TABLE OF CONTENT1. TABLE OF CONTENT 1

2. FASTING:THE OLD BUT EFFECTIVE WEAPON 2 - 5

3. BIBLICAL KEYS TO CHURCH GROWTH FASTING & PRAYER 6 - 7

4. THE PROFITABLE REWARDS 8 - 11

5. WHY FAST AND PRAY 12 - 21

6. FASTING & PRAYER 22

7. TAKING STEPS TOWARDS STRATEGIC FASTING 23

8. BENEFITS FROM FASTING 24

9. FASTING EMPOWERS PRAYER 25 - 26

10. THE IMPORTANCE OF FASTING 27 - 28

11. FASTING: A POWERFUL AID TO PRAYER 29 - 36

12. GOD CALLS MEN TO FASTING 37

13. SUBDUING SELF THROUGH FASTING 38 - 43

14. STEWARDSHIP OF FASTING 44 – 54

FASTING: THE OLD BUT EFFECTIVE WEAPON

Fasting has been out of vogue in the Christian church for many centuries. This is so, and in fact, rarely does anyone preach or teach on it. There is no time we are on the victory part and more closer to God than when we are fasting. Church fathers through the ages have recognized the importance of fasting and paid much attention to it. The church in her folly has largely neglected it and throws it into a corner to her own detriment and loss. It’s time to pick it up again.

FASTING AND PRAYER IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

(a) Israel fasted on the Day of Atonement

(b) Moses fasted on Mt. Sinai - Exod. 34:28, Deut. 9:19, 25-29. He obtained pardon for a wayward race through his fasting, called absolute fast – -miracle fast.

(c) Ezra proclaimed fast for the Lords protection - Ezra 8:21-23. They were not attacked because they fasted.

(d) Nehemiah - Neh. 1:1-4. He got permission and started the rebuilding because he fasted.

(e) Esther - Esther 4:16. The Jews were saved as a result of fasting

(f) Jehoshaphat - II Chro. 20:3. The Lord gave him victory because they fasted.

(g) Jonah - Jonah 3:4-10. Nineveh was saved because they fasted.

FASTING IN THE NEW TESTAMENT Jesus fasted forty days before the beginning of his ministry - Lk. 4:2 John the Baptist taught his disciples to fast often - Mk. 2:18, Lk. 5:33 Anna served God in the temple with fastings and prayer Lk.2:36-38 Paul fasted following his conversion - Acts 9:9. And later on the ship - Acts

27: 33-38, 43, 44. Cornelius fasted and prayed and the Lord answered. Act. 10:30, 31

Practise common in early church - Acts 13:1-3, 14:23 Later church history states that every Tuesday and Friday was set apart for

fasting.

CHURCH FATHERS

(a) Francis of Assisi

After the dark ages appeared a gospel light ignited by this man. He was a constant and frequent faster. He started a movement that lasted 100 years after his own death.

(b) Savonarola

God brought another awakening through this man and almost all the city of Florence professes salvation as a result of his flaming preaching. He was an inveterate faster. He often could keep his place in the pulpit as a result of frequent abstinence from food.

(c) Martin Luther

God was able to do all He did through this man because it was stated that He fasted drastically and permanently as to injure his health. Not recommending this, but many mighty works were wrought through him.

(d) John Calvin

He was an inveterate faster and lived to see his prayers answered in the conversion of almost a whole city. It is stated that there was not one house in the city of Geneva that did not have a praying person in it.

(e) John Knox

He prayed and fasted until God drove Mary Queen of Scots into exile and finally to death. She declared that she “feared John Knox and his prayers more than the armies of Elizabeth.”

(f) John Wesley

He set great store by fasting and God was able to move mightily. It is stated that his movement saved England from war and invasion by France.

(g) Charles Finney

He said that whenever he discovers the demission of the Holy Spirits presence in him. He would go and fast for three days and he would be filled again.

WHY FAST?

There are good things which can happen to us through fasting.

(a) Means of genuine repentance and restoration - Joel 2:12, Isa. 40:28-31

(b) Fasting and prayer enable God to release His power on our behalf.

(c) It helps us to remove hindrance to growth - Dan. 10:2, 3. There are powers that hinder church and personal growth.

(d) Fasting is a harbinger of revival - Joel 1:13, 14, 2:12-20.

(e) Be a channel of blessing - Jn.7:37-39 with Isa 58:6-12.

(f) Powerful aid to prayer - Isa. 58:9, Jude 20:18-37; Neh. 1:4

(g) For effective ministry - Act. 13:1-4; 14:23; Mat. 17:17-21

(h) It established that our belly is not our God. Phil. 3:19

(i) It gives us victory over fleshly desires, and diminished the power of the flesh over us.

(j) It helps us overcome unbelief and build our spiritual life so that we can interact with the Spirit and help us to operate more in the Spirit realm.

KINDS OF FAST

(a) Normal fast

Totally refraining from food but drinking water. This can be for varying lengths of time from one meal up to 40 days.

(b) Partial fast

Involve abstaining from certain foods. This is also called white fasting (Daniel 10)

(d) Absolute fast

This is a fast of no food and no water. This should not exceed three days except you are sure that the Lord is leading you as He led Moses. Wherever the church is growing today in the world, it is the Holy Spirit working in answer to the prayer and fasting of His people.

In Korea, the people have learnt how to bind the devil that controls the nation, city, community and hearts of people through prayers and fasting. Therefore mighty growth is being experienced.

In Argentina, Omar Cabrero, one of the leading evangelists consistently close himself in a hotel room between 5-40 days until the power of the Spirit controlling the area is broken and then he would go there and many would be saved, healed and delivered.

The church is recording explosive growth both in quality and quantity today in Asia, America, Latin America because the saints have learnt how to pray with fasting thereby releasing the power of Holy Ghost to perform signs and wonders and mighty acts of salvation.

In Nigeria, God has used the Redeemed Christian Church of God to restore the value and benefit of corporate fasting. There it was that popularize the 100 days protracted fasting chain. Many churches are now waking up to the need for varying lengths of time for supernatural breakthrough. Our fasting should not be for crisis time alone. We should obey the wise old dictum; “If you want peace prepare for war. When shall we receive the challenge to rise up and fast, pray, organize and plan for growth? When shall we pay the price for all kinds of growth?

If not now, when? If not here, where? If not you, Who?

BIBLICAL KEYS TO CHURCH GROWTH FASTING AND PRAYER

The first time I was exposed to fasting, I was in my early 20’s and the pastor of a little church in Lexington, Kentucky. My father and I went to Seoul, Korea to visit with Dr. Cho, pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church. At that time, his church had 40,000 members.

There are two dynamics that built his 850,000 member church. One, Dr. Cho is a tremendous man of faith. The faith message was the central core of his ministry. He spoke the word of God, and believed it would come to pass. His mother-in-law would lie on her face all night in intercession and fasting. She had a revelation of intercession and fasting. She made sure - everyone received the same revelation.

Through faith, fasting and prayer, they built the greatest church in the world with over 850,000 members. My father and I had the opportunity to meet With Madam Choi.

My father asked her, “What is the secret of building great church?”

She pointed at my dad’s stomach and said, “Fast, fast, fast, and pray, pray, pray.”My dad thought she didn’t understand.

“She can’t understand English so I will ask her again,” he said.

So he asked her again. She got up, walked over to my dad, stuck her finger in my dad’s stomach and she said, “Fast, fast, fast” Then she pointed to heaven and said, “Pray, pray, pray.”

While in Seoul, we also visited Prayer Mountain. There were over 1500 young people at Prayer Mountain who were fasting for one week. Most of the youth were between 13 and 18 years old. It so moved me; I decided to begin fasting when I returned home. I started with one day a week, and for the next five years, I never I missed a week fasting.

Our church grew spiritually and numerically due to fasting and prayer. Our little church was located in the worst part of town. We had some real challenges but God sent a revival. People were saved, our church grew, We moved about two blocks from the University of Kentucky, next to liquor store.

I began praying for God to close the liquor store. I wanted God to destroy it. But God has ways of doing things that are not always our ways and aren’t you glad of that?

The adult daughter of the family that owned the liquor store was the manager. She had a little girl. Because we had a day care, she enrolled her daughter in our school. My wife, Margaret, was the administrator and head teacher. She would read Bible stories to the children and pray with them. Soon the little girl shared with her mother the things she learned at our day care. Before eating her meals, she would tell her mom that they must bless the food before they ate.

At bedtime she would say, “Momma, we’ve got to pray tonight.”

That little girl had such an impact on her mother and grandparents, when she asked to be baptized at our church, her family agreed. At the service the little girl’s mother and grandmother asked Jesus to be their Savior.

The manager was so excited about her new faith in God that she ordered a whole case of Bibles and set them on the counter of the liquor store. As customers came into the store, she would ask each one if they wanted to buy a Bibles.He said, “What are you doing with Bibles on the counter? This does not help the sale of liquor.”

She began to testify how she and her daughter committed their life to the Lord. The salesman was a backslidden Pentecostal preacher! Oh, the conviction of God touched him and she prayed with him.

He said, “I am going to go to church with you.”

The next Sunday, he and his wife, both made a recommitment to the Lord. In time their grown children came and the entire family became a part of our church. Our church did not grow by pulling members from the local churches in our city. But our church grew by people out of the liquor store church. Our church grew as a direct result of prayer and fasting. Fasting and prayer put that liquor store out of business!

However, not everything in my life and ministry was quite as exciting. As I increased my preaching on fasting, I had great opposition from many people including church leadership. In spite of the negative, I continue to preach, teach, and participate in the biblical discipline of fasting and prayer. Today our church has two campuses and nine satellite churches, including four that are international.

In 2007 Dr. Bob Rodgers was invited to Dr Cho’s Church Growth International conference to preach on fasting. Yoddi Church is the largest Pentecostal church

in the world with 850,000 members. He was also invited to preach at the largest Methodist church in the world also in Korea.

THE PROFITABLE REWARDS: PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL

Christ has called us to pray and to fast. The primary purpose of fasting is to humble ourselves before God, expressing our heart-felt love to God. Yet, there are many, many spiritual benefits of fasting. There are also many physical benefits of fasting.

21 SPIRITUAL BENEFITS OF FASTING

1. We should fast because Jesus fasted (Matthew 4:1, 2; John 6:27) and He urges us to follow Him. (Luke 9:23).

2. Jesus taught fasting as one of the four foundations of the Christian faith. These foundations are; giving, praying, fasting and faith. (Matthew 6).

3. Paul was “in fasting often” (II Cor. 11:27). He instructed us to be “… approving ourselves as the ministers of God (among other things)… in fasting” II Cor. 6:5)

4. Every single person in the early church fasted (Acts 14:23). We therefore are not to do less.

5. Fasting enables you to become a conductor of spiritual power for either blessing others or for bringing blessings to yourself.

6. Proper fasting with sincerity and respect to the Lord will positively break the yokes of sin, sickness and spiritual oppression (Isaiah 58:60).

7. Fasting is a discipline of the body in order to humble the soul. David said, “I chastened my soul with fasting …” Psalm 69:10.

8. Fasting helps you to prevail in prayer with God. “So we fasted and besought our God for this: and he was entreated of us” (Ezra 8:23). When we are willing to set aside the appetites of the body to concentrate on prayer, it demonstrates that we mean business.

9. Fasting with prayer may bring mercy from God, rather than judgment; “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me all your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping and mourning. Let your remorse tear at your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful…” (Joel 2:12, 13).

10. Fasting may free us from weakness of the flesh such as smoking, drinking, drugs and unnatural sexual desire. “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free and that ye break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6)

11. Fasting may reveal the will of God for our lives to us. It was when Peter “… became very hungry and would have eaten…” (Acts 10:10), that God gave him the vision that led to the bringing of the Gospel to the Gentiles.

12. Fasting reaches and obtains what prayer alone cannot, because it removes unbelief (Matthew 17:20, 21).

13. Fasting brings one into direct contact with unbelief. So that it can be removed. Unbelief can never be fully apprehended until one fast from ten to forty days.

14. Fasting is the greatest faith producer because fasting and faith are directly related to the mouth. (Romans 10:9, 10).

15. Fasting is more closely related to faith than any other Christian work, and in fact is the very gateway to trust and have faith in God after conversion. However, because it is little taught about and understood, folks fail to realize its value.

16. Fasting masters the old man, subjugating the flesh (I Corinthians 9:27) and is mortification of the flesh and members (Colossians 3:5)

17. Fasting pleases the Spirit. The flesh and the Spirit are at enmity with each other.

18. Fasting is the most sure spiritual method to bring a revival. A revival begins in our heart first. Then one comes about in the community. Souls become saved.

