Fasting

I want to plant in you a seed of concern this morning about something that might seem contradictory to the spirit of joy we have just expressed. But you know what? What I want to speak to you about is actually what makes it possible for us to flow in that joy and in that freedom of the Lord and to say with that faith and conviction, “It can be done.”

And I am talking about fasting and prayer. Say it with me: fasting; again, fasting. That is a rather unpopular subject for many of us, rather unpopular in churches; we rarely take time to talk about this very important subject. But God is calling us, as a church and as a city and even as a region in New England, to a sustained time of fasting and prayer so that the glory God wants to bring to Massachusetts and New England may come down.

Brothers and sisters, we are moving into a kairos time, a time of opportunity, a time when God wants to do extraordinary things in this nation. God wants to pour out His revival upon Massachusetts. But we have a part to play, and that is to provide the vessels so that the Lord’s anointing may fall. And that is why fasting is so important.

In Joel, chapter 1, the prophet begins by speaking about a very negative, very pessimistic situation. If you look at chapter 1, verse 11, it says, “Be ashamed, you farmers; wail, you vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.”

And if you read Scripture, especially the Old Testament, the wheat harvest was extremely important to an agricultural society, and for it to be lost was a sign of great tragedy and great loss.

“...the vine is dried up”—another thing: the grape, the vineyards, which were a sign of joy, of the wine used to celebrate the harvests and gladden life—“...the vine is dried up, and the fig tree has withered,” a sign of oil. Three things that were absolutely crucial to Hebrew society: wheat, wine, and oil. “The pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree,” signs of joy, fertility, and abundance. “...all the trees of the field have dried up; therefore joy has withered away from the sons of men.”

What the prophet is speaking about here is an extremely negative and troubling situation for the people of Israel. Israel has sinned. Israel has turned away from God. Israel has gone after idols, and the Lord has sent His judgment upon the nation; abundance has dried up, and scarcity has come.

Brothers and sisters, when a people, a family, or an individual—especially after coming to know the Lord—turns away from the ways of the Lord, judgment comes, because God is merciful and He wants us to turn away from our sins. And so He sends His discipline, just as a father disciplines his children, to make them aware that they need to return to the fold. And that is what is happening in this nation: collectively, as this nation has moved farther away from God, its enemies have multiplied, and its tragedies and calamities have increased and grown worse.

The same thing has also happened in the life of the church. As New England, for example, and the nation of the United States have moved farther and farther away, the church has been losing its knowledge of those secrets of the ancient paths: seeking God’s anointing, seeking holiness, seeking the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and making the Word of God the foundation of its life. And as the church has become increasingly sophisticated, increasingly dependent on technology, programs, administration, physical facilities, and its ministers’ diplomas, it has ceased to seek those foundational secrets of the Word of God.

What has happened? The church has also gone into decline. Its oil, its anointing, has dried up. Its joy, its wine, has diminished, and its bread, its Word, has also diminished; that is why the pulpits are so often dry as well and do not preach the Word of the Lord. And the people come to church hungry and leave hungry, with the same depression, with the same powerlessness against their problems, because God’s anointing has also dried up in the church.

In the face of that extremely negative situation of barrenness, what is the solution? What is God calling us to in this time? Because, brothers and sisters, you know that God wants to do something extraordinary in America. God wants to do something to renew His church on a national level. God wants to bring the fire back to the congregations. God wants to awaken the sparkle in the eyes of God’s people once again. God wants our hearts once again to beat with passion for the things of the Lord, but there is something that must be done in this time, at this moment in God’s eternal plan, because that is important.

I could have preached this sermon a year ago and would not have felt the same intensity in preaching it that I feel at this moment. Because I am convinced, brothers and sisters, that we are at a moment when God is preparing to rise from His throne, extend His scepter over the earth, pour out His Spirit, and bring a revival unlike anything ever seen before in history. And, brothers and sisters, I believe that right now we are on the verge of revival in Massachusetts, New England, and the United States—if we have not already entered the realm of revival. I believe it.

