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FASTING SERIES A SPIRITUAL WARFARE Bodily
Cleansing When you enter a fast, you would have side effects. One of the
fringe benefits of fasting is the cleansing of your body. If you are new in
fasting and this is the first time you attempt to fast 24 hours or so,
remember that your body has accumulated a certain amount of toxins through
the many years of eating all kinds of food. Not all food is eliminated. There
is a little bit accumulated every year and over the years your body has an
accumulation of toxins. So, if you are someone who has not fasted before a
lot of your sickness and illness may come when your body’s immune system
breaks down because of the amount of toxin within your body. You may not get
it on day 20 or 30 or 40 of your fast but it will hit you one of these days.
That is why the fringe benefits of a fasted life is good health and divine
health. In the animal kingdom from time to time the animals go on a fast. But
somehow we human beings have forgotten mother nature and God’s natural laws
and indulge ourselves, feed three fat meals a day and reap the results of not
following God’s law. The law of fasting is engrafted in our bodies. Your
bodies were made to have certain days of fasting to remain in peak condition,
in perfect health. A lot of sicknesses and diseases that people suffered from
are unnecessary if they lived a fasted life. When you start fasting some of
you (though not all of you) would experience headache or a sickly feeling.
That is because your body has begun to get rid of the toxins. Your body is
beginning to cleanse itself. What I urge you is to continue and if you just need a little
food then by all means have some natural fruit juices. After you pulled
through that period, you will experience a higher level of health that you
haven’t experienced before. Your body will reach a higher level of health.
Having achieved that first day of fasting then you make it a regular weekly
affair at least once a week. In that way, you can maintain your body in peak
condition, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. So, your body is made to
cleanse itself from time to time if you would co-operate with the laws of
God. These are the fringe benefits of fasting. Your body cleanses itself
physically and your soul cleanses itself in the soul realm. Surfacing
of Hidden Sins and Weaknesses When you fast some of the inner desires or wrong motives of
hidden things of the heart that are not right in the sight of God are brought
forward. You could live your whole Christian life and not be aware of what we
call the besetting sins or hidden things in your life. All of us have those
little dots here and there in our hearts that God is not pleased. But when
you seek God in fasting and prayer all those little things will come out. How
do they come out? Through your fast, you will find that at first some of
those old temptations in your life seem to revive for a moment. You say, “How
come when I am fasting, suddenly these temptations come? If you are someone
who could be calm when you fast suddenly you find yourself temperamental.
That began to come out because inside you there is a temperamental part that
needs to be dealt with. When you fast all those things are brought to the
surface to be dealt with. For something to be dealt with, it must be dug out,
cleansed and then replaced or renewed. The other way is that it comes out from your soul in dreams.
Your inner part of the soul suddenly comes out so that God could deal with
it. In your fasting, you really know who you really are. Your weaknesses will
come to the surface to be dealt with. Secondly, it comes out through your
dreams. You would receive some dreams from your childhood or things in your
life that are hidden. Now all your life if you have never fasted if you have
never deal with those areas the rest of your Christian life you try to go
into God in a deeper way it hinders you, you do not know why. Sometimes it’s
a mystery to you as to why you cannot progress in your Christian life. When
you fast all these areas are brought to the surface. It can come in your
dreams. Your inner hidden fears in certain areas will come in your dreams and
hurts in your life will come out to be dealt with. That is why fasting is so
important. We will touch more on this area if God permits. Intensifying
Pressure on the Enemy But this morning we will touch on fasting a spiritual warfare.