19. Fasting enables one to transcend the natural and takes one quickly into the spiritual realm

20. Fasting will crucify the flesh and all unnatural desires associated with lusts of any appetite gratification.

21. Fasting is the easiest way for backsliders to come home. (See David’s fasts. Refer to Psalms 35:13; 109:24).

21 PHYSICAL BENEFITS OF FASTING

1. Fasting is the greatest curative agency known.

2. Fasting purifies the blood stream.

3. Fasting rids the body of practically all the unwanted poisonous filth of auto-intoxication.

4. When you feed a diseased body you feed the disease; fasting starves the disease.

5. Fasting improves the circulation. It even cleanses the blocked vessels so that the blood circulates.

6. Fasting gives the overworked stomach a vacation as well as nearly all other parts of the body.

7. Fasting conserves energy. Sick people cannot get well unless there is a conservation of energy. Many times food will destroy or waste what little energy a sick individual has.

8. Fasting will cure 99% of functional ailments

9. Fasting quickly heals simple diseases such as boils, skin blemishes, indigestion, dyspepsia, constipation, fever, anemia, asthma. Major fasting will also cure most other major diseases caused by impurities in the system.

10. Fasting improves the mental faculties, making it easier to think, study, remember and concentrate. (During some parts of the fast this may not be true.)

11. After ten or fifteen days of fasting the individual usually becomes stronger, physically, day by day, after the initial cleansing of the body takes place.

12. The headache generally felt while fasting is a sure indication that you should fast.

13. Fasting will remove ordinary headaches and the coffee or caffeine headache, along with the over-use of coffee or any other abnormal habits.

14. Fasting will also eradicate tobacco, drug and drinking habits in as little time as three days, water only taken during the fast, with temperate eating habits after the fast. The roots of these habits are imbedded within the stomach. Fasting consumes these very roots, banishing addiction.

15. Fasting is the greatest natural youth restorer known. It also beautifies the complexion.

16. Regular fasting prolongs life from twenty to forty years, depending on how much and how properly the fasts are entered into.

17. Fasting will remove tumors as large as watermelons, also ulcers and goiters, and will revitalize the glands.

18. Fasting, after two weeks, more or less, causes the breath that was so foul during the first of the fast to become clean and pure like that of a child.

19. Fasting removes bad tastes from the mouth.

20. Fasting draws the intestinal tract up and into its normal size.

21. Fasting restores a natural, normal appetite (after the fast is broken properly).

WHY FAST AND PRAY?The greatest saints of God throughout the Bible often fasted. Fasting is often connected with wholehearted prayer, with mourning, with repentance, with seeking deliverance from enemies or wisdom from above. Moses fasted forty days on Mount Sinai, and our Saviour fasted forty days in the wilderness. The Bible tells how Joshua, David, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, the disciples of John the Baptist, Anna, the apostles, Paul and Barnabas, and others fasted and prayed.

Saints of God got their prayers answered when they waited on God with fasting and prayer. Since Bible times, the greatest men of prayer have oftentimes fasted as well as prayed. A Christian is in good company when he fasts and prays.

During the earthly ministry of Christ, the disciples of John the Baptist fasted, the Pharisees fasted, and naturally inquiries were made concerning the disciples of our Saviour. Jesus answered;

“Can ye make the children of the bride chamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days” (Luke 5:34, 35).

So the Saviour not only fasted; He also taught His disciples to fast and they did fast after He was taken away.

The only restriction that our Saviour put upon fasting is that it was to be sincere. Men should not disfigure their faces to appear unto men to fast. A boastful, self-righteous flaunting of religious ceremonies such as that practiced by the Pharisees, hypocrites in the days of our Lord, is offensive to God, to be sure. But hypocrisy in anything else is a sin as truly as in the case of fasting. Christians should not fast as hypocrites, but they certainly should fast as Jesus fasted, as Paul fasted, as Barnabas and many others fasted.

Fasting is such a lost art, so little practiced, so little taught, that we need to consider here what is the meaning of fasting. How does fasting add to prayer? Does it mean simply to abstain from food?

Is there virtue in fasting when we do not pray? What is the spiritual significance of fasting?

Fasting Means Putting God First

There are times when one ought to eat and praise God for the food as David did, when he said, “Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and forget not all His benefits... Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (Psa. 103:2, 5). Sometimes eating is the will of God. There are times also when it pleases God for His child quietly and trusting to lie down to sleep, laying aside all his burdens and sweetly resting in the arms of God’s care. “He giveth His beloved sleep” (Isa.127:2). David could say, “I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me” (Psalm. 3:5).

There are times when men should enjoy the pleasures of family life. “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled” (Heb. 13:4). We are told that, “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord” (Prov. 18:22). “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (Jas. 1 I 1:17). Let us enjoy the blessings of God, whether food or drink or rest or Christian fellowship or home life or service. Let us give God the glory for them all.But certainly there are times when we should turn our backs upon everything else in the world but seeking the face of God. Such times should be times of fasting and prayer.

Fasting, then, should mean that one determines to seek the face of and for a time, at least, to abstain from other things in order to give the whole heart to prayer and waiting on God. Fasting and prayer means to leave off the lesser blessings for the greater one, the lesser duty for the far more important duty.

There are times when preachers should quit preaching, teachers should quit teaching, and all of us should leave off Bible study even, should even cease to win souls in order to pray. The apostles said, “We will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the Word” (Acts 6:4). They put praying before preaching. That is what Jesus meant when He commanded the disciples not to depart from Jerusalem, but to tarry in Jerusalem as they prayed for the power of the Holy Spirit before Pentecost.

Ordinarily fasting means to abstain from food. But the same spirit will oftentimes lead to abstaining from other things as well. Sometimes those who fasted in Bible times fasted without any kind of drink, as well as without food. The men of Nineveh did “not feed, nor drink water” (Jonah 3:1). Queen Esther and her maidens and Mordecai and other Jews, before the days of Purim, when Jews were to be destroyed by the plot of wicked Haman, did not eat food nor drink water for three days (Esther 4:16).

So when God planned to give the law to Israel from Mount Sinai, the command was given to the people to wash their clothes and “come not at your wives,” (Exodus 19:14, 15). And husbands and wives are Commanded, “Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer” (1 Cor. 7:5).

The spirit of fasting means that one, for the time being, is willing to abstain from otherwise normal and proper duties or pleasures that he may give himself wholly to the business of prayer. So fasting is really putting God first when one prays, wanting God more than one wants food, more than one wants sleep, more than one wants fellowship with others, more than one wants to attend to business.

How could a Christian ever know that God was first in his life, if he did not sometimes turn aside from every other duty and pleasure to give himself wholly to seeking the face of God?

There are many other occasions in life when men do without food. At a football training, men gladly deprive themselves of sweets and certain food likely to hinder mental alertness and physical fitness and endurance. Should we do less for Jesus Christ? One can run a race better if he has not eaten just beforehand. Swimmers well know that it is dangerous to eat much before swimming lest they suffer from cramps. Public speakers and singers customarily do not eat in the evening until after the important period of concentration and perfect control necessary for their public appearance.

If I can preach better without eating, then why cannot I pray better without eating? If a business man can concentrate better on his figures, in some emergency, without having his stomach loaded with food, then why cannot a Christian pray better when all his energies are given to that one thing? When men are wholly absorbed in grief for a loved one, they are not hungry; they do

not want to eat. Then when one is wholly absorbed in passionate and most earnest prayer, why should he not be glad to do without food?

In truth, when Christians fast, it is often true that they simply do not want to eat; they have no desire for food. Many, many times I have been so busy about the Lord‘s work and so absorbed in it that I had no taste for food. Fasting means putting God as first in a very intense way for a period of time and for very definite purposes.

Fasting Means Persistence In Prayer

We may pray often but most of us do not pray much. Our prayers are transitory, indefinite and brief. On the other hand, to fast and pray means that one settles down to the business of praying with a persistence that will take no denial. The widow who haunted the unjust judge with her persistent pleading that he avenge her of her adversary (Luke 18:3), probably neglected her house work while she did it and possibly did not eat! I suppose even the unjust judge did not get to enjoy his food or his rest so steadily did she pursue him with her urgent pleas!

Real persistence in prayer, letting other things go by and giving God the right of way, often involves fasting. There is little point to fasting or depriving ourselves of other things simply as a matter of self punishment if we do not pray. . .

Fasting is the accompaniment of persistent, fervent prayer that will not be denied!

Fasting Is Laying Aside Weights

In Hebrews 12:1, 2, we are commanded: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.” Since it is faith that the Holy Spirit is speaking about, and since all the holy examples and witnesses given were men of persistent, faithful prayer, we surely will make no mistake to interpret this verse as a command to lay aside hindrances to prayer. “Lay aside every weight.”

Eating may be good in its place, but certainly sometimes it is a weight that holds down our prayers. Sleep may sometimes be proper, but doubtlessly many, many times Christians sleep when they ought to be praying. Business in itself may be proper and sometimes men ought to do with their might what their hands find to do; but business, “the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the Word, and he becometh unfruitful” (Matt.13:22). Fasting is laying aside every weight, every hindrance to prayer.

A Christian ought to be willing, as often as necessary, to abstain from anything that hinders getting the answer to his prayers, to wait on God until everything that hides the face of God is removed, waiting before God until really he gets the full assurance that his prayer is heard and will be answered to the glory of Christ! When we fast and pray, we are trying to lay aside sincerely anything that hinders our prayers.

Fasting Is Claiming Answers To Prayer

To fast when we pray should mean, “I have set myself to seek God as long as necessary and as earnestly as necessary until He hears me and answers me.” It requires faith to pray, for “he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). Then it requires more faith to fast when we pray. Fasting pictures greater desires, greater determination, and greater faith. One who fasts thereby signifies his sincerity and his confidence that God can be reached and that God will answer and bless his sincerity and definiteness and willingness to know and do the will of God.

Prayer is too often a- shallow thing, a light and insincere thing. That is surely one reason why so many, many prayers are never answered. Fasting, then, should be an evidence of our earnestness, our fervor, our faith.

Fasting Is Expression Of Mourning

When people are overwhelmed with sorrow, they often do not eat. They have no desire for food; they could not enjoy it. Sometimes when people are overwhelmed with grief, the body will not digest food. Nature itself teaches that fasting is the proper accompaniment and expression of mourning.

In the Bible we have many examples of fasting as an expression of grief. David fasted while he wept over the first child of Bathsheba when the babe was smitten by the Lord (2 Samuel 12:16, 21).

The same spirit must have animated Samuel when he “cried unto the Lord all night” in grief over the rejection of Saul (1 Samuel 15:11). That was the spirit of fasting, though the word is not used in that passage. The men of Nineveh fasted, with sackcloth and ashes, a symbol of the deepest mourning (Jonah 3:5-7). As people feast at weddings and other occasions of rejoicing, so they fast at occasions of mourning. Thus the Saviour said that when the Bridegroom was taken away His disciples would fast. Hence, those who are in sorrow do well sometimes to fast as they seek the comfort of God’s face.

Those who have sinned and grieved in penitence do well to fast as they turn their hearts from sin and confess their failures and faults and try to make restitution. ‘Fasting fits exactly with repentance and with sorrow for sin.

Things Obtained By Fasting And Prayer

Fasting is an aid and adjunct of prayer. Some things never come to a child of God “but by prayer and fasting.” If prayer is good, then more prayer and fasting is better. If earnest prayer pleases God, then sometimes, surely, He is pleased when the prayer is so earnest that we do not want food nor drink nor sleep nor any other ordinary pleasure. If God is pleased for us to seek Him, then sometimes, surely it pleases Him for us to lay aside every weight, abstain from everything that might absorb our energy and interest and thought that we may give ourselves wholly to the matter of prayer.

We name here some things that Christians have a right to seek by prayer and fasting, things which God has, in times past, given His people because of their prayer with fasting.

Help In Time Of Trouble

Help in time of trouble often comes from fasting and prayer. God says, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me” (Psalm. 50:15). A time of trouble is a good time to pray. It is a good time to pray, and if the trouble is severe, then it is a good time to fast, too. Joshua and the elders of Israel remained prostrate before the ark of God from morning until evening without eating after the Israelites were defeated by the men of Ai (Joshua! 7:6). It was a time of distress, of defeat, of shame and of fear. The very destiny of the nation seemed at stake. When they fasted and prayed, God showed them the sin that hindered victory.

When in the days of the Judges, the eleven tribes of Israel came up against Benjamin by God’s command, and when 40,000 were slain in two days “then all the children of Israel, and all the people, went up, and came unto the house of God, and wept, and sat there before the Lord, and fasted that day until thee even” (Judges 20:26). In their defeat and sorrow they wept and called on God and fasted. God heard and delivered them and the next day gave them victory. The time of defeat is a fine time to pray with fasting.

Let all those who are in trouble call upon God. If they find difficulty in getting an answer from Heaven, then let them fast and pray, sincerely laying everything else aside, as far as necessary, to seek God’s f face and find His will and blessing.

To Find What Displeases God

To find what is wrong, what displeases God, we should sometimes fast and pray. When Joshua and the elders of Israel did not know why God had allowed them to be defeated by Ai, they fasted and prayed until God showed them the sin of Achan and about the hidden wedge of gold, the silver, and the Babylonish garment. Many a Christian who does not prosper could learn the reason if he would wait before God in such sincerity and abandon of self that he would not eat, would not sleep or would not carry on the regular affairs of life until God revealed what was wrong.

