Fast

I want to put in you a seed of concern this morning about something that would seem contradictory to the spirit of joy that we have just manifested right now. But you know what? What I want to talk about is actually what makes it possible for us to flow in that joy and in that freedom of the Lord and that we can say with that faith and conviction "You can do it."

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

We are moving, brothers, in a time of chaos, a time of opportunity, a time in which God wants to do extraordinary things in this nation. God wants to pour out his revival on Massachusetts. But we have to do a part, and that is to provide the vessels for the anointing of the Lord to fall. And that is why fasting is so important.

In Joel, Chapter 1, the prophet begins by talking about a very negative, very pessimistic situation. If you look in Chapter 1, in verse 11, it says "confused husbandmen, groan vinedressers for wheat and barley, because the harvest of the field is lost."

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

"....the vine is dry", another thing, the grapes, the vineyards that were a sign of joy, of the wine that was used to celebrate the harvests and to brighten life, "... .the vine is dry and the fig tree perished”, sign of the oil. Three things that were absolutely key to Hebrew society: wheat, wine, and oil. "The pomegranate tree too, the palm tree too, and the apple tree", signs of joy, fertility, abundance. "... all the trees of the field withered, so that the joy of the children of men was extinguished."

What the prophet is talking about here is an extremely negative and problematic situation for the people of Israel. Israel has sinned. Israel has turned away from God. Israel has gone behind idols and the Lord has sent his judgment on the nation and abundance has dried up, lack has come.

Brothers, when a people, when a family, when an individual, especially after they know the Lord, strays from the ways of the Lord, judgment comes because God is merciful and He wants us to stray from our sins. And then He sends his punishment like a father punishes his children to make them aware that they need to return to the fold. And that is what is happening in this nation, collectively this nation, as it has drifted away from God, its enemies have multiplied, its tragedies, its calamities have grown and become greater.

The same thing has happened in the life of the church. According to New England, for example, and the nation of the United States has been drifting further and further apart. According to the church, he has been losing the knowledge of those secrets of the ancient paths of seeking the anointing of God, of seeking holiness, of seeking the outpouring of the holy spirit, of making the word of God the foundation of his life. And according to the church, it has become increasingly elegant, more dependent on technology, programs, administration, physical plants and the diplomas of its ministers, and has stopped looking for those fundamental secrets of the word of God.

What happened? The church has also gone into decline. His oil, his anointing has dried up. His joy, his wine has declined and his bread, his word has also declined and that is why the pulpits are often dry and do not preach the word of the Lord. And the people come to church hungry and leave hungry with the same depressions, with the same impotence against their problems, because the anointing of God has also dried up in the church.

Faced with this extremely negative situation of sterility. What is the solution? What is God calling us to at this time? Because you know, brothers, 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 fire back to the congregations. God wants to reawaken the shine in the eyes of God's people. God, I want our hearts to once again beat with passion for the things of the Lord, but there is something that must be done, at this time, at this moment of God's eternal plan, because that is important.

I could preach this sermon a year ago and I wouldn't feel the same intensity to preach it that I feel right now. Because I am convinced, brothers, that we are at a time when God is preparing to rise from his throne and extend his scepter over the earth and pour out his spirit and bring a revival like never before in history. And, brothers, I believe that we are right now on the brink, if not we have already entered the revival zone in Massachusetts, in New England and in the United States. I think so.

A few months ago, the Lord led me, right here in this place, to proclaim this year 2006 as a year of change, 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 the Lion of Judah, understand well, this is not about our church, this is not about this ministry, we are not glorifying men or institutions. But the fact is that God spoke to my spirit, already finishing the service, and I was going to talk about what I thought, and this was what came to my mind, that this was the year of the Lion of Judah.

But listen to this, again I didn't do it to glorify the Lion of Judah, the church, or anything, but Christ who is the Lion of Judah. But, I thought, well, some other time maybe. Let me think a little more about that instinct that I received, about that spiritual intuition, and I was going to repress it, but at one point a brother from the congregation, brother Jacobo, who is here, approached me at the end of the service and He brought me a picture that was a puzzle that he and his family had very lovingly put together of the Lion of Judah, and he told me 'Pastor, I would like to present this to you before the service for you in front of the congregation ended.'