We have spoken that when God has spoken something and God has prophesied
something in your life, if it doesn’t come to pass – go on a fast, because it
releases the power of God. So we will continue on that area as a spiritual
warfare. Fasting is a spiritual warfare where you intensify the warfare
against the devil. The devil and demons are spiritual forces who you normally
cannot see. We wish that the devil were in a realm where we could just give
it to him. But it’s not the natural realm. He is in the spirit realm. One of
the forces I discovered in fasting is when you fast and pray it intensifies
the pressure of the devil. Every time you fast, the pressure gets on the
enemy. The gates of hell are being shaken. The enemy is feeling the pressure
of your fast. The more intense your fast the more the pressure is on him. I
enjoy fasting because it makes the devil miserable. So when you fast
intensely with prayer the intensity is on the enemy so much that he would
have to let go of something that is delaying in your life. A lot of areas in
your life that you have been praying for, unanswered prayer, promises that
God has spoken that has not been fulfilled, prophecies in your life - the
devil will see to it that is not fulfilled but God will see to it that is
fulfilled. And your part is to co-operate with God to release His power in
your life and to intensify the pressure on the enemy. So, this morning lets look at the look of Daniel. Daniel
was a man of fasting and praying. Daniel learnt fasting very early in his
youth when he was first taken in Nebuchadnezzar training school for the
slaves of Some of you have never fasted in your life; you have been
eating and feasting all the days of your life. You have not experienced a
high level of health. I can assure you that if you are someone who eats a lot
everyday and never fast, you would also be the type of person who falls sick
easily. You will also be the person when the flu gets around even when it is
one mile away you will get it too. You will be the type of person who has
frequent headaches and all kind of sicknesses come easily on you as if you
are a magnet to the germs. God has made your body such that your body has a
natural system of remaining in health. Your body kills the germs that touch
your body. And you have to strengthen that system in your body through
fasting. Daniel learns the partial fasting. Don’t go straight for it without
food and water. You just train your body regularly. Your body may scream,
your body may protest, your body may complain, but discipline your body. If
you haven’t run in the Olympic marathon before you don’t start there. You
have to train your body everyday. You practice running around your
neighborhood and then you attempt one mile. Likewise, you train your body in
fasting. I would suggest you train your body with partial fast, like a fruit
fast or vegetables fast or a simple juice fast. Just take 4 apples and eat it
within the 24 hours when you feel hungry. Then the following week when your
body gets more submitted, you can train your body more and more. Daniel in chapter one starts learning the partial fast.
Daniel loves God and this is what he told the chief of the eunuchs in Daniel
1: 11. Then Daniel said to the
steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah,
Mishael, and Azariah. Test your servants for ten days; let us be given
vegetables to eat and water to drink. So, they went on a partial fast of
vegetables and water. That’s how Daniel started his life and ministry fasting
a partial fast. Later on in his life, you see that Daniel also had a partial
fast of 21 days. We do not know what he ate during that partial fast. But we
know he ate very little. He had a vegetable fast. And during the vegetables
fast here is when the Word of God tells you that in those 10 days their
complexion was better. They had fewer pimples that those guys who ate and
drink wine and all the oily and fatty delicacies of the king’s table. Ladies
please open your eyes. I am giving you a beauty treatment this morning that
is worth more than what the world can give you and it’s free. Dan. 1:14 So he hearkened to them in this matter; and
tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days it was seen that they were
better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the
king’s rich food. So the steward took away their rich food and the wine they
were to drink, and gave them vegetables. So, they were on a vegetable
fast before God. They had a trial period of ten days. And the steward found
them lovely. They had a lovely skin, lovely complexion and it was so
impressive that the steward who was assigned by the chief of the eunuchs to
take care of them says, “I will give you vegetables for the rest of your
life.” We do not know exactly what sort of vegetables. Maybe they were eating
food in the natural that cleanses the body. Once a fat man came to me and
asked me to pray for him to be thin. I probably had an anointing to be thin
so he came to me. If your face is such that it gives you problems all the
cream in the whole wide world couldn’t help you. And you are going to
beautician after beautician. Do you realize that Jesus is the best
beautician? You didn’t go to Doctor Jesus yet. And Doctor Jesus’
recommendation from the Word of God is a partial fast. Good for your
complexion, ladies. And you don’t have to worry about too much weight either.
Here they had nice complexion, good health and not only that God blessed them
with skill and wisdom as fringe benefit. I have found that every time people
fast they receive blessings from God. You never go through a fast without
being blessed by God. God will bless you naturally. God will bless you
spiritually. God will pour special gifts on your life to the one who says
that I will discipline my body. The fall of Adam and Eve was when they
allowed their body to transcend their spirit. But here when you allow your
spirit and the Word to transcend over your body God blesses you back. God
multiply His blessings on your life. Now Lets look at Dan.1: 19 And the king spoke with
them, and among them all none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and
Azariah; therefore they stood before the king. They were ten times
smarter than all the rest. That was a blessing they received from God. Notice
God can only bless those who were to give themselves to Him. God wants to bless
everybody. But God requires that people would give themselves to Him and show
to Him that they love Him with all their heart, mind and soul. This is where we want to see in spiritual warfare in Dan.
