Copyright © 2018 Michael A. Brown
‘Praise the LORD, all you servants of the LORD who minister
by night in the house of the LORD.’
(Ps. 134:1)
‘On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the
watches of the night.’
(Ps. 63:6)
There are many examples in the Scriptures
of occasions when people prayed and experienced God during the hours of the
night. Jacob wrestled with the angel
until daybreak, and was blessed (Gen. 32:22-32). The Lord called young Samuel during the night
and revealed a prophetic word to him (1 Sam. ch.3). We are told that Nehemiah mourned, fasted and
sought God day and night over the condition of the Jews who had returned from
exile and the lamentable state of the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. 1:5-6). We can read of Anna the prophetess who never
left the temple, but worshipped night and day, fasting and praying (Luke 2:36-37).
Jesus himself spent the whole night in
prayer before he appointed his inner core of twelve disciples (Luke 6:12). He prayed into the hours of the night when he
was in Gethsemane, in order to prepare himself for the climactic events of the
following day (Luke 22:39-46). In one of
his parables about prayer, it was at midnight that the friend came to ask for
some loaves of bread (Luke 11:5-8). In
another, God’s chosen ones are pictured as crying out to him day and night over
their needs (Luke 18:1,7; 1 Tim. 5:5).
In their desperation, the believers in
Jerusalem prayed earnestly day and night for Peter, and God sent an angel to
release him from prison (Acts 12:5-12).
Paul and Silas were praying and praising God at midnight in their prison
cell at Philippi, and God answered them with an earthquake. The cell-doors were flung wide open and
everyone’s chains came loose (Acts 16:25-26).
The world of Christian biography similarly
is filled with examples of men and women (and sometimes of corporate communities
of believers) who were moved to pray regularly during the night. It is said of Polycarp, the bishop
of Smyrna, just prior to his martyrdom, that ‘There he stayed with friends,
night and day, engaged in nothing but constant prayer to the Lord and imploring
peace for all the churches throughout the world. For this had always been his practice…’[1]
In the last few centuries, the well-known
Moravian community of Herrnhut provides us with an outstanding example of
ongoing, corporate prayer. Consequent to
the revival which occurred in their community in 1727, they established what is
known as ‘24-7 prayer’ which led to the development of a worldwide penetration
of the gospel through their consecrated missionary endeavours. This organised, round-the-clock, continuing
community prayer went on unbroken day and night for over 100 years. Their example was a major factor which has
helped to inspire the modern-day development of the worldwide 24-7 prayer
movement.[2]
Biography furnishes us with other rich,
inspiring and challenging examples. Men
such as Evan Roberts, John “Praying” Hyde and Frank Bartleman were each moved
upon by the Holy Spirit to spend many occasions in prayer and intercession
during the hours of the night, and revival broke out in each of their
ministries.[3][4][5]
John Welch kept a blanket near his bed
in order to wrap himself in it when he arose to pray at night.[6]
As an alumnus of the Bible College of
Wales, Swansea (1983-1986), I can personally testify to the regular habit that
our principal Rev. Samuel Rees Howells had of praying well into the small hours
of the night, even when he was elderly.
Very often when we returned to the College in the early hours after
doing street evangelism, or when we were on lock-up duty late at night, we
would invariably see that the light in his room was still on. We all knew what he was doing![7] And who can forget Peggy and Christine Smith (one
of them blind, the other arthritic, and both in their 80s) who, together with
their minister and a small group of other believers, were drawn to start
praying regularly during the night some months before the revival broke out in
Barvas on the Isle of Lewis in 1949?[8] The list is endless…
The background of the verse above from
Psalm 134 is that of the ministry of the temple priests. After the ending of the evening service just
after sunset, teams of priests would keep watch over the temple precincts
during the several watches of the night to safeguard it against unwelcome
intruders (cf. Ps. 127:1). By Christ’s
time, there were twenty-four stationed points around the precincts for such
watchmen, each having an assigned group of ten priests (which would presumably
rotate through the three Jewish watches of the night).[9] Another team of priests would then arrive
early in the morning (probably before dawn) to prepare for the morning
sacrifice which would be held a little later on. From David’s time onwards, music and praise
were associated with both the evening and morning services (Ps. 57:8, cf.
92:1-3).
Isaiah makes the spiritual link of the
night-time duty of watchmen to that of prayer and intercession, and through
Ezekiel’s call we can see how watchmen become involved in prophetic ministry:
‘I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem;
they will never be silent day or night.
You who call on the LORD, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest
till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.’ (Isa. 62:6-7).
‘Son of man, I have made you a
watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them
warning from me.’
(Ezek.