To Break Up Fallow Ground In Our Hearts

Genuine repentance sometimes involves fasting and prayer. One may confess his sins without repenting of them. Often, unless we deliberately take time for meditation and examination of our hearts and waiting on God, we have no real sense of sin, no genuine horror at our guilt. I know that in order to be saved, one may turn immediately to Christ, as soon as he knows himself a sinner and knows that Christ died for him, if he will. But alas, many times those of us who are already saved have trouble turning our hearts away from sin!

I believe that in Bible times God’s saints often took time to fast and wait before God in order that they might genuinely, with contrite hearts, forsake their sins and mourn over them.

We are commanded, “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up” (James 4:9, 10). I know God is merciful and ready to forgive instantly all who sincerely turn in the heart to Him. But I know, too, that oftentimes our pretended turning to God is insincere and shallow with no real sorrow for sin, no effort at restitution, and no genuine change in attitude of heart. The ghastly wickedness of sin is hidden from us lighthearted moderns.

Surely often it would please God if we would take time apart to search our hearts and find what displeases God and wholly forsake, as far as we can consciously do so, our sins. If we spend enough time in prayer we can learn the meaning of the old song:

“Return, 0 holy Dove, return,Sweet messenger of rest!I hate the sins that made Thee mournAnd drove Thee from my breast.”

Fasting will help us to break up the fallow ground of our hearts.

Victory Over Sin

Fasting and prayer often lead to victory over sin. The world has many Christians who have trusted Christ, who sincerely love Him, who are going to Heaven — yet Christians who have no daily victory over sin. Everywhere I go I find Christians who say they cannot quit cigarettes, they cannot control their tempers; they have trouble in surrendering even enough to give God regularly the tithe. Christians find it hard to forgive one another and are constantly falling under the temptation of Satan. Is there victory for such Christians? Yes, there is.

But sometimes it is found only in the time of fasting and prayer, waiting on God and laying aside every weight, every duty, and every pleasure that might interfere with our wholehearted prayers. .Many times I have seen things happen in protracted seasons of prayer that would not happen in the ordinary course of events.

We need not think that our hunger gains any favor with God. No, God has abun-dant mercy for all our needs and we cannot, need not, buy it. But on the other hand, God does want sincerity and fervor and single-heartedness in our praying.

Every Christian, I think, should occasionally fast and pray, waiting before God until he gets the victory that he needs. I remember with great joy one night when I waited before God alone in my room until 1:30 begging God for victory over some things in my own life and begging also for the power of the Spirit on the revival in which I was engaged. And God heard and answered in both matters, gloriously.

If you do not have victory over sin, then wait before God: and pay whatever price is necessary to secure His favor and the assurance of His help.

Heavenly Wisdom

Heavenly wisdom received in prayer and fasting. In Acts 13:1-3 we have a remarkable incident showing how men who fasted and prayed got direct leadership of the Holy Spirit.. Here is that sweet passage: “Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for, the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away” (Acts 13:1-3).

Notice that “as they ministered to the Lord, and fasted” the Holy Ghost told them whom to send, that is, Barnabas and Saul. Notice again, “when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.” Twice in that short passage we are told that these prophets and teachers fasted. They

fasted first as they prayed for wisdom. They fasted second as they prayed for power upon these men they were sending forth as the first foreign missionaries in New Testament times. And when these men laid their hands upon the heads of Paul and Barnabas and sent them away, they were “sent forth by the Holy Ghost.” And marvelous wonders attended their ministry!

We, too could have plain leading, we could know the will of God, we could have a plain path for our feet, if we were willing to wait before the Lord, ministering unto Him, fasting and praying! You have a problem about raising your family, about making a living, about where you should serve for Christ, about what course you should take in some particular matters; does’ not God hear your prayer for wisdom? Do you have doubts and troubles and no assurance of mind?

Then why not just set a time and wait before God until you get the answer? If it takes fasting as well as praying, if it takes giving up other matters, then do it and get the blessing that God has for you. You can find the will of God if you seek it sincerely, unstintedly and without limit in fasting and prayer.

Intercession For Others

Intercession for others is answered when we fast and pray. Most of our praying is for ourselves: Yet every Christian, surely, admits his responsibility to pray for others. Do you pray for your pastor, for some foreign missionary? Do you pray regularly for some loved one who is unsaved? Do you pray for someone who has asked you to help bear the burden of his load day by day, whatever it is? Well, our own needs take up most of the time in our little, puny, short praying. If you would pray for others, pray happily, pray with assurance that you are heard, then take time to pray through.

Any long extended time of fervent prayer may involve fasting as well as prayer. It takes more than a little short prayer to get away from our own selfishness. We have, each one of us, so many needs that we will not do our duty in praying for others unless we take an extended time for it, unless we really wait before God long enough to get out of our selfishness and get victory over our own immediate needs.

Would you be an intercessor? Do you want to learn to pray for others? Then set aside long periods of time in which to pray with sufficient time to search your heart and to know the mind of Christ. Take time without distraction of eating and drinking or sleeping perhaps, and God will surely give you part of the blessed burden that is on Jesus Christ, the burden that is for others.

Power Of The Holy Spirit

“Holy Spirit power comes in answer to fasting and prayer. There are many things for which we can pray and at once receive the answer. I believe that a sinner

can trust in Christ and be saved at once, without delay. The thief on the cross had only to ask and he was forgiven. The publican in the temple had only to say, “God be merciful to me a sinner” and went down to his house justified. I know of no Scripture that teaches that a lost sinner needs to beg and plead and so try to touch the heart of God or afflict himself in order to be saved. When the poor, sinful will is ready to surrender and put His trust in Christ, then God is immediately ready to forgive and save.

However, though God is instantly willing to forgive the sinner, there are other matters about which we should expect to pray longer. Certainly one of the blessed teachings of the Saviour, emphasized many times, is that we should be persistent in prayer.

The widow before the unjust judge prayed again and again (Luke 18:1-8). Jesus, teaching the disciples to pray, first gave them the model prayer called the Lord’s prayer and then told them about the neighbor who came and pounded on the door at midnight saying, “Lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in His journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him” (Luke 11:1-13). In that case certainly the man asking for bread was asking for it for another who had none.

And Jesus told exactly what He meant in that parable when He said in verse 13, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” notice the Holy Spirit was given to them “that ASK Him” to them that ask how? To them that ask like that neighbour who knocked on the door again and again and even then received only “because of His importunity.”

That illustrates a Christian begging God for Bread to take to sinners, or in other words, praying for the power of the Holy Spirit to make him a soul winner! And the word ASK I understand, is in the imperfect or continuing tense in the Greek and it means to them that keep on asking, God will give the Holy Spirit.

Certainly before Pentecost, the disciples “continued with one accord in prayer and supplication” (Acts 1:14). And otherwise, I feel sure they would not have received the blessings that God gave them. They prayed, but they more than prayed; they begged God. That isn’t all. They doubtlessly fasted as well. Jesus had said about His disciples, But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days” (Luke 5:35). Jesus had just been taken away, and now the disciples, children of the bride chamber fasted as they prayed and begged God for the power to get about His business. They prayed, yes, but they fasted as they prayed.

I do not know that it specially matters just that they did without food. What matters is that they turned their hearts wholly, unreservedly, and without inter-

ruption, to the business of getting all the power God had for them and to being possessed and covered and filled With the Holy Spirit Himself!

When Peter came to preach the gospel to Cornelius and his household, Cornelius said to him, “Four days ago l was fasting until this hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house…” (Acts 10:30). Perhaps that is part of the secret as to why Cornelius and his household were filled with the Holy Spirit at the same time they were saved. This is the only specific instance on record in the Bible, as far as I know, where people were filled with the Holy Spirit at the same time they were saved. Evidently all the heart searching, all the surrendering of the will, all the confession of sin, all the yielding of the heart that was necessary for Cornelius to be filled with the Holy Spirit was already done by the time he learned how to be saved!

When Paul was converted, he fasted and prayed three days and nights before he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Read carefully the ninth chapter of Acts and you will see that Paul was converted as described in verses 4 and 5. Verse 9 tells that he went three days without sight, “and neither did eat nor drink.” The angel told Ananias, “behold, he prayeth,” in verse 11. Those three days of fasting and prayer fitted Paul to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and in verse 17 we learn that Ananias went to him, sent by the Lord, “that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.” Certainly fasting and prayer are appropriate for Christians who want to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Let us turn again to the sending forth of Barnabas and Paul in Acts 13:1-4. These prophets and teachers fasted until they knew the will of God. Then they fasted and prayed further until they could lay their hands upon Paul and Barnabas in power and they could go away “being sent forth by the Holy Ghost.”

It was the experience of D. L. Moody, of R A Torrey, of Charles G. Finney as it has been of many other Christians greatly used in soul winning, that they were filled with the Holy Spirit after long season of waiting before God, finding the will of God, surrendering self, being molded on a God’s potter’s wheel.

FASTINGAND PRAYERFasting prayer cripples Satan. Fasting is a powerful weapon against satanic forces. When the enemy came in like a flood in the days of Nineveh and in the days of Esther, they fasted and turned him back. So must we today employ this weapon in an all-out against Satan.

Even though many of God’s saints cannot pray, they can fast, and fasting is accepted by the Lord as a token of urgent, desperate prayer, even though without words except the mute longings of the soul. As you fast, prayer is sharpened and a spirit of prayer will be given you.

Those who quail before the rigors of Scriptural, systematic fasting should dis-cipline themselves by going on a Daniel’s fast. Some may ask, what is a Daniel’s fast? It is abstaining from all pleasant food.... It is eating only enough food to give strength to seek and to serve the Lord.

We cheat ourselves when we do not avail ourselves of the grace of fasting. It is one of the most enriching graces I know of. It is the easiest of all sacrifices to offer unto the Lord, a sacrifice of sweet savour.

Taking Steps Towards Strategic Fasting

1. We should fast SENSIBLY.

Don’t feel that you must fast many days to be effective. Many biblical fasts were “until evening” (Judges 20:26; 2 Samuel 3:35; Acts 10:30).

2. We should fast SECRETLY.

Jesus cautioned His disciples never to boast about our times of fasting, but rather to keep our times of fasting as a personal commitment (Matthew 6:16-18).

3. We should fast SENSITIVELY.

When Israel fasted before a crucial battle, the Bible says they “inquired of the Lord.” When we fast we should take time to hear God speak.

4. We should fast SYSTEMATICALLY.

When Jesus taught His disciples about fasting, He began with the words “when e you fast” (Matthew6:16). He was suggesting that believers should have regular times of fasting, whether one day a week or a portion of a day each week.

5. We should fast SACRIFICIALLY.

If we do not normally eat breakfast it is not really a sacrifice to fast breakfast. A true fast must be a sacrifice.

6. We should fast SPECIFICALLY.

God said to Israel “Is not this the fast that I have chosen?” (Isaiah 58:6). We must ask God to direct us in the focus of our fasting.

7. We should fast SUPERNATURALY.

The very nature of fasting requires dependence on God’s supernatural power to see us through. When the early church fasted before sending out workers, the Bible says, “The Holy Spirit came” (Acts 13:2, 3). We need God’s Spirit as we fast.

BENEFITS FROM FASTING

i. Brokenness Fasting is a personal, voluntary humbling of the heart before God that increases spiritual brokenness (Psalm 69:10).

ii. Self Control

Fasting is a commitment to self-control that enables a believer to die to self (Galatians 5:23 temperance, moderation in appetites).

iii. Receptivity

Fasting is a worship activity that increases spiritual receptivity by creating a climate for the Holy Spirit to speak (Acts 13:2, 3).

iv. Power

Fasting is concentrated spiritual preparation for Holy Spirit-empowered service that increases the believer’s - power (Luke 4:1,14).

v. Ministry

Fasting is a specialized service ministry that increases spiritual usefulness for the totally committed believer f (Luke 2:36, 37).

In Scripture, in times of national crisis, the Lord called upon the leaders of His people to declare a fast. Today the world situation is out of the control of men. Only God can save us. He intervenes through the fasting and prayers of His people.

FASTING EMPOWERS PRAYERThe New Testament Church fasted much in the day when she ministered in power and glory.

J. G. Morrison says, “Every great leader who has moved his age mightily for God was a faster.”

Martin Luther was a weekly faster and God used him to lift the curtain of night that had hung over the world during the Dark Ages. Luther is criticized for fasting too rigorously, to the probable injury of his health, but he moved the world toward God.

John Knox fasted regularly, and history shows he had power with God in prayer and prevailed with God and saved Scotland from the darkness of Catholicism.

John Wesley fasted two days each week. The pioneering Methodists had two weekly fast days and were on fire for God. John Wesley says, “While we were at Oxford, the rule of every Methodist was to fast every Wednesday and Friday in the year in imitation of the primitive church.