A few months ago, right here in this place, the Lord led me to proclaim this year, 2006, as a year of changes, a year of definition, a year of glory. And I remember that while I was here in the pulpit, God spoke to my spirit, and again, this is not about Lion of Judah, understand that clearly; it is not about our church, it is not about this ministry, and we are not glorifying men or institutions. But the fact is that God spoke to my spirit as the service was coming to an end, and I was going to say what I thought—and this was what came into my mind—that this was the year of the Lion of Judah.

But listen to this: again, I did not do it to glorify Lion of Judah, the church, or anything else, but Christ, who is the Lion of Judah. But I thought, well, perhaps some other time. Let me think a little more about that instinct I have received, about that spiritual intuition. I was going to suppress it, but just then a brother from the congregation, Brother Jacobo, who is here, came up to me at the end of the service and brought me a framed picture—a puzzle of the Lion of Judah that he and his family had very lovingly put together—and said to me, “Pastor, I would like to present this to you in front of the congregation before the service ends.”

Notice: the thought was in my mind. I had suppressed it; I was not going to... and this brother comes up at that very moment and brings me the picture of the Lion of Judah. And I said, “Lord, this has to be from You.” And I do not know whether you remember that I was moved to say, “I believe this is the year when the Lion of Judah, Christ Jesus in His warrior manifestation, in His royal manifestation as King, in His fierce and militant manifestation, in His manifestation as Sovereign over the nations—who will not allow Himself to be put to shame by the principalities and powers that want to take control of the United States—will rise to His feet, point His finger at the nation of the United States, seize this nation by the neck, and say to it, ‘I am still seated on My throne.’”

“And I remember,” says the Lord, “the covenants My people made 300 years ago when they founded this nation. And I will not allow those covenants to be broken. And I will renew those covenants, and I will dig again and reopen those wells that are stopped up and closed so that the anointing and the water may flow again in My nation.”

And that is why, brothers and sisters, we have entered that time. I thought I was the only one hurling myself into the abyss with that proclamation, but over the past few months I have realized that there are prophets throughout the nation, and even throughout the world, who are declaring that the year 2006 is a year of changes, shifts, transformations, and a glorious manifestation of the Spirit of the Lord upon this nation. What is more, I believe it will be upon the entire world, upon all the earth.

I believe that we are about to enter—or, if we have not already entered it, rather, we have already entered—the last great revival there will be upon the earth before Christ comes to the earth at some point. That is what I believe. And I know that the coming of Jesus has been preached about many times throughout history, and I do not necessarily mean that it will be tomorrow, but I believe we are on the verge of a great visitation of the Holy Spirit.

And the church must be preparing for that moment. There is a part that we must play. Whenever God has wanted to pour out His anointing upon a society or upon an era of history, the people of God have had to prepare themselves.

The Word says that God does nothing without first notifying His prophets. God never moves upon the earth without first notifying His church, His representative, of what He is going to do, so that they may join Him. And God always works in an orderly manner, and He always waits for us, to whom He has delegated authority upon the earth, to invite Him—the King of Kings—to enter and work upon the earth. Because a king needs to be invited.

When a king comes to a city or comes to a nation, there is always celebration, there are always announcements, there is always expectation, and the dignitaries of that nation or society always come forward to receive him. Those in authority prepare the setting and issue him an official invitation, in keeping with the dignity of that king, so that he may come and enter the realm to which he is being invited.

We—the church of Jesus Christ—have spiritual authority upon the earth, and if we want God to work, if we want the Lion of Judah, Christ Jesus, to go into action at this critical time in history, the church must prepare the way. What is crooked must be made straight; what is too high must be brought low; what is too low must be raised up; the roads must be repaired; the streets must be decorated so that the King of Glory may enter and do what He wants to do among the nations.

At times I have found myself thinking something crazy—and this is one of the first times I have said it publicly—that I believe all this mess with these highways, the Big Dig, everything on 93, and all the things that have been done are like a symbolic prophetic preparation for the coming of the revival that God is to bring upon the city of Boston. It is a way in which God has been saying, “Prepare the way so that My glory may flow in; let the paths be prepared,” as Isaiah says before the Messiah came. In the same way, let them prepare paths, let them prepare roads for the coming of the great King.