3:17, 33:7).
The picture given to us by Isaiah is one of continuous praise,
worship, prayer and intercession before God throughout both the day and night, just as it is in heaven: ‘Day and night they never stop saying:
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”’
(Rev. 4:8).
There are many factors which might lead us
to stay up (or get up) and spend some (or, on occasions, even all) of the night
hours with God in prayer. Do anxiety and
worry about a particular issue keep you awake and sleepless at night? Perhaps you have a particular issue that you
need to spend some time quietly praying over?
Have you ever woken up during the night feeling burdened to pray for a
particular person or situation? Maybe
you want to pray and intercede for your family members, your church, your
pastor and his family, or your town? Do
you ever wake up feeling an inward compulsion that the Lord wants to speak to
you? Perhaps you want to spend some time
with God when everyone else is in bed sleeping, and everything in the house is
quiet and peaceful, just reading and meditating on his word without being
distracted? Do you ever wake up feeling
like the devil has just been attacking you in a bad dream which was filled with
fear and terror? Or perhaps you simply
have a desire just to seek God, and to worship and adore the One your heart
loves; you simply want to be with him?
Believers often cite one of the above
factors as being the moving factor in their getting up to pray and spend some
time with God and in his word during the night.
Personally, I can testify to the fact that
occasionally spending time with God during the hours of the night does my
spiritual life no end of good. The
determination to overcome night-time slothfulness and to obey the inward
compulsion that I sometimes feel when I wake up in the night and can’t get back
to sleep (often somewhere between 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m.), to make good use of
this time rather than simply tossing and turning on my bed, and so to get up
and go downstairs, make a cup of tea and spend some time with God before then
returning to bed, I have found to be a real blessing. I can often hear the Lord speaking to me in
such times, and it releases his presence and power into me in a way which refreshes
me and sustains me spiritually all through the next day. I am peaceful and feel on top of things. And if I do then need to catch up on some
lost sleep, I can always do that later anyway…
When he started to encourage people to
organise 24-7 prayer cycles, Greig wondered whether people would volunteer for
the slots in the middle of the night.
However, he found that many people discovered in experience that ‘the
best slots were the ones in the middle of the night. In that timeless zone between 2 and 4 a.m.,
there was often an electric sense that you were keeping watch alone with God,
and these less civilized shifts began to fill up as easily as any others.’[10]
Have you ever prayed for the privilege of
waiting on God in the hours of the night?
Have you ever determined that, rather than just tossing and turning on
your bed vainly hoping for sleep that doesn’t seem to come, you will get up and
spend some time quietly with God? McCheyne
held himself to this: ‘When I awake in the night, I ought to rise and pray.’[11] Many believers have found that, if they ask
God to wake them up during the night to spend some time with him, he invariably
responds by doing just that, and then does it again at around the same time on
other nights too (Isa. 50:4)! He loves
to have fellowship with us during the hours of the night. He neither slumbers nor sleeps, of course
(Ps. 121:4).
The willingness to occasionally spend some
time ‘on the night watch’ (whether in the late evening until after midnight, in
the small hours of the night, or in the time around dawn) can bring us into a
real sense of God’s closeness and a renewed freshness and strength in his
presence. He is a God who answers
prayer, and the examples in Scripture testify to the fact that sometimes he
speaks, and powerful breakthroughs and answers come, when we are prepared to
forsake sleep for a while in order to wait on him.
‘Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?’ (Matt. 26:40)
‘Devote yourselves to prayer, being
watchful and thankful.’
[1] Cruse, C.F. (Tr.), Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, Book
4, Chapter 15, Updated Edition, Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998, p.123.
[2] See Greig, P. and Roberts, D. Red Moon Rising: The Story of 24-7 Prayer,
Kingsway: Eastbourne, 2003.
[3] See
www.prayforrevival.wordpress.com.
[4] See Carré, E.G. (Ed.). Praying Hyde, Bridge Publishing: South
Plainfield, 1982.
[5] See Liardon, R. (Comp.), Frank Bartleman’s Azusa Street, Destiny
Image: Shippensburg, 2006.
[6] Bounds, E.M. Power through Prayer, Whitaker House: Springdale, 1982, p.46.
[7] To learn more about his life of
prayer and intercession, see Maton, R. Samuel
Rees Howells: A Life of Intercession, Chapter 8, Kindle Edition, ByFaith
Media: UK, 2018.
[8] Campbell, D. Revival in the Hebrides, Chapter 1, Kindle Edition, Kraus House,
2015.
[9] The Jews had three watches in the
night, whereas the Romans had four.
[10] Greig and Roberts (2003:87).
[11] Bounds (1982:46).
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