10:2 In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. For 21
days, Daniel was fasting and praying. It was a partial fast it was not a
complete fast because in verse 3 it says I ate no delicacies, no meat or
wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three
weeks. He ate no delicacies, no meat, no wine; he went on probably a
fruit kind of fast for 21 days. On a fruit fast, you have an internal cleansing and an
external cleansing. When you take a bath, you notice the bath cleanses you
outwardly. When you bathe, your body does feel a difference. It feels a
refreshing. How much more when you have an internal cleansing, which comes
when you go on a partial fast. Or when you have developed your body’s
strength that you are able to go on water fast, you will feel an internal
cleansing that takes place in your body. You feel much healthier than before.
And I noticed this people who fast and pray often at least once a week or so
seldom catch flu, or headache, or get sick. One time we were talking to a
92-year-old man a minister of God who came from abroad. We asked him, “How do
you keep so healthy? He said, “Simple, prayer and fasting.” So some people
ask, “Can I be a nice Christian and still eat, drink and be merry?” Yes, you
can, except that you probably go home faster. Some people ask me is smoking
all right. “Can I still go to heaven if I smoke?” Yes you can except you go
home faster. So it’s good for us to be cleansed in our body, overcome the
flesh and have more blessings of God. Here we have it that he was fasting and praying for 21
days. While he was praying in his prayer room, something was happening in the
skies. The prayers of one man dedicated to God on a partial fast were so
powerful that something was happening in the heaven. The whole nation was
being affected. I believe if God can only find one faithful person, He can
revive one nation. You don’t need a million of them. One will do is enough;
one Jesus Christ turned the whole of At the end of the fast in Dan. 10:5 I lifted up my
eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded
with gold of Uphaz! Then in verse 7 And I, Daniel, alone saw the
vision, for the men who were with me did not see the vision, but a great
trembling fell upon them, and they fled to hide themselves. The power of
God was on the place after 21 days. Only Daniel saw the vision and though the
rest did not see the vision, they felt something supernatural happened, and
they ran away. Not everyone will be opened to the anointing of God. When the
power of God was operating, some people ran. They are afraid. Daniel himself
in verse 8 tells him that all his strength left. Do you know what he was
experiencing? He was slain under the power of God. Verse 9 When I heard
the sound of his words, I fell on my face in a deep sleep with my fact to the
ground. He fell forward in the power of the Spirit. Daniel was slain
under the anointing of God. When he was slain in verse 10 a hand touched him
and says in verse 11 “O Daniel, man greatly beloved, give heed to the
words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to
you.” And the angel said to him “Do not fear, from the first day that you
started praying and fasting God above has heard your words.” Every time you
pray a prayer that is promised by God, the moment you pray God hears. God
doesn’t take 10 days or 21 days to hear. From the time you pray and even
before when it was still in your heart to pray, God heard it and God starts
moving in your direction. Notice here that not only God sends an angel but also the
devil also sends one of his agents in the next verse 13 But the prince of
the While the angel Gabriel was fighting the middle Persian
prince who was an evil warrior demon, Daniel was praying and there was a
pressure being put on the spiritual forces that were there. There was
tremendous spiritual warfare going on above. I notice this every time the
people of God have fasted they have always shaken the spiritual forces of
darkness over their nation and over their city. You can fast and claim the
city for Jesus. You can fast and claim this nation for Jesus. You can fast
and claim your nation for Jesus. You can fast and pray right here, while in
your home. You can put pressure on the enemy. You can give him a technical
knock out by your fasting. Your fasting puts pressure on him. At the end of
the 21 days because of that fast God released Michael the Michael the Archangel came and notice that when he came,
the angel Gabriel said in verse 13, and behold, Michael, one of the chief
princes, came to help me, for I have been left alone there with the kings of The angel said in verse 14 I came to make you
understand what is to befall your people in the later days. For the vision is
for days yet to come. All the angel came to bring to the life of Daniel
was revelation. You see the connection there, fasting, praying, spiritual
warfare and revelation. If you ever want to grow faster in God and see more
revelations from God, you will have to fast and pray. Fasting brings a
greater degree of revelation to your life. And revelation is such an
important substance. When you understand the devil is defeated, if you see
it, it becomes yours. He was not bringing anything else except a revelation
and an understanding to Daniel. Daniel understood all these things. Daniel by
that time was quite old already. He was a man of constant prayer and fasting.