So I believe that God is preparing a revival in this calamitous time, in this dark time in which the church and the nations are living: terrorism, the threat of nuclear war with Iran, and the rise of Islam with all its fury and its desire for dominion. The nations are once again in turmoil. We thought that with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet empire, we could finally breathe and would have billions of dollars to devote to restoring the nations; and when that enemy died, another, almost worse one, arose: terrorism, which has wreaked havoc in this nation such as not even the Cold War did.

Why? Because when a nation, a society, or a church is far from the Lord who established it, one enemy falls, but those who come afterward multiply and are fiercer and less accountable than those before them. At least the Soviet Union was an established nation; what we have now is an enemy that has no shape, has no name, has no government, and is governed by no national or international law. And things will... this is the precise moment, as Joel describes it, of darkness, of loss.

And what is Joel’s answer? In verse 14 it says, “Proclaim a fast, call an assembly; gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land in the house of the LORD your God. Cry out to the LORD.” You see, brothers and sisters, that is the key; that is what the church must be doing at this time, here at Lion of Judah, but also in the North American churches, in the Asian churches, in the African American churches, throughout the entire region that God wants to visit. And in order to redeem the church and raise up a new, glorious church filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, the first thing that must be done is to call an assembly, gather the elders, the leaders of the congregations, and even all the inhabitants of the area, and have them come to the house of the Lord to cry out to the Lord. That is the precondition; that is the prerequisite for the visitation of God’s power that must come down to descend upon us.

We have to be preparing ourselves. I had told you that, with the Lord’s help, I am leaving on Wednesday for an extended fast. And God has told me that part of that fast has to be in Israel, in the desert area; there is a place there that God has provided for me to stay for 3 weeks. I will not be here during that time. I am telling you this simply so that you will support me in prayer. Amen. Can I count on that support, brothers and sisters? But also—and perhaps I will not hear as many amens here—I want you to participate in that fast as well. That is why I chose this topic this morning, because I know that several—many—of you heard about this and have already told me, “Pastor...” Just last night, I went to greet a brother and he told me, “Pastor, I am with you for the 40 days of fasting.” And I know that... we must be careful about false piety, false humility.

The Lord Jesus Christ tells us that we should be announcing it... no, but it depends on the heart with which it is done. If someone does it to show off and boast and make people say, “Oh, how holy,” then that is wrong. But if someone does it simply to inspire others to begin glorifying the Lord, then glory to God; we should do it. There is a kind of collective fast that is publicly declared so that everyone can participate in it.

And I want to invite each one of you; I want to challenge you; I want to kindle zeal in your heart; I want to awaken in you, right now, a commitment that during the next 3, 4, or 5 weeks, you will take part in this fast that has been proclaimed over the city of Boston—and God has used interesting ways to bring it about—from March 1 through April 9: 40 days, 40 days of fasting. Many people are participating in those 40 days of fasting.

You do not have to participate for all 40 days; you do not necessarily have to go without food for 40 days. You can take 3 days; you can take one day; or during those 40 days you can say, “I am going to set aside one of the three meals, and I am going to devote that time to the Lord.” During the time you choose and as the Lord directs you, you can undertake a water-only fast, or simply a vegetarian fast—eating vegetables, not eating meat or very tasty foods—as Daniel did during his famous 21-day fast. There are different ways for you to fast, as the Lord directs you. This is not an athletic contest, nor is it about competing with one another, boasting before God, or anything of the sort; do it as the Lord directs you.

I asked the Lord—I have been asking the Lord for weeks and weeks—“Lord, when is it? How long should it be? How do You want me to do it? Where?,” and all those things, and God has been answering me time after time and has provided everything necessary for my time of retreat with the Lord. God can do the same for you. Pray to the Lord and tell Him, “Father, I want to set aside some time,” and, brothers and sisters, I promise you in the name of the Lord that your life and this church will not be the same after that time. Receive it in the name of the Lord.

