THE WATCHMEN
 

Is 62:6 I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; They shall never hold their peace day or night.  You who make mention of the LORD, do not keep silent, 7 and give Him no rest till He establishes and till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

I felt the Lord wanting me to encourage those of you who are intercessors that this year is a critical year.  Especially for Israel, Hong Kong and Taiwan.  The enemy is trying hard to bring false apostles and prophets into Hong Kong and Taiwan to get into China.  The enemy is very afraid of the Chinese church getting a vision to pray for Israel.   

It is time to awaken and reset the watchmen for Israel, Hong Kong and China.  This is a critical year! 
 

The Night-watches

But already the night-watches had been set in the Temple. By day and night it was the duty of the Levites to keep guard at the gates, to prevent, so far as possible, the unclean from entering. To them the duties of the Temple police were also entrusted, under the command of an official known to us in the New Testament as the 'captain of the Temple' (Acts 4:1, etc.), but in Jewish writings chiefly as 'the man of the Temple Mount.' The office must have been of considerable responsibility, considering the multitude on feast-days, their keen national susceptibilities, and the close proximity of the hated Romans in Fort Antonia. At night guards were placed in twenty-four stations about the gates and courts. Of these twenty-one were occupied by Levites alone; the other innermost three jointly by priests and Levites.

(The watch at some of the gates seems at one time to have been hereditary in certain families. For this, see Herzfeld, vol. i. p. 419; ii. p. 57.)

Each guard consisted of ten men; so that in all two hundred and forty Levites and thirty priests were on duty every night. The Temple guards were relieved by day, but not during the night, which the Romans divided into four, but the Jews, properly, into three watches, the fourth being really the morning watch.

Hence, when the Lord saith, 'Blessed are those servants whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching,' He expressly refers to the second and third watches as those of deepest sleep (Luke 12:38).

Each night, the supervisor of all the watches patrols the Temple Mount, inspecting each and every  watch.  Burning torches are borne before him (in order for the guards to recognize that it is he), and if perchance he encounters a watchman who does not rise up before him, the supervisor cries out to him,  "Peace be unto you!" But if the supervisor receives no reply, it is obvious that the guard has been caught asleep.  He would then rap the sleeping Levite with his stick; the supervisor was then  empowered to set  his covering on fire (as a punishment for not carrying out his duty properly).  Everyone within earshot who heard the cries of the unfortunate sleeper would say,  "What is that noise in the court?  Oh, it is the sound of a Levite who has been rapped, and his covering set alight, for he has fallen asleep on his watch."  (Edershiem)
 

We need to awaken the watchmen!
 

Shalom, Clint