He did not just learn to fast and pray when he was old. He started from his
early days. He lived a fasted life. And you see the blessings on Daniel. He
was promoted; God blessed him. God poured down all His blessings and caused
him to enter into that realm of revelation. The prophecies of Daniel are one
of the most powerful prophecies that even stretched over the centuries to the
end times. Even in these last days, his prophecies are still operational. He
was a busy man, much more busy than many of us. He was busy because he had
work to do. He was a man in high office. His time was important. But he
reckons it as important to spend the time fasting and praying. Some of you have been fasting and praying. You have seen
that your answers have been speeded up. Some areas of your life you began to
have breakthrough. The keys are so simple yet people are not being encouraged
to apply those keys. I feel led by God to encourage you to be a fasting and
praying people. So that it would be implanted into your lives those
revelations that God has on your life. Without fasting and praying there
would be no more revelation coming to you. Paul was a man of fasting. Sometimes I wondered how he
got those revelations until I began to read in II Corinthians where Paul says
that he was in fasting often. He was a man who fast and pray. Decide today
that you will have a day of fasting and prayer in your life. And God will
bring a breakthrough in your life. Don’t wait until the times when you have a
problem. Begin now when you see that everything is moving, growing on in God,
fast for your tomorrow to come. Begin to discipline yourself right now. Don’t
wait until your problems come. Don’t wait until the difficulty comes, then
you say now I will fast and pray. Sometimes it’s a bit late. It’s a bit too
late. Lets look at the book of Daniel 9:1-2, In the first
year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by birth a Mede, who became king over
the realm of the Chaldeans in the first year of his reign, I Daniel,
perceived in the books the number of years which, according to the word of
the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations
of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. He read and studied the Word of God.
He meets the Word of God with prayers. He came across the Word of God that in
seventy years God will restore the people. But it was not happening. Nothing
was happening yet. And Daniel was fasting here. So what did Daniel do? He
prayed some more and he sought the face of God. And God began moving when
started praying and fasting. Notice here in this passage in Dan. 9:3 Then I turned
my face to the Lord God, seeking Him by prayer and fasting. Daniel fasted
for the Word of God to be performed. Sometimes people prophesied about what
God is going to do in this land and nation. What God is going to do in these
last days? Let me tell they are not going to happen until people fast and
pray that we mean business with God. What God said He would do? Daniel fasted
and he prayed a heart-rending cry onto to God for his people. Look at verse
20 While I was speaking and praying confessing my sin and the sin of my
people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the
holy hill of my God; while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel whom I
had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of
the evening sacrifice. The angel even flew faster when Daniel fasted. Some of you are wondering what your guardian angels are
doing. I wonder why all these problems are happening to me. What are my
guardian angels doing? You know what the guardian angels are doing? They are
just looking at you. And some of us have been eating and drinking, making
merry when the Spirit of God is telling us to fast. The Holy Spirit has been
speaking to you and the angels are waiting for you to respond to the Almighty
God. We are today working with angels. The angels of God are working together
with us in the ministry of the Word. The angel’s hands are tied by your
confession and by your prayer life. If you pray not they help not. And you
are having problems. In fact, you are the problem. Don’t blame the angels.
God has given us the authority on this earth. God has given the authority in
the name of Jesus. Unless a human being gave permission, the angels cannot
interfere. But if you pray and fast, the angels come swiftly to help. When
Daniel started fasting for the prophecy of Jeremiah to be fulfilled, I could
see Gabriel flying on his wings being sent about by God to bring the
prophecy. The angels are working to bring the prophecy to pass. As he was
flying God tells him to go to Daniel. Then it says that God caused the angel
to fly swiftly. For some of you, your angels are on free gear. And the
devil is giving you problems upside down. You are crying over it. But after
your crying, you have a fat lunch. Then you go home at night and you wonder
why doesn’t God help you. You are to blame. You have not released the aid of
the angels to you and put pressure on the enemy. You bring more angels to
your aid by your fasting and praying. How many of you love angels to be
around you? Some people don’t have angels around or rather they behave as if
they don’t have angels around. So everyday they will say, “I bind you devil,
you cannot come through my gate. I bind you devil, you cannot enter through
my window. I bind you here, I bind you there.” Good thing you didn’t get
yourself bind too. Everyday you live in fear. Don’t know which demon is going
to come through which door. And every time you go out you have to pray two hours.