“Now the practice of the first disciples of our Lord was universally allowed.” ‘Who does not know,’ says Epiphanius an ancient writer, ‘that the fast of the fourth and sixth days of the week, (Wednesday and Friday) are observed by Christians through the world?’

“So they were by Methodists for several years, by them all without exception. But afterwards some in London carried this to excess and fasted so as to impair their health. It was not long before others made this a pretense for not fasting at all. Yea, there are some that do not fast one day from the beginning of the year to the end. “But what excuse can there be for this for any who believe the Scriptures?”

In Colonial days, Jonathan Edwards was a regular faster. It was under his ministry that sinners seized the pillars of the church and the backs of the seats under the mighty conviction of the Holy Spirit, feeling that they were in danger of dropping into hell.

Seth C. Rees, a successful soul winner, never attempted to hold meetings with-out appointing days of fasting.

It is a fact that the decline in real old time revivals and the increase in worldli-ness in the churches is in proportion to our neglect of fasting and prayer.

In the days when conviction was deep, restitutions and confessions were thor-ough and conversions were genuine, the people of the Lord fasted regularly and prayed mightily — and God gave them revivals.

Tradition says that the apostolic church fasted each Wednesday and Friday and broke their fast at 3 p.m.

God is calling His ministers and people to days and nights of fasting, protracted, persistent, believing prayer.

“Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders ... Let the ... ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare Thy people, 0 Lord, and give not Thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them? Wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?”

“Then will the Lord be jealous for His land, and pity His people. Yea, the Lord will answer ... I will remove far off from you the northern army... Be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things.” (Joel 2:15-32).

THE IMPORTANCE OF FASTINGChurch history reveals that men and women who prayed and fasted played a very significant part in shaping the impact and destiny of the Church. As we face the present crises in Church life and in our nations, there is no way we can continue to bypass fasting and come to the fulfillment of God’s purposes. Fasting is essential. It is not an option.

Jesus expected His disciples to fast. The Sermon on the Mount generally regarded as the chapter for discipleship, initially addressed three things — giving alms, praying and fasting. In essence, Christ puts these on precisely the same level and, in each case when He speaks about them, does not say if, but simply when. Jesus assumed that all His disciples would fast, for Christ and the Church complete the Hebrew model, the Law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17). When the question was asked of Christ, “Why don’t your disciples fast like the Pharisees and the disciples of John?” Jesus replied, “The time is coming when they will fast (Mark 2:19, 20).

Our Hope

Thank God, we can take encouragement and direction from 2 Chronicles 7:14 and from the prophet Joel, quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:16-21).

“lf My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

“Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to Me with all your heart and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning… Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly; Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts … Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar …” (Joel 2:12, 15-17).

God declares that there is a way to effect revival, renewal and restoration in the Body of Christ and to effect the healing of this land. The first thing God asks us to do is humble ourselves in the appointed scriptural way.. by fasting.

Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, and gather the elder and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry unto the Lord. Therefore also now saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting. Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast. And it shall come to past afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh (Joel 1:14; 2:12, 15, 28).

The first outpouring of the Holy Spirit took place in the Upper Room on the day of Pentecost upon the followers of Jesus Christ who tarried in Jerusalem (for 10 days) in obedience to the command of their leader for the fulfillment of the promise of the Father. What a mighty and spectacular scene it was! What a glorious event it was! What a great effect and impact it had both on the disciples and on the onlookers!

Peter, the big fisherman, once the cowards, who denied his Master in the presence of a servant girl — boldly proclaimed in the face of a Jewish gathering that Jesus whom they crucified was the long-awaited Messiah, proved by His resurrection from the grave on the third day. The hearers were pricked in their heart, convicted by the power of the Holy Spirit and on that single day, about 3,000 people were added to the minority of believers who had been so far living in fear of their lives. With what a great momentum the Church started on that day!

Those who had gathered at Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost from various corners of the earth were astonished at the happening in the Upper Room. Some of them were confused, some were amazed, some sympathetic and some apathetic. Peter had to explain the phenomenon to those who were dazed by the eventful occurrence of that day. He found it fit to quote from the prophecy of Joel and he said,

“This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; and it shall come to pass in the last days, said God, I Will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh” (Acts 2:16,17). Yes, the Lord fulfilled His promise; at the proper time, on the day of the feast of Harvest, so as to have a plentiful harvest of souls.

Nevertheless, we believe in the multiple fulfillment of the prophecy by Joel and hence we do expect a similar fulfillment of the same prophecy in the last days when the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood” (Joel 2:31). When will it be fulfilled if not during these days when all the events foretell of the last days? We are convinced that the time for latter rain has come and soon there will be the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh. There cannot be much more delay.

But the price has to be paid and the conditions have to be met. Blow the trumpet in Zion! Sanctify the fast!

This is the time for believers from all parts of the globe to join hands together to sanctify a fast.

What Is Fasting?

Surely fasting is going without food. Yet it is more than that. It is bringing under subjection unwanted appetites of any sort and humbling oneself sincerely in the presence of God with oneness of purpose.

FASTING IS A POWERFUL AID TO PRAYER

Added to prayer, fasting obtains what prayer alone fails to achieve.

In early Church history, fasting was considered one of the pillars of the Christian religion. When the Church had power, fasting was an essential part of the faith. Fasting is not mere abstinence from food or from any other pleasure, in itself. It is abstinence with a purpose.

Further, fasting is a kind of mortification or self-chastisement, which aims at self-control. Fasting is not meant to weaken the body, but to strengthen the will. Fasting primarily means going without food, but it also includes fasting from business, talking, visiting, etc. Fasting, above all things, helps to subdue the flesh.

Our greatest goal in life should be to be men and women after God’s own heart. How often we have felt this great purpose to have been frustrated through fleshly and carnal appetites! Fasting arrests the appetite of sex, because food feeds all desires and appetites of the flesh, and fasting starves them. “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth.” (Col. 3:5).

A luxurious diet, habitual overfeeding, produces an unbalanced animalism, and induces spirit-blindness which can see nothing beyond the natural. Even the old Latin satirist discovered this and tells how the body loaded with yesterday’s excess, weighs down the mind and pins to the ground a “part of breath Divine.” The worst ‘woe’ that the Saviour pronounced was “Woe unto you that are full” (Luke 6:25), for such body fullness is soul grossness.

A body, sluggish with eating and drinking chains the spirit within its own carnal grossness, and keeps it from rising above the earthly. It “pins it to the ground.” If we would see with the eyes of the Spirit, we must mortify the deeds of the body.

It is strange how much we miss by the willful neglect of such a power as fasting a power entrusted to us by the Lord Himself. For the flesh is an upstart, ever trying to drag the spirit down to its own fallen level, and fasting is one of the greatest measures used against the flesh to bring about self-control.

God-given Desires, God-Forbidden Ways

Fasting will often prevent self-indulgence in its grossest forms — not by crushing out God-given desires, but by preventing them from being used in God-forbidden ways, by keeping them within the barriers of God-imposed limits. Fasting is the sworn foe ofsensuality!

Fasting means that you have got to the place of spiritual desperation. It means that you are now determined at all costs to put God first. There are times when we should turn our backs on everything in the world, even our daily food, in seeking the face of God. Fastings mean that we are determined to seek the face of God and get our prayers answered. It simply means that we put God first, before everything, including food.

Ordinarily fasting means to abstain from food, but the same spirit of desperation will also lead us to abstain from other things as well. Fasting is a voluntary disuse of anything innocent in itself; with a view to spiritual culture. It does not necessarily apply to food only. It applies to everything which the natural man may desire.

So fasting is putting God first when one prays, wanting God more than one wants food, more than sleep, more than one wants fellowship with others, more than one wants to attend to business.

How could a Christian ever know that God was first in his life if he did not sometimes turn from every other duty and pleasure to give himself wholly to the seeking of the Face of God?

Fasting is also an expression of mourning. That is — mourning either over one’s personal sins or when we are burdened for the souls of others.

J. Beaumont says: “0ne object of fasting is the mortification of sin. Is your mind distempered, your heart hard, your grace weak, and corruptions strong? Does pride, envy, malice, the love of the world, or any other filthiness of the flesh or spirit, prevail?

“Fasting then is your duty. Some demons will not come forth but by prayer and fasting (Matt. 17:14-21; Mark 9:29). When this is the case, fasting is the proper remedy, and should be used as the chief means thereunto.”

Fasting Necessary To National Repentance

In the Bible there are many examples of fasting. David fasted over his sick child (2 Samuel 12:16, 21). “I proclaimed a fast... that we might afflict ourselves before our God,” writes Ezra of the whole Jewish nation (Ezra 8:21). The fast of the Ninevites, and the fast which the prophet Joel ordered, were regarded as necessary elements in national repentance (Joel 2:12). So with the individual. Paul after his conversion, fasted three days in self-surrender to Christ (Acts 9:9).

The men of Nineveh fasted sackcloth and ashes, as a symbol of deep national mourning (Jonah 3:5-7). There are times when some deep experience, some profound humility of repentance, causes us to reject all food and earthly pleasures. In its sorrow for sin or the burden for lost souls, all luxury jars upon the soul.

Prayer in itself is very often a shallow thing - a light and insincere thing. Fasting is evidence of our intense earnestness and of our fervour. It declares to God that we will not “let up” until the answer comes. It really says, “1 have set myself to seek God as long as necessary, and as earnestly as I possibly can.”

It requires faith to pray an ordinary prayer, for “He that cometh to God must believe that He is...” (Heb. 11:6). But it requires even more faith to fast and pray. Fasting reveals a greater desire, a greater determination and greater faith, and God observes this when He sees one of His children fasting and praying. He sees that His child has forsaken all pleasures, of which the eating pleasure is one of the chiefest pleasures of life.

Fasting is the deliberate clearing of the way to be more effective with God in prayer. It is the laying aside of all weights and hindrances (Heb. 12:1). To lay aside every weight is to lay aside all the hindrances to prayer, and a heavy stomach is a hindrance. Try praying on an empty stomach, and see how much easier it is to prevail in prayer.

We are too much wrapped around with soft physical indulgences. We are too padded and protected. We must lay bare our pampered lives! We must make an avenue for God through the throng of lusts.

When men are wholly absorbed in grief for some loved ones, they are not hungry. They do not want to eat. Then we may also expect that when Christians

are wholly absorbed in passionate and earnest prayer for souls, for revival—will they not also be glad to do without food?

Fasting shows that we are persistent. Often mere prayer is indefinite and brief, and really gets nowhere. On the other hand, when we begin to fast and pray, it simply means that we have settled down to the real business of praying with a persistence that will take no denial.

The widow who haunted the unjust judge with her importunate prayers quite possibly fasted (Luke 18:1-8). She kept at the one thing and neglected all others, probably even going without food until her request was granted.

Fasting is the accompaniment of persistent, fervent prayer — that will not be denied. It is certain that God’s people would see more answers to their prayers if they would fast more and spend the time in seeking the Lord.

When a person wants a thing so much that he is willing to go without food to obtain it, then the fast itself becomes a prayer. It is an inward, unspoken heart cry, a deep-rooted longing, and a reaching out to contact the Lord, the only One who has the power to grant the desires of the heart (Psalm. 37:4).

Fasting Produces Faith

Now let us come to the benefits of fasting, which are numerous. These benefits may be divided into two main classes:

(1) The spiritual benefits. (2) The physical benefits.

Among the spiritual benefits, one of the greatest of these is that fasting helps to generate faith. Our unbelief is far greater than we realize. It is like an unseen and powerful enemy.

Fasting brings us to the threshold of a new faith in God and His Word. One of the main purposes of fasting is to get an increase of faith — faith so that we can believe and receive.

Jesus said, “When ye pray, believe that ye receive .., and ye shall have” (Mark 11:24). Fasting is the great faith producer. (See Matthew 17:21). Fasting kindles and develops faith far quicker than any other process.

Although it may seem difficult at first to grasp, the very weakness that one develops through fasting is the building up of faith. When one seems to be groping around in the dark during a fast, and perhaps the devil whispers that

you are accomplishing nothing, that is the very time, you are building up your faith, for Paul says: “When I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Cor. 12:10).

Your unbelief will be eliminated through fasting. Fasting is a powerful spiritual factor in obtaining special favours from the Lord, and one of these favours is added faith. Faith is increased through fasting. Remember, there are certain kinds of demons that only come out through prayer and fasting. If you want to move those mountains of pain and fear, then pray and fast. Faith and fasting go together!

Then, secondly, fasting reaches and obtains what prayer cannot do alone. It is a powerful aid and asset to prayer. If your prayer is not answered, then go into prayer and fasting. Remember, you have not sought the Lord with “your whole heart,” until you have had a protracted season of prayer and fasting (Jer. 29:13).

Many Christians have been praying for years about certain problems. Sometimes these prayers are not answered. But in many cases, where fasting; have been added to the prayers, along with deep consecration and weeping before God, the answer has miraculously come to hand. Without fasting, prayer is often inefficient, but when coupled to fasting the prayer-power is greatly amplified.

