By: Jürgen Bühler, ICEJ President

“For thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land.” (Haggai 2:6)

The prophet Haggai foresaw a time of global shaking. He saw not only the earth but also the heavens shaken. A shaking heaven does not mean that the heavenly dwelling place of God would be shaken in any way. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. His rule and throne is everlasting. It rather refers to the heavenly realms where principalities and rulers of darkness influence our world (Ephesians 6:12), which shall be in an uproar such that demonic principalities even over nations become unsettled, possibly leading even to changes in government.

We are definitely in a time of unprecedented global shaking. The COVID-19 virus is causing global upheaval, resulting in an unseen flood of unusual government decisions worldwide. Like never before, a plague is impacting every part of our planet and affecting every nation on earth all at once.

Also the riots and demonstrations caused by the recent death of an African-American man, George Floyd, are spreading like a wildfire around the world. Its greatest, most disconcerting impact is felt in the USA, where it has already enflamed the existing polarization within society and even could sway the upcoming presidential elections. Many of these demonstrations have been taken over by destructive forces that do not seek racial harmony and the peace of a nation, but rather their destruction. I personally sense much of the violent fallout is of an evil spiritual origin and thus needs to be addressed in spiritual battle through prayer.

Both the COVID-19 pandemic and the riots together are opening a national wound in America and around the world that cries out for healing. And it is exactly here that the word of God gives us hope.

“[If] My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

This verse teaches us that prayer can lead to the healing and restoration of entire nations. Prayer is not just a weapon to fight our own personal wars regarding our finances, health or family. Prayer can be a strategic missile with national impact and combined with fasting it can break any yoke and stronghold. God inspires us to think on these levels.

“Ask of me,” God says, “and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.” (Psalms 2:8) When Daniel prayed in Babylon for the dispersed people of Israel, his prayer impacted angelic principalities which ruled in the heavenly realms over the world empires of Greece and Persia. That means focused and intentional prayer can shift the atmosphere in nations and regions.

One example of this is what happened in Germany during the late 1980s. After World War II, Germany was severely judged and experienced a national division into two parts. East Germany was controlled and suppressed by the Soviet Union (with the East German region eventually overseen by a KGB officer named Vladimir Putin). The other side was part of the free Western world led by the United States of America. The fault-line of the Cold War, between East and West, ran right through Germany and especially through the city of Berlin. Germans spied on each other and were even trained to fight each other in case of war.

Even still in mid-1989, the reunification of Germany looked impossible. Some of the prophetic voices who foresaw a unification like the British Bible teacher David Pawson and Loren Cunningham of YWAM were laughed at by pastors in Germany. What separated Germany was not just a national rift, but global political blocks that were willing to defend and fight for their piece of Germany. As a child, I well remember the US military maneuvers close to my home town near Stuttgart.

When I was in Germany last summer, it was 30 years after reunification, so I talked to pastors and leaders from east and west and was greatly encouraged by what I heard. Already in the late 1970s, prayer groups emerged in particular in Eastern communist Germany who prayed for the healing of our land. In the year before reunification, various individuals and prayer groups, led by God and unbeknownst to the others, went to the wall and prayed that it might fall. On both sides people held Communion at the Berlin Wall, not knowing others were doing the same.

The demonstrations that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall actually started out of the Monday prayer meetings of the Nikolai church in Leipzig, a weekly prayer gathering that started already in 1982. And God answered these prayers!

What really happened on the night of 9 November 1989, no one knows until today. But everyone agrees it was a miracle when an East German high-ranking official declared the border to be open.

I am writing this today as the nations of the world need healing. There is a wall going through the United States – and I am not talking about the wall that secures the southern border of the USA. But it is a wall that separates and polarizes the nation and can endanger not only the fabric of America but the global leadership of the USA as a “nation under God.” America needs our prayers more than ever before. In particular, we Christians in the Western world owe this to the USA more than any others as they stood with us for decades.

God also can heal and reunite Korea as he healed and reunited Germany. North Korea’s capital Pyongyang was once known as the “Jerusalem of Asia” as a revival greatly touched that nation. What looks today impossible is possible with God.

The key, however, lays not with politicians but with the people of God. Note that it does not say “If the President” or “if the government” or “if the parliament”, but God says “If my people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray …. I will heal their land.”

The key to the healing of our nations lays in the hands of ordinary people like you and me who will stand at these walls of division and call for them to fall in the name of Jesus!

Please join us in prayer for the USA, for Korea and for Israel. Maybe your own nation needs a touch of God. God is the healer of nations. “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much,” says James 5:16. Our prayers can break the demonic powers of division, liberalism and racism, because Jesus is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Nothing is impossible for him when his people pray. Let us join hands and do this together!

God bless you from Jerusalem as we change the world together!

Also, please look for our Isaiah 62 prayer groups in your country, find one of the Zoom prayer groups offered by some of our ICEJ national branches, and consider joining our Global Prayer Gathering from Jerusalem every Wednesday or our new monthly Rosh Chodesh global prayer movement. There are others like you who want to join their voice and faith with fellow believers to truly impact their nations. Click here for more information on these prayer groups!

You can also watch two fascinating videos about how God was moving in the hearts of His people on each side of the Berlin wall!