In Jesus' most agonizing moments before his crucifixion, he commanded Peter, James, and John to watch and pray.

Jesus then went on to moments of fervent prayer in the garden. Unfortunately, those disciples failed

in their assignment, and Jesus found them sleeping instead of praying. In this study,

Evangelist Scott Pauley will lead us and challenge us to watch and pray, to pray faith-filled

prayer for God to move and work in our generation.

Be sure to listen after the study for details about a special prayer resource

Scott is making available through this series.

And now, let's join Scott Pauli.

In the New Testament, we have the development of what we call the watch and pray principle,

and we really have given a lot of emphasis and attention to our Lord's usage of that because he's the one who really gives the most powerful exhortations to

watch and pray. But I want to back up this point in our study to show you that this is the

need of all of God's people at all seasons and that watch and pray while it's really emphasized

in the New Testament and we'll return to the New Testament at the conclusion of our and pray while it's really emphasized in the New Testament and we'll

return to the New Testament at the conclusion of our study, but it's woven through the Old

Testament. In fact, there are three distinct places in the Old Testament where you find

watching and praying connected to one another and connected to God's people even in difficult circumstances. I'm going to

give you over our next three studies three Old Testament pictures. You know, pictures help you see

things, right? They show you truth. They give an illustration of the instruction. So let's begin today

with one picture you can hang in the gallery of your mind,

one picture that will help you see what it means to watch and pray,

and it is a historical picture.

It comes from history, specifically from the historical book of Nehemiah.

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