Many have proved that shorter prayers under the influence of fasting, are far more effective than longer prayers without fasting. We do not claim that fasting, in itself, will produce miraculous answers in every case. But it prepares the heart by humiliation as almost nothing else will do.

Sometimes there is something in us that displeases God, and that is why prayer is not answered at first. Therefore, to find out what this is, the best thing to do is to fast and pray. Many a Christian who does not prosper could learn the reason if he would wait before God with such sincerity and abandonment of self that he would not eat, would not sleep, and would not carry on his regular affairs of life until God revealed what was wrong.

God does not tell lies, and the reason many have not their prayers answered is because they have not met all of God’s conditions for Revival, and one of these conditions is to fast. Oftentimes a sort of vicious circle is created. We overeat, and then we are too sluggish to pray, and hence we never come within the range of the Spirit, where He can do great things for us and through us.

Fasting Empowers Prayer

Fasting is a great aid and adjunct to prayer. Some things never come to a child of God only “by prayer and fasting” (Matt. 17:21). There is a big difference

between prayer alone, and prayer combined with fasting. Even a few minutes of prayer during a fast are equivalent sometimes to several hours of prayer when not fasting, especially if the fast has been going on for some days.

The true incident is recorded of a certain minister who, before he entered the ministry, was locked up in prison in New York, awaiting his trial. He already had a life sentence awaiting him in Canada, also. His mother spent twenty-two days fasting and praying for him. At the time she did this, she was not aware that he was in prison, but she was praying for his conversion. He was converted and afterwards pardoned by the authorities, and became a pastor of the Church of the Nazarene.

Another Christian prayed eight years for her brother, who was a drunkard, with seemingly no results. Then she got desperate, and prayed and fasted for twelve days for him to be saved. Thirty days after she finished fasting for him, her sister-in-law wrote to say he was completely delivered from the drink to which he had been addicted for thirty years. He had no desire for it and was serving the Lord. Thus we see that fasting is prayer intensified!

And so we see that fasting produces great power and also victory over sin. Fasting will absolutely bring Revivals when ordinary prayer fails. Men in olden times became prophets through fasting. The great Victories of faith mentioned in the Bible often happened after fasting.

A protracted fast will often bring to naught the devil’s devices in a Christian’s life. It will assist you to bring deliverance to those who are bound. Fasting and prayer makes faith strong enough to cast out demons. You may receive a still deeper experience than you have yet had, through fasting.

With fasting will come added power and liberty in your preaching, if you are a minister of the Word of God. It will so neutralize the flesh that you will become a conductor of spiritual power.

The tragedy is that so many Christian workers just for the pleasure of continually eating four solid meals a day will continue in their powerless condition spiritually, when all the time they have within their finger tips the secret of power.

Certainly it needs an iron will to practice it, which seems to suggest that those who refuse to practice it are more of the weak willed type, but God would not ask us to do it if it was impossible.

Obtain Guidance Through Fasting

There are many other things that fasting will do. Of these we might make mention briefly: Fasting can help us in the matter of guidance when we are seeking to know the will of God. “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, The Holy Ghost said...” (Acts 13:2). In this remarkable incident, we learn that men who were willing to fast got direct instructions from the Holy Spirit as to where they were to go.

Twice in this short passage, Acts 13:1-3, we are told that these prophets and teachers fasted. First they fasted and prayed for wisdom, which teaches us that wisdom may be obtained from God through fasting. Then, secondly; they fasted for power to rest upon the men they were sending forth as the first foreign missionaries of the New Testament Church.

Perhaps you have some problem about where you should go to serve Christ, or about what particular course you should take in some matter. Then why not set a time of waiting before God until you get the answer? If it takes fasting as well as prayer, if it takes giving up other matters, then do it — and get the blessing that God has for you! You can find the will of God if you seek sincerely, unstintedly and without limit — by prayer and fasting.

Whenever a man of God or the people of God have taken to fasting in the past, it has enabled God to do what otherwise He was unable to do. When sincerely done in the Holy Spirit, it never failed to move God, and enabled Him to accomplish what otherwise He was unable to bring to pass.

Apart from power and guidance and many other things, fasting will help to develop in us a love and compassion for the lost. We cannot pray and fast for souls for long periods without there being generated in us some of the compassion for the lost that the Master Himself possesses.

It would almost seem, as we study the New Testament, that in the first century they literally ran the Church with periods of prayer and fasting, for in Acts 13:2 we are admitted into one of the ordinary everyday activities of the Church at Antioch, while Paul and Barnabas were there ministering.

Read the following; and ask yourself if it sounds like one of our modem churches. “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them” (Acts 13:2). This proves that the early church believed in fasting, and fasted before they undertake any great enterprise.

In Acts 13:3 there occurs a further reference to fasting, and it is interesting to note in this case that fasting comes before prayer. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.”

You will notice the immediate response of the Holy Spirit to fasting. .. As they ... fasted ... the Holy Ghost said.” Perhaps it is because we do so little of the fasting, that we hear so little about the Holy Ghost telling us definitely what to do.

We are told in Church history, that the early Christians made fasting part and parcel of their lives. They fasted every Wednesday and Friday of each week, up until three o’clock. Thus the early Church members fasted regularly. They set these two days aside each week for fasting and praying. They took no food until three o’clock in the afternoon.

On these occasions it appears that the whole Church fasted without food. Wher-ever they were at those times, all the Church knew that the rest of the members would be fasting. No wonder their united, fasting-prayers were miraculously answered!

When A Multitude Fasts, Things Happen.

In Old Testament times, the people of Israel proclaimed certain fast days. They often proclaimed a special fast for a certain purpose (Jeremiah 36:9; 2 Chronicles 20:3; Ezra 8:21; Jonah 3:5).

The people of the Lord fasted because of their backslidden condition and their sins (1 Samuel 7:6; Joel 2:12; Nehemiah I 1:4; Daniel 9:2, 3). They fasted in times of impending calamity (1 Kings 21:9, 27; 2 Chronicles 20:3), and when there was a grave crisis (Judges 2O:16; Daniel 9:3). In every case the Lord saved them from whatever they feared (Esther 9:31; Ezra 8:21-23; Acts 27:22-44).

Even the wicked king Ahab fasted and God took notice of him. The Lord said His fasting was equivalent to humbling himself, so fasting is humbling. Jehoshaphat proclaimed a fast at the time of the invasion of the confederated armies of the Canaanites and Syrians (2 Chronicles 20:3).

Job evidently believed in fasting, for he declares “I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.” (Job I 23:12). The Jews fasted when Jeremiah prophesied, against Judah and Jerusalem (Jeremiah 36:9). “They proclaimed a fast before the Lord.”

A classic Scripture on fasting is to be found in Joel 2:12. “Therefore also now, I saith the Lord, turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with fasting.” This Scripture clearly infers that in order to make a complete surrender to God, fasting must be undertaken. The two phrases, “All your heart,” and also the following words, “and with fasting,” are definitely connected.

The inference can be, if we have not fasted, we have not yet turned to the Lord with all our hearts for revival.

The early Church fasted twice a week. How often do we fast? Moreover, accord-ing to the story of the Pharisee and the Publican in Luke 18:11, the Pharisees in Christ’s day were in the habit of fasting twice a week. “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus ... fast twice in the week…”

Yet there is another Scripture which says, in effect, that unless our righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, we shall not enter Heaven (Matt. I5:20).

Jesus said, “When ye fast... thy Father shall reward thee” (Matt. 6:16-18).

GOD CALLS MEN TO FASTING AS WELL AS TO PRAYER

Fasting with prayer brings special blessing and help of the Holy Ghost. God is entreated and moved by fasting-prayer in a special way.

I have received special help during days of fasting and prayer. It seems there is an entering into a closer fellowship and more intimate relationship with the Lord as a result of fasting. Faith is quickened and prayer is deepened until the soul grips the promises of God in a greater way.

It has been my custom for some time to spend one entire day each week in prayer with fasting. Naturally I feel weak in my body but there is a special strength that comes as the result of gripping the promises of God, and most of all the soul is enriched with a new spiritual vigor.

In this day of extreme need when the Church in general is slipping and worldli-ness is swamping men’s souls, and pulling them down to a lukewarm, defeated spiritual condition, we need a real revival of a return to intercession with fasting and prayer.

If now every pastor will set apart one day each week for a full day of prayer with fasting for himself and people — as many as would enter into it — no doubt we would see a mighty strengthening of the people of God and a spiritual awakening that would save the nation from terrible doom, and would forward the kingdom of God on earth.

SUBDUING SELF THROUGH FASTINGFasting is a key to achieving what God has planned for us to achieve in life. That which stands in the way of God’s best will being fulfilled in us is the self life, the “old man” (Eph. 4:22). Fasting is a key way to overcome the self life.

In 2 Chronicles 7:14 we read, “If My people which are called by My name will humble themselves. . . .” - that is, humble self. Jesus said, “Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself. . . .” – that is, deny self. A way to humble and to deny self is to fast. “I humbled my soul with fasting” (Psalm 35:13).

What Is Fasting?

First of all, fasting is doing without food. But it is more than that. It deals with every aspect of self. Since every appetite of the human is fed by food, When you take food away from a person, the person weakens and the appetites of the flesh are curbed. Food fuels and feeds the appetites of the flesh.

Some appetites of the flesh are not natural. God did not make man with an appetite for alcohol or drugs. Man has cultivated that. There are also legitimate appetites and desires. When kept within bounds, they are right. But there is no appetite of the flesh that, if it is not kept under, cannot get out of bounds and become unlawful because it is wrongly used.

Eating can become such a thing that you can be “overcharged with surfeiting” and not be ready for the coming of the Lord (Luke 21:34). Every appetite must be kept in its proper place and must be kept in bounds of moderation or it becomes the dominating, driving force of the life. Then Christ is not Lord of the life. That fleshly appetite becomes lord.

Fasting is a means God has given us of curbing these appetites, and this begins with doing without food. Everything that has life has to have food to keep it alive. The spiritual man within us needs food. Too often it is the spiritual man that is fasted. We feed him two or three Scripture verses a day and a few minutes of prayer. Then we gorge the natural man. We ought rather to fast the natural man.

Since everything that has life demands food to keep it alive, when you take food away from it, it begins to die. When you take food away from the carnal man, it begins to weaken and to die. If at the same time you are reading the Word of God and praying, then the spiritual man, the inner man of the heart, is strengthened and overcomes that carnal man. Self is a powerful force and many times we cannot overcome it unless we are fasting.

As well as fasting the body, we can fast the mind, and perhaps the mind is more of a threat to our spiritual life than other things. What we feed the mind will ultimately determine our actions.

If we sit and watch filth on TV, our mind becomes incapable of dealing with spiritual things. When we get down to pray, those worldly things will dominate our mind. When we want to think upon God, thoughts of Him are crowded out because we have filled our minds with things that are not of God.

There are things that are not evil, but are of this world’s system. They perish with the using (Col. 2:22). They do not help us become a better saint. But some

things we do have to do and they take thought. We are to be “in” the world but not “of’ the world.

We can fast our minds. For a time we can unplug the TV; turn the radio off as far as worldly things are concerned; leave the newspaper rolled up a while. Instead, give ourselves to the Word of God and to seeking the Lord. This is also fasting. We can refuse to let worldly things come into our mind.

Here at our church we have the month of October set aside for fasting and prayer. Most of the month we don’t eat food. God has made this possible for us because we are separated unto the Gospel. We do not go out and do hard labor. That is not possible for most people.

But it is possible whatever you do to fast your mind for 30 days. If for 30 days you do not look at TV and if you read nothing but that which pertains to spiritual things and if you use all the time you would ordinarily use in seeking after any kind of pleasure in reading and meditating upon the Word of God, you would see your spiritual appetite whetted and there would be a new desire born in your heart for the Word of God.

You find people who say, “I don’t have any desire for the Word of God anymore.” It is no wonder. We have filled ourselves with much ‘junk food’ of the world and have killed our spiritual appetite. Our spiritual “taste buds” have been destroyed.

If you would cut off all worldly things and read nothing but that which is from the Word of God for 30 days, at the end of that time you would have an insatiable desire to live in the things of the spirit because that spiritual man has been made alive.

So fasting is not only doing without food. It is fasting the carnal mind, and denying self. We must tell self it can not have what it always wants. It wants you to go somewhere. Tell that self, you are not going there; you are going to church and you are going to pray until the Spirit of God moves on you.

I talked to a young man once who was associate pastor of a church. The Dallas Cowboys were going to play another team in the Super Bowl. The pastor said to me, “When that Super Bowl comes off, I’m going to a motel and shut myself in so won’t be disturbed by my children or anything else, and watch that game.”

When I began preaching about fasting, he questioned me about fasting. He said, “I have a hard time doing without food.”