Look, there was the thought on my mind. I had repressed it, I wasn't going to... and this brother came up at that moment and brought me the painting of the Lion of Judah. And I said 'Lord, this has to be about you. And I don't know if you remember that I was moved to say 'I believe that this is the year in which the Lion of Judah, Christ Jesus in his warrior manifestation, in his manifestation of royalty, of king, in his violent and militant manifestation , in his manifestation of sovereign over the nations that he is not going to be embarrassed by the principalities and powers that want to take control of the United States, he is going to stand up and point his finger at the nation of the United States and hold around this nation's neck and he's going to say 'I'm still sitting on my throne.'

And I remember, says the Lord, the pacts that my people made 300 years ago, when they founded this nation. And I am not going to allow those pacts to be violated. And I am going to renew those pacts and I am going to dig again and I am going to open those wells that are mowed down and are closed so that the anointing and water flow in my nation again.

And that is why, brothers, we have entered that time. I thought that I was the only one who was throwing myself into the abyss with that proclamation, but in recent months I have realized that there are prophets all over the nation, and even in the world, who are declaring that the year 2006 is a year of changes, displacements, transformations, a glorious manifestation of the spirit of the Lord on this nation. And what's more, I believe that over the entire world, over the entire earth.

I believe that we are ready to enter, or if we have not already entered, we have already entered, rather, into the last great revival that will be on earth before Christ, at some point, comes upon the earth. land. I believe so. And I know that many times the coming of Jesus has been preached throughout history, and I don't necessarily want to say that it will be tomorrow, but I believe that we are on the verge of a great visitation of the holy spirit.

And the church has to be preparing for that moment. There is a part that we have to do. Whenever God has wanted to pour out his anointing on a society or on a time in history, God's people have had to prepare themselves.

The word says that God does nothing without first notifying his prophets. God never moves on earth without first notifying his church, his representative, what he is going to do to get them to unite with him. And God always works in an orderly way and he always expects us, upon whom He has delegated authority on earth, let us invite Him, the King of Kings, to enter and work on earth. Because a king needs to be invited.

When a king comes to a city, or comes to a nation, there is always revelry, there are always announcements, there is always expectation, the dignitaries of that nation or that society always show up to receive him. Those who are in authority prepare the environment, they issue an official invitation, according to the dignity of that king, so that he comes and enters the area where he is being invited.

We have, the church of Jesus Christ has the spiritual authority on earth, and if we want God to work, if we want the Lion of Judah, Christ Jesus to come into action at this critical time in history , the church has to prepare the way. The crooked has to be straightened; what is too high, has to be lowered; what is too low has to be raised; the roads have to be fixed; the streets have to be decorated so that the King of Glory can enter and do what He wants to do over the nations.

Sometimes I have found myself thinking crazy and it is one of the first times I have said it publicly, that I believe that all this mess of these highways is the big dig, and everything on 93rd and all the things that have been done, it is like a symbolic prophetic preparation for the coming of the revival that God is going to bring upon the city of Boston and it is a way in which God has been saying 'prepare the way so that my glory can flow, that the paths be prepared', as Isaiah says before the Messiah came, likewise, that they prepare paths, they will prepare roads for the coming of the great King.

So I believe that God is preparing a revival in this disastrous time, in this dark time in which the church lives, in which the nations live, terrorism, the threat of nuclear war with Iran, the uprising of Islam with all its fury and its desire for dominance, the nations are once again in distress. We thought that with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet empire, it was like we could breathe and we were going to have billions of dollars to dedicate to restoring nations, and when that enemy died, another almost worse one arose: terrorism, that it has wreaked havoc on this nation, that it did not even wage the cold war.

Why? Because when a nation, when a society, when a church is far from the Lord who founded it, an enemy falls but those who come multiply and are more ferocious than the previous ones, less responsible. At least the Soviet Union was a constituted nation, what we have now is an enemy that has no form, has no name, has no government, is not governed by any governmental or international law. And things will go...... this is the precise moment, as Joel relates, of darkness, of loss.

