The exra hours of corporate prayer both in Sydney and Singapore during Friday all night has been good. There is always a flow that comes from an all night with God that lasts for weeks. How wonderful if there could be an all night every week. That day will come together with a growth towards 24 hour worship. Preceding the period of the greatest outpouring of the Spirit will be a time when people are spiritually drawn into the secret places of the Most High and spend their hours and days in the presence of God. Simeon and Anna the prophetess spent quality time with God in prayers before the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to redeem the world (Luke 2). They were only a sample of people who did so and were mentioned purely because they witness the circumcision of our Lord Jesus as a baby. There were thousands of people who had been waiting for the coming of the Messiah in fastings and prayers. Anna herself served God with fastings and prayers (Luke 2:37). The ministry of serving the Lord with fastings and prayers is very much neglected in our modern churches. Yet, it is one of the most important ministries if we are to see the return of the Lord for the glorious church. Where are the thousands of men and women whom God called to serve Him with fastings and prayers? Most of them are discouraged and down and have no place in modern churches with their emphasis on a light feel-good Christianity with only minutes for God and maximum time for themselves. There need to first be a revival of fasting and prayer. A call that goes out to sound the alarm gathering God’s people to fast and pray (Joel 2:1, 12). Let us blow the trumpet and call people to serve God with fasting and prayer (Joel 2:15). It is time to fast and pray and humble ourselves before God. For those who preach wrongly that fasting has been done aways with, note that it is still practiced in the New Testament church and it preceded the call of Paul to the Gentiles (without which none of us Gentiles would have been saved) (Acts 13:1-2). Paul served God often with fastings (2 Corinthians 11:27). Preachers who don’t preach on fasting and prayer (sometimes calling it works when fasting in itself is a work of grace) do not do so purely because they themselves do not fast and pray. They are lazy and rely merely on their fivefold gifting to get by in the ministry and in their own lives. How can they teach fasting when they themselves do not fast and pray? This is the Laodecian age when people and preachers are more concern about outward things and wealth than growing spiritually in God. Such preachers are Laodecian preachers, diluting the Word of God and and neglectign the weightier matters of the gospel. Jesus Himself said that the days WILL COME when the bridegroom is taken away (Jesus ascended to heaven after His resurrection) and then they WILL fast (Matthew 9:15). It is time to sound the call to fast and pray to seek our God and Father, to glorify our Lord Jesus, to yield to the Holy Spirit.
Papa God, we pray that You would continue to teach all our loved ones, partners and friends of the ministry, students and members of Your body the art of fasting and prayer. In Jesus Name. Amen.
Yes, you are so right pastor, too many churches only serving as an “ointment” for the common maladies of the faithfull that go, but there’s hardly any real power there to really address the main problem of our internet-society: apathy
for the things of God.
Shame on us for allowing this. We in Latin America worry more about what we’ll eat tomorrow than anything else. Money lovers, pleasure seekers, hell-bent to gain worldly goods and find all scriptures possible to financially prosper, but very few seek to just please God and do His will for our life.
In some odd way, I wish I could just leave this country and go where people really seek God for what He is and not only for what He can give us. Yes, I do enjoy the nice things of life, I myself was born with a real silver spoon in my mouth (still have it), but what is that in the end?, will it cause anything else in life?
martin
Thanks for sharing Pastor. We here in Kenya have also been promised a revival this year.but God has stirred our heart to press-in in prayer till it happens.how awesome it is to read this post now yet earlier on the bus I was seriously planning on beginning serious fasting. We love you Pastor.
Hello again dear Pastor,
Hope things are getting fixed up with the audio-upgrade, it’s been a long while since they posted the last sermon online. I’m really looking forward to the new material, I’m almost very eager to get fresh manna so we can all feast on it
martin