Today I want to awaken something in the young people. I like seeing a young girl over there applauding with a smile on her face. Glory to God, because this is for the young people, and this is for the children too.

This is for you children as well, and this is for you, young people. This is not just for the big, old adults. No, no, this is for everyone. God wants everyone to fast.

In the story of Jonah, when the city of Nineveh was told that God was going to destroy the city and that its people should repent, the king of the city took the call to repentance seriously and declared a national fast. And it says that even the animals had to fast. So if you have a parrot, a cat, or a dog, make it fast during this time too. Begin teaching your children about those spiritual secrets. Begin training little warriors with a sword in their hands, even if it is a small one, so that they may begin growing up knowing that God has given His people resources for warfare; and let us begin raising up a new generation, a generation that has love and passion for the things of God, a generation that can go where it needs to go in order to be spiritually nourished and to live fitting lives before the Lord.

God wants to renew our church. God wants to renew our ministries. God wants to renew the pastors of the Lion of Judah congregation. God wants to renew the elders who govern this church. God wants to renew every ministry. God wants to renew the worship ministry. God wants to place fresh anointing upon their lives. God wants to place anointing upon your life. God wants to raise up a people filled with the Holy Spirit, families whose homes are altars where God can come and dwell 24 hours a day. God wants to destroy the giants you have been fighting for years and years without any success. God wants to renew your life. God wants to give you the anointing you need to live as God wants you to live.

And extreme situations and extreme needs require extreme measures and medicines, such as fasting and prayer. So I ask the Lord to cause a commitment to descend upon the hearts of this church this morning: “I am going to make time; I am going to set aside time to fast and seek the face of the Lord.”

That may mean that you will have to take a day off from work; and if you cannot take the day off, you will have to fast in a way that allows you to work. But remember that when Daniel decided not to eat the king’s food, the steward who was in charge of those young Jews who had been taken to Babylon told them, “Look, if you stop eating, you are going to look emaciated, and then the king will think that I am neglecting you and will cut off my head.” And Daniel told him, “Test us for just 10 days, with us eating only vegetables, and see what happens; then we can talk.” After ten days, the Word says that Daniel’s face looked healthier than everyone else’s. And God gave Daniel and his companion success so that they earned A’s in all their courses, and He gave them not only intellectual wisdom but also discernment in the realms of the spirit, revelation, and understanding of hidden things. Through that fast in his youth, Daniel received a calling to be a prophet of God.

So do not think that fasting will take away your energy. If you set aside time in the Lord, instead of having less energy, you will have much more energy, as I feel right now, because when the Lord visits His children, He visits them with a power that is not the power of the flesh; it is the power of the Holy Spirit.

And the Apostle Paul says that when we become weak, then we are strong in the Lord. Then God has the freedom to move as He desires in our lives. But there is a price to pay, brothers and sisters. We have to make time for the Lord. We make time to go to the doctor; we make time to see a lawyer; we make time to go make a special purchase, for a wedding, for a special occasion. Why not make time for an appointment with the King of Kings and spend a time of intimacy with the Lord? Or is the Lord less important than a lawyer, than a doctor, than the needs of a celebration?

The church of Jesus Christ has to begin setting its priorities straight. We have to begin putting what is important in order, brothers and sisters. We live under a kind of hypnosis; it is an illusion in which we come to church, make many declarations, talk ourselves hoarse, preach, and move the world, and as soon as we walk out the door, it is as though everything leaves us, and we return to everyday things just as they are, as though nothing had happened. And the devil comes and tears out of our hearts the seed that was sown in church.

In the name of the Lord, we have to say, “Father, I am going to obey You, even if my flesh tries to deceive me, even if my mind tries to clear away what I received. I am going to obey You because I know that this is the truth, and whether I feel like it or not, I am going to give You that time of fasting, and I am going to reorder the priorities of my life.” And that is where revival will begin; that is where the blessing will begin; that is where the anointing that God wants to bring down upon this congregation will begin.