You say, “Please God protect me I am accident-prone.” You are not
accident-prone. You are allergic to fasting. You cannot get into the heavenly
realm but your angels can. By your fasting, you will release warring angels
on your behalf and they will only be too glad in fact, they would love to
help you. Waiting for you to just give up your lunch, pray and seek the face
of God. And every time you do it they say lets go and every time the devils
hear that they run. They say I can’t stand this guy. He is always fasting.
Every Saturday I get a black eye. Don’t stop keep on fasting. If you have never fasted before, please start now. You
are never too young to start. Don’t say I am only a teenager. The bible never
says that fasting is for those over 20. You could go on a fruit fast. As the
children grow, they must learn to do it. Train them in the things of God. The
people of the world are training teenagers to do horrible things. Why can’t
the people of God train the young to do the spiritual things? You are never
too young to start fasting. Go on a partial fast. When some people go on a one meal fast,
they cramp three meals into one. So when I say start with a fruit fast please
don’t to the market and bring a basketful of fruits home, and every hour you
are munching away. Where do you have time to talk to God if you are munching
your apples all the time? Please don’t go overboard. When you feel hungry at
lunchtime just eat one fruit to keep the hunger away. As you train your body,
your body will slowly be able to endure the hunger pangs. You are never too
young to fast and you are never too old to fast. You say brother I am near
retirement. As we grow older, we need all the food we need. So brother if you
eat more, we will have to bury you earlier. Don’t wait till your problems
come before you start fasting now. When the Spirit does something and blessed
something I will go on. I refuse to stop. When God has blessed you, you don’t
sit down and shake your legs. You go and press further. When your ministry is
growing or God is blessing your business don’t take it easy. Press on and
have a time of fasting so that you go higher and deeper into the realm of
God. Look at Daniel he was a man of prayer and fasting. And
the people could find no problem with him except one. They tried their best
to find problems with Daniel but they could not. They said the only way we
can get him in prison is to find problem with his God. So, they made a
proclamation against him and said that there shall be no prayer whatsoever.
And this Daniel was probably in his 60s or 70s in Dan. 6:5 Then these men
said, We shall never find any ground for complain against Daniel unless we
find it in connection with the law of his God.” Then these presidents and
satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him, “O king Darius live
forever! Verse 10 When Daniel knew that the document had been signed,
he went to his house where he had windows in the upper chamber open towards That is why I tell people that in this church as in every
church we will have problems. We are not a church without problems. We are
growing and there are teething problems but there are different ways to deal
with problems. And prayers deal with 99 percent of the problems in this
church. We don’t do anything we just prayed. We prayed the problem off. If
every church would do that instead of having endless committee meetings, they
would see faster and more efficient solutions to their problems. The
committee meetings meet and adjourn again and the problems grow worse and
worse. They take a carnal action. But no, the action you can take is prayer
and fasting. When anything threatened the church, I go to the Lord and fast
and pray because the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. We don’t deal
carnally with the things of God. You don’t treat a church administration like
a business administration. You don’t have a business style of carrying out a
church correction like they do in the world. No, you deal with it spiritually.
Prayer can deal with 99 percent of church problems. The other one percent is
to take a course of certain action after prayer and under the leading of God.
But 99 percent of the time problems can be dealt with just by prayer and
fasting. God solves it better than you and I could solve it. That’s the key
for any church. This was impressed on me after a brother shared this
testimony with me. He was a senior seminary student who graduated before me.
