prayers of the past. Intercession is about being around the presence of God, day by day, in the place where there is no "natural light", implying that we don't walk by the world's values, but in a place which is lit by the Shekinah glory of God. As we dwell in that presence, it begins to permeate us and we start to "look like and smell like" God, and this resemblance terrifies the enemy. Alongside the fire of prayer and the fresh incense, mercy is needed for moving into God's presence, in the same way that the mercy seat was at the centre of the Holy of Holies.
Restoring the House of Prayer for All Nations
Part of the anointing that the author received from God was to restore the house of prayer as mentioned in Mk 11:17, in respect of prayer for the harvest, that "all nations" may come in to the Father's house. Jesus is releasing His zeal into us, is turning over the tables of man's religion and is opening the cages to set the Dove of the Holy Ghost free to do whatever He wants amongst us. God's house is first of all a house of prayer, where a people built together seek His face. The fact that all four gospels record Jesus' act when He cleansed the temple serves to underline God's desire to purify us, His holy temple. This is so that we come dressed in the seamless garment of prayer and worship woven together, gladly prostrating ourselves before the Father. The Hebrew word for prayer, "tephillah" means "intercession and supplication, by implication, a song". It can also mean "the sung intercessory judgements of God" and the same word is used for "the prayers of David" in the psalms. One of the keys to the harvest of souls is prayer, so that seed is sown, germinates, is watered by the rain of God, matures, and so that God sends labourers into the fields for the harvest to be fully brought in.
Restoring the Expectation of the Supernatural
Jim begins by relating the angelic visitation that Zechariah received before the supernatural conception and birth of John the Baptist, then goes on to describe the visitation that he and his wife Michal Ann experienced in 1992. It radically changed her from a quiet housewife into a radical warrior woman of God, but it took a little while before she was able to fully receive what the Holy Spirit was doing. In the same way, God wants to prepare us for His visitations. These will change us into what He intends us to be in prayer, a people who are able to handle the weight of His glory when it comes.
Jesus wants to "kiss us with the kisses of His mouth", for us to experience His manifest presence so that this same presence goes with us to impact a needy world and to enable us to war in the spirit realm. Our battle with principalities and powers depends solely on God's anointing, His supernatural weapons imparted by encounters with a supernatural God. We need miraculous signs and wonders to be a beacon to the unsaved. We also need the ministry of angels to assist us; these angels who constantly offer praises to God, who are sent as "winds and flames of fire" and who excel in strength to perform His word, are co-workers with Christ and with us. Intercession releases angelic activity as they take our prayers before God and bring back His answers. It empowers countless "unemployed" angels who are waiting eagerly to do His bidding. It was an angel that delivered Peter from prison in response to the prayers of the saints and it was Gabriel who visited Daniel with the answer to his prayer. The author says that the "Pentecost", the next wave of the Holy Spirit that is coming, will be characterised by powerful supernatural gifts, encounters and visitations, particularly for the salvation of whole people groups who are difficult to reach by "normal" means.
Restoring the ATM (Apostolic Team Ministry)
"It's time for the A team to come forth. It's time for the ATM. It will be Apostolic - authentic, abandoned Christianity. It will be Telescopic - with prophets looking down the telescope of time and evangelists telling the good news. And it will be Microscopic with pastors and administrators caring for the house"
These words came to Jim as a revelation of how God is going to change the church in these last days by restoring the ministry of the apostle and prophet so that she no longer limps along in an unbalanced way with just teachers, pastors and evangelists. The Bride of Christ needs all of God's "spiritual nutrients" to be healthy, productive, equipped and spotless, and to be able to stay awake. In the 1980's the church underwent a lot of cleansing, pruning and removal of the leaven of hypocrisy, but now God declares "it's time to begin, its time for the backsliders and the prodigals to be restored". And so it has been, with the renewal that began in 1994, where God has been pouring out fresh oil and refreshing new wine.
In order to be able to release His anointing upon us, He had to first put us on "pause" so that He could correct defects in our character that would have proved catastrophic if He had released power to us back then. God is declaring that, "I will restore day and night prayer. I will restore extravagant giving. I will restore a people of purity and holiness of heart. And I will restore prevailing faith amongst My people". He is about to release the "arm of the Lord" into our time-space world with signs and wonders and a brilliant display of His presence so that all may see His salvation. God spoke the following to Jim: "I will restore the sacred altar.. I will restore My fire upon My altar. I will restore.. I am going to bring forth the arm of the Lord.. I am going to release apostolic restoration ministries.. I am going to restore the four faces of My gospel.. I will restore My truth of being Savior, Baptizer and Healer.. I am going to release the four faces of My living creatures that are around My throne.. Let the arm of the Lord come forth!" The arm of the Lord is a symbol of His strength and power and a demonstration of His authority displayed through apostolic team ministries, but even more it is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
The Day of the Watch Has Come
It is time to begin; it is time for the ancient tool, the Watch of the Lord, to be restored. Firstly for God's people to offer themselves as living sacrifices on the altar of God and to be baptized afresh with holy fire, then to participate in the Watch, the continuous fire of prayer on His altar of incense. We are called to be watchmen on the walls who stay awake and warn of imminent danger, otherwise God will require the blood of the victims from our hand (Eze 33:6), a sobering thought indeed. We, weak as we deem ourselves to be, need to be possessed by God Himself, to be clothed by Him like Gideon was (Judges 6:34), to blow the trumpet with holy boldness and to collect to ourselves others who will join in the fight alongside us.