And what is Joel's response? In verse 14 it says “proclaim a fast, call an assembly, assemble the elders and all the inhabitants of the land in the house of the Lord your God. Cry out to Jehovah." You see brothers, that is the key, that is what the church has to be doing at this time, here in León de Judá, but also in the North American churches, in the Asian churches, in the Afro-American churches, throughout the region where God wants to visit, and redeem the church, and raise a glorious new church filled with the power of the holy spirit, the first thing to do is call an assembly, congregate the elders, the leaders of the congregations and even everyone the inhabitants of the area, and that they 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 the power of God that has to come down to come down, come down.

We have to be preparing ourselves. I had told them, with the help of the Lord, 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 that God has provided me to be there, 3 weeks. I will not be here at that time. I tell you this simply so that you support me in prayer. Amen. Can I count on that support, brothers? But also, here perhaps they will not say amen to me so much, but I want you to participate in that fast as well. I want to, that's why I chose that topic this morning, because there are already several of you, there are many of you who knew about this and have already told me 'Pastor,' last night a brother, I went to greet him and he told me 'Pastor , I am with you the 40 days of fasting'. And I know that... we are careful with false mercy, false humility.

The Lord Jesus Christ tells us that we are announcing... no, but it depends on the heart with which it is done. If you do it to show off and to show off and for people to say 'oh how holy' then that's wrong. But if one does it simply to inspire others to come in and glorify the Lord, well, glory to God, we must do it. There is a type of collective fast that is declared publicly so that everyone can participate in it.

And I want to invite each one of you, I want to challenge you, I want to put zeal in your heart, I want to awaken in you, right now, a commitment that in the next 3, 4, 5 weeks, this fast that has been proclaimed over the city of Boston and God has used interesting ways to get it up from March 1 to April 9, 40 days, 40 days of fasting. Many people are participating in those 40 days of fasting.

You don't have to participate all 40 days, you don't necessarily have to stop eating for 40 days. You can take 3 days, you can take one day or during the 40 days you can say, I am going to save one of the three meals, and I am going to dedicate that time to the Lord. You can do a fast in that time that you choose and that the Lord directs you, just drink water, or simply a vegetarian fast, eat vegetables, not eat meat, or very tasty things, as Daniel did in his famous 21-day fast. . There are different ways for you to fast, as the Lord directs you. It's not about athletics here, or competing with each other, or showing off before God or anything like that, as the Lord directs you.

I asked the Lord, I come weeks and weeks ago, asking the Lord, 'Lord, when is it, how long is the time, 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 retirement with the Lord. God can do the same with you. Pray to the Lord and tell him 'Father, I want to take some time,' and brothers, 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 wake up in the youth, I like a young lady there clapping her hands with a smile on her face. Glory to God, because this is for the youth 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 Ninibe was told that God was going to destroy the city and to repent, the king of the city took the call to repent to heart and declared a fast. national. And he says that even the animals had to fast. So if you have a parrot, a cat, or a dog, fast it at this time as well. Start educating your children in those spiritual secrets. Begin to form little warriors with a sword, even if it is small in hand, but begin to grow knowing that there are war resources that God has given to his people and begin to raise a new generation, a generation that has love and passion for the things of God, a generation that can go where they have to go to feed themselves spiritually, to live convenient lives before the Lord.

God wants to renew our church. God wants to renew our ministries. God wants to renew the pastors of the León de Judá congregation. God wants to renew the elders who govern this church. God wants to renew each ministry. God wants to renew the ministry of praise. God wants to put fresh anointing on your lives. God wants to put anointing on your life. God wants to raise up a people filled with the holy spirit, of families whose homes are altars where God can come and dwell 24 hours a day. God wants to destroy the giants with whom you have been fighting for years and years without any success. God wants to renew your life. God wants to give you the anointing that you need to live as God wants you to live.

And for extreme situations and extreme needs, extreme measures and medicines are needed, such as fasting and prayer. So I ask that the Lord send down upon this church this morning a commitment in the hearts 'I am going to take time, I am going to set aside time to fast and seek the face of the Lord.'

That is going to mean that you may have to take a day off work and if you can't take the day, you are going to 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 over those young Jews who had been taken to Babylon, told them 'look, if you stop eating you will get emaciated and then the king will think that I am I'm neglecting you and he's going to cut off my head." And Daniel said to him "just try 10 days of us eating only legumes, and see what happens and then let's talk." After ten days, the word says, that the face of Daniel was healthier than everyone else. And God gave Daniel and his partner success to get A's in all the courses and gave them not only intellectual wisdom but also discernment in the areas of the spirit, revelation, understanding of hidden things. Daniel received a call to be a prophet of God through that fast in his youth.

So don't think that fasting is going to drain you of energy. If you spend 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 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 is free to move as He wants in our lives. But there is a price to pay, brothers. You have to make time for the Lord. We take time to go to the doctor, we take time to go see a lawyer, we take time to go make a special purchase, a wedding, a special occasion. Why not take time to make an appointment with the King of Kings and have a time of intimacy with the Lord? Or is the Lord less important than a lawyer, than a doctor, than a party necessity?

The church of Jesus Christ has to start getting its priorities straight. We have to start ordering what is important, brothers. We live in a kind of hypnosis, it is an illusion where we come to church, we declare many things, we talk ad nauseam, we preach and move the world, and from the moment we walk out the door, everything seems to go away, and we return to everyday things as they are, as if nothing had happened. And the devil comes and rips out the seed from our hearts that has been sown in the church.

We have to, in the name of the Lord, say 'Father, I am going to obey you, even though my flesh wants to deceive me, even though my psychology clears up what I received, I am going to obey you because I know that That is the truth and whether I want 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 there the revival will begin, the blessing will begin there, the anointing that God wants to descend on this congregation will begin there.

I have said that on the 19th, although I am not going to be here, but that night, Sunday, at 7:30 p.m., I want you to come, that we fill this place, as we did before 2 or 3 weeks ago, a precious group of young people, of children, came. Bring the young people, pull him by the bows, drag him, even if the social workers come, but bring him to the house of the Lord, bring your children, cajole them, hypnotize them, whatever, but bring them to the house of God. And we are going to raise a new generation, not that indifferent, shy, pale generation that we have, because there is a whole generation in our community, young people who are clueless, they are totally lost, they have no sensitivity, it is like speaking to them in Chinese. You talk to them about spiritual things, you talk to them about human and adult things and they don't understand, because they haven't received the necessary education, culture has established a disconnect between our values, those 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 time, the spirit of Elijah will come, he will fall on a nation and that spirit will reconcile the children with the parents and the parents with the children. . God wants to do that at this time. God wants to unify families. God wants to raise our children. God wants to raise up our youth. God wants to put a new passion in the hearts of our children and we have to ask the Lord 'Father, give me the authority. Father, give me the spiritual weight. Father, give me the charisma. Father, give me the attraction so that my children feel attracted to my values, to my faith, to my spirituality', because the devil has put a wall, an invisible wall, between our generation and the generation of our children. God wants to reconcile that. But there is a price to pay, you have to seek the face of the Lord, you have to prepare the roads for the Lord to come.

In Chapter 2, in verse 15, Joel again says: “... blow the trumpet in Zion, proclaim a fast, again a fast, call an assembly, gather the people, sanctify the gathering Gather the elderly, gather the children." Go? It's not just for adults. ".... and to those who suckle", that is to say for infants, babies, ".... let the groom come out of his chamber and the bride out of his thalamus". I mean, who wants to be taken out of their honeymoon to come to church and worship the Lord and fast? Nobody. But the prophet is being graphic here, he's saying 'hey, drop the party, drop what seems absolutely essential. Leave everything that is pleasant and what seems urgent, important and go to the house of God and seek the anointing of the holy spirit in your life.

That convocation of holy assembly that is given and that everyone come to the house of the Lord. Leave the everyday, leave even what seems important on other levels, and come to the house of God. At the entrance and at the altar let the ministering priests of Jehovah weep. This is a renewal for the pastors too, for the leaders of the church, for the teachers, and say 'Forgive, O Lord, your people and do not deliver your inheritance to reproach so that the nations may rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples where their God is?

That's what they say today about the church in the secular world. When we see the devil and his powers and principalities wrapping up society and staying and serving himself with the big spoon, as we say out there, with all aspects of culture. Today the church is a laughing stock, ridiculous, if not simply irrelevant and outright skepticism in 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. Because? Because they have turned away from the sources from which power and authority come.

I think about how it was in those times when Elijah and Elisha arrived, even the king was scared and frightened. Once, I think it was Elijah or Elisha, he approaches a king and says "Are you coming?" and the king says "Have you come to harm me, my enemy?" speak like that to church? Sure, they think the church is an enemy, but they don't fear the church. They believe that the church is ineffective.

I want, the Lord wants, that the church again provoke holy fear among the nations, that the servants of God when they arrive at a place, make that place tremble with the idea that the presence has arrived God to that place. That is achieved only by seeking the anointing, the filling of the holy spirit, the outpouring of God.

So, brothers, I don't have time to unpack everything that is in this passage, pity, but it says “and say, O Lord, forgive your people, and do not give your inheritance to reproach”. And the result of that holy convocation, of that search for God, to which I challenge you to enter, it says in verse 18, 2 "and Jehovah solicitous for his land", because God wants it, God wants it, God is solicitous , ".... will forgive his people, Jehovah will answer and say to his people, 'behold, I am sending you bread, new wine –that is, wine- and oil and you will be satisfied with them and I will never again put you in reproach among the nations".

That same wine, that same oil, that same bread that at the beginning of the image of the prophet is lacking, dry, inaccessible, disappeared, now God says 'convoke an assembly, meet, ask for forgiveness, confess your sins straighten your paths, and I will send you bread, oil, and wine until you are full.'

Bread, symbol of the word of God; oil, symbol of God's anointing; wine, symbol of the joy of God. Those are the things that God wants to pour out on his church in abundance. But we have to prepare. You have to cry first, if you want to laugh, you have to cry first. If we want God to lift us up, we have to bend our knees first. If we want God to exalt us, we have to humble ourselves first. If we want God to give us freedom to do and undo, we have to stick to the limits of God's word in holiness and respect the ways of the Lord. If we want to see the joy of the Lord, we have to grieve and cry out to God first, call an assembly.

I ask, in the name of the Lord, that in these next few days, brothers, even though I am away, this church is full of prayer, full of 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 alluded to, those who know that God is speaking to you, I don't care if it is the first time you come to this church, but if you feel that God has called you to fast and seek the face of God, even better.

Fasting is simply abstaining from food, it can be for one meal, again, it can be for several, two a day. It can be fasting until 3 in the afternoon. You can, you don't have to just do it with water. You can do it with a little juice, with a vegetable juice or a very light broth, without anything solid. There are many practical ways. You can do it for a week, not having breakfast for example, or not eating until 3 in the afternoon.

But the point is that God is asking you to subdue your flesh, to subdue your body, to subdue your worldliness, to subdue the appetite for normal life and for the things of the world and to begin to inhabit in the zone of the spirit, in the zone of the eternal, so that our minds may be renewed, so that our hearts may be opened, so that the glory of the Lord can find clean and prepared empty vessels so that He can make His anointing descend on our lives and about the church.

That is the call of the Lord for this church. Lower your head right now and ask the Lord, 'Father, how long do you want, how do you want me to fast, I commit, I am ready, I am willing, I am prepared, Lord. And I want to see your glory. I regret the normal and daily life that 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'm going to pay the price, with fear and trembling, I'm 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 your house and I want to prepare the way for you, and I want to make your glory descend at this time.

I ask that we are praying for this nation, that we are praying for the state of Massachusetts, that we are praying for New England that God will spread revival, that the churches will be set on fire, that the pastors will be renewed and revived, may there be a new flow of the mighty word of God in the pulpits of this state and of this nation, and may the servants of God who are fearful, timid, timid and cold and discouraged, may they be set on fire to be raise a great torch that lights up this whole 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, dedicate this time to you. Your word says, Lord, you have not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, love and self-control and we received that spirit this morning. Father I declare that spirit of continence. I declare that spirit of self control. I declare that spirit, that anointing of fasting and prayer over this people, Father, in these next few weeks.

I pray that the Lion of Judah be transformed, God, and that we will 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 pledge our children too, and we pledge our homes so that your name may be glorified. We ask it in the name of Jesus and the I can of God says...... Give a big round of applause to the Lord.

Brethren, we are going to fast and we are going to pray and we are going to cry out to the Lord. These are good times that are coming, a great visitation from God is coming to this nation. Grace be with you.