I have said that on the 19th, even though I will not be here, that evening—Sunday at 7:30 p.m.—I want you to come; I want us to fill this place, as we did 2 or 3 weeks ago. A beautiful group of young people and children came. Bring the young people; pull them by their hair; drag them here, even if the social workers come, but bring them to the house of the Lord. Bring your children; coax them, hypnotize them—however you have to do it—but bring them to the house of God. And we are going to raise up a new generation, not that indifferent, timid, pale generation we have, because there is a whole generation in our community of young people who are clueless. They are completely lost; they have no sensitivity; talking to them is like speaking Chinese. You talk to them about spiritual things; you talk to them about human and adult matters, and they do not understand because they have not received the necessary education. The culture has established a disconnect between our values, the values of our ancestors and the Christian values we now have, and them.

And the Word of the Lord says that before Jesus Christ comes in the last days, the spirit of Elijah will come and fall upon a nation, and that spirit will reconcile the children to their parents and the parents to their children. God wants to do that in this time. God wants to unite families. God wants to raise up our children. God wants to raise up our young people. God wants to place a new passion in the hearts of our children, and we have to ask the Lord, “Father, give me authority. Father, give me spiritual weight. Father, give me charisma. Father, give me the appeal that will draw my children to my values, my faith, my spirituality,” because the devil has erected a wall, an invisible barrier, between our generation and the generation of our children. God wants to reconcile them. But there is a price to pay: we must seek the face of the Lord; we must prepare the way for the Lord to come.

In Chapter 2, verse 15, Joel says again: “... blow the trumpet in Zion, proclaim a fast—fasting again—call an assembly, gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children.” Do you see? It is not only for adults. “... and those who nurse,” meaning infants, babies; “... let the bridegroom leave his chamber and the bride her bridal room.” That is, who wants to be taken away from their honeymoon to come to church, worship the Lord, and fast? No one. But the prophet is being graphic here; he is saying, “Hey, leave the celebration; leave what seems absolutely indispensable. Leave everything pleasurable and everything that seems urgent or important, and go to the house of God and seek the anointing of the Holy Spirit in your life.”

Let that holy assembly be convened, and let everyone come to the house of the Lord. Leave everyday things behind; leave even what seems important on other levels, and come to the house of God. Let the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, weep between the entrance and the altar. This is a renewal for pastors too, for church leaders, for teachers, and let them say, “Spare Your people, O Jehovah, and do not deliver Your inheritance to reproach, so that the nations may rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

That is what they say about the church today in the secular world. We see the devil and his powers and principalities engulfing society, taking possession of every aspect of the culture and helping themselves to the largest share, as the saying goes. Today the church is an object of laughter and ridicule, when it is not simply regarded with irrelevance and total skepticism by the culture. The church has lost its power. The church has lost its authority. The church has lost its relevance. The church has lost its influence over this nation. Why? Because they have turned away from the sources from which power and authority come.

I think of what it was like in those days when Elijah and Elisha arrived: even the king became frightened and terrified. Once, I believe it was Elijah or Elisha, he approached a king and said to him, “Are you coming?,” and the king said to him, “Have you come to harm me, my enemy?” When have you ever heard anyone speak that way to the church? Of course, they believe the church is an enemy, but they do not fear the church. They believe the church is ineffective.

I want—and the Lord wants—the church to once again inspire holy fear among the nations, so that when the servants of God arrive somewhere, they cause that place to tremble at the thought that the presence of God has arrived there. That can be attained only by seeking the anointing, the fullness of the Holy Spirit, the outpouring of God.

So, brothers and sisters, I do not have time to unpack everything in this passage, unfortunately, but it says, “And let them say, ‘Spare Your people, O Jehovah, and do not deliver Your inheritance to reproach.’” And the result of that holy convocation, of that seeking after God—which I challenge you to enter into—is stated in verse 18 of chapter 2: “Then Jehovah, solicitous for His land”—because God wants to, God wants to, God is solicitous—“... will forgive His people. Jehovah will answer and say to His people, ‘Behold, I am sending you grain, new wine—that is, wine—and oil, and you will be satisfied by them; and I will never again make you a reproach among the nations.’”