He was baptized in the Spirit although he was a Baptist. I don’t know where
he is today. But in his early days of his ministry, he was a man dedicated to
fasting and praying. You don’t need great imagination to imagine how he looks
like. And I went to a church for fieldwork where he had just gone. He would
spend hours there praying. One day a certain brother was thinking of going
away and doing something in the world. He said this particular person was
praying for him. He prayed people’s problems away. And he prayed the people
into the church. And this brother was walking in Bukit Mertajam and he was
crossing a bridge. On the bridge, he felt a pair of hand touch him. He looked
around and saw nobody. A normal person would jump off the bridge quickly. And
he said the hands pushed him all the way, turned him around into the
direction of the church, pushed him in the church and pushed him right to the
person who was praying and left him there. The brother who was praying for
him said, “Brother I was praying for you to come here.” I never forget that
and I realize how powerful prayer is. It is like your right hand. You could
go into the area where people could not go and people could literally,
physically, tangibly feel the movement of hand on the situation. You can
change things by prayer. Some of you are here because I prayed for you. Some of
you have nightmares that tell you to come. I didn’t send the nightmares. I
only prayed for you. And you can never run from prayers. Some pastors are so
afraid of their sheep running away. The have rules “Thou shall not go to
other pastures” - it is their eleventh
commandment. No, you are free to go anywhere but because I shepherd you as an
under shepherd, my shepherd’s staff is my prayer and intercession for you. A
shepherd has a stick with a round hook. And that shepherd would take that
round hook and pull the sheep back whenever that sheep go to a wrong place.
Bishops of certain denominations carry a symbolic staff with a hook too. I
don’t intend to have one. The hands of prayer are powerful hands and that is
my bishop’s staff. You could release the angels working for us. But I like to
see it as the hands of prayer that go forth. Paul was a man of prayer before he was an apostle. And
any man or woman of God whether you are an evangelist, a pastor, a teacher,
or whatever you have to be a man of prayer first before you become a mighty
five-fold minister. Don’t depend on others to pray. Some people don’t pray
themselves but they ask people to pray for them. That is just plain laziness.
Everyone has to pray. Paul was a man of prayer. He told the Galatians, “O
Galatians you have now fallen away.” He wrote letters to them. He scolded
them in letters and beat them in prayers. He says O you Galatians why do you
go away from grace? Then he says in Gal. 4:19 he says, I travail for you
again until Christ be formed in you. He prayed for them. If he says again
that tells me that before he preached to the Galatians, he travailed for the
Galatians. That once upon a time before the Galatians were born again he
travailed and given birth to them. And now they are going to fall away, he
travailed until Christ be formed in them. So, the apostle Paul watched over
the churches he started by prayer. By prayer, you can be omnipresent. By
prayer, you can go forth. Some of you have dreams and you see me in your
dreams. I prayed for you, that’s omnipresence, and sent the hands of prayer
there. Its easy and its more enjoyable work to pray the people of God to
perfection. So, it tells us here in the book of Daniel. Daniel was a
man of prayer regularly established upon his life. All of us have to
establish our regular day of prayer. Make it a routine. They are some good
habits that you can form. There are bad habits that people form; in the same
way, you can form good ones. Set a day aside once a week as your day of
fasting and prayer. Set it as your regular day and as you fast and pray God
is going to do fantastic things for you. Now here in the book of Daniel, they
wanted to get Daniel. They found him praying so they took him and they wanted
to throw him into the lion’s den. Isn’t it funny if some of us never fast and
pray? Then you get into problem. They take you and throw you into the lion’s
den. You can start praying “Our Father who art in heaven”. You wouldn’t have
time to pray when the lions are breathing down on you. Lions wait for me to
fast and pray. They wouldn’t wait. If Daniel hasn’t learned to fast and pray
in his early days, he would have been too late in the lion’s den. But he was
a man of prayer. When they threw him in he already prayed the problem over.