“Well,” I said, “fasting is doing without food, but I will tell you what would really constitute a fast for you. I’ve listened to you talk about that Super Bowl, and you

are so caught up in that affair that if you would tell yourself, when that Super Bowl comes on, instead of watching it, I’m going to take my Bible and go into a room and stay on my knees until that game is over - you will have won a victory over self that is many times more powerful than just doing without food. Food is not your problem. Your problem is that you are caught up with that Super Bowl.”

He did what I told him, and he later said to me, “I’ve never been so blessed of God in my life as when I did that.”

Yes, fasting is doing without food, but it is also denying that self life, putting it down and refusing to let it have expression. If we will do that, the spiritual appetite will increase a hundredfold.

If you want revival in your heart, take a week or 30 days and don’t read newspaper or watch TV or listen to the radio, but every waking moment that you can, live in the Word of God and in prayer. Where you didn’t have a desire for the things of the spirit, you will have a desire for spiritual things.

Why Should I Fast?

It is important for us to know that God will have nothing to do with the carnal nature. He will have no flesh to glory in His presence (1 Cor. 1:29). The personality God deals with is that which is born of the Spirit of God, the new creature. Often He is smothered under the flesh. Unless that veil of the flesh is broken, He can not express Himself.

In Mark 9:29, the disciples were trying to cast a devil out. They had been successful before. They had said that “even the devils are subject unto us through Thy name” (Luke 10:17). But this one was not subject to them.

Jesus cast the devil out. When they were alone, they asked Him, “Why couldn’t we cast him out?” Jesus said, “Because of your unbelief.”

Unbelief is a product of the natural, carnal man. So when Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief,” He was really saying to them, “You are trying to cast that devil out in the power of self.”

Much of that takes place in the church today. For the most part, we are not successful in casting out devils. God wants us to be successful 100% of the time when people come to us to be delivered. He doesn’t want us to send them away empty-handed. We are to be the instrument of deliverance. To do that, we are going to have to live in the place where it can happen. “Why couldn’t we cast the devil out?” Because they were trying to do it in themselves.

Jesus gave them also the answer, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.” When a person fasts, self is put down. When you pray, the new man is strengthened. When the spiritual man says to the devil, “Come out!” - the devil will come out.

The carnal man hates God but it loves to deal with the religious and to look into things of the spiritual. When the carnal man gets involved in the religious act, it causes problems. When the carnal man uses religious phrases, it doesn’t work.

But when the man of the spirit, anointed by God, speaks to devils, they will go. When the spiritual man says to the sick, “Be healed!” they will be healed. Jesus said that the way to live in that realm is by fasting and praying.

Why should I fast? An important reason is to put down the old man, to weaken the carnal nature and bring him to naught. And if while fasting, one is praying and reading the Word, he is bringing to the forefront the man of the spirit. When that happens, God will be there to deliver.

When we put down the self life, the life of Christ within us will break forth. Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world” (John 9:5), He also said, “You are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14). We don’t light a candle and put it under a bushel. Neither can we keep the Christ life smothered in the flesh. Flesh is broken through fasting, through denial and bringing it to naught.

Even though Jesus lives within, no one may recognize Him. People may see only us. If through fasting and through walking with God, I break that vessel of the flesh, then Christ can be seen. The alabaster box has to be broken before the sweet ointment can flow out. The fragrance filled the room-and that carnal nature must be broken if Christ is to shine forth through us.Do we want people, who come, through our church doors to see Christ? This is what God wants.

We cannot treat the flesh kindly. Psychiatrists have made a soft couch to lie down on. God did not intend that. God wants us to employ prayer and fasting and overcome the flesh.

As this age ends, we need to lay hold of this truth. This is not just fasting once in a While, but living this kind of life. We need days when we separate ourselves from early in the morning to four in the afternoon or later, giving ourselves to calling on God, holding that which is naturally religious under so that which is of God can spring forth. God says that when the spiritual man cries, He will answer.

In Isaiah, chapter 58, God gives wonderful promises to those who fast aright. “Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring, forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord

shall be thy rearward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and He shall say, here I am . . .

“And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. . . .”

Why fast? You can have revival when everyone else seems dead. A person can keep his soul alive even in the drought of a dead church. When there is spiritual drought, there is no life. There is no moving of the Holy Spirit. But even in the midst of spiritual drought - although 10,000 fall at your right hand and 10,000 at your left hand - if self is crucified, you will stay alive. God wants us to stay alive. If we walk in the Spirit, God will guide us continually.

When Shall I Fast?

Pastors are shepherds of their congregation. When they see something come into a congregation and a wrong turn about to be made — just as a shepherd, when a bear would come, would protect his flock from that bear – so a pastor can fast and pray for his congregation. Worse than bears are coming today to steal young people and to destroy them. There is a worldly spirit that would turn us away from God arid from a walk of holiness. When a pastor sees that, he can take steps to stop that flow of worldliness or whatever it is. He can call a fast. A crisis demands it. Through the Old Testament when trouble was there, leaders called a fast of all Israel.

Separate Yourselves.

We are told in the Bible that husbands and wives should separate themselves with consent for times of fasting and prayer (1 Cor. 7:5).

Perhaps you come to a time when the keen edge of the first love has been blunted, when Christ is no longer there like He was. Something has come between Him and you. Then you need to fast.

Charles Finney used to say that when he preached and men were not moved by what he said, then he knew that it was time for him to fast and pray. He would separate himself for three to five days. When he came back, there was new anointing.

When you no longer love God and the brethren like you once did, when your church doesn’t mean to you what it used to mean-something is happening. There is something that has come between you and God. If you no longer want

to go to prayer meeting or to read the Word of God, you are dying. Self has come in, and the new man and God are being pushed to a secondary place in your life. If you fast, and put aside the old man, and the new man comes to life, Jesus will be exciting to you again.

If there is something in your heart against someone, you better bring self to the altar. Begin to fast. The Holy Spirit will show you what is wrong. Then go and ask forgiveness.

In the worst spiritual drought, you can have a song in your heart. If you will do your part, God will do His.

THE STEWARDSHIP OF FASTING

It is our belief that God has bestowed upon us the ability, the opportunity, the privilege, and the duty of fasting; and that this is an obligation for which we are responsible, and for which some day we must give an account. (Romans 14:1O-12; Matthew 25:14-30; 2 Corinthians 5:6-11)

We believe that when God’s people sincerely fast, it enables God to do what otherwise He cannot do. It places some thing in His hands that enables Him to release power that otherwise He cannot release (Matt. 17:21; Mark 9:29).

We believe that when we sincerely fast, it enables God to do for us, personally, something that He otherwise cannot do. It enables God to do for the local church, of which we are members, what otherwise He cannot do.

It enables God to do for the community, of which we are a part, what otherwise He cannot do. When we fast, it enables God to do for the nation and for the age - what otherwise He can not do. Consequently - WE OWE IT TO God TO FAST, and to do it sincerely, faithfully, and regularly.

It is our belief that God’s people are responsible for all the divine power that He is able to it release because we fast, and that, for this responsibility and its dynamic possibilities, we must some day give an account personally to Jesus, our Lord (Luke 19:11-26).

An Appeal to the Old Testament

Whenever God’s people sincerely fasted before the Lord, it enabled Him to do what otherwise He was unable to do. Our first appeal, then, is to the Old Testament. In this history of God’s dealings with the human race, we note that fasting was one of the constant means by which His people approached God.

It always was intended to denote the deep sincerity of the one who fasted, and also the great need. Indeed, humbly and sincerely to fast, was to qualify before the Almighty so as to do God’s work in God’s way. When sincerely done in the spirit, it never failed to move God and enable Him to accomplish what otherwise He was unable to bring to pass.

Moses

It the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy we have a most notable instance of fasting. Here is recorded how Moses fasted a second forty days and nights. The first occasion of his lengthy fast was when he was in the mount with God, at the end of which he received the two tables of the law.

In the case to which we call especial attention here however, he had come down from the mount with the tables of the law, and discovered Israel’s sinful worship of the golden calf. He had destroyed that idol, and was now pleading with the Lord Jehovah to spare the lives of sinful Israel, which he had declared He was about to destroy.

Moses had no promise here to plead. On the contrary, he had a distinct prohibition against asking for the remission of the decree of destruction. “Let Me alone” declared Jehovah. This was evidently a reply to the importunities of Moses, who for forty days with unappeased appetite pressed his case, God final1y granted his prayer.

Note, then, the chief method by which this remarkable man of God secured His petition. FASTING. The very thing that millions of professing Christians today refuse to employ.

As a result of Moses’ prayers, his faith – and because of another forty days of fasting – God hearkened unto him, spared all the people, turned them back into the wilderness again, and ultimately led some of them across Jordan into the Canaan land: How did he do it?

By employing a method we generally disdain-Fasting!

Who can tell what would happen in the way of world revival and the world’s evangelization, and in the up building of God’s kingdom on earth, if all God’s people in the world would today answer this urgent plea to fast and pray, and by systematic fasting, release the pent-up power of our omnipotent God?

Ezra

In the eighth chapter of Ezra, we have another instance of how promptly the ancient people of God resorted to fasting as the means of releasing God’s omnipotent hand.

Ezra, the divinely chosen man to lead in the return of captive Israel from Babylon to their ancient home in Jerusalem, had gathered up some forty thousand men, women and children. The king of Babylon had bestowed much wealth upon them, in order to enable them to rebuild the city of Jerusalem.

With great joy they marched through the king’s domains till they came to its boundaries. There they faced the unbroken wilderness, infested with bandits and robbers. They themselves were wholly unarmed.

What Should They Do?

They immediately resorted to the methods their fathers had frequently employed with such signal success. They called for a period of fasting - the very thing that is so universally tabooed among Christians today.

Here were thousands of men, women, and children wholly unarmed. They were loaded with unusual treasure and spoil - a helpless company loaded with rich booty for bandits and robbers. They sincerely fasted and God’s power was released upon them. They were able to travel in safety to their destination.

Is not the God of today the same as He Who guided and protected the Israelites when they were traveling to build again the walls of Jerusalem? (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8).

Who, then, can tell the wondrous revivals that would take place, the individual conversions that would occur, and the releasement of God’s power that could be had in these days - if His people would more faithfully practice this ancient method of carrying on His work?

Nehemiah

In the first chapter of Nehemiah, we have an instance where that man of God was praying and fasting over the, as yet, unbuilt walls of Jerusalem. As a result of his prayers and fastings, God moved upon the heart of the king, whom Nehemiah served as a cupbearer, to send him to Jerusalem, there to supervise the re-election of the ruined walls of the city. Here again, this man also secured the answer to His prayer by means of fasting and prayer.

Esther

In the Book of Esther, we are told that the king, without knowing that Esther was a Jewess, had chosen this beautiful young woman as the queen of his realm. At the same time the wicked Haman, who hated the Israelites had conspired with success, to secure a decree from the king for the concerted destruction of all the Jews in the kingdom. Mordecai, Esther’s relative and guardian, congratulated her upon being chosen as queen for that would, he declared, enable her to importune the king for the remission of the fatal decree that called for the death of an the Jews.

She sent back word that, until the king officially sent for her, it was fatal for her to attempt to interview him, and that she dared not force herself upon him.

To this Mordecai answered that she would die anyhow, for when the fatal day fixed by the decree should dawn, the executioners would learn that she was a

Jewess, and consequently she would be included in the massacre. Upon receiving this statement, the queen replied:

“Go, gather altogether all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16).

The result of this general fast on the part of the Jews was that God touched the heart of the of the king, gave Esther favor with him, induced him to remember the good offices of Mordecai which had been rendered to the realm on a previous occasion, and caused him to fall out with Haman, the instigator of the plot. Where upon, the king sent Haman to the gallows which Haman himself had erected for the expected execution of Mordecai, whom he peculiarly hated. The Jews were all freed from the diabolical decree. How did it happen? Fasting!

Isaiah

In the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, the sixth verse seems to convey the idea that God longs to have HIS people fast in order that He may be enabled to “loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke.” All of which sounds to us like “a going in the tops of the mulberry trees” of a mighty revival. Added emphasis is given to this in the eighth verse, where the prophet declares, and then shall thy light break forth,” etc. When, evidently when one fasts, as suggested in the sixth verse.

The ninth verse continues, “Then shall thou call, and the Lord shall answer,” etc. And in the tenth verse still greater emphasis is given this by the statement, “Then shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darkness be as the noon day.”

If all these results can be obtained when God’s people fulfill these requirements, and among them the chief one is that of fasting, then it seems to us that we are neglecting one of the great spiritual exercises that God has declared He will bless (Read Matthew 6:16-18).

Daniel

In Daniel, the 10th chapter, we are told that the prophet for three weeks tasted no pleasant food, or allowed any pleasing liquids to pass his lips. During this period of partial abstinence he was in great prayer concerning the future of his people. In answer, God sent an angel to reveal many things to him. Please note, three weeks of partial abstinence brought the visit of an angel.

