“On your walls, oh Jerusalem, I have set watchmen. All the day and all the night, they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the Earth.”
– Isaiah 62:6–7
Isaiah 62:6–7 uses this watchmen imagery to call us to pray. So think about this. God says, “I’ve put watchmen on your walls.” So what does a watchman do? He stands on the wall, at his post, day in and day out, and keeps watch. Like, is looking out from the city, over what’s happening around the city, and never takes his eyes off of that.
We should continually plead with God in prayer to bring about the consummation of His promised redemption.
So the whole picture here is God, all throughout Isaiah, has given promises of his restoration to come, the redemption he’s going to bring, and God says, “I’ve put watchmen on your walls of Jerusalem to look forward to that, to keep pointing us to that,” and then he gets down to verse seven. He says, “Now, you who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the Earth.”
Isaiah 62:6–7 Calls Us to Keep Praying to God
So in other words, those watchmen on the walls don’t rest until it happens, until Jerusalem is restored, until the people of God are reestablished, and God’s name is praised among them. Until these promises become a reality, keep watching. Don’t rest. And then it says, “Give him no rest.” So the whole picture is keep watching, and praying, and pleading until God brings this about. Like, don’t give God any rest from your watching, and praying, and pleading.
Like, I think about when my kids were newborn. They gave us no rest. Right? I mean, that’s what newborns do. I’m guessing somebody who’s listening to this right now is probably there right now. Like, maybe you’ve got a newborn, and you have no rest from crying, all night long. You have no rest.
This is the picture that God has called us to in prayer as his people. He’s called us to look to him and say, “I have promises all over your word of a new Heaven and new Earth, of a day when justice and righteousness will reign, of a day when sin and suffering will be no more, of a day in which the nations will all worship you, every nation, tribe, tongue, and people will worship you, so I’m going to give you no rest, God, until that comes about. I’m going to cry out to you day and night, day and night, all day long. I’m not going to give you any rest from my praying and my pleading. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
This Leads Us to Desire for God’s Kingdom to Come
So, are we praying like this? Let’s pray like this, right now. God, we pray. We want your name to be hallowed in all the Earth. We want your kingdom to come. Jesus, we want you to come as our king. We want your kingdom to come, your will to be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. We want justice to reign. God, we want righteousness to reign. We want injustice to be no more. We want sin to be no more in our lives and the world around us. God, we want suffering and sorrow to be no more.
God, we’re asking for this. Please, bring it about. We’re watchmen standing on the wall, just asking. God, help us to ask for this all the time, every day, knowing that not one of those prayers is in vain, that one day, that last prayer’s going to break through into Heaven, and your kingdom is going to come, and your will is finally going to be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. God, please bring it about. Bring it about.
And more and more so, in our lives, God help us to walk in your will. Help us to do justice. God, help us to love righteousness. Help us to live with holiness. God, make our lives more and more like Jesus every day. We pray in anticipation of the day when our transformation into his likeness will be complete. God, please bring it about, and we pray you would make us a people who, until the day we breathe our last breath, we’re giving you no rest from pleading for the fulfillment of your promises on the Earth. God, may it be so. Come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly, we plead, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