So, he was not afraid of circumstances. Don’t be afraid of bad circumstances;
don’t be afraid of anything. But there was somebody fasting for him. Look at Daniel
6:18 Then the king went to his palace, and spent the night fasting; no
diversions were brought to him, and sleep fled from him. The king was
fasting. It did not say that the king was praying. It only says fasting. So,
I want to focus on the power of fasting too. See fasting brings intensity to
your desires. I was reading through one of Sadhu Sundar Singh’s old
books. When he was talking to Jesus, Jesus told him that there is inherent
latent power that God has placed in man that if men were to put all of their
hearts and desires and objectives into what they would do they can do
it. Jesus further said that praying
and fasting bring all those desires to a sharp focus and they could do what
it was said impossible by other men. That’s what fasting and praying does to
you. It brings the focus of all the things you desire, all the things you
have prayed for. It brings them to a sharp focus. And the king was at this time not a man who normally
prays. But he loved Daniel very much. He doesn’t want to lose Daniel. He was
so concerned for Daniel that he could not eat food. He was fasting away
thinking about Daniel’s safety. His desire for Daniel’s safety was so strong,
stronger than food that his soul’s desire and his good desire came out. And
he was so intense and I am sure God used that too to bring about Daniel’s deliverance
together with Daniel’s prayers. Fasting brings it all forth. So fasting is a
spiritual warfare. Jesus was a man of prayer and I believe fasting. When He
faced the devil He fasted and He prayed. Why, because while He was doing that
He gave intense pressure on the devil. Every time any one of you has a
demonic activity against your life, fast and pray and you will see the devil
weakened. You could literally see the devil weakened before your eyes. Jesus
in Matthew 4 and Luke 4 was in temptation. Some of you have great temptations
coming to you. Some of you are aware of weaknesses in your life. You are weak
in certain areas that the devil always seems to have victory. Let me advise
you on this area and encourage you when those temptations come refuse to eat.
Temptation is the devil putting pressure on you to sin. Depends on who put
pressure on whom. Temptation is the devil putting pressure on you. And when
those temptations come you refuse to eat. So, I will put all of my desire in
the Word and I will fast and pray against this. You watch and see. The
pressure began to turn back against the demons that are trying to put the
temptations on your life. The temptations will weaken. Take the example of
Jesus. When He was tempted He fasted although the bible never said that He
was sent by the Holy Spirit to fast. The bible says that He was sent by the
Holy Spirit to be tempted. So fasting was a decision Jesus personally made
because He knew that the devil would only attack you through the flesh. The
devil is a sense creature and he attacks through your senses. So, if you
through fasting weaken your five senses the devil’s pressure on you is
weakened plus when you fast your spiritual strength increases. The devil will
feel the pressure of your fasting and prayer. There were a lot of problems in my early days as a
Christians. There were a lot of temptations that I had to overcome in my
life. There are certain bad habits in my life that I had to break. God began
to speak to me that the next time that problem comes, start fasting. So I
fasted when the devil’s temptations came strongly and I chose not to eat. I
said, “Devil I am not eating. I will just spend this day praying.” And I
fasted and prayed and I noticed that the temptation got broken. The old devil
never tried to come back. He probably went and complained to all the other
devils and said, “I was having a good time with that guy, overcoming him with
all these temptations but look at me now my heart is broken, legs are
bruised, and eyes are black. You know what he did to me? He put pressure on
me through his fasting.” Put pressure on the devil by fasting and praying.
Whatever area of your life those bad habits that you keep falling into, sins
of the flesh, sins of temper, whatever area choose to fast whenever the
pressure of the devil on you gets hot. You choose to fast, you will overturn
and put the pressure back on him. And he will be the one who turns and run. Jesus knew the key. The devil puts intense pressure more
than anyone of us has ever experienced on Jesus. Forty days and nights Jesus
chose not to eat. The devil was cunning. He tried to get Jesus to eat
something. Jesus said, "No, man shall not live by bread alone but by
every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." He puts more pressure
on the devil. The devil could not stand it. Fasting and praying are the
spiritual keys to victory over the sins of the flesh. Some of you are facing
sins of the flesh, like carnal temptations or smoking. When you fast all your
appetites that love to smoke and love to drink will disappear. It only comes
to you when you feed your body well. Your body can be put under subjection.
You can overcome it with fasting and prayer. Or sins in your soul; areas in
your life where you are a grudging person; an unforgiving person or you are a
person who has a bad tempter, when the devil puts pressure on you, you put it
back on him by fasting and praying. Lets make this confession together, “Father we choose
Your ways for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but they are strong,
they are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds. Father we praise You, we
thank You that when we fast and we pray we can focus all of our desires all
of our higher desires into intense concentration and have breakthrough in all
areas of our life. Father God we covenant with You; we will set a day of
fasting and praying we will set ourselves aside as men and women who fast and
pray to serve You all the days of our life even from this day forward in
Jesus’ Name. We serve You, Father; we are Yours, Father. We love You, Father.
We thank You that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church and
against me who is a member of the body of Christ, in Jesus’ Name.
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