For the most part modern Christians make God’s weekly day of worship more of a day of feasting than of abstinence or plain living. If there is to be a big meal served in a Christian family any time during the week, it is usually reserved for God’s day, when God’s cause is chiefly at stake.

Could we not more profitably devote the Christian Sabbath to plain living and deep devotion, even though we did not practice the omission of one whole meal? And could we not devote more time to intercession for the church, the family, the lost about us, and for the mission fields?

Particularly ought we not to be impressed along this line, when we read in the New Testament that one of the peculiar signs of the closing days of this age is to be “they were eating and drinking” (Matt. 24:37-39), and then notice how generally some form of “refreshments” is today characteristic of religious meetings?

Joel

In Joel, the prophet states that when the times are desperate, God Himself exhorts His people to seek aid from Him, and tells us how to come. “Turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with FASTING, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great-kindness” (Joel 2:12-13).

Would not many of the perilous times faced by God’s people in the past few years have ended in a joyous and flaming revival-if this recipe had been followed?

In another place, the prophet Joel calls upon the people to announce a time of fasting, and for everyone to come, even to the newlyweds and the children: “Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify (i.e., set apart) a fast, call a solemn assembly” (Joel 2:15-27).

This teaches that it is proper for all to agree upon a day and fast unitedly. Some folks believe in fasting “when the Lord puts it on” them, as they say. But they do not do other things that way. Who waits for a divine urge before going to church, or arising in the morning, or paying the rent, or preparing meals for the household?

And speaking of a divine urge to fast: if the Scripture that we are here quoting and calling attention to are not to be considered the voice of the Lord, then we are too far gone to heed anything quoted from the Bible. “If they hear not Moses

and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31).

Jonah

In the prophet Jonah’s day, the king and the people of Nineveh, alarmed on account of his preaching, could think of no better way to secure the intervention of God in their behalf, and the answer to their prayers, than to fast. If, therefore, God would heed the prayers, fasting, and cries of a city full of unregenerate Ninevites, would He not heed and answer the intercession of His redeemed people-if they earnestly, faithfully fasted and prayed?

An Appeal to the New Testament

CHRIST

Our Lord Himself at the dawn of His ministry set His seal of appeal to the great truth of fasting, by spending forty days without food, and during that time was subjected to the fiercest assaults of the enemy (Luke 4:1-15).

At one time, Christ was asked why His disciples failed to fast, while the Pharisees and John’s disciples fasted often, His answer was: “Can the children the bride chamber mourn, as long as the Bridegroom is with them?”

“But,” said He, the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them”; when they will seem to be alone; when they will be confronted by a thousand opponents; when they will have to live on their knees, fighting for their spiritual lives, and occasionally, for their physical existence. “Then,” said He, “shall they fast.” That is, when the battle waxed hot, when the need was great, when tremendous issues were at stake, “then shall they fast” (Matt. 9:14-15).

That word “shall”. it seems to us, carries a bit more significance than merely the demand and pressure predicted of future events. Is there not also in it the element Jesus’ own wish in the d matter? Perhaps, without doing too great violence to the syntax, there could be read into it the element of a divine command.

When were they to begin this spiritual exercise that releases divine power? When He was taken from them – on that Ascension Day when He was “parted from them” “and a cloud received Him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9 - 11) – after that they were to fast (Luke 24:51).

How long were they to continue to offer to God that channel that He has so conspicuously used and blessed? Till He returned - over the eastern hill of eternity, on His second advent. Have we done this? Have not most of us rather conspicuously failed?

In (Matthew 17:4-21) it is recorded that He was one day casting out a peculiar kind, of demon, which had resisted the efforts of the disciples to eject. When they inquired why they could not cast the demon out, He stated that it was because of their lack of faith, and then added, “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” He seemed to teach here that unusually importunate efforts are needed to reach the seat of this kind of demoniac possession, and such efforts cannot be properly put forth without resorting to fasting.

Many Christian workers of modern days act as though they would rather leave the demons in possession than to compel to go hungry for a meal or two in order to enable God to eject them.

It would almost seem, as we study the New Testament, that in those first-century days they literally ran the church with periods of fasting, for in Acts 13:2 we are admitted to one of the ordinary, everyday activities of a church, that at Antioch, while Paul and Barnabas were there ministering.

We find them fasting. Read the following and ask yourself whether it sounds much. Like one of our modern church groups: “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.”

Do we not conduct whole revival campaigns sometimes lasting for two or three weeks and never fast once during the time? Do we not attend district assemblies and never hear the subject mentioned the whole session? Are not references to a fast day rarely heard at the General Assembly? Perhaps it is because the fasting mentioned in the first part of this verse is so sadly neglected that we hear so little also about the Holy Ghost telling us definitely what to do.

We wrangle and discuss and vote, and then repeat these creaturely efforts. Maybe if we would heed the command to fast and pray, we could hear more of the second, “The Holy Ghost said -”

In those first-century days, fasting in connection with their usual services seems to have been a common custom for in the next verse we read, as though it were a still later service, some days or weeks afterward: “And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost…” (Acts 13:3-4)

What blessings are we not missing? What failure to secure releasements of God’s power; what deprivation do we not visit upon our outgoing missionaries; what enduements upon the selection of church officers do we not fail to realize – because we are loath to do God’s work in God’s way? Is it going too far to allege this? Is this not correct?

“In Fasting Often” II Corinthians 11:27 and 6:5

The difficulty of winning men to God these days is often discussed. The comparative scarcity of believers uniting with us after each revival meeting is the theme of many ministerial and Christian workers’ conventions. We humbly ask, would not the situation be somewhat improved if we all obeyed the evident teaching of Scriptures on fasting? If we all followed the implied command of Jesus - frequently to fast till His return?

Would we not receive greater degrees of His blessing if we would sincerely wait before God with unappeased appetites at stated times each week, and thus enable Him to do what otherwise He is unable to accomplish? (Mark 9:29)

An Appeal to Church History

According to church history, fasting has been prevalent down through the centuries. It is only in these recent and more modern days that we find it generally abandoned. Every great leader who moved his age mightily for God – was a faster.

Francis of Assisi

The first gleam of real spiritual reformation at that appeared after the night of the Dark Ages had set in, occurred in the twelfth century, when Francis of Assisi, a young voluptuary, after much prayer and fasting was graciously converted and launched his Franciscan order, founded on poverty, chastity, and obedience. Eating only such things as were freely given him, and dressing in such garments as were donated, he went joyfully preaching, singing, and testifying, with bare feet and head uncovered, up and down Italy.

Thousands of people professed conversion, and hundreds of young men joined him. It is stated, that he was a frequent and constant faster. He originated a movement that lasted hundreds of years after his own death.

Savonarola

Another remarkable awakening took place late in the fourteenth century under the preaching of Savonarola in Florence, Italy. In response to his flaming

preaching, almost all Florence for a while professed conversion to Christ. This great preacher was an inveterate faster. Historians state that he often could keep His place in the pulpit with difficulty, so weak was he from abstaining from food.

His spiritual movement became so menacing to the papacy that the church authorities turned on him and finally burned him at the stake in the it plaza of the city where his mighty triumphs had taken place.

Martin Luther

It is significant that as the fires that took the life of this tremendous preacher were lighting the skies in Florence, the divine plans were approaching consummation in Germany for the birth of the great Reformation led by Martin Luther.

Of this rugged German it is said that he fasted so constantly and so drastically as permanently to injure his health. We state this merely as a fact and not in commendation. But please consider the religious and spiritual change that was wrought in Europe and America by the activities of this man.

Prayer and fasting, in His case, enabled God to do, and powerful forces for good were released that swept much of the old country into Protestantism, and ran like a flame in later years in the colonial portions of America. In this great awakening, fasting played a conspicuous part.

Calvin, Knox and Others

Contemporary with Martin Luther and the great Reformation that brought Protestantism into existence, is a group of noted religious reformers, each one leading a wing of the amazing spiritual renaissance. It is very convicting to learn how universally the practice of fasting characterized these leaders, and brought to each most remarkable victory.

John Calvin in Geneva was an inveterate faster and lived to see His prayers answered in the conversion of almost a whole city. It is stated that there was not one house in the city of Geneva that did not have at least one praying person in it.

John Knox, in Scotland, fasted and waited on God till intervening providences drove Mary Queen of Scots into exile in Protestant England and finally to the block. It is a familiar quotation representing the queen as declaring that she

“feared John Knox and his prayers more than the armies of Elizabeth,” queen of England Knox was a noted faster.

The leaders of the Reformation in England, some of them paying with martyrdom for their part in it, were said to practice fasting as faithfully as they offered prayer. Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer are among this number.

Wesley.

John Wesley, in his day, set great store by this spiritual exercise. He followed the Scriptural custom of fasting twice a week. He is understood to have said that he would as soon think of cursing and swearing as to omit the Weekly custom of fasting. And look at the amazing religious movement that the Holy Spirit generated through his instrumentality!

Edwards

Jonathan Edwards, of New England, was a colossal colonial figure. He launched a most far reaching and influential revival in those early days. He is said to have fasted and prayed till he was too weak to stand in the pulpit, but how wonderfully God honored him and his ministry!

Finney

Charles G. Finney was a confirmed believer in this heaven-blessed exercise. He declared that when he detected a diminution of the Holy Spirit’s wonderful presence in and through him, he would fast for three days and nights, and bore testimony that as a result he was invariably again filled with the marvelous power of the Holy Spirit – that caused thousands of professional men, leading society women, merchants, and the well-to-do, as well as hundreds of thousands of the common people, to break down with conviction and yield to God and salvation.

Finney set great store by fasting as one of the means of releasing God’s amazing power.

God has a way for His people to work, but it is a way of sacrifice, a way of devotion, a way of heroism. When we choose our own indolent, easy, comfortable way, then we prevent Him from accomplishing what otherwise he could bring to pass (Matt. 17:14-21).

But when we choose His way, then He can work in Power and Presence among us once more! Who then, is willing to DO GOD’S WORK IN GOD’S WAY?

Some Benefits Of Fasting

So many Christians bemoan their lack of faith, not realizing that it is often their own fault that they are faithless. We are told that each Christian is given a measure of faith and so it is obvious that we must have failed to use that which was given if we do not appear to have it now.

Fasting does not create faith, for faith grows in us as we hear, read, and dwell upon, God’s word. It is a work of the Holy Spirit to bring faith to God’s people. However, fasting has the capacity to encourage faith in the one who is involved in this discipline. It seems as though the neglect of self feeds the faith which God has implanted in the hearts of born-again believers.

This does not mean that those who eat the least have the most faith. Such a view is not only untrue; it is extremist. It is simply that regular self-denial has its benefits, and one of these is seen in a personal increase in faith.

As J. A. Alexander has pointed out, if even Apostles rely upon their extraordinary powers alone and forget the spiritual discipline which is essential to the pastoral office, they will be ineffective through a deficiency of faith in a crisis. Or as John Wesley put it, prayer and fasting “are the appointed means” by which unusual faith is attained.

Power Over Evil

From thoughts of the benefit of having an increase in faith, it is natural for us to think to what purpose this increase might be put, in view of the despairing cry of the Apostles, “Why could not we cast it out?” (Matthew 17:19, Mark 9:28, and Luke 9:40). If we have ever sat down and enjoyed a continuous perusal of the Gospel of Luke, we will know of the exhilaration that can be imparted from the fourth chapter.

In the fourteenth verse we read that Jesus returned to Galilee from the wilderness “in the power of the Spirit” Our Lord had just completed a remarkable fast in complete isolation, and had suffered intense temptations at the dose of the same.

The picture which Luke painted is of one who had complete mastery over all evil. To have been with Jesus at that point in His life would have been most memorable.

However, one gains the impression that our Lord considered it possible that His disciples might have similar power over evil, from such verses as Matthew 10:1, Luke 9:1 and 10:19). Can Christians have power over “all of the enemy?” They cannot have such power, we must acknowledge, unless the Lord gives it to them in the same way that He gave authority to His first disciples. Power with God cannot be won or earned – it can only be received.

If, however, this power is received by a believer, he will need to spend much time – day by day – in prayer, and he must resort to fasting often. An undisciplined Christian cannot keep precious divine gifts. The treasure leaks away. Those who seem to have a super abundance of faith in the face of evil are those who are much in prayer.

It is no use asking advice about this from those who have not fasted at any time and who deride this discipline now. If we want proof of the connection between self-denial and spiritual power, we must go to those who have moved many with their words and helped large numbers to find faith in Jesus Christ. Those who are most mighty with God are those who confess openly that they are a failure unless the Holy Spirit is upon them.

THE HARVEST

Fasting And Prayer in South Dakota.

In 2007, during my 40 day fast, I was invited to preach in South and North Dakota. I went to a town that is right on the reservation of the Sioux nation, Standing Rock. Many of you who study American history know it was there that

Sitting Bull was killed. I have been in this area twice before and some of the local people know I teach fasting and prayer.

