[b]Storming Enemy Fortifications With Fasting And Prayer[/b]
[i]by Sarah Foulkes Moore[/i]

There is one decisive ground of battle in the world today and it is the battleground of prayer! To gamble with the idea of praying or not praying is to court disaster. Why wait? Do not look to what others are doing or not doing. Yourself make a covenant with God to seek Him till He comes and rains righteousness upon the whole unrighteous situation of today!

In dealing with a satanic condition Jesus said, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.” There are fortifications of the enemy that cannot be stormed except as fasting is added to prayer. The whole world today is invaded by the forces of hell.

Fasting 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 discipline themselves by going on a Daniel’s fast. Some may ask, what is a Daniel’s fast? It is abstaining from all pleasant food. While Daniel set his face to seek the Lord he ate legumes, such as peas and beans – no meat or wine of the king’s table, no cake and pastries, candies, ice cream or things pleasant to the taste. 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.

While fasting, the mind might suffer despair, the body, weakness that amounts to pain, but when you break the fast wisely, you feel, or at least I feel, that I have ascended to new heights from whence I reach out to Him in a purer devotion, a holier passion, and a lovelier surrender that makes Him Lord of all.

“Woe to them that are at ease in Zion…that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock…that chant to the sound of the viol…that drink wine…anoint themselves with the chief ointments. But they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph” (Amos 6).

This is God’s pronouncement of woe upon the spiritual, self-seeking among the people of God who seek blessing upon blessing upon their own surfeited souls and leave a sin-bound world reeling to ruin. It is this curse of God that rests upon the self-seeking of His people today.

“I humbled my soul with fasting” (Psalm 35:13).

Why not heed this alarm in Zion? Why not put on spiritual sackcloth and in self-denial, fast and pray for a heaven-sent revival of righteousness to sweep through our land and from our shores to other shores?

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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon