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Fasting and Prayer for Breakthrough

Ezra 8     

Vs. 1-14

• The total number of males in this section is 1,496 plus the men named. With the addition of women and children the number easily approaches           7-8,000….raising the number to almost 60,000 who have come from Babylon.

• Of the million or so Jews, most stayed in Babylon because they had developed very comfortable lifestyles there.

Vs. 15-20

• “…the river that flows to Ahava” is an unknown location where a canal/river flowed into the Euphrates.

• Ezra realizes he has no one from the tribe of Levi going with him, this was the priestly tribe who would serve in the temple.

• So he recruited 38 Levites and 220 Nethinim.

Vs. 21-23

• Ezra realizes that the king is watching him and plans to see if God is going to see him through.

• Ezra’s been telling the king that Yahweh Elohim will watch over them. He doesn’t want to go back and ask for human natural help when he has been talking about the divine supernatural power of God

• All through the Bible and history God has used prayer with fasting to answer the prayers of His people.

• Prayer with fasting is one of the great spiritual tools of the Bible:

• Joshua, David, Nehemiah, Daniel, the OT prophets, the disciples of John the Baptist, Anna, the Apostles, Paul, Barnabas, and the early church all fasted and prayed. 

• Jesus did not begin his public ministry until he had fasted and prayed for 40 days.

• Jesus instructed his disciples to fast and pray. (Luke 5:34-35)

• Prayer with fasting is powerful and can bring spiritual breakthrough in your life.

• What is so powerful and significant about prayer with fasting?  Why has it been so mightily used throughout history?

How Does Prayer with Fasting Bring Breakthrough?

Look again at Vs. 21a

1.     Prayer with Fasting Humbles You and Places Christ Preeminent in your Life

·         God does not want any of us to be to comfortable.

·         God’s objective in our lives is to make us more Christ-like, and he uses people and circumstances to humble us.

·         God humbles and breaks us down through failure and lack of success in order to give us a “holy frustration”.

·         This “holy frustration” creates a desperate need in our life that leads to a bold determination.

·         It could be arguably said that the greatest character trait for the Christian is humility.

·         Of the 7 Deadly Sins, the first is “pride”.

2 Chronicles 7:14

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

Matthew 23:12

“And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

·         Prayer with fasting humbles us.  We quickly realize that we cannot do it without God’s power and strength.

·         E.M. Bounds once wrote, “We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, and new organizations to advance the Church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel.  This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the person or sink the person in the plan or organization.  God’s plan is to make much of the man or woman, far more of him than of anything else.  Men and women are God’s method.

“What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not even organizations or more novel methods, but men and women whom the Holy Spirit can use—men and women of prayer, men and women mighty in prayer.  The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods but through people.  He does not come on machinery, but men and women.  He does not anoint plows, but men and women of prayer.”

Vs. 21b

2.     Prayer with Fasting Focuses Your Prayers on a Particular Need and Places God as the Solution

·         Ezra is focusing his prayers for wisdom and protection.

·         God promises to answer focused prayer.

·         Mordecai, when he heard that Haman was going to destroy the Jews in the book of Esther (4:1-3, 15, 16) focused his prayer with fasting.

·         Nehemiah upon hearing of the destroyed walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 1:4)…

Matthew 7:7-8

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

• When you turn your back on your basic needs for food for a period of time, you show the Lord that you are serious about seeking Him for His answers.

• Ex.  Liz and I have fasted and prayed for breakthroughs in: our relationship, for each of our children, for money, for jobs, for major ministry decisions, for healings, for moves to new locations, for our homes, for our health…

• Fasting forces focus!

• As an athlete all of my life, it is easy for me to understand that there are times you must focus!  i.e.  Before a major championship match/meet/or game…

• Are you in a time of focus?  Is this such a time?

Vs. 22

3.     Spiritual Power is Released in Fresh Measure When We Pray and Fast

·         Jesus fasted and prayed before beginning his public ministry…Jesus didn’t do miracles until after He fasted and prayed.

·         Paul and Barnabas fasted and prayed before the first missionary journey. (Acts 13)

·         Ask God to release new power upon your:

• Personal life-marriage and family
• Personal life-walk with God and joy
• Business
• Our city
• Our nation
• Our world

Vs. 23

4.     Prayer and Fasting Opens Our Ears to Hear God’s Wisdom

Vs. 24-30

·         After fasting and prayer, God gave Ezra the wisdom he needed.

·         Ex.  I fasted and prayed for linguistic breakthrough when I was in language school in Japan.

·         Ex. We fasted and prayed about whether to move to Colorado Springs in the winter of 1994. God moved powerfully telling us we were to come here…

·         Ex.  We fasted and prayed for wisdom about this land and He gave it.

·         Ex.  We called for fasting and prayer for wisdom on this building and God gave it.

Vs. 31-36

5.     Prayer with Fasting Brings Protection through Binding the Power of Satan and Demons

·         The hand of the Lord protected the Jews!

·         We really do have a powerful enemy!  We are about to study the book of Ephesians, which is a “Spiritual Warfare Manual”.

·         There are demonic forces hindered your advancement in the Lord:      

o   Trying to break up your marriage

o   Hindering you from a having a strong witness with your family and friends

o   Attempting to ruin your business

o   Wanting to ruin you financially

·         In Daniel 10, Daniel prays and fasts and a “prince of Persia” hinders the angel from getting to Daniel.  There is a battle going on during this time!

·         Mark 9:14-29 - “…This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting."

·         The word given to Joshua was to “possess” the land in Joshua 1:11.

·         “Possess” - yarash (yaw-rash'); or yaresh (yaw-raysh'); a primitive root; to occupy (by driving out previous tenants, and possessing in their place); by implication, to seize, to rob, to inherit; also to expel, to impoverish, to ruin

·         “Possess” - KJV - cast out, consume, destroy, disinherit, dispossess, drive (-ing) out, enjoy, expel, X without fail, (give to, leave for) inherit (-ance, -or) + magistrate, be (make) poor, come to poverty, (give to, make to) possess, get (have) in (take) possession, seize upon, succeed, X utterly

·         Matt 12:26-29 - We must bind the “strong man” before we can possess the house!

6.     Prayer with Fasting Can Release Revival in Your Personal Life,        Your City, Your Nation

·         Most revivals are the result of fasting and prayer.

·         From 1901-1904 a group of believers in Wales prayed and sought God for revival.  It came in 1904.

·         A Newspaper at the time:  “A wonderful revival is sweeping over Wales.  The whole country, from the city to the mines underground is aflame with the gospel of glory.”

·         Revivals in America (1^st and 2^nd Great Awakening), England, and Korea have all been prepared by wonderful times of fasting and prayer.

·         Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones: “The inevitable and constant preliminary to revival has always been a thirst for God, a thirst, a living thirst for a knowledge of the living God and a longing and a burning desire to see Him acting, manifesting himself and his power, rising and scattering his enemies…the thirst for God and the longing for the exhibition of His glory are the essential preliminaries to revival.”

Do you need a breakthrough in your life?