The leader of the city council asked to meet with me. Although the churches in the area did not teach fasting they knew they were in a drought that was entering its fifth year. The reservoir was 20 feet below its Normal mark. The council members told me that they were desperate. The drought was causing their town to dry up literally. People were moving away. They shared with me their greatest fear that the town would not survive if it did not rain.

The council members wanted to know about fasting. They asked me if their community would humble themselves in fasting and prayer if that would make a difference in their situation. We set a day to fast and pray.

I began to share with the people and their leaders about the power of fasting. God’s answer is to humble yourself for the much-needed rain for their crops and community. My text was from the book of Joel. I explained how the plagues had come on the people and their crops.

This horrible situation recorded in the book of Joel tells of the canker worm devouring the crops and what the canker worm didn’t eat the locust ate, and what the locust didn’t destroy, the caterpillar ate. The city council was convinced. They called the entire community to a solemn fast.

The word of God says, “And then you shall eat in plenty, and then you shall be satisfied. Then you shall praise the Lord thy God, who has dealt wondrously with thee, and you shall never be ashamed.” Joel 2:26. One of the men who committed to fast for 21 days was an American Indian. His name outside of the reservation is Matthew Lopez. On the reservation, where he is a chief and sits on the tribal council for the Sioux nation, His name is Brave Heart. He is a direct descendent of the brother Sitting Bull, Rain in Your Face.

Sitting Bull had four brothers. Rain Your Face, is the one who the Sioux say killed General Custer and scalped him. When he told me that, I must confess, my thoughts went immediately to my hair! He told me that he believed that God has a plan for the Sioux nation that included sending a great revival to His people. he fasted for 21 days and believed God for miracles to happen. Because he too, understands that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. It was cold, but glorious to be with those people.

BREAKTHROUGH! Testimonies of Answered Prayers

With Fasting

Sun Kim grew up in the slums of New York City. Kim knew nothing about Jesus nor had he ever heard the gospel. As a teenager Sun Kim joined a Korean gang. In time he became the leader of the gang. When Kim was 25 years old he was

convicted of murder and sentenced to Sing Sing prison. It was during his time in prison that he met the man that would bring the Good News to him and change his life forever.

A gentleman from a local church came to Sing Sing to witness to the prisoners about the love of Christ. Through his relationship with this Christian man and the message of Jesus, Sun Kim was lead to Christ. As Kim’s spiritual leader, the gentleman spoke these words of encouragement to Kim. He said, “If you will begin to pray and fast for 21-days, I believe God will perform a miracle for you.”

A month later, at the scheduled visitation, the Christian man met with Sun Kim. When asked how he was doing, Kim replied, “You know, I have been praying as fast as I can for the past 21 days and I haven’t seen any miracles.”

The man answered Kim, “No, that’s not what I meant. I said Fast for 21 days. Not pray fast!”

“What does fast mean?” asked Kim. He had no idea that fasting wasn’t eating. He thought it was just praying fast.

So Sun Kim began a 21 day fast. The fact is, on the 18th day, the prison officials told Kim they were going to make him eat. So they put him in the infirmary and began feeding him intravenously. They thought he was going to die.

He said, “I am not going to eat. God is going to do a miracle for me.”

At the end of the 21 days a miracle happened. The prosecutor in New York City that had prosecuted Kim’s case was investigated. Through the investigation, authorities found illegal practices from the arresting officers in a large number of His cases. Kim’s case was dismissed and he was released from prison.

Upon His release, Kim went to see Dave Wilkerson, founder of Teen Challenge, and told him that he wanted to be a part of their outreach to gangs. He began to preach to the gang members. One night, the members of the gang attacked and stabbed him. They left him for dead. But God healed him. Many gang members came to Christ through his preaching.

He married a very godly woman and God called him to preach. He now pastors a church of over 1,000 members in western part of the United States. It was through a miracle that Kim received from God through fasting and praying.

Mother Elizabeth Dabney – Woman of Prayer and Fasting

Mother Elizabeth Dabney’s husband pastored a Church of God in Christ congregation. She had a powerful ministry of fasting and intercessory prayer in the early 1900’s

In 1925, E. H. Dabney and his wife Elizabeth went to Philadelphia to start a mission work. It was very difficult in the beginning.

Of those beginning days Mother Elizabeth said, “One afternoon the Lord called my attention to a situation in the neighborhood. I asked God if He would give us the victory if I made a covenant with Him to pray. He said He would. And God told me to meet Him the next morning at the Schuykill River at 7:30 AM.”

That night Mother Elizabeth was afraid to go to sleep because she would miss her appointment with God. She sat up all night and crocheted. The next morning her husband drove her by the river. When they came to a tree that was bent over on the side of the road, the Lord spoke to her and said, “This is the place.” It was there that Mother Elizabeth Dabney made a covenant with God.

“Lord, if you will bless my husband and give him a church and congregation, I will walk with you for three years in prayer both day and night. I will meet you every morning at 9:00 AM sharp; you will never have to wait for me; I will be there to greet you; I will stay there all day; I will devote all of my time to you.”

“Furthermore, if you will listen to the voice of my supplication and break through in that wicked neighborhood and bless my husband, I will fast 72 hours each week for two years. While I’m going through the fast, I will not go home and sleep in my bed and I will stay in the church and if I get sleepy, I will rest on newspaper and carpet.”

Immediately as Mother Elizabeth Dabney made this covenant with God to pray and fast, the Lord answered her prayer.

“The Glory of the Lord fell from heaven all around me. I knew He had prepared me to enter into the prayer ministry.”

Each morning she would enter the church before 9am. Kneeling on the floor in prayer, she wore all the skin off of her knees on the hard floor. At times she suffered physically, but continued to fast both food and water for three days each week.

Soon the little church building was too small to accommodate the crowds. Pastor E. H. Dabney asked Mother Dabney to pray for a larger meeting place. Shortly thereafter, a business man rented a larger building for them that could handle the crowds.

As she continued to fast and pray many of the church people began to criticize her. Some tried to discourage her by telling her that praying and fasting was not necessary.

At one point they accused her of being an old witch and a magic book reader. However, as they continued to see her faithfulness and humble spirit, they repented of their lies. Eventually the church became one of the most powerful outreaches in that community in Philadelphia.

Pastor Larry Stockstill – Political Influence

Larry Stockstill is the pastor of Bethany World Prayer Center in Baton Rogue, Louisiana. The church has a membership of 10,000. A number of years ago while he and his church was on a 21 day fast, God spoke to him that he would receive favor with the governor of Louisiana.

It was not long after the fast was over that the Governor’s assistant called Pastor Stockstill’s office. This is the message that was given to him, “The Governor saw Pastor Stockstill on television and he would like to invite him come to the Governor’s Mansion and pray with him”.

Through this meeting, Larry Stockstill began conducting a weekly Bible study at the Governor’s Mansion. These prayer meetings lasted throughout the Governor’s entire term. Prayer and fasting brought Pastor Larry Stockstill before the state leadership to allow a powerful time of prayer to help influence and direct the political arena of Louisiana. The Governor was voted the most popular governor of Louisiana and became Chairman of the Southern Governors Association.

Pastor Bob Rodgers- The Gift of Discerning of Spirits

Years ago, I was on a three day fast without food or water. During that time a pastor of a large denominational church called for me to counsel with a couple from his church. They met me on the third day of my fast.

While in my office the husband explained to me that his wife was suffering from deep depression and that he wanted me to pray for her. So I asked the husband to place his hand on one shoulder while I place my hand on the other shoulder of his wife.

As I began to pray in the name of Jesus, the wife let out a scream. A force picked her up and threw her across the room. Instantly, I realized that this woman was demon possessed. I knelt down beside her and began to bind the demon and command that it come out of the woman.

The demon began to speak through this woman. At one point I asked the demon how he entered the woman. The demon answered when she was a teen-ager she was involved in a sexual act. He’d lived in her since then.

During this encounter other demons began to manifest. At one point the woman’s head turned in such a way which was humanly impossible. I commanded the demon to stop.

Immediately after that, the woman breathed on me. The smell was so putrid that I excused myself and went to the bathroom and began to experience dry heaves. I was washing my face and a devil manifested in the bathroom. It said to me, “You stay out of the deliverance ministry or I’ll kill you!”

I knew if I did not go back and pray for that woman, my ministry would end, that day. I went back to my office and prayed for this lady until there was no strength left in my body. That night we cast sixteen demons out of the woman. However, the strong demon power often pushes out the weaker demons. So I asked the lady and her husband if they would fast for three days, then come back to see me the following week.

That night l went home totally exhausted and went to bed. In the wee hours of the morning our house began to shake.

My wife woke me up and said, “I think there is a violent storm.” When we looked outside, there was no rain or wind. This was a demonic attack upon us. Suddenly we heard the voice of a demon speak.

It said, “I told you not to get involved in this ministry. Now I have come to kill you.”

I began to remember the words to the song that my mother used to sing, “You could have called ten thousand angels.” So I prayed, “God the power that you gave Jesus, you have given to me. I want ten thousand angels to be in this room right now.”

As soon as I spoke those words the room became charged with the presence of angels. It looked like static electricity popping around the room. That night my wife and I worshipped and praised the Lord till almost daylight.

A few days later the couple came back to see me. The wife was totally delivered. There was a peace and calmness in their life. God had delivered her and called them into the ministry.

Through that experience, on an absolute fast without food or water, God stirred up in me the gift of discerning of spirits. On numerous occasions I could smell certain types of demonic spirits. Also from that fast, God opened my spiritual eyes to see angels.

Fasting increases our sensitivity to the spiritual realm.

Driving downtown, I passed an abortion clinic and noticed a group of people gathered in protest in front of the clinic. Parking my car, I walked near to observe. A number of Christian people were singing hymns. I joined them.

While we were singing, I saw two demons as tall as the five story abortion clinic. One demon’s head was the shape of a pyramid. His teeth were overlaid and razor sharp. It looked to me like it had hundreds of teeth. The expression on their faces was fear. They were on an attack mode.

I said. “Lord, these must be the strongmen of our city.”

The Lord spoke to me. “No. the strongman of this city is as large as the largest building in this city, but I’ve got angels that are bigger they are.”

At that moment fear left me. Then God spoke to me a word that I have always remembered. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.”

In my spirit there came this concept. as we will fast and pray and become people of the Word of God. we become more powerful and larger than the strongmen of our city.

In Mark 9:29 Jesus says. “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

In order for there to be a ‘this kind’, there must be other kinds or levels of demonic powers. In the past, God may have given you victory over weaker demons, but as you grow in Christ you face heavy weight demons. The same methods that brought you victory in the past may not necessarily bring you victory in the future. With the stronger demonic powers, you need to add fasting to your prayers.

Jeanne Assam - Guard Who Shot Colorado Gunman

COLORADO SPRINGS. Colo. - Jeanne Assam is hailed for saving countless lives in shooting a gunman outside her church, but the volunteer security guard insisted that her steady hand was a matter of divine guidance.

The 42-year-old former police officer was part of a small team of church members pulling guard duty Sunday at the New Life Church when 24-year-old Matthew Murray opened fire outside the building.

Weak from a three-day religious fast, Assam said Monday that she shut out the frightening gunshots outside and focused on Murray as he walked down a church

hallway. When Murray came in with an assault rifle, she shot him several times with her gun.

“It seemed like it was me, the gunman and God.” said Assam, whose hands trembled a little as she recounted the shooting during a news conference Monday.

Murray is believed to have killed two people after a midday ceremony at the Megachurch and two other people 12 hours earlier at a missionary training school in the Denver suburb of Arvada.

Police said a weapon found at the church was forensically linked to shell casings left behind at the missionary school. Even though Assam shot Murray, investigators said he may have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Before the shooting at her church, Assam said, she felt chills when reading that the gunman from the missionary school shooting hadn’t been captured.

When the gunman entered New Life Church, she said, she took cover and drew spiritual and physical strength from her religious faith. As church members ran away, Assam said, she had no intention of fleeing.“I was given the assignment to end this before it got too much worse.” she said. “I just prayed for the Holy Spirit to guide me. I said. ‘Holy Spirit, be with me.’ My hands weren’t even shaking.”

Religious practice of fasting one day a month may protect arteries

Mormons have less heart disease - something doctors have long chalked up to their religion’s ban on smoking. New research suggests that another of their “clean living” habits also may be helping their hearts: fasting for one day each month.

A study in Utah, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is based, found that people who skipped meals once a month were about 40 percent less likely to be diagnosed with clogged arteries than those who did not regularly fast.

Among the 515 people surveyed, only fasting made a significant difference in heart risks: 59 percent of periodic meal skippers were diagnosed with heart disease versus 67 percent of the others

Brief respite for your cells

Home speculated that when people take a break from food, it forces the body to dip into fat reserves to bum calories. It also keeps the body from being constantly exposed to sugar and having to make insulin to metabolize it. When people develop diabetes, insulin-producing cells become less sensitive to cues from eating so fasting may provide brief rests that resensitize these cells and make them work better. he said.