That same wine, that same oil, that same bread which, at the beginning of the prophet’s image, is lacking, dried up, inaccessible, gone—now God says, “Call an assembly, gather together, ask forgiveness, confess your sins, straighten your paths, and I will send bread, oil, and wine upon you until you are filled.”

Bread, a symbol of the Word of God; oil, a symbol of the anointing of God; wine, a symbol of the joy of God. Those are the things God wants to pour out abundantly upon His church. But we have to prepare ourselves. We have to weep first if we want to laugh; we have to weep first. If we want God to raise us up, we first have to bend our knees. If we want God to exalt us, we first have to humble ourselves. If we want God to give us the freedom to do as we please, we have to abide by the boundaries of the Word of God in holiness and respect the ways of the Lord. If we want to see the joy of the Lord, we must first grieve and cry out to God, and call an assembly.

I ask, in the name of the Lord, that during these next few days, brothers and sisters, even though I will be away, this church will be filled with prayer, filled with fasting. And I want you to stand up right now, and I want each one of us to make a commitment before God this morning. Those who feel this is speaking to them, those who know that God is speaking to you—I do not care if this is the first time you have come to this church—but if you feel that God has called you to fast and seek the face of God, so much the better.

Fasting is simply abstaining from food. It can be for one meal; again, it can be for several meals, two a day. It can mean fasting until three in the afternoon. You can do it—you do not have to do it with water alone. You can do it with a little juice, vegetable juice, or a very light broth, with nothing solid. There are many practical ways. You can do it for a week—not eating breakfast, for example, or not eating until three in the afternoon.

But the point is that God is asking you to bring your flesh under submission, to bring your body under submission, to bring your worldliness under submission—that we bring our appetite for ordinary life and for the things of the world under submission and begin to dwell in the realm of the Spirit, in the realm of the eternal, so that our minds may be renewed, so that our hearts may be opened, so that the glory of the Lord may find empty, clean vessels, prepared for Him to bring down His anointing upon our lives and upon the church.

That is the Lord’s call for this church. Bow your head right now and ask the Lord, “Father, how long do You want me to fast? How do You want me to fast? I commit myself. I am ready, I am willing, I am prepared, Lord. And I long to see Your glory. I repent of the ordinary, everyday life I am living, and I want something more. I want more; I want to consecrate myself to You. I want You to forgive me. I want You to sanctify me. I want You to fill me with Your Holy Spirit. And I want Your glory to dwell in my house, Lord. And I am going to pay the price; with fear and trembling, I am going to pay the price. And I commit myself because I know that this is the time of Your visitation, and I want to prepare the house for You, and I want to prepare the way for You, and I want to bring down Your glory in this time.”

I ask that we pray for this nation, that we pray for the state of Massachusetts, that we pray for New England so that God may pour out revival; that the churches may be set on fire; that pastors may be renewed and revived; that there may be a new outpouring of God’s powerful Word from the pulpits of this state and this nation; and that God’s servants who are fearful, timid, fainthearted, cold, and discouraged may be set on fire, so that a great torch may arise and illuminate this entire country.

So, Father, pour out Your Spirit. Father, fill us with anointing. Father, give us the willpower to prevail over our appetites and dedicate our lives to You, to dedicate this time to You. Your Word says, Lord, that You have not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, love, and self-control, and we receive that spirit this morning. Father, I declare that spirit of restraint. I declare that spirit of self-control. I declare that spirit, that anointing for fasting and prayer, upon this people, Father, during these coming weeks.

I ask that Lion of Judah be transformed, God, and that we not be the same at the end of this time, and we will give You all the glory and all the honor. We commit ourselves before You, Lord. We commit our children as well, and we commit our homes so that Your name may be glorified. We ask this in the name of Jesus, and the people of God say… Give the Lord a great round of applause.

Brothers and sisters, we are going to fast, and we are going to pray, and we are going to cry out to the Lord. Good times lie ahead; a great visitation from God is coming upon this nation. May grace be with you.